He had been on a regular tear ever since they left Starbase 16. Snapping at nurses, yelling at doctors, shouting at patients.
It was agreed by the medical staff that Something Had To Be Done. They just didn't know What.
*************
Nurse Chapel sidled up to Dr. McCoy in the line at the Officers' Mess after a particularly dull Commander's Call. "Meet me in my quarters after dinner; I need to talk to you," she murmured.
"I've got a lot going on right now; it'd have to be quick," he said, as if she didn't know what his schedule was like. He put a serving of fried chicken on his tray.
"It'll just be for a few minutes. Please?" she asked. "Nothing's wrong; you're not in trouble," she added in an undertone. Their expressions were perfectly businesslike; anyone watching them might think that they were discussing a supply manifest or a routine procedure. She ladled a bowl full of soup and put it on her tray.
He didn't actually look at her as he spoke. "Should I let myself in?"
She nodded; "Thank you, doctor," she said, then she lifted her tray and went to join her friends at their table.
*************
When he let himself into her cabin, he found that she wasn't there. She had, however, left him a note.
"Held up in the lab, just finishing a small project.
"Dirty boy like you needs a good shower, don't you think? -- C"
So that's how it was.
He sighed with impatience. "Christine, I don't have time for this," he muttered. He wasn't going to lie around waiting for her to finish up with whatever the hell it was.
He picked up a pen and beneath her note scrawled, "Another time, sorry. Too much to do. – L". He knew she would be able to read it, despite all of her jibes about doctors' handwriting.
He walked towards the door, fully expecting it to slide open when he approached, as always. It came as a shock when he collided with the patently not-open door.
McCoy touched a comm panel. "Computer, open quarters, Chapel, Christine, Deck E."
"Access denied," the computer said.
"Computer, computer override door lock on quarters, Chapel, Christine, Deck E. Access code McCoy-Leonard-Delta-Zero-Foxtrot-India-Nine-Two."
"Access denied," the computer said.
"Son of a—" he said through gritted teeth. "Computer, locate Nurse Chapel."
"Nurse Chapel is in the xenobiology lab," the computer said.
"Computer, open a voice channel to Nurse Chapel."
"Access denied," the computer said.
"Will you shut the hell up?" he snarled.
The computer just chirped metallically at him.
There was a glass of whiskey on her side table. The ice cubes were still squared and the glass was barely sweating – she hadn't been gone long.
He sipped the drink, recognizing the tang of sour mash, of Kentucky bourbon.
She was buttering him up for something, he just knew it. He wondered where she got the whiskey – it wasn't as though you could get it easily out here.
She had gone ashore, shopping at Starbase 16, with some of her friends; he had stayed on the ship, preoccupied with an upcoming Starfleet Medical inspection. He wondered if she had found the bourbon at the space station, unlikely as that might seem; she must have paid through the nose for it.
He sipped at the bourbon for a little while and picked up a bound book from her desk and flipped idly through it; he wasn't a great fan of Jane Austen, but Christine seemed to read this collection of her works frequently. There was an inscription on the flyleaf: "To Chrissy: Congratulations on your degree! Love, Mom and Dad".
She had another bound volume, the collected works of Ray Bradbury, but everything else she read was stored on PADDs or on memory chips, and going through those felt like snooping. He'd read the Bradbury before, and unlike Christine, he didn't reread things for pleasure after the first reading.
It was a little odd, being in her quarters without her here to command his attention in one way or another. He walked around the small space, looking at the things that were important to her. Perfume in a cut crystal bottle; he sniffed at the cap, smiling almost involuntarily at the sense memory it evoked. She didn't wear fragrance on duty, but she made a ritual of applying the scent when they were alone together.
A small, framed watercolor painting of Jackson Square in New Orleans, not particularly good, signed "Patt Chapel." A photograph of Christine with Uhura and that Orion girl Gaila on shore leave somewhere with a pink sky; they were grinning widely and clinking glasses full of improbably colorful drinks. He snorted; the image of that disparate threesome together was probably enough to fire the libido of just about every male on board, and probably some of the females as well. The picture just highlighted the physical contrasts between them.
