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"THE BORROWER" -- a DS9 short story by Janis Cortese

Copyright 1995(c) by Janis Cortese.  This story may not be reproduced in
whole or part in ANY medium without the permission of the author.  And
the usual copyright junk about Paramount owning the rights to everything
but the kitchen sink.

WARNING: Unlike my previous stories, this one is EXTREMELY unpleasant
and contains nonconsensual sex, so steer clear if you've just eaten.

---

Hm.  She was still there.  Quark peered through his lowered brows as he
set a tray full of empty glasses down on the bar and began to fill them
to order.  Whirling around him in air sparkling from the dizzying lights
ran the chitters and shouts of the dabo wheel and its customers.  It was
early evening on the last workday of the week, and while the crowd was
good-sized now, it would only swell as the night pressed on.  Like his
profits.

And perhaps like other things.  Certainly if he kept staring at this
customer (customer?  She had drunk all of one small apple-flavored
synthale in the last two hours), that might indeed be the result. Long,
that was the first thing that came to mind when he saw her.  Dangerous,
that was the second.  Oh, she hadn't done anything overtly threatening,
not at all -- had merely sat there quietly, thinking to herself and
reading the latest newslinks off of her handheld.  And nursing that one
synth for the past two hours.

But Quark had seen many customers and ogled many more women in his time,
and he had never seen *any*one "sit quietly" like that before.  Slim,
yet padded in the right places, Quark had the distinct impression that
she could have taken him with one hand tied behind her back.  Long,
fit legs crossed and uncrossed as she sat and read, and watched the
crowd.  Hair that looked like perfectly straight black silk hung far
below her hips, and the flashing, spinning lights of the bar tinted it
with cotton-candy streaks that glowed like neon in its jet depths.  She
had not smiled, not exchanged more than a few words with anyone -- she
had only asked *him* for that one synth and then paid without another
word.  Nice voice, too.

His lip twisted just a bit.  She *didn't* look like the holosuite type.

"Brother?"

Quark jumped.  "What?  Oh . . . " Just Rom.  Eager, annoying, pestering
Rom.  He rolled his eyes.  "What is it *now*?"

"Brother, we're over 200 strips in the cashbox.  I need to make a
transfer to the floor vault.  Do you have -- "

"The key, the key," Quark muttered, thumping the bottle of kanaar
down on the countertop hard enough to make everything around it
rattle. Incompetent help.  He didn't know whether to be pleased or
annoyed at the coming disappearance of Rom's son into the Academy.
Although he disapproved of his nephew's choice of career (Career --
more like a disaster), it might actually do his business better to get
the kid out of the bar.  A few moments' rummaging around produced the
desired key, and he handed it off to his brother, who thanked him and
scurried off to complete his chore.  Well, at least if the cashbox was
already filling this early, it would probably be a damned good night for
business. Quark resumed pouring the drinks.

Ah, wait a minute . . . He smiled to himself.  She had *moved*.  Oh, she
still sat there poring over her handheld, or appearing to, but after a
lifetime of watching people surreptitiously, Quark instantly recognized
that slitted look in those eyes of hers as they peered intently over the
screen she held in front of her face.  Her mouth quirked just slightly
(Quark pressed his lips together), and the look of estimation she
suddenly wore made him feel like he was overheating.

Which raised the next natural question, who the hell *was* she -- Quark
turned to follow her eyes and found himself looking at that funny round
brushboard where the chief of operations and the station CMO were
standing together and chatting.  Doctor Bashir walked forward and pulled
a handful of "dorts" or whatever the hell they called the things out
of the center of the board and raised a smug brow at Chief O'Brien,
who smirked back at him and said something that made the other man
laugh.  Words were lost in the sussuration of chatter that filled the
bar.  Quark's gaze darted back to the woman and saw as her eyes followed
the slim form of the doctor to where he leaned now against a pillar,
arms crossed in front of his chest, smiling amiably and watching as his
friend attempted to best his score.

*Bashir?*  Quark almost snorted in disgust.  When the doctor had first
arrived, he had had a sort of *greed* about women that had rivalled a
Ferengi's taste for latinum, a real talent for acquisition that had won
Quark's silent admiration.  But lately, he had softened, become weak
and interested in those foolish human "sentiments" that never failed to
complicate matters.  He sighed to himself.  Such a waste of rapaciously
motivated natural talent . . . and now this woman sat quietly as she
had for the past few hours, watching the doctor with a look that would
have melted the clothing off of Quark's back had it been directed toward
him. A crying shame, the Ferengi barkeep thought to himself.  What a
waste. Quark shook his head regretfully, picked up the tray of drinks,
and went to deliver them to their intended destination.

On his way back to the bar proper, his mind on other matters, he nearly
jumped out of his skin when she actually spoke to him, and waved him
over to her table.

"Bartender."  Her voice alone made him want to salivate, low and rich
and lazy, as if she had all the time in the world.  One hand, slim and
negligently graceful, waved.  He ran over to her table as if he were on
rails.

"Help you, ma'am?" he replied, putting on his most devastatingly suave
expression.

"I wonder," she said slowly, "if you might be able to answer a question
for me."  She sat back, one hand against her lip, and regarded him
evenly.  Quark took the chair opposite her.

"I can try," he said smoothly, leaning forward and putting chin in hand.

She did not move, although her tip-tiled iridescent eyes looked over
once again to the dartboard.  Her expression did not shift, but a sort
of quiet ferality seemed to rise from her like steam.  Quark swallowed,
mesmerized.  "That young man," she stated, nodding in the direction of
the dartboard.  With difficulty, Quark tore his eyes from her to look
at Bashir with a companionable arm thrown easily over the shoulders of
his friend.  "That . . . lovely young man in blue and black."  He nearly
whimpered at the leashed fire in her voice and turned back to look at
her.  Her gaze froze him.  "Might you know his name?" she said easily.

"Uhhhhh . . . " Oh, *real* smooth, he upbraided himself.  "Uh, that's .
. . that's the station doctor," he said stiffly.  The lucky bastard.

"His name?"

"J-J-Julian Bashir."

"Doctor, you say?"  Quark nodded.  "Of medicine?"

"Yes."

The side of her mouth lifted in a hypnotizing, disturbing smile.  Her
gaze was fixed on the oblivious doctor; Quark wondered how he could
fail to feel the sheer power of her eyes on him even from across the
room. He wondered what she was seeing in her mind's-eye.  "Thank you,"
she replied primly.  From nowhere, she produced an entire strip of
latinum and held it out in front of the bartender.  It was perhaps the
only thing that could make him look away from her.  He reached out his
hand and took it from her fingertips; it was warm, faintly damp, which
made him wonder where she had kept it before presenting it to him like a
sacrament.  "For your time."

He managed some sort of reply and returned to the bar to watch her
less secretively.  Less than a minute after receiving this new bit of
information, he was surprised to see her put down the last mouthful
of synth in one languid gulp, stand, and walk from the bar.  He stood
transfixed and watched her go until a hand waving in front of his face
made him jump again.  *Must be my day for it,* he thought grumpily.

"Quark!"  It was Bashir, smiling.  "You were a thousand miles away."

"What?  Oh, um . . . what can I get for you, doctor?"

"He won't have it, Julian," said O'Brien from over the younger man's
shoulder, arms folded in pleasant belligerance.

"Won't have what?"  The disparaging of his stock was something that
Quark did not take well.  "You name it, I've got it," he replied
stiffly, facing down the chief of operations.

"Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout," Bashir said without breaking a sweat.
"Bottled."

Quark looked at the other man, and held up one bronze-colored index
finger.  "A moment, gentlemen."  Reaching out one hand, he snagged Rom,
who was skittering past on some errand or other.

"Yes?"

"The Barney, two bottles," he said smugly, his eyes on the two officers
in front of him.  Julian turned to give O'Brien a significant look;
Quark didn't miss it.  "I'm hurt," he said indignantly, one hand resting
theatrically against his lapels.  "I've always maintained that my beer
cellar is the best stocked in the alpha quadrant -- "

"You also always maintain that your Dabo wheel isn't rigged," Julian
observed primly.

Quark just gave him a look.  "You'll enjoy your stout.  How you Humans
can stand to put that in your mouth never fails to amaze me.  I used to
use it to disinfect the floor behind the bar before I realized it was
eating away the covering."  Both men smirked.

"I'll go toss the next round," O'Brien said to his friend.  "Let me know
when the stouts get here."

"Will do," the doctor replied and started to move toward the far end of
the bar, where Rom would return with their beers.  Quark's hand on his
chest stopped him, though.  "What?" he said, looking down at the little
barkeep.  The expression on his strange face made him wonder.

"You, um . . . didn't happen to notice the woman sitting there," he
said, indicating the table at which she had been sitting.  "Did you?"

Bashir's brows furrowed.  "Should I have?" he asked.

Ah, such talent gone fallow, Quark thought sadly.  Time was when he
would have sniffed her out in a millisecond.  "Well," he said, with all
the unsubtle innuendo that someone of his profession was capable of
cramming into one sentence, "let's just say that if a woman like that
had been looking at me the way she was looking at you," he punctuated
the phrase with a sigh, "I'd consider myself one lucky man."

The young doctor stared at the now empty table, a bemused expression on
his features.  As he stood wordless, Quark slapped him jovially on the
chest once.  "Enjoy your beer," he said, and walked away to the newest
knot of customers sidling up to the bar for any of a variety of many
world's poisons and potions.

[][][]

Karit had to still its hands by force as it walked out of the bar.
Well, *her* for the moment anyhow; the Ogygian woman had been a terrific
stroke of luck, and so now, walking through the corridors of this
magnificent place in this lovely Ogygian body, it was "she" for the
moment at least.  The concept of gender became a laughable one when
applied to Borrowers, but Karit had so far enjoyed mostly female
Borrowed.  A renegade with gender and absolutely no conscience, Karit
was a she, and was a criminal.  Curious about male at last, she opted
to satisfy her voracious desire to know.  *Gods below*, her mind kept
chattering to her, *gods below, he's beautiful*.  *She* tried not to
look like *she* was hurrying, but feared that she was not successful.
He had not even seen her.

Had not seen her for the past several days, in fact. The mind that
was Karit, by necessity, had mastered the strange art of invisibility
long, long ago; an ironic amusement wakening in that mind made her
create a smile on the pretty lips she now wore.  Karit was never noticed
until she wanted to be.

And she watched him.  As he went to work in the morning, intent and
deliciously professional.  As he lunched with his Cardassian companion.
As he chatted with friends, all of whom held him in high estimation.

In particular the Cardassian man with whom he had had lunch.  Karit
had Borrowed a few of them before, knew of their exotic tastes, their
shiveringly intense sense of eroticism.  Had, in fact, enjoyed it
several times during those particular Borrowings.  As she rushed through
the corridors of this lovely station, dark, angular only where a curve
would have been out of place, she recalled those times, the feel of the
scaled skin against hers, under her fingers, scales on scales, the soft
leathery texture of the tender places, the fierce power of the jaws and
teeth.  Cardassians were indeed a beautiful race.

