The BLTS Archive - The Balance Beam
ninth in the Riding The Tick series
by RSchultz (cousindream@aol.com)

---

Disclaimer: Star Trek belongs to Paramount.  I'm just debauching their
characters.  I'm not making money.  A li'l harmless mind-blowing sex
and I'll put 'em back good as new.  This STORY belongs to me under
common-law copyright.  Oct. 2000, 8600 words.

Warning: This story involves consensual sex between two (fictional)
adult women.  If the thought misaligns your multi- phasic shields,
leave.  If you are underage, your country or locale forbids TrekSmut,
leave.  Go throw a tantrum in your school gym.

---

The timing was, in fact, perfect.  Unintended, but perfect.  I was
already on the turbolift when it opened for the good Doctor Beverly.
She smiled at me and stepped to the rear of the turbolift.  Rubbing
her body against me.  We were alone in the lift.  It was natural to
start kissing the back of her neck as she told the lift to slow to
crawling speed.  She caressed my hands as I opened her staid blue
jacket and found her belly.  Beverly began that lovely little keening
of hers when I touched her breasts, rubbing myself into her back.

"Hey there, doll," I breathed into her ear, "you doing anything
tonight?  I've got another Vivaldi holo we can watch at my place?"

"I don't know," she said.  "I haven't a thing to wear ..... no, belay
that.  The only thing I WANT to wear is you."  I wondered if the
Captain knew she had a sense of humor?

"We can manage that.  Tonight?  After shift?"

"I've some exercises to do with Deanna, after I've laid on a meal for
Wes.  That'll give you time to do your own exercises. Eighteen hours
tonight?"

I kissed her neck again, fondling her rump.  "Stay nice and sweaty.
I'll be expecting you.  Turbolift....resume speed."

The bridge door opened and I followed Beverly out.  Gamma shift turned
Ops over to me and my sweet Doctor loped down the ramp to Jean Luc's
Ready Room.  Riker was already on Bridge station, talking to the Gamma
helmsman, and he nodded to me.  An M-class planet was on the screen,
and unless skeds changed, we'd away during Alpha shift.  Worf came on
next, with that hard biting coppery scent in his hair.

"Lieutenant Yar," he acknowledged, taking Aux Ops from a tired looking
Andorian.  She was usually Engineering if I remembered her correctly.
Doing her rotations on sked.  To get that extra half-pip on your
collar you've got to learn multiple skills and posts.  I'll probably
opt for mine via Engineering-Life Support, and Transporter.  That
O'Brien was a genuine character, and a good tech besides.  It'd be
fun.

When I raised my eyes Bev was striding towards the lift, looking at
me.  She stopped alongside, exchanging banter, secret teasing, being
part of my space.  A few words, normality, the contacts of friends.  I
wish she'd let kiss her on the bridge.  Just to let everyone know
we're two women in .... lust, whatever.

Deliberately I did not watch her enter the turbolift.  I turned to my
left and realized Worf was looking at the closed door and then at me.
Oh hell.  The Klingon sense of smell is a few orders of acuity above
ours.  Could he smell the .... rut, love musk .... we both had to be
generating.  Yes, I think he could and did.

Standing by him I whispered in his ear.  "Do you like...  Do you
respect Doctor Crusher?"  He nodded a small yes.

"She has much bravery in her, Lieutenant Yar.  Soft for a Klingon, but
strong for a human.  Honorable.  She would make a good mate for you,
yellow-hair.  You could bear her strong children."

Considering the present state of parthenogenic science I damned well
could.  A few of my genes, a few of her genes, if necessary a snip or
two of some male donor, and I or Bev could  be waddling around with a
full bladder and swollen ankles.  Big with my, our baby.  She would
not look forward to a repeat of the experience. Carrying Wes was
enough.  I wondered how bad it'd be for me.

Worf looked around for a mini-second, observing whether anyone noticed
our conversation.  He knew what this discussion was really about.
Everyone thought Worf didn't understand us very well. They forgot he'd
been raised by humans.

"I would never hurt her, if it were within my power.  It is also none
of my business whether or not the two of you hu-mans are romantically
involved.  My duty does not call for meaningless speculations and my
honor tells me to keep my thoughts to myself."

He gave me a quick smile, itself very human, then added something.
"The two of you have Klingon hearts, and I think it is a good match.
If any do not agree, they do not understand honor.  You understand
honor.  I would follow you into battle, Warrior, and we would gain
much honor together.  We both would become glorious songs sung in many
stanza's after brave death's, yellow-hair."

Yep, shy and unassuming, that's our friendly Klingon.

Worf wasn't going to say anything about us.  It's nice to know he
respects me.  Respects Bev, also.  However there's an old Turkana
saying that the minute two people know a secret, it's no longer a
secret.  Bev and I had to talk.

At that moment I realized Deanna was giving me a funny look. Probably
tapping into my muddle of thoughts and emotions.  That might make four
already in on our 'secret'.  Our lesbian love affair, me and the
Doctor.

Then there's Wesley.  Oh my, Bev and I REALLY had to talk.

---

It was hurting already, I was into that too-sensitive state of mine
after a good cum.  I should back away and let the ultra-sensitivity
bleed away  But I could hear a keening in the air as Bev rubbed
against me in a frenzy.  For her a little more, even if it hurts.
Soon she'll be through her cum and ready to collapse.

Already her voice was breaking in that frenzy she got when it was too
good.  That keening she made sent shivers up and down my entire body.
I loved to hear it.  I knew just a few more seconds, hold on to her
leg with every gram of muscle, fight to keep our groins together.
There, get her through this.  Ignore the scratches she was inflicting
on my leg.