Another photograph of an older couple and Christine and two other young adults on an ornate porch with Victorian gingerbread trim; probably her parents and her siblings, he figured, at her home in New Orleans, given the vivid color of the paint and the semi-tropical plants. Christine wore her Star Fleet lieutenant's uniform, so it was probably right after the Narada, before they shipped out again.
There was no photograph of Christine and her former fiancé. Just like there was no photograph of Christine and McCoy; for the first time he felt keenly the lack of his mark on her personal life. His marks were only in the form of beard-burn on her throat, or red handprints on her ass: temporary annoyances that would disappear with time or the application of an appropriate balm.
He really didn't need to dwell on that right now; it'd make him broody. He sat down grabbed the Austen again.
Half an hour later, he was still alone, still trapped, and bored out of his mind. "Oh, to hell with it," he said, and went to her bathroom for a shower.
When he left the shower he found her in the bedroom. His indignant comment died on his lips as he saw what she was wearing: a shiny black lace-up basque, tiny panties, and black stiletto boots that came to above her knees.
She was draped on the bed, her creamy thighs spread and her boot heels digging into the coverlet. "Hello, handsome," she said, her voice husky and alluring.
He actually stammered a bit before remembering what he was going to say. "Christine, knock it off already; I've gotta get back. I've got too much going on and I've been gone too long as it is."
She reached up and pulled the pins from her regulation hairstyle, and then shook her hair loose; it fell full and wild about her shoulders. "They can do without you for a little while," she said. "I've taken care of it."
"Oh, really?" He glared at her. "So you've postponed the damn inspection, have you? I wasn't aware you had so much pull with Starfleet Medical."
She put her feet on the floor and stood up. "Leonard. Tear-assin' around the sickbay tonight isn't going to make a difference. And the staff needs a break from you, to be perfectly honest." She cocked a hip. "Wouldn't you like a few hours away from all that? Everything will be right where you left it when you get back, and you might actually have some fun." She sauntered to him; with the boots on she was nearly as tall as he was, and she suckled on the velvety lobe of his ear.
He sighed, whether from resignation or pleasure, she didn't quite know yet.
"You'll let me out when you're done with me?" he asked; he sounded a little too sarcastic and her temper flared.
She bit him hard on the earlobe and he yelped. "Don't patronize me," she said. "If you really want to be let out you'll say the word." She locked her gaze onto his, daring him to say it.
The muscles in his jaw worked, and he looked away first. "All right. What do you want?" His mulish expression clearly stated that he didn't intend to make anything easy for her.
She crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at him. "Lose the towel."
He pulled the towel from his narrow hips, tossing it to the corner. "Enjoyin' the show?" he asked.
She shrugged. "It's all right so far, but the book was better."
He snorted; he wasn't entirely uninterested, she decided, watching his sex bounce heavily with his movements.
"On the floor," she said.
"The floor? You've got a perfectly good bed."
"The floor."
He sat on the floor, bareassed. "Now what?"
"Scoot to your left about two feet and lay down."
He complied. "I'm gonna get a rug burn on my ass," he bitched.
"Poor baby," she purred. She knelt at his left side and took his wrist. "Have you ever noticed these little pockets in the floor?" He shook his head, and she pulled up a bit of carpet and flipped up a small composite panel. "They're tie-downs, designed to secure cargo and supplies. But they can have other uses as well." Using two strips of a soft, flexible plastic, she bound his wrist to a d-ring in the floor pocket at his side. Then she bound his other wrist to a d-ring at his right side. He couldn't raise his arms, but there was enough slack that his arms weren't stretched taut.
She shimmied out of her tiny panties and sat at the edge of the bed. "You can see me?"
He lay on his back with his head turned toward her. "Just fine."