As were Humans, despite the fact that she had never before Borrowed
one, and from the looks of things, that Cardassian man with whom her
ferociously attractive selected prey was lunching knew it. Karit trusted
her judgment; honed over many long years of Borrowing, it was sharp
enough to split the finest hair.  She had not missed the darting unseen
glances, the brightness in his already bright and fair eyes, the way he
tried and failed to hide his captivation by the smiles and laughs of his
companion.  The way his eyes fell to the lovely young doctor's pliant
lips when he drank, when he ate, sometimes when he spoke.  But with
that exciting polymorphous appetite that graced all Cardassians Karit
had ever encountered (and the two she had Borrowed), what else could he
have done?  Karit had nearly fled this body in anticipation when she
first sighted the lovely doctor, days ago.  If that Ferengi had known
how tightly she had had to control herself in that bar, how wet she had
gotten imagining what she would do to that pliant, slim body and the
lovely face it wore, he would have melted into a puddle on the spot.

*No.  Please stop this.*

Karit ignored the silent plea from the dark recesses of the Ogygian
brain.  *My* brain, it told itself, *her*self.

Mmm, it would be delicious, too perfect.  Karit arrived at the airlock
beyond which the Ogygian's tiny ship was docked, dialed the entrance
code, and disappeared inside.  She had preparations to make.

[][][]

It couldn't have come at a worse time.  He had *just* gotten into bed,
*just* begun to fall asleep, his mind wandering off into the pleasantly
irrational Never-Never land of harmless pre-sleep delusions, when he
had received the summons to come to the damned infirmary.  His Bajoran
nurse was elsewhere for the next few days, visiting family during some
Bajoran religious festival the name of which he couldn't even begin to
pronounce.  Cursing mildly (he never did have much of a tongue for blue
language), he hauled his leadweight body up from the thin, hard mattress
beneath it, dragged a hastily replicated uniform over his limbs, and
trudged off to the infirmary, eyes on the deck beneath his feet.

They certainly rose quickly when he entered and saw the patient waiting
for him.  Gods, she was perfect.  Hair like black tabby silk that swung
slowly as she stood there -- hesitant, uncertain, watching him with eyes
the color of which he could not determine.  Ogygian, his mind supplied.
His body would have supplied a far more predictable reaction had she not
been a patient; erections and medical examinations simply did not belong
together.

"Are . . . " she asked, her voice as hesitant as her manner, are you the
"doctor?"

He smiled, his best reassuring-kindly-doctor smile.  "Yes.  My name's
Julian."  He walked forward to her, not approaching too closely.  She
looked as if she might bolt at a sudden noise.  "Not feeling well,
are we?"  He had *hated* that medical plural when he had first caught
himself using it to his patients, but the comfortable familiarity of it
soon reassured both himself and them.

She cast her eyes down at the floor, shy.  "No, not really."  She was
so *quiet*.  Her hair, a shining curtain of solid black, fell over her
cheek.

Julian picked up his medical tricorder, dialing it to analyze Ogygian
readings.  "Well," he said easily, his voice soothing as he walked over
to the diagnostic bed on the far side of the room, "why don't we have
a look at you and see if we can't find out what's wrong."  He patted
the cushion.  "Up you go," he said brisky, teasing a shy smile out of
his lovely patient, who padded barefoot over to where he was standing
and lifted herself tentatively onto the raised platform.  Her eyes,
the color of which kept shifting as Ogygian eyes tended to, a dancing
rainbow of swirling colors, rose to his face, and the dropped shyly
once more, as she bit her lip.  Julian's smile widened and became very
tender.  He wanted to say something reassuring to the woman who now lay
supine on his diagnostic table, wanted to say something as he looked
into those breathtaking eyes, wanted to move, wanted to breathe, to
*breathe* . . . Tightening, clutching . . . nothing was happening oh
gods what was happening what was going on?  He felt himself falling
forward, felt his chest constrict as if the weight of the universe
sat upon it *heart attack* felt his heart convulse.  When the woman's
hands reached to his temples, when her nails broke his skin, he felt
nothing.  When the violation of alien energy insinuated itself into his
brain, into his very mind, the familiar surroundings of the infirmary,
the sights and sounds, vanished as he retreated into his skull under
the onrushing press of inexorable alienness.  What was Julian cringed,
writhed, fled into the shadowed recesses of his consciousness.  Colors,
shapes swirled in his vision as he began to lose it, to lose sensation,
to lose connectedness to his body.  He could no longer feel his fingers,
his feet, anything . . . could no longer sense anything . . .

[][][]

Karit blinked once.  It was always a bit disorienting to Borrow someone
at first.  The disconcerting head rush faded as she stood very still,
coming to consciousness.

The first thing of which she was aware was the sudden pressure of the
narrow boots she now wore.  In them, she wiggled her new toes, and her
lips quirked.  These Fleet issue boots must have made that delicious
young doctor miserable.  Poor thing, she thought with satisfaction.
Poor lovely young doctor.  With his fine long hands which Karit now held
out before her, his long slender body which felt gloriously supple as
Karit stretched.

She tossed the medical tricorder on top of the unconscious Ogygian
body on the diagnostic table before her.  The woman would come to
soon enough, and probably not remember a thing at first; they usually
didn't, although the memories often returned soon after, by which time
Karit was long gone.  Or sometimes not, sometimes right next to her
erstwhile Borrowed bodies as they spoke of what had happened to them.
The doctor's lovely mouth curved like a sickle as Karit remembered those
times.

She would rather get rid of the Ogygian woman, make sure that she
could not incriminate her.  Karit itself had no need of fear over
identification certainly, but Karit had also not gotten this far,
Borrowed this many times, without caution.  Karit preferred Borrowing to
be very neat, very clean.  And this woman was a wrinkle, a stain.  One
that she would eradicate.  Pity, though, she thought to herself.  She
had been quite delicious.

[][][]

Well, that was that.  Dumped into the yawing cavern that was a Tellarian
freighter's cargo hold, she would pose no threat to Karit soon.
Tellarians carried only the most robust of cargo, and being scrupulous
about their vessels, routinely exposed their cargo holds to vaccuum for
extended times when empty to rid them of vermin.  She regretted the
loss of a body so lovely, but as she removed the blue and black uniform
which covered her new limbs in the privacy of the doctor's quarters,
she thought to herself that there were always lovely new bodies to be
found.  The doctor's screaming horror during the depositing of the young
woman's body inside the abyssal hold had been downright amusing.  Mute,
silent, yet witnessing all, he had raged impotently and ultimately
ineffectually.

*Stop it!  Stop laughing at this!*

Karit only laughed harder.  "Hush, doctor," she said, savoring the rich,
creamy texture of her new voice.  "I'll distract you, I promise."

*How?*  Fear.

A chuckle.  "You'll see."  Julian shuddered without shuddering, deep
within his mind, pushed into the cobwebbed corners of his brain as Karit
pulled the purplish uniform shirt off over her head.  She was naked.
"Now let's see if you're as lovely unclothed as you are in uniform, my
delicious Borrowed."

Karit rose and walked to the tall closet where Julian kept his civilian
clothing, keyed open the door to reveal the full length mirror inside.
What she saw there made her catch her breath.  *My,* she told the doctor
silently, *you *are* exquisite, aren't you?*  Julian shuddered.  She
looked down over the long legs, the slender body, almost to the point of
thinness but with a sinewy grace that was truly beautiful.  She moved,
watched the lovely body flex, the muscle underlying the slim chest shift
and ripple under the deep skin.  "Oh gods below, doctor," she breathed
in a whispering tenor hiss, "oh, yes, this is wonderful . . . "

The long neck, the square yet thin shoulders, the hard-looking chest
with the faintest corrugation of stomach muscles underneath, oh *my* . .
. Karit slid her firm hands over Julian's chest, *her* chest.  Licking
those fine lips, just a shade darker and slightly pinker than the skin
surrounding them, she tensed her new muscles there and felt her chest
harden.  Lazily, the long fingers wandered over the curves and ripples,
dancing over the coffee-colored nipples for just a moment, lightly
brushing them until, in her lust for this Borrowed, they reacted by
contracting into hard, wrinkled confections.  Biting the full lower lip,
she pinched firmly and backed away from the sensation, thrusting Julian
to the fore mentally while she savagely rolled the tender little piece
of flesh and gave him the sensation.  Still mute though feeling, he
writhed in his mind, in *her* mind.

*Stop, oh gods, please -- *

*No.*  Karit smirked, Julian's face echoing it as, standing stoically
before himself, herself, reflected in the mirror, she pinched harder,
grinding the delicate nub of flesh between thumb and forefinger, not
bothering to shield it from the trimmed nails.  Control of the body was
hers; sensation was his.  As the body was motionless, Julian's mind
roiled.

*I think that's enough for now,* Karit thought with pleasure.  Pressing
against the nipple that she had abused to help banish the pain, she
shoved Julian back into the cobwebs whimpering, and took sensation back
to herself.  "Thank you," she said.  Cowed and bruised, Julian said
nothing in reply.

And Karit continued her journey over the landscape of her new body.  The
gracile waist, the pretty tight little buttocks which she examined over
her shoulder while presenting them to the mirror.  And yes *oh, yes,
Julian I wasn't going to ignore that, now was I?* the cock, nestled
between his slim hips and surrounded by ebon curls.  "You have this
for your genitals?" she asked him rhetorically as she took it into her
hand, not expecting an answer.  Trapped in a directionless nightmare,
Julian merely shivered within himself.  "My compliments.  It's larger
than most I've encountered, even while limp.  Although," and she grasped
it more firmly now, her eyes on the eyes that looked back at her in the
mirror, "I suppose we can judge that better in an aroused state, don't
you think?"  She heard/felt Julian's soundless gasp --

*Please no, not that.  Please don't touch that --*

*Do you want to touch it then?* Karit asked, once again pushing
sensation at Julian while she retained control.  He screamed silently.
*I can be gentle, doctor,* she told him, sickeningly sweetly.  "Here,"
Karit then said out loud.  "Let me do this for you . . . " And
languidly, slowly, with all the time in the world, as those new clouded
coffee eyes of hers stared back at her from the mirror, she began to
stroke her cock, pumping it softly, salivating over the beauty of her
body.  Obedient to her commands, to her firm touch, it responded,
engorging itself with Julian's blood, her blood.  Julian squirmed and
bucked inside his skull, sickened, bodiless, under the onslaught of
sensation that violated a body he felt but no longer possessed.

Yes, it was filled with blood now, absolutely filled, rock hard, hot as
glowing metal in her hands, under her touch.

*No -- *

*Yes.*

She pumped harder, faster, giving the cock to him, retaining the rest of
the body for herself.  A body which stood still as stone in the mirror,
a slim column of caramel and a ruby-colored steel-hard rod being pumped,
teased . . . The face betrayed not an ounce of sensation; all was fed to
Julian as he whimpered, begged, voiceless but not mindless . . .