Nice thing about Doctor's for lovers, you don't have to go to sickbay
to enjoy the use of a nice dermal regenerator.

She convulsed against my groin.  Gasping, enjoying after-shocks. She
gave me new lines of blood on my knee as her head flopped forward.
Her sensual keening became erratic, turning into deep breathing.  I
lived to hear her keening.  I'll also never mention that keening to
her again.

Last month I made the mistake of bringing it to her attention. She
immediately tried not to cry like that when we made love. Stupid me.

I missed that voice of her joy.  It thrilled me, she did for me, with
me.  Three nights I had hoped to hear that unearthly sound, and
didn't.  Bev's glory.  Instead I had to do without.  She'll never hear
about that grand throat music again from MY lips.  I wonder if she
would keen for her husband, Wes's father?

It was delightful realizing how insane she became when I made love to
her.  I'll take the scratches any day to be able to make her cum like
this.  To feel how wet we were together.  I slid a hand between us and
Bev jerked away.  She was the too-tender one now.

She was panting, her chest red and sweaty as I crawled up her body.  I
was probably staining the sheets again with my blood.  We kissed, all
fire gone for now.  She let me slip her nipple into my mouth.  Bev
stretched her arms over her head and purred as I sucked.  I put a
finger in her, bringing it up for her to suck. She chuckled, twisting.
Sweet Beverly did the same for me, letting me taste myself on her
fingers.

She jerked when I brought my hand to her again.  Smiling and relaxing
as I idly caressed her mound.  Maybe that's the big difference between
me and the men she's known.  Bev enjoys the afterwards as much as the
foreplay.  Touching, feeling, tasting, caressing.  Besides which, I
adored fondling Bev's sex.  Just being butchy, I guess.

Bev purred for me.  Nothing major, just letting me know her inner self
appreciated the attention.  I appreciated touching her there, on her
sex.  It had made me feel odd, back when I was younger, to find most
women weren't as passionately in love with that aspect of their
lover's body.  Groin, hair, lips, the entire thing.

However.  I'd been putting something off.  Do it now.

"Worf knows were're lovers, doll.  We've got to begin making plans."

She teleported instantly to an upright leaning position, her arm
straight below herself.  "How the...  Why..."

"Klingon's have a better sense of smell than humans do.  When we were
on the bridge together, I'm...  He could smell the way I got wet just
looking at you.  If you responded to me, he smelled that also."
Probably.  Bev's eyes did not look overjoyed.  Oh hell. This was not
going well.  We were supposed to immediately begin planning how to
make our love affair official, open.

"He says he'd never hurt either one of us," I explained.  "When a
Klingon says it's not his place to talk about someone, he means it."

Damn, Bev didn't want to let the ENTERPRISE crew know we were lovers.
None of their business, really.  Still, I wanted to be able to go
places with my doll.  Show my feelings, flaunt her, let everyone know
how proud I was to have this hot bitch as my heart's mate.  I like the
Captain, he likes to think of himself as my Father.  Yet I'd smile to
be able to say to myself; 'Eat your heart out, Jean-Luc.  This doll is
my girlfriend now'.

My Doctor's attitude hurt, but it wasn't completely unexpected. Bev
had been raised in a place where nice girls didn't wrap themselves
around other nice girls and have steamy sex.  Bev had not yet
proceeded to the point where she believed, admitted to herself, she
was no longer a straight girl.  Self-images didn't change as swiftly
as reality could.  Together we were lesbians, we loved each other....
Didn't we?  Bev hadn't arrived there yet.

"I'm pretty sure Deanna also has a good idea of what we've become
together.  She won't say anything either.  She'd help if she could."

Things took a turn for the better when Bev allowed herself to droop
into my arms.  Maybe there was hope yet.  Better get on with it before
I lose my nerve.

"Wes has to understand you've got a new lover.  He may have already
mentioned it to two or three friends by now."

"I'll have his tongue for breakfast.....no, I can think of something
he'd miss more."

My doll, tense in my arms.  Oh Sweet Saints Sigmund and Albert, is
this going to turn out to be another lesbian joke?  Girl finds girl,
girl loses girl because second girl won't admit to other people she
likes sex with girls.  Bev couldn't quite bear to tell herself she was
dykey, and that was the most important point.

"This Starship is a small community, doll.  You can't keep something
like us a secret for long."

Actually I liked some of the secrecy games.  So long as it was an
amusement, a game.  Sneaking around, both of us acting innocent while
I grope her lovely butt, or kiss her hand.  Smiling to myself a lot.
Nyah, nyah, nyah!  The hottest female in Starfleet and she gets stark
naked with ME!

But secrecy games aren't possible for very long.  Ogawa already knows
something is unusual.  She just doesn't know the reason I drop around
Sickbay so often now is because I love to play touching and feeling
games with the cute redhead.  What's a fondle or two between friends?

"I'm not suggesting you announce over the Comm that we're lovers...."
Actually I'd love it.

"....If you just let us show our emotions....  I'd be proud if you'd
let me hold your hand in Mess Hall, or give me a peck whenever you're
on the bridge."

I'd love to stop you in the corridors sometime when we meet and play
kissing games with you.  You've got a tremendous giggle, and I'd love
to share that with everyone on the ship.  Lieutenant Commander Doctor
Beverly Crusher giggles when I nibble on her ears, and isn't it
beautiful?

"It wouldn't be any tremendous deal," I continued.  "If we were simply
nonchalant about the whole thing.  Let me, us, show a little affection
around each other where others can see.  First time we kissed in
Ten-Forward everyone on the ship would know nine seconds later.  Make
certain everyone realizes it's no big deal. Let our little romance
here become open knowledge before it hits the rumor machines."

