The BLTS Archive - Summoque Ulularunt Vertice Nymphae by Regina Bellatrix (reginabellatrix@creativemachinations.com) --- Rating: NC-17 for fantasy sex and a really chatty seduction. Archive: Yes to: EntSTCommunity, Tim Ruben, and BLTS. All others, please ask. Beta: shakspearespot Spoilers: Rogue Planet and Desert Crossing N.B.: Beware Aeneid references. Well, only one, really. The title is from the Aeneid, Book 4, line 168. "...and the Nymphs ululated from the highest peak." ~RB --- It's terrible, I know. I can't help it, though. I think about him all the time. His laugh, the way he moves -- all exuberance. So different from me. Everything about me is quiet. Everything about him is loud. Yin and Yang. We oppose each other; we balance each other. In my little fantasy world, anyway. Oh yes, I fantasise about him. In one, my favourite, we're on an away mission, surveying an uninhabited planet. A storm blows up out of nowhere. It's too far to get back to the shuttlepod, and we're separated from the rest of the team. The storm interferes with our communicators -- we couldn't call for a transporter trip out even if we wanted to. Luckily, I'd noticed some caves earlier on; they're not too far away. By the time we reach the caves, we're both sopping wet. We strip down to our regulation underwear and lay out our uniforms to dry. I use my phase pistol to heat up some of the cave's rocks to keep us warm. He's so beautiful, sitting nearby, nearly naked. I can't keep my eyes off of him. He notices. At first, I think he's angry, but then the lightning flash provides some small illumination, and I can see the lust in his eyes. He pulls his undershirt off, throwing it off into the darkness, and grabs me roughly. I don't resist. He claims me with his mouth, and I open mine to allow his tongue access. The storm outside is getting more violent. His hand strokes my hard cock through the fabric of my underwear, and there's a blinding flash and ear-splitting crash. He pushes me back, pulls off my briefs, and moves away to remove his own. I'm throbbing. I'm on fire, but I don't do anything about it. I simply lay there, quiet, passive, waiting for him to do what he will with me. Suddenly, he's back, nipping me, licking me. When he enters me, there's another booming crash of thunder. He fucks me hard and fast. It feels good, so good. The storm picks up speed and fury, rolling to its climax as we rush toward ours. I remain silent. Nature herself is doing my vocalising for me. In a stray thought I think, *This must be how Dido felt.* Malcolm set his pen down and pushed the leather bound journal aside. "What am I doing?" he muttered. "This is stupid. I've been journalling for a week, and it's not helping me deal with any of these ... feelings. It's like picking at a scab, is all." He slid his chair back from the desk and stood up, snatching a PADD from the corner. Intent on finding something useful to do to occupy his mind, Malcolm strode from his quarters. --- "Malcolm. Hey, Malcolm! C'n I talk to you for a minute?" "Is it important, Commander? I'm rather busy at the moment." Trip scrunched his face up. "Not really important, per se, j'st kinda time sensitive." He looked around and leaned in to whisper, "It's about Hoshi's birthday party." Malcolm sighed. Hoshi's birthday party. Of course, that's what it would be about. Trip and Travis had got the nod from the captain to organise a surprise party for the linguist and the pair had been trying to rope Malcolm into helping out on the grounds that he was the last one Hoshi would suspect. "Look, Commander, can this wait until after my shift?" "Sure." "Fine, then, meet me at my quarters at 18.00 hours. Just let yourself in if you beat me there. It'll look suspicious to Hoshi's spies if you hover outside my quarters for too long." Trip grinned at his weak joke. "Okay. See you then." Malcolm nodded in return and sped off to the Armoury, intent once more on his task. --- 18.25 hours. Unless Trip had been late, which was unlikely given how focused he was on this party, Malcolm had left the engineer to stew in his quarters for nearly a half an hour. He hoped Trip wasn't too upset with him. He hit his door at a jog, rushing in to find Trip seated at his desk, making notes on a PADD. The blonde looked up with an oddly blank expression on his face, and Malcolm immediately started to apologise. "I am so sorry, Commander. I was working on the phase cannons and completely lost track of the time. You didn't have to wait all this time..." Trip raised a hand to silence him. "'S okay, Malcolm. I'd rather wait than have to track you down again. 