*Please, whatever you are, please, please stop this --*

The pretty, icy face in the mirror smiled.

*Please --*

The rushing flood of sensation increased in strength as Karit teased the
violently throbbing cock in her hands still further.  Hot, thirsting, it
seemed to squirm in her hands, take on a life of its own.

*Please --*

The pumping increased in speed as Karit sensed his closeness to the
peak.  A statue, her hand alone moving, eyes unmoved, the figure in
the mirror continued to touch itself, himself, herself, continued its
merciless torture.

*Oh gods please -- !*

It was closer, painfully close . . . Karit waited, waited as long as she
could, held it out for as long as she could, stretching the ravening
Julian's echoing consciousness taut until it nearly snapped from the
sensation, and still she did not let him come.

*Please!*  Had he had voice, he would have been screaming.  Please!*

*Please what?*

*Please!*

She tightened her grip on her cock, pinching the tip brutally, bruising
it until Julian lost his words, lost language.

*Please what?* Karit repeated, mesmerized by the spectacle before her in
the mirror.

*Please let me come!*

*Ah*.  Karit pumped harder, keeping Julian on the edge of madness.
"No," she said at last, shoving him back, back at last, taking the
sensation for herself at last, letting the knees buckle, the eyes clench
closed, the voice cry out in abandonment at last, pushing the aching
young doctor back into the shadows as the white semen spilled out all
over her hands, the sheer force of the orgasm squirting the cream
out from where she had pinched the tip shut, splashing it out as she
writhed, wordless and glorying as she felt her body fall against the
mirror and smear it with semen so hot it felt like it was boiling.  Oh
gods, oh *gods* why had she not Borrowed male more often?

Gasping, her face up against the unfeeling cold surface of the mirror,
her hips jerking with the post-orgasmic twitches and spasms, she came
back to herself, covered in male sweat, sensing only the barest hint of
the doctor, aching, hiding deep within himself, mute once more.

Oh.  *Oh . . . * One last twitch took her, jerking her hips.  And one
more.  "Oh . . . " Her body lay limp against the mirror.  Turning
her head exhaustedly, she looked into her dark, large eyes.  "Oh,
yes.  Doctor . . . " The smooth voice was ragged now.  A nimble tongue
darted out, licked its own reflection.  "Doctor . . . you're absolutely
delicious."

[][][]

*One more thing,* Karit said.  Julian, who had retreated to the furthest
recesses of himself for the last hour, said nothing.  *I think you owe a
visit to a friend of yours.*  There was the barest hint of an answering
shudder that told Karit that he was aware of what she was saying.  *He's
been desiring your company for some time, you know.  You've been cruel
to keep him waiting for so long, but fear not.  I will atone for your
thoughtlessness.*  Again, Julian remained silent.  There was nothing to
say.  It was plain to whom she referred.  Julian himself had wondered
on more than a few occasions whether or not the Cardassian tailor had
wanted his company in a more intimate way.  Perhaps he had been curious
himself . . .

"Excellent," Karit observed.  "Then I will be able to perform a service
for you as well."  Cursing himself, Julian backed away yet again, vowing
to remain so.

Karit pored over the wardrobe before her, one hand on her lip, one on
her waist.  "Let's see, decisions, decisions . . . " The mirror stood
before her; the dried white swirl of semen still smeared over the lower
half, an abstract brushstroke of lust.  "It's almost a pity to cover a
body so lovely," she remarked.  "If it weren't for the problems inherent
with walking through this station mother-naked, I might not bother.  And
wouldn't that delight your Cardassian friend?"  The sensuous lips smiled
as she discovered the perfect clothing -- a crisp white shirt, loose and
bagging with a wide neck that tied closed and black cotton pants with
a drawstring waist that would fall most fetchingly over her slim new
hips and long legs.  "I'd want you if I saw you in this," she remarked,
pulling the items from the closet and over her body.

[][][]

Garak was up late, as usual.  His shop didn't open at the crack of a new
day; it never did.  No one on this station except the Fleet people were
crazy enough to awaken at that ungodly hour; his customers certainly
never did.  As a result, the Cardassian tailor usually kept what Julian
called undergraduate hours.  He had merely raised one cartilage-lined
brow at his friend when he had explained the remark more fully.  Julian
had just resumed eating, a placid and angelic smile on his face.

Garak's lips twisted as he sat with a glass of room-temperature kanaar,
listening to a favorite selection from the station's music library that
Julian had introduced him to, "The Rite of Spring," he had called it.
Whatever it was, it had been so far the only Terran selection which in
Garak's opinion had any real merit, although he had felt a passing tug
to Rachmaninoff and Bartok as well as Stravinsky.

*That damned smile,* he thought to himself.  *We always come back to
that easy, room-brightening smile of his, don't we?  Or don't you?*
Garak had at least stopped pining over the doctor like a fool, had
almost weaned himself from the fantasies that still distracted him from
time to time, but he would have been a bigger fool not to admit to
himself that the attraction still existed, at least for him.  Julian
for his part had shown absolutely no interest in *him*, that much was
certain.  *And why would he?  A lonely exile, an alien, someone with
whom he could pass a diverting hour or so each week playing at intrigue
while his heart lay elsewhere.  Anywhere but with him.*

*And Gathdur alone knew where and with whom his body lay.*

Garak sipped at his kanaar again.  "Maudlin," he remarked to no one.
"You're pathetic, Elim."  He closed his eyes and leaned back his head as
the horns and strings of the fiery ballet washed over him like pounding
surf.  For a few minutes, he relaxed, letting his thoughts wander and
his mind distance itself from the cares of the past day until he was at
last interrupted by the door chime.

*Damn* it.  Irked, he threw back the last mouthful of the kanaar and
placing the glass with deliberation on the tabletop before his chair.
He sat for a moment, not moving.  *Why* did these interruptions always
come at such annoying times?  Or were interruptions simply always
annoying by their nature?

The chime again.  Impatient, weren't they?  He sat forward, hands
planted on his knees and elbows out.  "Come in."

The last thing Garak expected to see on the other side of that door was
Julian, waiting in civilian clothing that he had never before seen on
him, hands folded before his slim stomach and eyes apprehensive.  "May I
come in?" he said, his voice slightly higher than usual, slightly more
hesitant.  Garak rose.

"Of course, doctor.  How may I help you?"  Something appeared to be
bothering the young man as he stepped over the threshold, placing his
feet as if he expected the floor to be mined.  "Is something wrong?"

Julian swallowed.  "I'm . . . I'm not sure.  I . . . " His gaze lowered
to the floor.  There was something in his manner that made Garak want to
take care of him.

"Doctor, what is it?"  He kept his voice steady, calming.  "Whatever it
is, I'm sure I can help."  The kanaar, the ballet were forgotten.  "Has
something happened?"

Julian smiled wryly.  "No, not quite."  The smile faded.  "Something
hasn't happened, Garak, and I think it's about time for it to do so."
His gaze rose then, and he looked directly into the tailor's bright
eyes.  Garak saw something there, he thought . . . something that he
had hoped for so long to find . . . He stepped back from the doctor,
unwilling to admit even to himself what he thought he was seeing.

"I . . . " he replied.  *How long has it been since you've stammered
like this, Elim?*  "I -- I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking
about, doctor."

Julian licked his lips most sensuously, and Garak's doubts began to
evaporate, replaced by nervousness.  "Oh, I think you do, Elim."  The
silence that fell after his use of the Cardassian's given name was
electrifying.

*Gathdur below . . . * Julian began to toy with the white ribbon at the
wide neck of the loose shirt he wore, and if Garak didn't know better,
he would think that the gesture was seductive.  *Isn't it?* he asked
himself.  *Isn't that what he's doing?*  Immediately, he chastised
himself.  *Of course not, at least not deliberately.  He is . . .
confused.  His every gesture has always captivated you; why should it be
different now?*

"Please, Garak," the younger man said quietly.  "Please don't doubt me."
He gasped, just a little.  Had Garak not been so transfixed, he might
had missed it.

"Julian," the other man said tenderly.  "Please.  This isn't what you
want.  Let's sit and talk for a while."

"We've talked enough, Elim."  Yes, definitely seduction, as his slim
butterscotch fingers slipped into the neck of the crisp white shirt and
began fondling skin.  "Don't you think?  We've spent the last three
years *talking*.  We've talked about everything, every subject under the
sun, argued about even more."  He kept his voice low, even as he spoke,
moving closer to the still tailor with slow deliberation, his fingertips
yet brushing over his skin, toying with the loosely tied ribbon at his
neck.  "All we've done is talk."  Garak stared into the deep velvety
eyes that approached him, mesmerized by them, by the voice, by the
tantalizing hints of caramel flesh revealed under the white shirt, the
promise of more beneath the rest of his loose, thin clothing.  "Don't
you think it's time we did more?"  A gentle tug and the ribbon was
undone.  With sinuous grace, a grace a thousand times more intense than
his normal easy fluid movement, he writhed once like a snake, and the
shirt, with its wide neck held by nothing, fell around his hips.

Garak would not have wanted to gasp, to gape at the lithe sculpture
before him, the smooth chest lit with the yellowish flame lamps that he
had lit earlier in the evening, turned by them to polished bronze.  At
the brown nipples, the perfect decoration to the silky young body before
his stunned gaze.  At what he had always guessed was the longest, most
perfectly edible-looking neck he had ever seen.  The white shirt hung
loosely around his thighs, caught by the fabric of the black drawstring
pants he was wearing.  They were only loosely bound, hanging perilously
on his slender hips, revealing the indentation of pelvis on either side
of the stomach, a shadowy line of dark, coarse hair that disappeared
below the waistband to hidden and delightful places.

He would not have wanted to gasp or gape, but he did.  And looked up at
Julian in shock, to see those warm eyes that had greeted him so many
times burning with a fire he would never have dared to imagine in them,
those pliant-looking lips parted just a bit, the stunning white teeth
between them.  Effortlessly, Julian slipped his hands through the shirt
and it dropped to the floor.  He stepped away from it and bent to pick
it up, holding it before him.  The contrast between his deep, vivid skin
and the snowy whiteness made Garak's mouth go dry.

Julian suddenly stepped back, tentative.  He clutched the white fabric
to his bared chest.  "Unless," he began, hesitant.  "Unless . . . unless
I've read you wrong."  Blood rushed to his face.  "Oh, gods.  I'm
sorry," he said, his voice choked.  "Garak, I'm so sorry . . . I didn't
mean to -- "

The tailor held up one hand, brought back into motion by his friend's
mortification.  "No."  His voice was soft, tender.  "No, my friend.  You
didn't read me wrong.  I do want you; I have ever since I met you."
*Damn it, to my lasting regret and shame.*  Only now, it seemed as if
his wildest fantasies were coming true.  *Use your head, Elim,* he
cautioned himself.  *Think, think.*

*I don't want to think,* the rest of his mind replied.  I'm alone, an
exile, never to go home again.  Quickly, he closed the gap separating
himself and his young friend.  *To hell with it*, he told himself as he
took Julian's lovely and tender body into his arms, covering the parted
lips with his own hungrily.  Julian moaned and with the easy, lazy grace
of a cat flowed into Garak's embrace like water, lips parting completely
and welcoming the tailor's hot tongue.