Say it, Bev.  Come on.  Say it.  You.  Me.  We're having a romantic
affair and we're screwing each other's brains out, and if someone
doesn't like it, that's their problem, not ours.  Admit to yourself
how much you liked lesbian sex.

Oh Sweet Mary, I hate being a lez cliché.

"Do you think," Bev began. Talk it out, doll.  "Wesley..."  Ah. Truth
at last.

"We both know Wes is going to Starfleet Academy eventually.  He's a
big boy now."  No, not yet a man, but on the way.

"I doubt very much Wesley is happy knowing you have a lover and you're
not parading him or her off.  Having him for dinner in your cabin.
Showing me off."

Come on, Bev.  I'm not the only dyke on the ENTERPRISE.  Wes knows
women can fall in love with each other.  Maybe that facet of the
twenty-fourth century hasn't penetrated yet to the community where you
were raised, or Starfleet Command, but women like me don't need your
patriarch's approval to exist.

"At least let Wes know whose bed you're sharing.  You owe him that
much truth.  For his information only, if you wish."  You owe me,
doll.  Admit me to SOMEONE.  Wes can keep a secret.  He better.

"Can I think on it, Tasha?  Maybe we can do something...."  A wan
smile came to her, and she stuck a thumb in her mouth.  Did my doll
just do something Freudian?

"I like the thought of...  Something risqué?  In Ten-Forward?  No, I
couldn't be...  Well, brazen...  Could you let me think on it, Tasha
dear?  I'm still so afraid...."  One increment after another, doll.  I
feel better knowing you can at least admit to yourself this is
something you have to do.

Bev knew I'd been hoping for that or a similar admission when we
snuggled together.  She breathed a giggle when I rolled on top of her.
The feel of her body under mine reminded me of what I needed most from
her.  Holding, acceptance, peace, passion, quietude, groping hands,
kisses, waking up with her fitted into my back, enjoying the way she
reached first for my breasts when she awoke. I needed everything from
her.  And there was her Birthday coming up in thirteen days....  Let
Bev think of it herself.

"Move, doll."  Looking quizzically at me.  I rose from the bed,
adjusting her until she was sitting on the edge.  She immediately
smiled, anticipating something loving and sexual.  Bev was such a
classic human redhead.  She loved sex.  All the time.

I got on my haunches between her legs, nudging her legs apart,
deliberately not seeing the leer she got.  Hands caressing her thighs.
Smiling, staring at her groin.  She hadn't yet mastered the Asiatic
pattern-technique of sitting on her feet.  She hadn't spent time on a
half-dozen Oriental Dominant- stock colonies like I had.

I knew my breathing was felt in Bev's body hair.  When I leaned
forward, I could see the hairs move when I blew  on them.  Her scent
excited me, I loved the woman musk her body smelled of.

I gently began running one hand through her groin hairs, then the
other, hearing Bev's breath quicken.  Feeling, moving, caressing,
running outspread fingers through the curly short body hairs. Drinking
in her raunchy scent.  Watching her labes swell and begin to open.
Anticipating what Bev hoped I was going to do to her. After I played
with her until I was satisfied that she was ready for my tongue.
Instead I continued running my fingers through her body hairs, her
thin haze of ultra-dark auburn curls.

"You are one freaky woman, aren't you, Tasha darlin'?  I don't think
I've ever encountered anyone as fascinated by my body, or my hair
there as you are."  She wriggled and giggled.  "It's nice, I love it
when you ..... get involved like that in me.  There's so much about
you that pleases me, have you always been like that? Get obsessive
about your lover's sex, vagina, clit....?"

"If I had to identify what was the prettiest part of you, apart from
that giggle of yours, it'd be this."  Running my fingers through her
hairs, tweaking her love bead with a thumb, watching her lust pearl
pop up.  Blowing on her swelling lips.  Letting her fill my nostrils.
"I find you so beautiful here.  No one's ever appeared so beautiful
the way you do.  I love your strong smell, it gets me hot."  Bev
covered her smile with a hand.

"Am I embarrassing you again?"

"Tasha...."  Pause.  "Are you just going to tease me?  If not I know
something better for you to do with your lips and mouth... Yes....
That's better."

I could drown in the softness, the fragrance, the texture, the way her
flesh is shaped, the way her bead gets so stiff and swollen. I
chuckled, then hummed into her, making her jerk and pant.  My hand
caressed her belly, feeling the scars Wes had left, lifting her
breasts with my outstretched hands.  Later I must play with them,
watch them billow and quiver.  Feel the softness's the years had given
her.

I loved her body.  She wasn't old.  She got so wet so easily, and she
appreciated my attention too much.  Not just the sex, but the feel and
the secrets and the revelations of it.

I took one part of her into my mouth and nibbled on it, and then
another.  I worked to lick and suck on all of her pliant crotch. This
woman's body appealed to me so much.  Already her legs were raised,
her ankles crossing behind my head.  Her hands waved meaninglessly in
the air, and I gently gnawed on her before I wormed my tongue inside.
She surprised me again, jerking in her quick cum before I had more
than touched her nipples with my reaching hands.

Sweet Mary, I enjoyed her body!  Her taste....  She saw herself as an
aging mother.  I saw a woman ready ALWAYS.  So hot.

She was making motions, I knew she wanted to lick and probe me with
her mouth, just like I had just done for her.  This is what the
exhibitionist in me wanted to do in Ten-Forward.  Bend my naked
Starfleet Medico backwards on a table and give a Klingon roar before
worshipping her and her lovely groin.  Lick her.  Bite her nipples
until they were dark and rock hard.  Fist her and let everyone listen
to the loud sucking pop her pussy made when I withdrew.  Then let her
do me the same molten way.  Make me cum until my eyes rolled back, and
I passed out.  Let everyone watch.