'Sides, I ... kept myself busy." He waved the PADD he was holding in the air. "Are those the plans for the party?" Malcolm asked, still feeling a bit guilty. "Yup." "What do you want me to do?" "Why don't you pull up a seat, an' I'll fill you in on what Travis an' I had planned..." --- When Trip left thirty minutes later, Malcolm was under obligation to distract Hoshi for two hours the day of her birthday, so that Trip and Travis, with the help of their minions, could decorate the mess hall for the party without her accidentally stumbling in. He thought it had been very gentlemanly of Trip not to use his guilt over being late to get him to agree to more than that. Although, that might have had more to do with the man's rather distracted state than any sense of fairplay. He was still wondering about what could have dampened the engineer's usually ebullient mood, when his eyes lit on his desktop. His journal. He'd left it out on the desk. Open. Everything from the beginning of the fantasy to the point where he'd got disgusted with himself and quit writing was laid out for anyone who walked in and sat down to see. And read. Oh God. Had Trip, curious as ever, glanced over to see what it was that Malcolm had left on his desk? Could that have been why he'd seemed a little off this evening? Malcolm dropped heavily into his chair and reached out for the journal, feeling a little numb. At least, he thought, he had neither named nor described his fantasy lover on that particular page. It might have been rather explicit, but it wasn't terribly descriptive on that point. So long as Trip hadn't read anything else in the little book... No, he shook his head firmly, he might read what was left out, thinking it wasn't anything important, but Trip was too much of a gentleman to read any further. Besides, the journal didn't actually seem to have been disturbed. If only he knew what to do about it. Confronting Trip with his concerns didn't seem a particularly good idea. What if he hadn't actually read the damned thing? At the same time, Malcolm wasn't sure he could stand the suspense of wondering whether or not the man had and, if so, how he was going to react. --- There was no doubt about it. Trip was avoiding him. Malcolm had seen neither hide nor hair of the man since their meeting in his quarters two days past. It would have been notable enough had things been normal, but Hoshi's party was tonight, and it seemed rather far-fetched that the commander wouldn't have otherwise been reminding Malcolm of his promise to distract Hoshi this evening. Speaking of which, if he didn't get a move on, Hoshi was going to slip past him and interrupt the decorating for her party. He jogged out of the Armoury, catching a lift up to E-deck to lie in wait for her in the corridor leading to the mess hall. Hoshi was a good friend of his, so he planned to kill two birds with one stone tonight. He'd distract her with his current troubles with Trip. It was partially her fault anyway. She was the one who had suggested the damn journal in the first place. All he had to do was to describe the situation without giving away the party plans. He was in position, now, all he had to do... No, there she was. He'd only just made it in time. Put on a slightly panicked expression ... rush up to her and, "Hoshi, I need to talk to you." "Now? Can we do it over dinner, Malcolm?" She took a step toward the mess hall. He stepped in her path. "Yes, now." A quick glance around. "And I'd prefer to do it somewhere more private, if you don't mind." Hoshi furrowed her brow, frowning a bit. "Is something wrong?" He grimaced, bouncing on his heels slightly. "Um, yeah, kind of." Ah ha! A concerned look swept across the young woman's face. He had her for sure, now. "Okay. Why don't we go to your quarters? They're closest." "Yeah, sure, that's fine." He lead her through the ship to his quarters, blurting out once they were inside, "I think Trip may have read some of my journal." "What? How did he get ahold of it?" "I left it sitting open on my desk and ... well, forgot I had done so." He told her the whole story then, substituting a discussion about improvements to the power grid for the phase cannons for the