"Good." She leaned over to the chest of drawers and retrieved a big, rosy toy from the bottom drawer. It wobbled in her hand almost comically. She licked the side of the dong and sucked it into her mouth. His member actually jumped, and she laughed. "Wish it was you, don't you?" She sucked the toy with all of the gusto she usually gave his dick; her cheeks hollowed and she smacked her lips. When she pulled it free, it was shiny like a real one after a good blow job.
He shifted restlessly and his hard-on bobbed parallel to the flat planes of his belly. He watched, his breathing shallow, as she slowly inserted the dildo into her sex.
"Ooh, that's big," she said. "Not as big as you, nowhere near as good, but a girl's gotta make do somehow." She rolled her hips, fucking herself with the toy; with her other hand she pinched her nipples through the basque.
He swallowed. "Y'know, I'd be happy to do that for you, darlin'."
"Hush now, or I'm going to put your pretty mouth to better use."
"Oh, yeah? We gonna screw or what?" he asked, taunting her.
She pulled the dildo out and went down on her knees by his head; she pressed the tip against his lips. "Open up," she said. She stuck the dildo into his mouth for him to wet it again; it tasted of her, tangy and pungent. "Ah, how many times have I sucked you off after you had me?" she asked, and he groaned past the obstruction in his mouth. "Good, isn't it?"
He grunted an affirmative.
"You want me now, doctor?" she asked, and he nodded. She pulled the dong out of his mouth and kissed him, her mouth as wet and messy as his was.
And then she pulled back; she inserted the dildo back into herself, and he scowled. "What the—" he began.
"Shut up," she said, and crouched over him, straddling his face. She reached between her legs, withdrawing the dildo a little. "Do me."
It took him a moment to figure out what she wanted and then he realized. He took the end of the dildo in his mouth, and pushed it up inside of her. She groaned.
He pulled back and thrust forward again. She was so hot and wet and when he moved the dong just right, nudging at her clit with his nose, he was rewarded with a gush of her juices; it trickled down to the corners of his mouth. Her slim thighs moved on either side of his face, raising and lowering herself so he didn't have to do all of the work with his neck and mouth.
She increased the pace, and he had to keep up; she clutched at his head, her fingers twining in his hair, and she moved him and the dildo in just the way she wanted. His jaw was burning, and so was his neck. He was having the best time. A fine sheen of sweat broke out on her thighs. "Oh, god, Len, I'm gonna—"
She bucked over him, keening wordlessly, her hips clenching and releasing. Her breath sobbed in her throat as she rode out wave after wave.
She slumped for a second and then rolled to her side. He still had the dildo in his mouth, and he held it as she moved off of him; it made a wet little squelching sound as it pulled free. She shivered. "So good," she slurred. He dropped the toy to he floor.
Christine just lay there, flushed gorgeously pink, panting, as her heart rate returned to normal. Leonard's dick was still diamond-hard; it twitched and bobbed like a sentient thing, with a crystal drop trembling at the tip.
She grinned at him, the soft blue irises of her eyes blown away by her pupils. "Don't go anywhere," she said, and got to her feet. She got a package from the chest of drawers (why didn't he go digging around in there earlier?) and ambled to the bathroom.
He heard her use the toilet and wash her hands. "I'm still here," he called, just as a reminder.
"I haven't forgotten you, baby." She stood in the doorway to the bathroom; from his perspective she was upside down, and he scanned her from the toes up. Same boots… but what was that around her waist and hips? And the thing at her pussy…?
Oh, she was hot as hell with a harness around her waist, attached to a short and slender toy pointing.
"Kuh-Christine… what are you planning on doing with that?"
She reached down and jacked the dildo; she shivered, her hips rolled and her eyes closed as if the toy were the real thing. "It's nice, isn't it," she said. "It's connected to a little sucker over my clit; feels amazing."
"Didn't answer my question," he said; it was hard to speak since his mouth had gone dry.
"I'm going to fuck you with it, of course," she said.
"I… uh… I don't know…" But his dick twitched eagerly, dammit, and by the look on her face, she saw it.