Never going to happen.  Not with this redhead.  Too bad.  That'd
certainly let everyone know we're lovers.  Eat your heart out,
Jean-Luc, she's my juicy wench now.

We paused while I fed off both her pinkish nipples, enjoying the way
they hardened again.  This felt so good, making them harden any time I
wished.  The essential me, enjoying a woman's body. Okay, okay, I
liked guys too.  Bev liked males as well.  But with a woman....  Ah!
Someone had said once that when one woman loves another, she's also
loving herself as she is.  Maybe.  I think I just enjoy the great sex.

Bev was quivering, working her hips to my fingers again.  Letting my
tongue touch her teeth,  Needing to feel my own nipples becoming stiff
for her hands.  Already my skin was becoming itchy and tingly all over
it's surface.  In a second her fingers were going to find my sex, and
work me.  I lifted one leg into the air, cocking  and bending it as
she first played with my body hairs. Then I was moaning as her fingers
found where I was swelling and opening for her.

"Fist me," I said.  "Fuck me REALLY good."

---

Bev was alongside me, with Geordi to my back.  Another meeting in the
Ready Room.  The Captain gave us the problem in his usual concise
manner.  Four 'adventurers' were down on the second planet of this
reddish sun and raising hell with the indigenous race.

The Vulcan's were running one of their customary culture studies
there, with the twist that they didn't have an active central base.
Eight inactive regional back-up emergency bases existed, but the
Vulcan's were as they preferred.  Disguised, made over. Living amongst
the peoples they were studying.  When the StarRunners first came to
the planet, these criminals must have thought it juicy, unobserved,
virgin, and very, very vulnerable.

The Captain gave the meeting to me and I outlined three recommended
styles of retrieval.  Merely identifying one problem and one strength
which each pattern of decontamination presented. Noting how we had
been lucky the StarLooters did not spot the study teams.  They were
not alarmed, instead they were focused on building their toy empires.
Now we could, hopefully, remove the criminals with a minimum of fuss.

As expected everyone gave a negative to an appearance of 'Angels' and
'Divine Retribution'.  Too showy.  Geordi gave me a pat on the arm.
Meaning he liked my solution, meaning he would always like to touch
me.  Once the two of us...

An explosion, a sudden fire, a messy assassination and a drowning in a
local river.  Tidy.  In ten hours the 'Emperor's' would change from
being local warlords and conquerors to felons on the wrong side of the
brig's force field.  A few legends would persist, down on the planet.
Some messy and quite unidentifiable physical remains would be
discovered.  Then life without the outsiders would drift back to
normal.

The 'Merchants' would be facing a Federation Court and probable
personality deconstruction.  And the Indigs would continue into their
own future history.

I swiveled to face my doll, but Bev quickly rose and moved off a step
or two.

"I'd probably have to spend the rest of Alpha shift and some time
after in cleaning up this little mess."  Speaking to my carrot-top.
Smiling, hands behind my back.  Please.  Talk to me.

"Data is going to practice being bartender again tonight.  Maybe he'll
pull that stunt of his with the twenty glasses in the air at one time
again."  Faint nervous half-smile on Bev's beautiful face.  Not the
soul-pleasing leer I always wished to see on her lips.

"Maybe," she said.  Looking away.  I suppressed an urge to throw her
on the ready room table and attack every single ticklish spot ever
found on her body.

Please, doll.  Let me prove to everyone on the ship the extent to
which you could relax and unwind.  We'd laugh together.  We'd giggle
together like fools.  We'd be a legend in our own time.

Instead she mumbled something about how she'd try to make time
tonight.  I wished she'd bring some of those sugar cookies she had the
replicator formula for.  We could feed each other parts of cookie and
lick off each other's crumbs.  Lieutenant Commander Bev turned and
left the ready room, following in Riker's footsteps.

I am not going to be a bad joke told in a dyke bar.  No.  Not me.

Worf touched my elbow, pointedly not seeing Bev's retreating back.
"Come, yellow-hair," he noted, "we have warrior's work to do, and much
of it."  Meaning the out-cretions.  His hand was on my arm for only an
instant, but I thought it surprisingly gentle.

---

The computer had told me Bev was still in Sickbay, so I made a point
of showing up.  I was there in minutes.

Just a casual visit.  I'd broken three knuckles in this morning's Shen
exercise routine.  Five of us were fighting five holodeck Cardassians,
and I'd taken mine out with a very informal, unorthodox, victorious
and careless right uppercut.  Breaking my hand.  Winning is not
everything.  Score one for the Security Ops chief who was letting her
emotions override her good sense.  I knew perfectly well who I had
wished to hit, to hurt, at that instant.

The Doctor had been all bedside sympathy and efficiency that morning.
Another day of rebuilding bones and flesh.

Half-joking I'd whispered to her how a kiss to the injured spot was
supposed to have great regenerative powers.  She'd half-laughed at my
little joke, denied it did as much good as her biobed and turned all
her attention to fixing my hand.  Now I was due to be re-examined.
Making positive I was completely rebuilt.

Bev gave me one of her patented half-smiles when I breezed in. Ogawa
was there, and two Engineering were on the bio-beds being worked on.
Nothing critical, to judge from the bantering they were giving each
other.

Bev ran her instruments over my hand, Ogawa gave me the ten-second
lecture about the fragility of bones in the hand and Bev shifted when
I tried to caress her flank.