actual discussion of her birthday party. The tale was completed with a heavy sigh and, "I don't know what to do, Hoshi. I think he's avoiding me because of it." "Okay. So, Trip probably doesn't know anything beyond that the person you're lusting after is a he, probably someone you'd be likely to be on an away mission with, and the other specifics of one particular fantasy. It's not so bad." "Not so bad?" Malcolm responded incredulously. "Well, he could know, you know, that it's *him*. Look, Malcolm, Trip's probably just avoiding you out of guilt. If you give him a bit he'll probably confess and apologise on his own. All you have to do then is forgive him, and everything will be fine again. That's assuming that he did read it and is avoiding you for that reason." "I suppose so..." He snuck a peek at his clock. There was another hour or so yet until he could suggest that they go to dinner. "I know so," Hoshi replied, with a supportive smile. "Oh Hoshi, what am I going to do about this ... this *thing* I have for him? The journal isn't really helping... I'm so infatuated it's infuriating. I'm really afraid that, one of these days, someone is going to catch me staring at him with a ridiculous smile on my face, or something, and then the cat will really be out of the bag." "Poor Malcolm." Hoshi gave him a sympathetic look. "Do you want to talk about it some more?" He did his best to look reluctant. "I don't know what good it'll do, but I find that I do rather..." --- The look of utter surprise on Hoshi's face when Malcolm escorted her into the now decorated mess hall was priceless. He couldn't help but grin madly as she swung around, punching him playfully on the arm. "You were in on this!" "Guilty as charged, I'm afraid. I really did want to talk to you," he added quickly. "This just gave me ... incentive." Trip wandered up, offering Hoshi a piece of cake and a glass of champagne. "Here you go, Hoshi. Happy birthday. I see Malcolm kept you occupied an' unsuspectin' like he was supposed to." "He sure did," said Hoshi, nudging Malcolm with her shoulder as she took the proffered food. "I never suspected a thing." "Well, you gotta be tired of him after two hours... D' ya mind if I borrow 'im for a few minutes?" "Go right ahead, Commander. Keep him as long as you like." Hoshi gave Malcolm an impish grin as she wandered away to greet other party-guests. Malcolm frowned at her, but without any real malice. "Thanks, Hoshi," Trip called after her. He turned back to Malcolm, shifting his weight nervously. "Um, could we go somewhere else t' talk? I know ya j'st got here an' all, but I really need to talk t' you ... before I drink too much of this champagne Chef's servin'." Malcolm sighed and nodded. "My quarters or yours?" --- Trip paced around his quarters like a caged lion. Malcolm watched him from his seat at the man's desk, wondering when he was going to spit out whatever it was he'd dragged him here to say. He was more than a little startled when Trip suddenly fell to his knees in front of him. "First off, I wanna say that I am incredibly, incredibly sorry. I ... I never woulda even looked at it, if I'd known what it was." Malcolm tore his gaze away from Trip's troubled blue eyes and buried his head in his hands. "So, you did read my journal. I'd wondered." "Only a little bit of what was open there. I stopped as soon as I figured out what it was. I am so sorry." "It's okay, Trip. It's my fault anyway. I shouldn't have left it out, open, like that. I shouldn't have kept you waiting so long. I'm sorry if I traumatised you." He glanced up to see Trip shake his head. "Not traumatised. J'st feeling guilty as sin." Trip cocked his head and looked up at Malcolm curiously. "Does he know?" "About what? That particular fantasy, or how I feel in general?" "In general, I guess. You know, j'st how lucky he is." There was a plaintive note to the engineer's voice, and Malcolm gave him a startled look. "Lucky?" Trip did something, then, that Malcolm had never seen him do. The Southerner blushed a bright pink, looking down and away from him. "Yeah, I mean ... havin' you want him an' all. Bein' the one who got under your skin like that. I wish... I wish I was him." Malcolm was shocked. Well and truly rocked to the core. Trip wanted ... him? There was only one thing for it. He had to tell him the truth. "Trip, I... He ... the man in my fantasy... He *is* you." Trip sat back