[][][]

Perfect.  The old fool.  He was so starved for anything, especially this
beautiful, smooth young darling, that a few coquettish looks and some
charming hesitation were all it took.  He wouldn't be able to tell that
anything was amiss if it were painted on her chest.

Though, Karit thought to herself with satisfaction as she manufactured
all the rights moans and cries, the paint wouldn't have lasted long
anyway under this Cardassian's eager tongue, a tongue which was drawing
swirls all over her skin.  She squirmed in his arms, her fingertips in
his hair.

*Having fun?* she asked the other side of herself.  A vague moan was
Julian's only reply.  *How long have you wanted his tongue on your bare
flesh?* she continued.  *His mouth on your cock?*  She felt him shiver.
*Don't worry, it will only get better.*

"Garak," she breathed in Julian's voice.  "Elim!"  She stilled her
passionate writhing from where the two of them had literally fallen into
one another's arms on the floor, jolting as she felt the Cardassian's
powerful hand grasp her throbbing erection through the thin black cloth
of Julian's pants.

"Yes . . . " he breathed, eyes closed, mouth against her stomach,
lapping like a rough-tongued cat.  His weight pressed her down against
the floor.

"Oh, Elim . . . " The catch in her voice was not entirely fake; this man
was tremendously good with his hands and mouth.  *See what you would
have missed?* she upbraided the quivering doctor with glee.  "Elim,
please . . . please don't be afraid to hurt me."

*Oh gods --*

"What?"  Garak's voice, clouded with lust, betrayed his astonishment.
He had not expected this young man to be interested in Cardassian ways.

"Be . . . " she said, with exactly the breathless hesitation she had
practiced in the doctor's quarters earlier.  "Be . . . oh, Elim, be
rough with me.  Bruise me."  She produced a sob, which quite obviously
tore at the tailor's heart.  "Elim . . . " Her eyes grew moist, Julian's
beautiful and expressive eyes.

*Please don't do this --*

Garak closed his eyes yet again, lips trembling in amazement.  Then,
firmly, he grasped his young lover's chest with his hands, squeezing
firmly, pressing his thumbs into the mouthwateringly soft nipples.  He
squeezed harder.

Karit fed the sensation to Julian yet again and, for a brief moment,
allowed him voice with which to whimper.  Garak heard the sound.
"Again," Karit said eagerly.  "Bite me.  Scratch me, Elim. Mark me as
your own."

*No!*

"Julian . . . " the other man moaned, as he dropped his head towards
Karit's shoulder, opening his mouth and baring his teeth.  He pressed
himself against the beautiful body beneath his, grinding his own
erection into Karit's, and bit into her flesh with frightening alien
passion.  Karit fed the sensations to Julian again, alternating from
one to the other -- from shoulder where the tailor's teeth broke flesh
to cock, where he ground himself into the throbbing beneath his own
wanting and eager cock -- and back again.  Shoulder to cock.  And again.
Biting, then throbbing.  Tearing fire and pulsating thunder.  And again,
back and forth, until the doctor was dizzied and crying out wordlessly
*stop!  Stop!  Gods, please, please stop it stop it!*

*As you say.*  The sensations ceased, and again Julian fell silent,
dazed.

"Garak . . . " Karit breathed.  "Garak, take me in your mouth."

"Yes . . . "

"Suck on me, Garak, please."  She gasped, twisting her hips so that they
pressed into the heavy, massive Cardassian body atop hers.  "Suck on me
. . . suck me hard, so hard . . . "

The tailor did not need to be told twice.  With a growl that Karit found
delightful, that Julian found terrifying, tantalizing, he pushed his
hands into the waistband of the black pants, not even bothering to undo
the drawstring.  The thin fabric, the flimsy cord, were no match for the
other man's strength as he tore through them like tissue.

*You can't hide from me, doctor,* Karit told the cowering young man
within her.  *You have no secrets from me.  And I know, I know it well,
that you want this.*

*No . . . * But she heard it, the mixed whimper of fear and want.

*You do.*

*No!*

*Yes.*

*No!*  Julian was nothing but terror.  *Garak!* he cried out at least.
*Garak!  It's him I want, not you!  Not you!*

*You want him.*

*I want him.*  He moaned.  *I want him . . . * He felt it as Garak's
mouth, soft and impossibly hot, surround him, swallow against the
thundering erection that stood out like a pole at his hips.  *Garak,
help me . . . * The tongue, wet and rough, rubbed mercilessly at his
flesh, sparing not a square centimeter of his pounding cock.  *Garak . .
. *

Karit moaned, wound her fingers in the Cardassian's coarse black hair,
writhed her hips beneath his mouth as he shook his head slowly from side
to side, massaging the head of her cock against the back of his throat.
He had gripped her tense buttocks with his hands, digging his fingertips
into the soft flesh.  "Julian . . . " he hissed at last, withdrawing
his mouth and making the doctor gasp, making Karit smile.  The tailor
chuckled.  "If anyone had told me this morning that we'd be together
like this . . . " Another chuckle.

*Isn't that sweet?* Karit told Julian.  *How much he cares for you.  Who
would have thought it?*

*Stop it!  Stop --* His thought was cut short as Garak wound his tongue
around the inflamed head of the lovely cock before him.  *Oh gods --*

"Julian . . . "

*Stop it!*

"Garak -- "

*Stop!*

*Be quiet, doctor.*

"Julian!"  Garak's mouth closed again over the hot organ in front of
him.  He spared nothing.

*Garak!*

*Be quiet, and enjoy the show.*

*Garak, help me!*

"Stop!" Karit cried out, her body covered in thin hot sweat, stomach
tense, throbbing cock hard as steel, just on the edge of orgasm.  Julian
was in agony.  "Garak, oh stop! Please!"

"What?"  The other man was instantly at Julian's lovely face, covering
his naked, quivering body with his own.  His lips devoured Karit's --
Julian's -- pliant, pretty mouth.  "Julian, what?"

"Garak . . . " Karit moaned.  "Garak, fuck me . . . I want to come
with you inside me."  His thick weight against her was very pleasant,
intoxicating.  She placed her hands on either side of his face, the
round cheeks covered in scaled rough beneath the soft human skin.  She
kissed him, outlining his parted lips with her tongue.  *Enjoying
yourself, doctor?*  "Fuck me, Garak -- please fuck me hard . . . "

It took very little time.  Stripped below the waist, pressing on top
of Karit, on top of Julian's unresisting body while the doctor twisted
silently, voicelessly sobbing, Garak pressed the head of his blunt cock
against the tender skin of Julian's ass.  She had nearly gasped when she
had first seen it, so massive was it.  Julian had cringed.

*I hope you can take it all, dear,* she told him.  He simply moaned;
in his thoughts, she read something that delighted her.  *So, you've
done some research, have you?  Checking up on your Cardassian friend?*
Late nights nearly a year ago, when he had saved his friend's life from
the implant that had been consuming his mind . . . nights spent in the
infirmary pondering the tenderness that Garak had needed to feel from
him, the way his fair eyes seemed to bore into Julian's thoughts as
they had clasped hands . . . nights spent furtively glancing over his
shoulder as he read voraciously everything the computer could tell him
on Cardassian sexual practices, sexual organs, methods of pleasure . . .
*So that weapon of his is something you've seen before.*

*No.*  The word was the barest of whimpers.

*I thought you doctors like observing your specimens in vivo.*

Only the whimper remained.  Karit stood back, pushing the doctor's
chained mind forward as Garak's body clenched, as with a cry of lust he
pushed himself into the body beneath his, the tender and soft flesh of
the entrance that he split open.

*Not even a scream?* she asked the mute, stunned doctor.  *Nothing?  Come
now.*

She cried out, writhing her body frantically against the hard pole
inside of it, bucking like a wild horse.  *Let's give him a good hard
ride, shall we?* she observed as the delicate flesh around the entrance
began to tear.

*Garak!*

She shoved her hips back with everything she was worth, against the
leathery body behind her, until the thirsting cock inside of her struck
like a hammer against her aching, swollen prostate.  This time, she got
the scream she wanted.  "Harder!"

Again, the jarring collision.  And again, as the agonized doctor
disappeared under the onrushing flood of icy, fiery sensation.  "Oh
Garak, harder!"

"Julian -- " The other man could barely speak.  A string of incoherent
syllables followed his muttering of his young lover's name as with
unparalleled force he drove himself between the soft mounds of flesh
beneath him.

And Karit had the most delicious idea.

[][][]

For the thousandth time since stumbling back to his quarters like a
specter, Julian told himself that he needed to contact Odo, that the
chief of security absolutely needed to know that a possibly homocidal
and certainly violently insane entity had been loose and dangerous on
the station.  Shame coated his face like a thick, sour paint as he
looked up at the dark ceiling over his bunk, as he remembered the way
Garak had looked at his body, into eyes no longer his when the demon (a
Borrower, it had called itself) had offered itself to him.  The tailor's
bright eyes had been clouded with . . . with everything Julian had ever
seen, everything that in his secret, most private fantasties he had ever
wanted to see there.  Wonder, lust, beatific gratitude.  He had no idea
where the tailor or the demon was; when Julian had finally awakened, he
had been alone in Garak's quarters.

*I couldn't stop it*, was all he could think, his mind turning circles,
wearing a bare patch in itself.  *I tried,* he thought again.  *I tried
so hard . . . !*

The storm of weeping was no different from any of the countless others
that had preceded it since he had risen and stumbled back to his
quarters, head spinning and body aching and torn.  All around him
swirled emotions he did not control, murky and cold.  Icy and unfeeling,
they filled his ears like a rumbling tide in which he hung suspended,
swirling.

Garak.  Gods, Garak.  And the woman he had helped kill -- a disembodied
face, a marionette depersonalized and hung from the rafters -- about
whom he had known nothing, not even her name.  He saw his fingers with
a clarity and precision that made his eyes smart as they dialled the
emergency code for entrance into the Tellarian ship, felt the leaden
weight of the woman's unresisting body, saw her face, cheeks empty
and loose like empty sacks, eyes lolling, as he left her there . . .
remembered his own agony at the realizatin of his powerlessness, the
fact that a life was going to be lost and there was *nothing he could do
. . .*

That creature had taken such pleasure in that, and being in his mind,
could see through any layer of control he had.  Perhaps a Vulcan or a
Betazoid or some other race used to the idea of living in another's mind
would have been able to force their thoughts into a surface calm and so
deprive the demon of that pleasure.  Julian, Human and openly emotional,
had not stood a chance.