Miles O'Brien breezed in, dressed in a gray one-piece overall, and
ricocheted around us for a few nano-seconds.  Visiting the two on the
bio-beds.  He came over to me at Full Impulse and took me in his arms.
Pulling my head down and planting a big kiss on the top of my head.
He's so .... alive!

"And how's Star Fleet's most beautiful Security Ops doing today?" he
asked of no one in particular.  Being a friend.

I kept an eye on Beverly.  Noticing she had talked to Ogawa before
hurriedly leaving.  No date again this night either.

"Tash...  Are you okay?"  O'Brien was serious this time.  I told him
about my accident this morning, and he laughed with me.  He wondered
what was going on in my mind, though.

---

At least Bev didn't flinch when she saw me 'accidentally' be by the
door of the gym when she arrived. I wiggled my fingers at her. Just
two friends happening strictly by accident to be sharing the gym
machines at the same time.

Inside, near twenty-five people were in varied stages of sweat and
strain. End of Alpha shift saw a good portion of the ship's personnel
in here. Deanna had appropriated the near right-hand corner, as usual.
She could do it because self-effacement was not a Betazoid virtue. She
plunged into the maelstrom of humanoids in a form akin to desperate
assault and tenacious defense. She would have made a great Assault
Team Leader in the Legion.

Deanna called me over as Beverly entered her corner. I could see the
play of muscles in Deanna's back and arms in the mirror, and I smiled
at the sight. Troi was a cute Madchen. The Counselor had the knack of
making me smile.

Suddenly I was looking into the Doctor's eyes, in the mirror. My
redhead had been avoiding me, we both knew it now. It didn't matter.
She acted on me like a tractor beam, I had to go to her. I must been
terribly impolite to Deanna, but there was no one here but me and
Beverly.

She leaned against the Barre around the gym, as unable to take her
eyes off me as I was her. I was alongside her, one hand half raised,
mouth partially open. I'd had plans, scenarios carefully considered,
hopes, resolves of what I could or would not say at this moment.

Instead, all I could feel was an illusion of my hands caressing the
skin I dare not touch without a sign from Beverly. My skin was itchy,
wanting to rub our bodies together. Her throat needed my kisses, her
arms needed my touchings, she HAD to turn to me at this moment. I
needed her.

Turn to me, Beverly. Touch me. I need to kiss you. Please.

"Well, Lieutenant," she managed. "Come to join the League Of Those Not
Quite In Condition tonight? We can always use another member, though I
think you won't pant as hard as I will at the end of our session."
Forced joke.

My own answer must have been easy enough that Bev could continue the
pretense we were just exchanging a little light banter. I should be
good at that by now. Making humorous statements. I'm already a bad
lesbian joke. Getting involved with the straight girl. Again.

Deanna allowed me to retreat to one of the machines, faking a smile,
becoming totally involved with my body and the patterns I became as I
worked my legs in the weight machine. I turned away from the looks Bev
gave me, and concentrated on noise making.

If you do it right, the weights make no clinking noise as they return
to the bottom of the slide. Clanks mean you haven't got your movements
under control, or you're trying to work more weight than you should.

Concentrate on that. Don't look to the side and see Beverly.

Madame Liu was a legend on the ship, and her presence in the gym
brought most of our self-absorption to an end. All heads turned,
wondering if she would use the balance beam tonight, or the hanging
rings. She was a consummate showman, enjoying the attention she
garnered in this room devoted to personal and physical truth.

She was already moving once she entered the irised door. Maurise was
an Admiral hitching a free ride to his retirement world. He was the
gray-haired father of Liu's baby girl. He followed Liu, carrying his
child, a smile writ happy on his face. He would retire on Hainan at
the end of this month. And there await his future with the woman who
once had thrilled billions, and now warmed his life.

Madame we all called her, not Tsze Chaaw. Much of the Alpha Quadrant
called her Madame.

First she did her bends, stretches and pulls. She turned, and turned
again, moving, dipping, raising. Becoming one with the gymnastic
dance, she approached Godhead.

Then! Suddenly! She was moving fast by the time she reached the
balance beam. Surmounting the top of it as if finding a single step on
a stairs. Madame Liu did not jump. She must levitate.

She paused, impossibly, and began her stretches and curls on the
rounded surface of the gymnast's beam. To watch her was to understand
grace. To be near her was to cry inside at how little grace I had. I
could not take my eyes off her.

It was not a matter of lust, though I had that also when I gazed on
her perfect synthesis of flesh and movement. She neared the
impossibility of perfect female. I felt awe.

The room fell silent as we each paused to watch her work on the long
beam. People came in from the corridors outside. Silent, and knowing
they were watching a revelation, not an exercise. If they had seen it
before, it was still new.

Back and forth she began to move. Faster and faster. Somehow she had
begun introducing hand-springs and flips, her body weaving magic out
of motion. Her feet would thud onto the modulated floor, her hands
would slap the surface of the beam as she vaulted from side to side
over it, onto it, rolling down its length. Never once losing her
balance.

You knew she had landed on her feet, you knew she had done a spring
with her hands, yet only the noise told you. Like an echo. She had
already moved on by the time you understood what she had done.

Faster and faster, the thuddings following the one on another. The
slappings, the strong rasp of her breathing as she sought more and
more oxygen for her speeding flesh.

A click, a turn-over had been made. Madame rolled onto herself, rising
to her feet at the opposite end of the balance beam. All now would
seem to be cooling-down's, flutterings of a wounded but still graceful
bird after having been the Roc beating the air with gigantic wings.

Never once did Madame lose her balance, never falter, never need to
catch herself before she fell. Grace incarnate.

It's hard to keep your balance sometimes.