on his heels, looking completely poleaxed. "Me? I figured the cap'n, maybe Travis... Me?" A broad smile broke out on the man's face that reminded Malcolm of a little kid who's just been given the pony he'd asked for for Christmas. The next thing Malcolm knew, Trip was kissing him, and he was being pulled out of the chair onto the floor. He wrapped his arms around the blonde, kissing back for all he was worth, and let Trip push him down on his back. It was all so wonderful. Malcolm simply lay back and enjoyed the sensation of Trip kissing and nuzzling him for a while. Trip eventually pulled back, gazing down at him. "What?" "J'st admiring the view. I haven't seen you smile like that since ... well, since we were campin' on Dakala. I like it. It's a relaxed, happy smile. Looks good on you." Malcolm blushed a little at the flattery. "Thank you. Now, come back down here. I want to kiss you some more." "Oh you do, do you?" "Yes, I do." Malcolm strained upward, but Trip kept him pinned down. "What happened to the passive man in that fantasy of yours?" "It's just a fantasy. One among many. You didn't read the rest of the journal." "And what's in the rest of the journal?" "Other fantasies, like I said." "What kind of fantasies?" "Oh, you know..." "No, I don't. Tell me one," Trip's eyes sparkled, "or I won't let you kiss me again." It was an idle threat, and Malcolm knew it, but he told Trip one anyway, just to watch the man's reaction. "Well, there's one where I'm in control." "Yeah?" "Mmm hmmm. You and the captain are on an away mission alone together, rather like when you went to visit Zobral. The aliens abduct you, but let the captain go. I'm livid and barely keep from giving the captain a very disrespectful piece of my mind. I had expressly recommend that the two of you take a security detail along, but the captain had ignored me, as usual. "After much debate, we come up with a plan in which I, and I alone, make an incursion in order to free you. I'm beamed into the palace complex where you're being kept. The security is lax, but I'm still forced to kill a few guards along the way. Finally, I slip inside the room you're held in, and am greeted by a lovely sight. "You're bound and gagged, and have been deposited in the middle of a huge bed. I rush over to you, crawling up onto the bed to reach you, and remove the gag from your mouth. You look so incredible, all mussed and vulnerable, and I've been so worried about you... I can't help myself. I kiss you, my tongue replacing the gag in your mouth." Malcolm's eyes were locked with Trip's. The engineer had lowered himself so that he was lying on top of the smaller Englishman, who found the warmth and weight entirely pleasurable. "When I stop, you moan in disappointment. That one sound totally undoes me. I forget about getting you back to *Enterprise*, about the danger of staying where we are. All I can think about is you and how badly I want you. "I cut the bindings on your wrists and ankles, and you let me strip off your uniform. Each patch of skin I uncover I kiss, until I've got you completely nude, sprawled out on the bed before me. I move away to strip myself, then, stretching out on top of you afterward, like you're on top of me now. "We make love to each other, sweet and slow. I turn you onto your side to enter you... You're so wonderfully warm and tight. The slow pace is torture, but I maintain it. It's too good not to. After what feels like an eternity on the brink, we orgasm together. It's perfect." Trip lowered his head to kiss Malcolm, asking, "Do we make it out, back to the ship?" "Most of the time, yes. Sometimes, when I'm feeling especially morbid, the aliens discover us together, and we die in each other's arms." "I think I like the first endin' better." "Me, too." "You gonna let me read the rest of this journal some day? Maybe act a few of these fantasies of yours out?" "Perhaps. What about you? Do you have any fantasies about me that you'd like to act out, Trip?" "Mmm, there's one I wouldn't mind actin' out right now." "Yes?" "You and me havin' hot'n'wild monkey sex on my floor." Malcolm smiled. "I think that could be arranged. Of course, Hoshi's going to wonder where we got off to. Missing her party, and all." Trip looked really concerned about that. "Damn, I'd forgot about that." "Don't worry, Trip. I'll explain it to her. She'll understand." "She will?" "Yes, she will." --- The End