Certainly his deeply buried attraction to his Cardassian friend,
terrifying even to him alone, qualified as perfect to the creature that
had possessed him, the perfect weak place, the perfect loose stone.  He
had never had trouble acknowledging his attraction to others before, but
this . . . an alien spy, a pastless exile, a man and not only that, but
one much stronger and more forceful than he.  His first time making love
with a man . . .

His body twinged, all of the places on it that had been injured burning
themselves anew into his awareness.  He had thought, hoped, that the
pain would become more easily ignored with time.  *There isn't enough
time in the life of the universe for you to ignore this pain,* he told
himself.

The door chime burned another hole in his pacing mind.  He closed his
eyes.  *If I ignore it, it will go away.*

The chime again.  He sighed.  Struggling through the swirling maelstrom
of featureless murk that surrounded him, he sat up.  "Come in," he said,
voice gravelly and tired.

Even the subdued light of the outside corridor stung his eyes like
ammonia, and the dark blob that stod in the center was easily
recognizable from stance and body movement alone.  He felt his insides
clench.  "G -- "

"Hello, doctor."

"Garak."

"May I come in?"  Julian was struck dumb, and Garak took his silence
as assent, at least partially.  He strode into the room, hands folded
primly at his stomach, wearing one of his signature suits, stylish and
deep-colored.  "I hope you're well."

There was no suitable reply to this.

Garak strode further into the room, his voice quiet.  "I've been
thinking a great deal about what happened between us, and -- "

"Garak -- " His head was spinning, his muscles so tight he wondered that
they did not break his bones in their contraction.  His brain gibbered,
struck dumb.

Garak walked to Julian's bed, leonine confidence in his right to do so
in his every easy movement.  "I . . . was wondering where you had gotten
to," he said smoothly.  Julian said nothing, his mind latching onto what
few words remained to it, repeating them endlessly, silently get out get
out get out get out -- "You really shouldn't have left like that."  The
other man sat on the edge of his bed and laid a warm hand on Julian's
thigh.  "I wasn't even finished yet . . . "

"G -- Garak . . . " He had no idea what he was going to say.  Volition
was beyond him.  He only felt his body tense *felt his body* as the
warmth from Garak's broad, powerful hand bled through his uniform and
into his flesh.  "Garak, I -- "

"Surprised me," the other man said evenly.  "You surprised me."  He
moved closer to Julian on the bed, his eyes glowing faintly in the dim
halflight of Julian's quarters.  The glow did not fade as Julian moved
back along the bed; Garak only slid closer to him until he was at the
wall, trapped.

"Garak -- "

"I had no idea you were interested in Cardassian ways."  The other hand
raised to outline a chilled cheek, a trembling lip.

"Garak -- "

*Julian -- *

*Shut up, tailor.*

*Julian.*  The soundless word was a paean of pain, a eulogy to
destruction.  *If you harm him, I will kill you.*

*Sentimental old fool.  You will do no such thing.*  Karit smiled,
Garak's insouciant grin turned ugly.  *Shall I tell you what he was
thinking while you were inside him?*  There was no response but a timbre
to Garak's unverbalized thoughts that would have been a snarl had it
ever reached the surface, reached his face.  The face that now regarded
Julian's terror with nothing more than a smile.  Karit licked her lips
and clenched her big hand around Julian's neck.  The young darling
gasped.  Incoherent sounds of terror crawled out of his throat.

*Julian!*

Gods, his mouth tasted delicious.  *And you hadn't had any of this
before I brought it to you, tailor?  You should be grateful.*  Garak
wanted to withdraw into himself, but he had already been pushed as far
in that direction as he could go; he could retreat no further.

*I don't want it, not like this.*

*Have some anyway.*  Karit bit Julian's lower lip, sucking on the
blood, letting Garak taste the salty iron-laden fluid, letting him hear
Julian's cry.

The younger man scrambled to get away from Karit.  "Not so fast, faun,"
Karit told him, laughing.  "Don't play coy!  I know what you want now,
and I know how you want it."  Grabbing the slim body from behind, Karit
pushed him down on the bed, pinning his arms at his sides.  Julian
struggled mindlessly.  The frantic bucking only made it better, his
whimpers music to Karit's ears.  *Luscious.  I can see why you wanted
him.*  As he felt the struggling, as he heard his pretty Julian's cries,
bubbling black rage filled was left of Garak like hot tar.

*I will kill you,* he stated with finality.

*How?  Will you take my hand and shoot this body?  Will you push a body
you no longer control out an airlock to depressurize in space?*  Karit
sank her teeth into Julian's shoulder.  *I could snap his neck.  Pray I
don't.*

The thick hands wrapped around Julian's chest.  "Garak, *please*."
All the pain that the Cardassian had ever heard -- *and you've heard
a lot, haven't you?  Should we try a few of your old techniques of
interrogation on him?* -- seemed to run out of Julian's mouth as he
spoke, crushed under the weight of the other man's body, cringing away
from the hands that pinched and squeezed at him.  "Garak!"

*Julian!*

"You can't pretend you don't want this, not now . . . " Karit grasped
the neck of the young man's uniform and tore it apart.  *You've kept
yourself in fine fettle, my Borrowed.  My compliments.*  It was the
delicious work of several seconds to wrench the shreds from Julian's
struggling body, but Karit made it last longer, stretched it out.  *See
how his muscles move when he bucks,* Karit observed distantly, entranced
by the way the light danced over his smooth flesh as he squirmed.
"You must be sore from our last encounter, my dear doctor," she said,
inserting one thick thumb into his cleft as he cried out, face pushed
into the crumpled bedclothing.  "But wide enough to take me now, I
wager."  Before Julian could cry, before he could breathe, the thumb was
joined by a rigid index finger, then another, and another . . . Garak
keened.

*I will kill you!*  There was no doubt of that.  *I will kill you!
Julian!*

*I have no blood to drink, you fool!  Unless I return to your pretty toy
here and you kill us both.* A firm push, and Karit's blocky Cardassian
fist wrapped into a scaled stone as she shoved it into Julian's
body. The young man could not even cry out, could barely breathe as
Karit's weight pressed the air from his lungs, as her fist pressed the
life from his body.  He was so warm inside, so soft . . .

Garak screamed.

"Garak!"

"Julian!"  A grunt, a red hot stone spat from his mouth, the word
plunged into the darkness that had swallowed them both.  It had taken
all the energy he had, drained him completely.  Karit's wordless fury at
Garak's momentary success burned what was left of the Cardassian like
the raging heart of a sun.

"I will kill him!" she screamed, the words filling the room like
thunder.  "I will kill him, you worthless Cardassian waste!"  Julian's
eyes, wide and unfocused in terror and pain, betrayed a hint of
understanding.

"Garak . . . " he hissed, looking up at the blocky figure pressing down
in him through the haze of pain.  Karit regarded him, and smiled, and
ice suddenly formed over the surface of Julian's body.  Uncontrollably,
he shivered.  "Oh gods . . . "

"No."  The ice shattered. Karit leaned down and took a fold of skin on
his cheek between her teeth.  Languidly, with obscene tenderness, she
sucked on it, fondling it with her tongue.  Warm, pliant -- with the
briny flavor of sweat and tears.  "Pretty faun, you're delicious from
this side, too."

Strength, resistance was beyond Julian -- the tears came then,
unwilling, scalding his cheeks like oil.  "Garak -- " The word was a
high pitched whisper easily dispersed by the slightest puff of air. Lost
in sobbing, the rest of his words were known only to himself, lurking in
the shadowed place with him.

"He is here," Karit told him, placing her knees on either side of his
ass and squeezing Julian's long thighs closed, clenching her fist in
his body by main force.  "And most concerned with your welfare."  She
jounced him on the hard bedcushion beneath them, and again.  "You lovely
toy, I can see why he wants you."

"He -- ?!"  Another jounce, which tore the air from his lungs.

*No --*

"He has wanted you since the first day he saw you.  He has fantasized
about taking you right over your office desk."

Few things could make Garak sob, nothing could -- nothing . . .

" -- wanted to ram himself into you like this -- "

It was wrenched from him; all he could do was thank whatever deity he
was holding dear that the sounds would not reach the surface.

" -- make you bleed -- "

*Stop it!*

" -- hear you scream just like you are doing now."

*No!*

Karit leaned her mouth down to the copper shell of Julian's ear.  "He's
wanted to break into your body more times than I would have thought
possible.  He's sat alone in his quarters, night after night -- "

Nothing could make Garak sob --

" -- fantasizing about you, playing with you in his mind just as I am
doing now -- "

*No, nothing can make me sob --*

" -- playing with himself while thinking about your body, about bruising
it -- "

*Nothing,* he sobbed --

" -- just like I am doing now."

"Garak -- "

The hard stone of her fist still in his body, Karit threw him onto
his back like a rag doll, making him scream. More senseless syllables
dribbled from between his lips as his skull cracked against the wall.
She reached out with her other hand and gripped his shrivelled cock like
an iron clamp. Oblivious from the impact, he did not react.  *Damn.*

"Get out of him!" Garak raged.  *Get away from him!*  "NO!"  Garak
gasped with the effort that one word had cost him, and Karit's nearly
incoherent rage at this burned away her previous anger, replacing it
with an almost incandescent fury.

*You go too far, tailor!  I will kill him!*

"NO!"  Ripping his fist from the doctor's body despite his cries and
wrenching himself to his feet like a crazed juggernaut, Garak ran
with heavy, thudding steps at the plaque on Julian's wall.  Frenzied,
terrified, *stop this!* he regained control of his fumbling, sticky
hands long enough to rip it apart, long enough to scrabble at the
contents, a single obsidian scalpel, presented to the doctor by his
mother upon the occasion of his graduation, the silver handle engraved
with his name --

"I'm killing you!"

"Garak!"  Julian's voice, Julian's cry.

*Stop it!*

*No, damn you, I'm stopping it right now --*

"Garak, no -- "

-- long enough to reverse the end, slicing his fingertips to ribbons --

*You cannot stop me!*

*I can.*

-- long enough to push it with all he was worth into his neck, to rip
violently at himself --

Throwing himself from the bed like a corpse, Julian hit the floor with
an impact that drove the air from his body in a single massive sob.  He
couldn't move, couldn't *move* . . . the lower half of his body seemed
composed of nothing but pain.