Bev met my eyes when I looked to her, then she eased her vision around
me. I could never use the balance beam. I hadn't the years of
practice, I lacked the grace, but most seriously of all, I knew how
easy I could fall. I knew what manner of fool I was when I came
tumbling into the dust.

So easily I lose my balance. I did not glance at Beverly. It was time
for me to leave here.

---

They sat on my nightstand. Alone, in their little blue velor jewelry
box. They'd cost me too much, or maybe not enough. I'd retrieved the
finished product from the Armourer five days ago, and never taken the
earrings from their secure nest. They were small, and gleamed with the
polish of hand-rubbings and micro-machinings. An almost oily blackness
reflected from the metal at the heart of each shining bead. Small
jagged irregularities trapped behind transparent plas.

Two gifts from my heart to the one who held it, mounted on small
pear's.

I closed them up, willing myself to forget their painful beauty. Time
to attend Doctor Crusher's little Birthday Party in Ten-Forward. Time
to pretend. Time to feel the perfect fool. Time to be a joke.

I am in perfect control. Control is power. Power....

I wasn't in control. I could pretend to be, though. Good enough to
fool everyone.

It seemed a long walk to the turbo lift, carrying my cute little faux
champagne bottle of bubbling bath salts. Cute little card ribboned to
the neck. Just a small something from one of the girls to another.
Nothing that special.

I passed the turbolift and sought the rungs of the emergency access
drop beyond it. It was the work of minutes to ease down to Ten deck.
Putting off arriving at Bev's Party. I sat with a great deal of
discomfort beside the exit hatch. A railing biting into my butt. I
dreaded going out there.

I wanted to make a gigantic and legendary scene instead. Yelling I
would not be another goddamned dykey joke thrown away by a straight.
Knowing I was one beyond any doubt.

Tears didn't want to come to my eyes. It was just so much beyond that.
Sighing, I rose to my feet, putting on my little girlie smile. Giggly
ol' Tasha.

I could see myself reflected in the glasine doors of Ten-Forward. Two
men passed behind me. I could clearly see their appraising study of my
body, liking what they saw. It made me feel useless to know everyone
but my lover wanted to hold my body.

Dark blue pants and vest, cream knee-high real-leather boots,
cloud-blue blouse, lazurlite earrings. Feeling stupid and ugly.
Holding a ridiculous play-Champagne bottle of bath bubbly-scents.
Deliberately not remembering that pair of earrings sitting alongside
my perfectly-made-up sterile bed.

Once inside I could see Barclay giving his little something to my
Beverly, stammering through his humanity. Riker gave Barclay an
encouraging male grip on his arm. Ten or twelve humans and Vulcan's
there already. Having a party. Despite my dawdling I wasn't in the
least bit late.

I had to sit. In this corner by the door I was partially hidden when
underneath one end of the bar. Almost hidden. Anyone coming through
would probably miss my form.

Don't make me face her, not right this instant, I prayed to Saint
Barbara. Let my emotions churn inside my mind until they calm. Just a
minute. Then I'll go face the party music.

One of the staff made to touch me, inquiring, wondering. "You touch me
and I'll rip an arm off." Nothing subtle about THIS Security Ops. My
head rested on my knees, but at least I'd stopped the leaking out of
my eyes.

When Wesley sat down next to me, I turned to rend and tear this new
intruder before I realized it was just our pretend-Ensign. I quickly
put my head down before he noticed the salt-water trails.

"You're not the only one had a bad day today, Tasha. Lieutenant."
Remembering courtesy protocols for officers.

"Come on, we'll show up at my Mother's Party together. I hate these
things, you know don't you? Mom is informed five dozen times in a
night that she's getting older. Then she becomes a bear for the next
week if my room isn't kept neat. Hey, Tasha, we can pretend like we're
dates."

The look he got when I swiveled my snarl in his direction made him
back off at Warp Four speed.

"Then again," he muttered, "maybe I should dust off my Happy Kid
routine and be all gawky and shy so my Mom can pretend her son is a
lot younger than she's ready to admit to herself right now that he is.
I've told her she should get one of the full body rejuv's, but she
won't talk about it. Look fifteen years younger, I'd tell her. Of
course then Mom wouldn't even dare admit she had a son as old as me.
If she did, .....but that might be a definite plus.

"In addition, if she looked younger, more of the guys around here
would be paying her attention. Distract her. But then, I don't know if
she could handle that.

"She has someone right now, she's serious about him, I think. Yet
she's so damned determined to let nobody know she's got a full set of
glands and responses just like everyone else. Seriously, if Mom spent
more nights over at his cabin I could get some serious work done at
home on my project......." Pause.

"My studies...."

Wes quickly stood, one hand on the bar. Looking at his mother's little
get-together. Sitting back down and looking at me. My face dry now. Go
to hell, everyone, I thought.

Wes stood again, and as quickly was beside me again. "Sweet Christ on
a stick," was all he breathed. Oh, Saints Sigmund and Albert. The kid
has figured it all out.

Wes grew ten years older in my eyes when he edged over to where his
body was touching mine at a few places. He didn't try patting my hand
or saying how sorry he was. He was just there, that's all. If I needed
him?

Wonder of wonders he started talking about interrupting the uncertain
wave mechanics that in actuality constituted the irregular surface of
a sub-atomic particle. Mayhaps making it possible for this class of
partial particle to change state and dump velocity without generating
heat or other measurable alterations.

The first of it went right past me until I saw he was doing the only
thing he could think of to alter things. Help someone to begin
thinking in different directions from before. Or maybe put them to
sleep. Or both.

The bartender did not appreciate stepping over our feet, but after my
earlier growl he wasn't about to complain. Maybe he knew what a bear
trap could do to a leg.