The next impact was worse, far more painful, as Garak's still thrashing
body fell atop his own.  "Garak -- "  Deep mahogany blood flowed like
water, flowed over Garak as he still struggled feebly, flowed over
Julian, over his hands and head and into his hair . . .  Language fled
Julian, and he sobbed openly once before his reeling mind awoke to the
scent and taste of alien blood on him.  Still collapsed on the floor,
unable to stand upright, he rolled Garak's body off of his own, Garak's
blood mixing with the fresh tears on his cheek to make runnels of light
tan that mixed perfectly with his skin.  Pain hit him like an icy sleet
as he dragged his body to where his medkit lay, the only thing he
recognized, the only thing his mind could think about.  Stop it stop it
stop it save him save him --

There.  There it was.  He tore the case open, shaking the contents out
on the floor, grabbing at his medical tricorder, leaving dun-colored
smears all over it.  The dermal regenerator . . . where is it where *is
it*?!  Grabbing the little device in his teeth, he heaved himself back
the way he had come like a beached sea animal.  His hands shook like an
old man's as he opened the tricorder's face and aimed it clumsily in the
direction of his dying friend, face-down on the soaked carpet.  "Garak
. . . " Through the tears, the readout wavered, then steadied.  "Oh,
gods, Garak . . . " With the driven concentration of panic and terror,
he dragged himself over the other man's prone body, to where the sticky,
warm puddle of deep brown blood still ran from his neck.  A major artery
. . . transfusion, infection . . .

Julian grabbed one collar of Garak's burgundy jacket and hauled on it
with every atom of strength he could dredge from his wracked muscles.
The tailor's unresisting form did not budge.  Whimpering, Julian grabbed
at his arm and pulled, ignoring the screams for attention from his own
body, and this time, he succeeded.  Garak's head lolled on his thick
neck, the wound he had inflicted gaping like a mouth.  In seconds,
Julianm's slippery fingers had pinched one end closed, and he brought
the regenerator to it to begin sealing the wound.  Through his terror and
shaking, he managed to do so, leaving a wide and somewhat ragged-edged
seam where there had been an open hole.  Blood covered both of them
despite this --

"Computer!" he croaked.  "Emergency transport directly to sickbay, one
human, one Cardassian -- "

[][][]

The infirmary had been empty upon their arrival, thankfully.
Synthesizing enough Cardassian blood of the proper type to replace that
which had been left to decompose on the carpet in his quarters had been
simple enough by himself, and Julian had no wish to explain events to
anyone.

He looked down at himself.  Not that he hadn't been drenched in enough
of the blood, and Garak as well.  He had not even had time to clean
himself off in the shower behind his office.  Still sticky with his
friend's blood, barefoot, his body covered in a hastily replicated
emergency uniform, he could not bring himself to leave Garak's side.
The Cardassian was stabilized now, and would probably awaken shortly.
Loaded with enough stimulants and pain suppressors to deaden a
supernova, without which he could not have stood upright much less
tended his fallen friend, Julian had no hope of sleep any time soon.

His own wounds he had treated himself as the tailor dozed.  At least
those he could treat.  The sheer amount of blood loss surprised him, the
torn bowel and outraged immune system did not.  For the moment, however,
the immediacy of Garak's peril helped to drive his attention from
it.  Broad spectrum antibiotics and some regenerative self-surgery
(which would have been impossible without the painkillers) comprised
the core of his self-treatment.  One hand reached out to where the
other man lay in the light blue medical robe, brushing lightly over
the collarbone, and for a moment he simply allowed himself to feel the
sensation of the leathery scales beneath his fingertips.

Death.  Warmth radiated from Garak's body, and if Julian looked very
closely, he could see the skin at his neck pulsing in time with the
beating of his heart.  There was no death here.  At least not for Garak.
A neural scan had shown only the Cardassian man's own brain patterns;
hopefully the desperate gamble he had tried had worked, and the Borrower
was gone.  Dead, whatever death meant to a bodiless being.  The hand
wandered up to Garak's neck, to the ridges on either side of it, which
Julian knew from his late night studies were extremely sensitive.
Beautiful, he thought -- gods, he is beautiful.  "Garak . . . " Husky,
dimmed by the tears that seemed to start from him whenever he had time
to think, Julian leaned down to the other man's cheek, touching his lips
to it lightly.  "Please . . . " *I miss you.  Please wake up.*

The hazy beginnings of his attraction to the other man had been so
subtle as to go completely unnoticed at first.  Looking forward to the
tailor's company at lunch more than usual, finding himself blushing a
bit more in his company, lowering his eyes shyly when Garak made one of
his signature small jokes and looked at Julian closely, awaiting his
expected light chuckle which never failed to surface.  There had been no
erotic component to any of it; the question of his attraction to this
man would have been met with a scoff and a shaken head.

But it had been there.  It had only been in the privacy of his quarters,
lying awake at night, aroused by nothing he could name and unable to
sleep, that he had first realized it.  He had taken himself into his
hands, intent on pleasuring his restless mind into sleep, had stroked
himself gently into rigidity, and awakened the well-oiled fantasy engine
in his brain.  He had run unsuccessfully through a dozen old girlfriends
and even brought out Jadzia once again after almost a year-long dry
spell when his mind seemed to dart of its own volition to the image
of the Cardassian tailor standing before him at the foot of his bunk,
smiling, the bright eyes fixed on his naked body.  Speechless, next
seeing only the other man's shining hair at his hips, imagining his
throbbing cock swallowed, teased mercilessly, he had exploded into
an orgasm that had shaken him to the roots of his soul, and left him
completely unable to sleep from the revelation.  He had cancelled his
lunch appointment with the tailor the next day.

After that, the signs were more and more frequent and harder to ignore.
The old stammering had come back to him at odd moments in conversation,
at the flash of a passing thought on the light in Garak's hair, the
sparkle in his fair eyes.  When Garak, against all habit, had opted to
order dessert one day, a delicious spice cake with an absolutely
heavenly caramel icing, he had looked up after placing a bite between
his lips to see Garak looking at him cheekily and felt the heat coming
up from his face.  By the time they had finished the dessert and licked
their spoons clean, the erection pounding between Julian's thighs had
not gone down.  He could only hope that Garak had not noticed it when
they rose and went back to their respective positions.  Certainly, he
couldn't have sat there for any longer waiting for it to fade.

And then there had come the Borrower.  And after that, only wasteland.

[][][]

He was free.

A liquid mist of contentment surrounded him, replacing the acid in which
he had been immersed so recently, healing the torn and corroded skin.
He was free, and Julian was safe.

Julian.  *Julian . . .*

Garak opened his eyes at last, knowing himself to be alone in his mind,
blissfully alone, and staring up at the ceiling of the infirmary.
With horror, he realized that he was still alive.

Memories awakened in him as he considered the last time he had seen that
ceiling.  The last time, with Julian's hand over his own, Julian's warm
brown eyes gazing into his own as he offered his forgiveness for
something he couldn't possibly understand . . .

With difficulty, he turned his head to find the young man against him,
his tousled head lying on his chest, hair sticky and matted with --

-- Garak's hand flew to his neck, the movement disturbing Julian.  He
felt a seam there, a heavy scar, and tried to curse his momentary panic.
The customary invective at his foolishness and the shameful way he had
grown soft in exile were not forthcoming now.  All he felt was relief at
his own victory, and gratitude that drenched him at the sight of Julian,
alive.  The deep skin, the wide seductive eyes that gazed back at him
now, the full mouth, the graceful hands --

"Garak."

The tailor brought himself up short.  He had very nearly taken Julian's
lovely head in his hands, crushed his mouth against his own.  Gritting
his teeth, he took his hands away from the young man's cheeks, and now
the curses came more freely as he realized what he had lost to the
Borrower's cruelty and viciousness.  *It was true, all of it,* he told
himself.  *Everything she said was true.*

"What was true?"

His mouth snapped shut, and he saw too late that he had spoken aloud.
His exhaustion suddenly seemed so much more palpable to him, and he laid
his head back on the cushion.

"Everything," he hissed finally.  "Nothing."  *He is safe,* Garak
repeated to himself.  *He is safe . . . *

Julian sat for a few moments looking into the space in front of his
nose.  He closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them.  "Garak,
stop this now."

"W -- "

"The lies."  Julian's voice was calm, tired.  "I've had it with the
lies, the contradictions, the false leads."  His eyes seemed to expand
until they filled the room.  "For once, tell me the truth."

Silence trailed along after his words, and Garak did not disturb it.
His eyes remained on Julian's for a short time, then fell to his feet at
the end of the diagnostic bed in which he lay.  His lips pressed
together.

The truth.  *Which truth is that?*  He chuckled once, forlorn and weary.
*That I am ashamed to have done to you what I did?  That I am ashamed of
being ashamed?  That I have done that, and worse, to other men before
you as a matter of course, and that I once took pleasure in doing it?*
His eyes drifted closed.

*That I do not know which is more shameful -- feeling this pain for how
badly I hurt you, or feeling shame at the weakness I must harbor for
the pain?*

"There is no truth," he whispered at last, looking at Julian's wide
eyes, his lovely face, so bruised, with a dried line of that garish
rust-colored Human blood drawing a gash along his pretty mouth.  That
mouth was held tightly now, and Garak could see the control it took
for him to sit still so quietly.  He wanted to touch it, to erase the
pain written there, but knew that he had no business doing so.  Julian
reached out and laid his hand on Garak's, who regarded the slim brown
fingertips lying against his own grey skin as he would have a poisonous
snake.

The muscles outlining Julian's jaw were twitching as he stared down
fixedly, and he seemed perilously close to weeping.  At least that was
what Garak thought.  When Julian finally opened his mouth to speak
through clenched teeth, however, Garak suddenly understood that it was
temper that the young man was controlling, and not tears.

"Garak," he said tightly, his lips thin and tight as he spoke, and his
voice sounded dry and dead.  "We have been friends for over three
years.  We have argued everything under the sun, we have each shared
more conversation with one another than with anyone else on the station.
A year and a half ago, I saved your damned life."  His slim young face
was pugnacious, set with anger and pain.  "Don't you think that, after
all we've been through, you just might owe me the fucking truth
*finally*?"

Garak swallowed.  "Which truth would you prefer, doctor?" he asked
carefully.

"Don't give me that!" Julian replied hotly.  He stood from where he had
been sitting so painfuly leaned over, and took a step back from the bed,
to where he could see Garak more fully.  "Don't play your damned games
anymore, Garak.  That thing said that you wanted me.  Now, do you or
not?"

Impossible to ignore a question like that.  "Doctor," he began quietly,
"you asked whether or not I owed you the truth, after all.  Don't you
think it's remotely possible that, after all, what I truly owe you is to
keep you as far away from that truth as possible?"

"Because I can't take it."

"Because I have no intention of causing you any more pain."

"Is your presence pain?"

"Yes."  Into this one word, Garak poured all the intensity he could.
Julian's skin crawled and felt cold.  The Cardassian man sat forward in
the bed, making the metallic coverlet fall to his waist, revealing grey
scaled skin and a powerful chest.  He caught Julian by the wrist.  "My
dear naive young man, I have done worse things than that to people for a
*living*.  I've killed people, I've made them weep, made them beg.  I've
drawn blood," he shuddered, "and I've taken pleasure in it."  His other
hand darted out, and he pulled Julian close to himself.  "Do you really
want the truth about that?  Do you want to know the litany of pain that
I have left behind, the trail of agony that starts from my hands and
stretches into the past for decades?"  Always bright, his fair eyes were
incandescent, burning with unhealthy fire.  "Do you want to know what
that side of me could have done to you?"

Julian kept his face still, close enough to Garak to feel his breath
against his cheeks, to see the sparkles of gold and grey in the glowing
blue eyes.  At last he looked down, and Garak released him.

"So you see, doctor, I have done you a service by lying to you, more
than any truth could do."  *I have kept you from myself, the most
selfless act I could imagine.*

"Garak," Julian said, hushed.  "Even I know that isn't you anymore."

"Did Odo tell you what I did to him?" the other man demanded.  "When we
were in the Gamma quadrant together?"

"He did."  Julian met his eyes steadily.  "That you lied for him, that
you saved him, that you tried to hurt him and couldn't.  Just like you
saved me."

"After nearly killing you."  For a moment, Garak faltered.  "Julian --"

"After nearly killing yourself."  Julian laid a hand on the other man's
arm, and was relieved to see that it was not shaken off.

"After tearing a hole into you!" Garak cried, immediately regretting it.
The feel of those long fingers, the warm palm, laid against his cool
skin was like hot metal to him.  He wanted so badly to stop.  "After
making you bleed, after hearing you cry out -- "  The rest of the words
caught and jammed in his throat, choking him, choking Julian, who became
a thin tense rod of flesh and bone.  "I . . . I couldn't stop it -- "

"You did stop it."  The younger man's voice was terribly quiet.  "I --
I'm all right, Garak," he told the other man, knowing it was a lie.
Garak snorted at his words.

"You are not 'all right,' my dear doctor," he said pitilessly.  He
reached out and took Julian's sharp jaw in his hand.  Words dropped from
his lips like black stones.  "None of the people I've ever caused such
pain have ever been 'all right.'  They leave me broken, permanently
unbalanced -- walking husks attesting by their very existence to my
special talent for destroying souls."  Garak thrust Julian's face away,
his own heart shuddering at the pain he saw there, in those amazing
eyes, those eyes that had taunted him in dreams for so long.  *I don't
dare love you.*

"Garak -- "  Julian's hands were shoved away roughly.

"Stop it, doctor."

The other man grabbed the Gardassian's face roughly, his slim hands
cupping the rounded cheeks.  "God *damn* you, you stubborn Cardassian
bastard, I don't need your *permission* to care about you," he hissed.
Garak's eyes were frozen open, his mouth stunned mute.  Julian did not
give him a chance to reply.  "I don't *care* what you did before, and I
don't give a damn that you don't want me to love you."  Moments after
the words left his mouth, he gulped as their full meaning struck him.
For the first time he could remember, Garak was struck speechless.

"Julian -- " he finally choked out.  In a terrified shivering whisper,
as if warning Julian away from a deadly poison, he said, "I would rather
you did not care for me."

"Too fucking bad," the younger man spat coldly.

"Julian . . . "

"I want you."  He stood painfully straight, wincing from an unseen and
untended bruise.  "And I want you to want me," he turned and began to
fumble with one of the diagnostic panels, "because, goddamn it, I need
it right now -- " A harsh clatter of metal on tile interrupted his words
as the tray of instruments beneath the panel was knocked to the floor,
Julian's shaking body crouched atop them.  He held his face in his
hands.

Garak rolled off of the table quickly, heedless of the coverlet that no
longer hid him, thoughtlessly taking the shivering body into his arms,
holding it closer and more tightly than he had ever clutched anyone
before.  Julian shook as if electrified, keening with a wail that made
Garak's hair stand on end.  Speaking meaningless soothing words that he
could barely understand over and over, rubbing the tense, thin back,
stroking the hair, he held him.  In time, the wail gave way to a series
of short, convulsive sobs that nearly shook his slender frame apart.
And after that, silence.

[][][]

There was no real reason for Garak to remain in the infirmary, although
unlike the young doctor, he was perfectly prepared to weave a tapestry
of dissimilation to anyone who asked about his presence.  Yet he knew
that the longer he remained there, the more likely that Julian would
hesitate or stumble and reveal what he would rather not.  "A minor
ailment, something that disagreed with me," he told the few people who
saw him before he managed to leave that morning.  Julian did not want
him to leave, preferring to retain him for observation, but the tailor
was firm about it.

"I feel fine, the picture of health," he said gently after climbing into
the clothing that Julian had brought from his quarters.  At Julian's
protest, he had shaken his head.  "I assure you that if I feel the
slightest discomfort, I'll notify you.  But now, I must leave."  The
hand that reached to his cheek was hesitant, the touch light.  "My
presence here is a danger to you."

"But not later," Julian replied softly, awaiting the arrival of his day
staff.  After a fast sonic shower and a replicated uniform he looked the
picture of propriety, except for the pain-haunted eyes.  "Tonight?
Please?"

Garak nodded, trying to keep the resignation out of his voice.
"Tonight," he echoed.

[][][]

Midmorning, Julian realized that there was no way, all cliches about the
dedication of the medical profession aside, that he could survive this
day with any pretense of normality.  Sounds behind him terrified him --
a dropped hypo held by his assistant Mer caused him to jump so badly
that he drove the tip of the delicate microprobe that he had been
holding into his palm and snapped it off.  If she noticed his shivering
while removing the broken fragments of metal and ceramic from his hand,
she said nothing.  Shadows made his skin grow cold.  Every time a scrap
of music or a random thought sparkled in his mind, he panicked.  It was
0930 hours when he finally realized that remaining was impossible.
Thankfully, he had seen no patients so far, and those that would arrive
later in the day should be easily handled by his Mer, a competent and
valued GP in her own right.  Running his hands over his face, feeling
hysteria and nausea warring for space in his guts, he handed the day
over to her and left for his quarters.

It was only when the entrance hissed open and he entered the room that
he remembered what he would find -- the congealed puddle of alien blood
on the carpet, black in the gloom of his darkened quarters, the wrecked
bunk, bedclothing torn and stained with his blood.  The door yawned
before him as he felt his breath coming more and more quickly, as he
felt his head float off, saw the sparkles in his vision that the scent
of the blood evoked.

Propelling himself backwards, he slammed against the opposite wall hard
enough to rattle his teeth.  Through the swimming vision and the rush of
blood out of his head, he knew that he could not enter that place.
Fighting panic bubbling up in his stomach, he wondered if he ever could
again.  *Can I ask for new quarters?* he wondered to himself.  *I can
smash something in there, the computer console, I can set it on fire --*

"Doctor."

Julian's head whipped around.  "G -- "

Garak regarded the other man, the light shine of sweat over his skin,
the normal dusky color of which had been bleached out to a sickly
green.  The tailor had sat by himself in his darkened shop, vainly
trying to convince himself to open for business when he finally admitted
to himself that there was no way he could treat this like any other day.
*Weak, grown soft and weak . . .*  The old curses still came to him,
like breathing, almost automatically.  He had sat there for another half
an hour, the entrance to his shop closed and locked with the hubbub and
boisterous clamor of the Promenade visible through the display windows.
A rack of Veridian silk robes, their normal somber blues and purples
turned to black by the darkness, hid him from view while he fought
silent and agonizing battles with conflicting parts of his mind.

You hurt him --

You saved him --

You killed it --

You nearly killed yourself.

Would that you had been successful.

Julian had been under the impression that he had driven that scalpel
into his neck in order to save him; he was right.  Mostly.  What he had
not guessed at was Garak's own crushing sense of defeat and horror at
awakening in the infirmary, whole and alive.  There had been the relief
and joy at seeing Julian, coupled with the keening grief at his own
survival.

*A way out,* he had told himself, sitting in the stygian darkness of his
own shop, watching movement and light from his refuge of stasis and
shadows.  In the space between one fear-ridden heartbeat and the next,
while he scrabbled for control of himself in the nightmare and Julian's
pretty eyes lolled in his head, the magnitude of what would await him
should he survive ran gibbering through his mind.  The old Obsidian
interrogator -- *Torturer.  Say the word* -- reduced to bald terror at
the prospect of inflicting pain.  *Just like before, with Odo, but now
it wasn't a respected colleague.  It was him, my Julian, my pretty
doctor . . .* And a far worse agony, inflicted for pure pleasure, not
for any higher purpose of espionage or patriotism.

Wasn't it always pleasure, though?  And now you balk at it, you shy
away, and you want to hold this injured darling and croon soft words of
comfort at him like a mother rakja.  Old fool.  Cursing himself with
barbed words, the barbs driving more and more deeply into him as he
continued, Garak finally walked with leaden feet to the infirmary only
to be informed peremptorily by Julian's Bajoran assistant GP that the
doctor had retired to his quarters for the day.  "He seemed a bit
disturbed by something," she had told him.  Garak did not doubt that for
a minute.

And so he had walked to Julian's quarters, hating himself more with
every step that brought him closer.

I want to hold him.

You're *weak!*

I need to hold him.

You have no right to comfort him.  Torturer.

A lifetime ago!

Tell that to the men and women you shattered --

And then he had turned the final corner in the corridor, and seen the
doctor leaning against the wall outside his room, hands raised to shield
him from something Garak could not see, pale as a sheet, sweating, and
looking for all the world as if he were about to collapse.

Julian stammered, unable to reply to Garak's first uncertain word.
Hearing the yammering voices in his head like spectral banshees, Garak
closed the remaining distance to them and placed his powerful hands on
the doctor's unresisting upper arms.  His body felt boneless, like
rubber.  "You need to lie down -- " he said, and keyed the door to
Julian's quarters.

Blood and the stink of fear greeted him.

Garak drew back, the limp doctor still in his arms.  "Perhaps," he
demurred, we should repair to my quarters instead . . . "

[][][]

Garak was not a doctor and knew little of human ailments.  The most he
could think of to settle Julian's stomach was a watered-down glass of
kanaar, but even as he stood at the replicator, he heard Julian stumble
into the fresher and empty his stomach.  From the sound of it, it had
already been empty, and the cramps that were wracking his body were
ineffective, merely there for the pain.  He might have been unversed
in human medicine, but Garak guessed that, just as in Cardassians, dry
nausea could be agonizing.

*You've induced it in enough of your victims.*

The Cardassian man's lip quirked and his face spasmed.  The implantation
of neural devices into interrogation subjects was standard procedure in
the Order, or at least it had been when he'd been ascendent.  By remote
relay control, any sensation that the interrogator wished to feed to the
hapless subject could be sustained for as long as was required.
Sleeplessness, vomiting, even the moment of stress immediately preceding
an orgasm -- all could be sustained for hours, even days.

*Like the Borrower.*  Another spasm of pain.  *In your day, you would
have *admired* her.*

Garak remembered one subject in particular, a very insolent young man,
just starting out in the Cardassian military.  He had been under
suspicion as a dissident and was given to Garak for questioning.  His
body had been so wracked by dry nausea after the first few hours that
even touching his abdomen resulted in intense pain.  That face swam
before his eyes now, smiling smugly.  *The pain returns,* it said to
him.