Wes just went on and on, amazing me with his single-minded
determination and drivel. A few people stopped and waved at us as they
went by. Wondering why the Lieutenant and the Brat were sitting
underneath the bar, but not terribly worried by the sight. My killing
edge softened, gradually.

Wes stood suddenly, I hadn't been following what he'd said. He looked
at his mother's party, bent, and started pulling on my hand. Before he
died at my hands, he spoke to me.

"I think they're going to cut the cake in a moment. Don't forget that
bottle of whatever it is, I presume that's for my Mom. Come on. You
know neither one of us could fail to show up, so we might as well get
on with it."

I stood and he did a very male thing for me. He looked me up and down,
admiring the outfit. Probably mentally undressing me and wishing he
could get lucky. Maybe groaning because his last name was Crusher and
thinking that particular name might be on my toilet roll for some
time. Years.

It felt good to be admired, and I twirled so he could take it all off
me, in his mind.

Wes crooked his arm at me, smiling a tight smile. "You're gorgeous,
Tash. My Mom might...." He didn't finish it. Whatever it was he might
have said. I put my hand in his arm and we sauntered to Bev's little
party.

I wondered what I'd say to him whenever he got up enough nerve to ask
me for a date. He WAS going to overcome his shyness some day. I knew
it.

Once I would have let him down easy. Patted him on the shoulder,
dismissed him. Yes, and once I had thought maybe Doctor Lieutenant
Commander Beverly Crusher might marry me. Things change. Not always
for the good.

The party was...there. I really don't know much about it. Bev was
elegant in a long night blue skirt and white blouse. Nice pink jade
earrings. She didn't need mine. True to expectations she fussed over
Wes and in her own mind tried to believe she was in actuality eight
years younger than she was. A redhead going into mid-life crisis ten
years early.

I sat and talked weapons to a pair of Systems Techs, noting the way
they looked at Bev. I felt like telling them she might not be long on
commitment, but was superb in bed.

Jean-Luc dropped by and I wondered why that pairing had never gotten
off the ground, her and the Captain. Wes didn't say much to his
Mother, excepting one sentence after he'd had a piece of the too-sweet
cake. Bev's eyes swiveled immediately to me and I wondered what he'd
gotten enough nerve to say to his mother. Yes, look at me, Bev. The
dyke. At one time....

My presence was only required a few minutes, so I got up to say my
good-bye's to the guest of honor, flashing a smile which was probably
insincere as hell. In front of Bev I looked down into her face, trying
to ... What? I turned to go away. Wes said something to her.

A hand on my shoulder, turning me. "Tasha?" So pale she was. "Aren't
you going to give me a kiss?"

I kept looking around as Bev pressed her body to mine. She looked
straight ahead. Her arms went around me under the vest, pulling
herself to me. She kissed me.

In nano-seconds I was kissing her back, lifting her to press her tight
against me. I think, hope, a few people clapped for the spectacle we
were, if for nothing else. When we broke the clinch, my ears were red
and my skin was itchy and I knew goddamned well Worf could have
smelled me across this room. Bev was red-faced also. In addition she
had a real genuine smile on her face and she continued to hold me.

"Sit," she commanded. Maybe the Alpha female was coming out now. Let's
all cheer for Alpha females.

My legs went to sleep with those nasty pins and needles sensations you
just know is going to be worse when you get up. That was okay. So long
as my girlfriend wanted to sit on my lap, she could do so. Bev kept
kissing my neck, ruining my shirt collar (femme's do that a lot), and
I kept caressing her butt and thighs. What else happened I couldn't
tell you.

At some point Bev brought me to my feet, and we both almost fell down
when my legs gave. Swearing to put a time limit on the next
lap-sitting. Bev stood, she was officially killing the party. Asking
Wes to take her presents back to their cabin.

First she stood in front of me, her back against my breasts. She
brought my hands around so they circled on her belly, and she looked
at a Wes trying to look neutral.

"Friends," she began, "it's been fun. You know how I need a support
group whenever I'm reminded how I'm aging. And I loved getting
presents. I want all you to know I love you dearly. See you in another
year?" Small tiny cheer.

"In the meantime night is upon us, in a manner of speaking, and we all
have to go to bed for tomorrow's shift." She patted my holding hands.

"I doubt if either my sweetheart or I shall get much sleep. With any
luck we'll spend this night making love."

I'd have thought pins falling would be noisy by comparison.

When Bev decides to do something brazen, she doesn't engage in median
responses. The hell with half-measures.

---

"No," Bev began. "Just... Yes, on your hands and knees. Now let me
move over there and enjoy that lovely ass of yours. You looked so
damned edible in those blue pants of yours. Didn't they stop your
circulation? Never mind, here, yes, does my fingers reaching under you
like this... Yes, good, I can hear how you like it."

Surgeon's hands, strong hands, slender fingers, they trail down the
small of my back to my buttcrack. Tickling me, exciting me, making me
burn. A lingering, a caress...there. Oh yes, a pulling, a teasing...

Her hand continues, she's studying me in the low light. Feeling power,
feeling delight at knowing just exactly how she can make me....
O..Ooh, yes, running her finger...

When she reached under me, when she cupped my mound, my sex, I knew it
was going to be perfect and quick.

She was at my side, sitting on her haunches, stroking my back with her
other hand. Fingers touched my bead, my pearl, then deliberately
wandering through my dark blonde groin fur. Bev brought one hand down
my side, reaching under, hefting and playing with my breasts. When her
first finger moved inside, penetrating, her other hand caught a nipple
hard, hurting hard enough to send currents to my groin....