Julian exited the fresher, clutching at his middle, pale and damp and
near tears.  He tried to stand against the bulkhead, but his watery legs
gave out on him once more and slowly, he slid down until he was sitting
on the floor.  Interrupting his thoughts, Garak walked to him with a
glass of cold water, mixed with a dash of mint schnapps, for which he
had opted at the last moment.  The liquor revolted him, but he knew that
Humans were fond of it.

"Here," he said softly.  Julian just looked at him, weakly, and said
nothing.  The pleading in those warm eyes, so filled now with despair,
nearly made Garak sob.  Without another word, he held the glass to the
other man's lips, tilted it back just a bit, and allowed him to swallow
an icy mouthful.

"You can stay here," Garak said shortly, his hand still against the back
of Julian's neck.  "I'll clean up your quarters for you.  For now, just
get some rest here."

"Rest."  The voice was that of an old man.  "I don't want to sleep."

"You must.  You need to."

Julian sobbed once, and his face began to twist.  "I don't want to
sleep -- " he said again, and as the weeping tore itself through his
thin frame, Garak realized what he meant.  Cardassians did not dream.

"I'll return as soon as I'm finished cleaning your quarters," he said
quietly, holding the young doctor in his arms and rocking him back and
forth.  "I'll be here, never fear."  A shade of pain crossed his face at
his own words.  *Never fear.*  He squeezed his eyes shut and simply held
the other man close until the storm passed for now.

But there would be other storms.  Wrapping one arm around Julian's back
and placing the other beneath his knees, he scooped the young man off
the floor and deposited him gently on his bunk.  The black boots came
first, then Garak found the fastener for his uniform and quickly skinned
it off, the skills he had won in his present life as a nameless tailor
coming to his advantage for once.  Obediently, Julian lifted his arms
over his head as Garak tugged his uniform shirt free and deposited it
on the neatly folded pile of clothing at the foot of the bunk.  He wore
only his underclothing, and was already nearly asleep, his body shutting
down from sheer fear.

Garak lifted the bedclothing over his body, and went to clean up the
blood.

[][][]

It wasn't something with which he was unfamiliar, although the
post-interrogation moppings-up had usually been the responsibility of
the guild apprentices.  But every major interrogator had been an
apprentice at one time, and Garak still recalled the procedures for
getting blood cleaned up quite vividly.  His apprenticeship had not been
a pleasant one; Enabrin Tain had taken some steps to make sure of that.
Even to this day, the smell of blood, even his own, could bring back
those memories of toiling in the chambers deep in the Order citadel,
scrubbing hard to present a deceptively pristine atmosphere to each new
arrival.

Julian's replicator had not ever had to produce the chemicals he
requested before, and some of them were obscure enough that Garak had
to instruct the dense machine on their manufacture.  After thoroughly
soaking the carpet with a combination of astringents and enzymes that
could break down Cardassian blood, he pulled the bedclothing off of the
bunk and rolled it into a ball, stuffing the wad of fabric into the
laundry's replicator chute.  Then he redressed the bunk, and spent the
remaining time sitting on the edge and waiting for the enzymes to finish
their work.  Already the huge brown stain was lightening to a faint
coffee color.  In only a few minutes more, it would be gone completely,
and Garak could run a vaporizer over the mess of sated chemicals,
removing them and leaving the carpet bone-dry and spotless.

He did so.  Stepping back and surveying his work, he nodded to himself.
The mindless task had done a good job of quieting the voices in his
mind, occupying them for a brief time.  The bunk was pin straight and
neatly made, possibly more so than when Julian was responsible for it.
The carpet looked its typical somber hue.

On a whim, he replicated 10 dozen sterling roses and left them scattered
on the bunk.

[][][]

Julian's eyes were darting behind closed lids in the strange Human way
as Garak watched.  He didn't appear to be in any distress, though, and
the tailor knew that these bursts of cortical activity were required for
the Human brain to function properly during waking hours.  Consequently,
he left Julian alone to sleep, to dream.

One hand strayed to his own face to discover that it was wet, a
revelation that he took stoically.  Before he knew what he was doing, he
bent down to where Julian lay tangled in the sheet and kissed his hair
lightly.  The scent was of fresh musk, light and earthy and pure.  He
remained like that for a few moments, allowing the soft curls to tickle
his nose, and then straightened and drove all but the most chaste of
thoughts out of his mind, hopefully for good.

Standing at the port, hands clasped behind his back, Garak watched the
stars as the voices came back out.

He appears to want your comfort, Elim, for Gathdur alone only knows what
reason.  One of the cynical voices, baying at him like a hound, laughed
at Julian's naivete for doing so, but the rest of him didn't listen.
*He doesn't care about your past,* one tiny voice managed to say past
the baying.  *He knows what you are and loves you and needs you anyway.*

Garak forced the thought out of his mind.  *He is in pain and fear,
injured badly and with a long road of recovery ahead of him.*

*A road he wants you to walk beside him, to support him and urge him on
when he falters.*

*He is not thinking straight.*

*Neither are you.*

A muffled groan floated past his shoulder, and he turned to see Julian
stirring.  He stretched and then lay still.

"You're awake."

Julian did not turn his head.  "Yes."  Garak walked over and sat on the
edge of the bunk.

"How do you feel?" he asked, steeling himself against the urge to caress
the young man's hair.

Those lovely, empty eyes closed.  "I'm not sure."

"Do you need medical attention?"

A shake of the head.  "No.  I did that when I was waiting for you to
wake up.  Broad spectrum antibiotic, and some repair work . . . I
actually came out of it relatively all right."  He swallowed then, the
tired voice breaking, and when he opened his eyes, Garak nearly caught
his breath at what he saw in them.  The gratitude, fear, despair . . .
all of it mingled together.  The young doctor reached out a hand, taking
Garak's in it and clamping onto it tightly.  "Elim . . . " he squeezed
out before he was unable to speak.

For Garak to have sat there stoically in the face of this would have
been cruel.  He reached out with his other hand and softly stroked
Julian's cheek.  "I'm here."  *My darling, I'm here.*

"I know."  Hushed, broken words.  Then, with the crystalline clarity of
people on the edge of control, he looked directly at Garak, straight
into his pellucid blue eyes, and whispered, "I know it wasn't really
you."

Garak started.

"It wasn't you, Garak."  He took the other man's hand and placed the
palm against his chest.  Beneath the warm, faintly damp skin, Garak felt
the slow, strong drumbeat of the Human heart.

"It was more me than you realize," Garak replied, unable to meet
Julian's clear gaze.

"Because *she* said so?"

"She was right, doctor."  Garak's blocky body shivered once, then grew
uuterly still.  He wanted to run, to leave this room, this station, to
get aw far from this forgiving presence, more tender and more in need of
loving care than he felt he could stand.  "I . . . "

"Want me."  A nod.  "A crime?"

"For me, yes."  *A punishment -- something I do not deserve.  A
beautiful temptation that I dare not allow myself.*  Except now, what was
once merely a temptation had become a shrieking need.  The laughing,
playful young man with whom he had shared his table now lay in his bed,
eyes running with pain, mind a gaping raw wound.  And worse yet, that
young man seemed convinced that Garak should be the one to balm the
wound, to bind it and salve it and caress it until it was better.  *I
have no right to ease your pain, Julian.  And no right to thus ease my
own in you.*  Garak furiously cursed himself as he looked at Julian
lying in his bed -- pale, shaking slightly, skin damp and shining just a
bit, velvet eyes wide . . . mouthwateringly, heartbreakingly beautiful
in his capacity to forgive.

He sat up suddenly, neither fluid not graceful, but Garak did not care.
Before he could pull away, Julian had taken him in his arms, pressed his
bare body against the tailor's own, laid his head against one broad
shoulder.  He could feel Julian's slim hands, those nimble doctor's
hands of his, stroking his back.  "Garak . . . " he whispered into the
space between Garak's collarbone and neck, against the bony ridge.  At
first the Cardassian did not know what Julian was saying, then realized
that he had spoken only to hear the name.  His eyes began to grow wet
again.

"I . . . " he stammered, hushed, "I can't accept this, Julian."  The
younger man pulled back slightly, his arms still around the other man's
shoulders.

"Can't accept what?"

He could not prevent one hand from straying forward, caressing one sharp
cheek.  "This gift," he said.  "Your caring.  Your . . . "  *Your love.*

Julian's eyes held his steadily and began to shine.  He mirrored the
Cardassian's caress, feeling the finely textured ridges along his jaw
beneath his fingertips.  "I don't care," he said.  "I'm giving it to you
anyway."  A sniffle.  "And I need yours . . . "

Momentarily stunned, Garak wrapped his arms around the young doctor and
pulled him close with a jerk, desperate to control his emotions and more
than aware of the fact that he was about to fail.  He buried his face in
the warm nestling space between Julian's neck and shoulder, feeling only
the warm body in his arms, the soothing hands at his back.  "I forgave
you a year and a half ago, Garak," he heard the soft, musical voice tell
him through tears.  "You're exiled from home -- please don't exile
yourself from me."  A sob.  "I won't let you."

His scent, his gentle warmth . . . to find in the midst of such grief
this acceptance that soaked into his soul.  Garak sighed and ran his
broad hands over Julian's skin, smooth and tender.  His grip tightened,
and he began to feel himself melting into this beautiful young man in
his arms.  "I'll care for you," he said simply.  He felt Julian nod.

"I think I'm going to need a lot of it . . . " he whispered.  A lot of
it, for a very long time.  For many long minutes, the two men simply sat
like that, drowning themselves in the other, feeling each relax at least
a bit, feeling each one's chest rising and falling against the other's.
The muted, mild sounds of their breathing were alone in the silence.

"Stay here with me," Julian said simply.  Garak nodded.

"All right."  Turning away from Julian in some laughable remnant of
modesty, he began with thick fingers to unfasten his jacket.  In time,
he too was clad only in his underclothing, with Julian trying vainly to
hide his curious gaze.  Garak caught this and smiled, making Julian
blush.

*Ah, yes -- color returns to your smooth cheeks.*  "Not too different
from you," he remarked.  "Perhaps in time, we can investigate more
fully."  There were no expectations on his voice, simply calm ease.

Julian shuddered, but hoped that the echoes of panic would fade.
"Perhaps," he said simply.  And he lay back down, turning on his side,
and felt as Garak nestled himself behind him.  With the suddenness of a
slamming door, Julian grew cold.  "Garak," he hissed.

"Yes?"

His teeth were chattering.  "Turn over and let me sleep behind you," was
all he said.  Garak complied immediately.

"Of course."  And Julian spooned himself into the tailor's powerful
body, welcoming the coolness of his skin in the midst of the warmth of
his quarters.  In time, the Cardassian fell asleep, and Julian watched
as he dreamed behind closed eyelids.

It was only after he returned to his quarters to retrieve another
uniform and stood smiling at the mass of lavendar roses which covered
his bed, one raised to his nose, that he remembered that Cardassians do
not dream.

THE END, maybe . . .