Two fingers inside me, stroking, bending, moving in and out, pulling
out to tease my clit, then playing with swelling lips. She worked the
other nipple with thumb and forefinger, kissing me on my back and
shoulder and side.

When she pulled back, out of me, it was only to twist and ease three
fingers back. We were loud now, together. Sounds of wetness, spirals
of heat warming outwards from my belly. Stroking deep, searching for
my Geespot, finding it, beating and nudging. Increasing the heat.

I was making animal groans by then. Fast, fast, it was all building up
inside me so fast. I was wet for my doll, I was ready. She worked me
so carefully, steady, not trying for speed. Nonetheless the tightness
was growing so quick, quick, quick.

"That's it, baby," she told me. "Oh, you're so ready for me, aren't
you? Go ahead, baby, go ahead. It's okay, go ahead and come for me.
Show me how you can do it for me. Show me what a filthy fucking slut
you can be. For me, baby, it's okay, it's okay.....cum for me, just
for me, this one is just for me. Do it, whenever you need to do
it...."

Oh, Mother Mary, oh, oh, it was on me so fast, so damned fast, a
StarShip of heat racing from my groin to the nips she was pinching.

Fingers out of me, SLAPPING my GRoin, my puffy lips, my tight, TAUT,
tight, TIGHT stiff TIGHT.... Slapping me....

I know I cried out loud when her fingers went inside me again. Four
fingers, who knows. She crouched over me, massaging my white lust-bead
with one hand as the filthy wet sounds of her penetrating me filled my
cabin. It was too fast, but it was soooo good, a mountain of sparks,
burning me.

For long minutes I twitched, tightening down around Bev's lovely
Doctor's gifted fingers. Working through the spasms of too-good to the
warm-hot-sweating after-cum. Her fingers still in me, moving minutely,
letting me clamp down in tingling itchy after-cum's.

Bev finally reclaimed her loving fingers and I moaned in another
aftershock. I'd squirted, Bev said. The bed was soaked, but I didn't
care. Arms gave out and I fell forward onto my face, twitching,
groaning. Bev kissed the swells of my rump, caressing me until she was
again cupping my mound.

"Enough," I managed. "Let me recover." Cooling sweat on my back, still
running down to drip off my nipples. That had been....good.

I rolled to one side, still panting. Bev flopped alongside me, any
pretense of grace gone. She half-rolled toward me, kissing my shoulder
and arm. If we didn't watch it we'd go to sleep like this. Then wake
up needing a blanket, settling for one thrown haphazard over us. With
the odd elbow or foot left cold. It was satisfying to be like this.
With my love. Holding. Touching. Feeling her hair on me, her nails
caressing my belly, her present lack of frenzy. Balancing together.
Balance is good. But not always essential.

My doll rolled off me with a groan. Muttering words about excess.
Something to excess. Two dilute cups of Salmonberry were sitting on
the nightstand when Bev exited the dumper. We kissed en passant as I
also went into the ensuite. When I came out Bev was looking at the
earrings I'd left by my bed. Freudian slip, I'm sure. Hoping she'd
notice them.

She held them up, questions in her eyes.

"They're presents for you. Do you like them? I had them made up
especially for you."

Within seconds we were both in the ensuite, watching her fit one of
the earrings to one ear, with the help of a mirror. Admiring the look.
Enjoying the way she fitted herself to me. Rubbing my belly into her
hip. Loving the way she gave a ghost of a keening as I gently probed
her neck with my tongue. She slapped my hand as I tried to cup her
mound during her appraisal. She called me impossible. Then she let me
fondle her softness and her body hairs and her soft body lips.
Giggling when she danced from me.

In the bedroom she ordered full lights. Trying to decipher the
earrings.

"They're lovely, Tasha, lover....but what are they? And why didn't you
give them to me in Ten-Forward?" After a minute I lifted my head to
tell her.

"I had them made, just for you. Those two little pieces inside the
plas are fragments of steel." This sounds so dry and melodramatic now.

"They're something special I had created for you back when I assumed
we had a long time ahead of us, being in love together." Okay, maybe
all this is just super-heated lust, but it's very unnerving to me. I'm
not really into one-night stands. They hurt too much.

"Last night I didn't think we would ever be together again, and I
didn't want for you to think I was bribing you. Or trying to shame
you." For the crummy way you've treated me the past two weeks.

"Now it's okay to give them to you." Tomorrow we might break up again,
but we were okay this night. I could give you something now.

"They're from my heart to you. doll. Bev, lover. Straight from my
heart." Dubious look.

"I got hit by a mine once, an ambush. Not only did I die, but I
acquired a notable number of fragments in the process. The Legion
Medico's cut me open five times over the next year, fishing out the
bits of steel." Wishing I didn't sound so pretentious and
self-centered.

"Those two scraps of iron were cut and polished until they were tiny
irregular black jewels. They're my last two fragments." Shining black
flat surfaces and jagged edges.

"They were removed by Starfleet, at Saint Peter the Great Academy,
years after the event. These are my last reminders of how I shouldn't
get careless simply because the war is over and the situation seems
quiet." Bev's eyes were still questioning.

"These two were actually lodged within my heart. For years. Inside me,
moving with each beat of my heart. There is nothing else I could give
anyone that was more a part of my heart, and my life, excepting those
two small scraps of steel.

"They once were a part of me. Now they're made into a pair of
earrings. For you. Will you accept them from me now? They are pieces
of my heart...."

We both cried for a time, I'm unable to understand why we must shed
tears when we're happy. However, this was an acceptable excuse for
holding each other, so it was good

---

continued in the tenth story in the Riding The Tick series 'Eyewitness'