"We'll go slowly," she said. "You like it when I use my fingers."
He couldn't argue with that; shot his load every damn time.
"You don't have to be in charge all the time, baby," she purred, on her knees by his feet. "I'm going to take care of you." She slapped his hip. "Now. Bend your knees, and spread your legs."
He complied; his breath was coming faster.
"Oh, I love your ass," she said. "I am dying to fuck you, Leonard."
She reached under the bed for the bottle of lubricant she had stashed earlier and squirted a puddle into her hand, warming it.
Christine had beautiful hands: long, slender, tapered fingers, round fingernails with healthy white half-moons. There was a little freckle in the webbing between the thumb and forefinger on her right hand that he liked to nibble at. Imagining those elegant fingers pushing up into his ass…
She spread lube on his hole with the tip of her finger, and then began to wiggle her index finger into the pucker, through the ring of muscle. He writhed, moaning, his wrists straining against the straps securing them.
"Ooh, yeah, take it, baby," she cooed. She went slowly, adding more and more lube as he began to relax under her hands. "I'm going to fuck you, and there's nothing you can do about it." She curled her finger, finding the knot of his prostate and stroking.
He was panting and moving his hips in rhythm with her fingers; he felt the stretch as her middle finger joined her index finger. She moved her fingers together as one, curling them in a beckoning motion.
She added a third finger, and the stretch became a slow burn. She flexed her fingers inside his ass and he gasped. "I think you're ready," she said.
"Unh," he replied, intelligently under the circumstances, he thought.
Grasping the toy, she slathered lubricant over its length and spread more lube. She was breathing hard now. She pushed the dildo into him, and they both exhaled gustily.
"Good?" she asked, clipped.
He nodded, raising his knees almost to his chest. "More," he rasped.
She thrust, crying out as the pressure stimulated her clit. "Oh—take it," she said through gritted teeth.
"Ah, don't stop," he said. He shifted his hips around a little, trying to get her in position to hit his prostate again.
"You're mine," she said. "Your ass is mine, baby."
"Yeah," he said, gasping as she snapped her hips forward.
She paused in thrusting, and squirted a little puddle of lubricant onto his belly, dipping her fingers into it and wrapping them around his dick, stroking him in time to her thrusts.
He breathed out, a shaky sound, and gave himself over to the doubled sensation of her hand on his dick and her in his ass, meeting her thrusts with his own. The dildo was made with a rippled shape, going from narrow to wide and back again; he could feel the shape much more distinctly than he had seen it, burning and stretching as it went in and out.
The tightness in his forehead, behind his eyes, the buzzing in his belly presaged orgasm. He was going over the edge, and it was soooo good… Her hand tightened on him, and oh, he was losing it…
She slammed in deep just as he went off like a fountain in her hand, flares shooting behind his eyelids, and his body arched like a bow, straining against the bindings on his wrists. He was only vaguely aware of her shout as she came, her hips trembling against his ass.
She pulled out, and he shuddered, oversensitive. She was on hands and knees over him, her hair tickling his chest and moving through the jizz on his belly like a paintbrush. She bent her head further, and licked the tip of his dick, quickly and sweetly, undemanding, and then collapsed at his side, her head nestling into the space between his shoulder and his armpit.
They just lay there; they might even have slept until the sweat on their skin turned to gooseflesh in the chilly air.
"Cee," he began in a hoarse voice.
"Yeah, Ell?"
"Are you gonna untie me? My arm's gone to sleep."
"Right away," she said. She sat up and got a small pair of scissors from the drawer (that bottom drawer again, he noticed) and snipped through the bindings on his left hand and then his right. He sat, rotating his shoulders and rubbing at his wrists (a little red, but no lacerations, no contusions). She tossed him the towel he used earlier, and he mopped up the puddle on his belly.
She opened the fastenings on the harness and stepped out of it, and then unzipped the boots all the way down the insides of her legs.
"Aw, you don't have to take off the boots," he said, grinning at her.
"Oh, yes I do. They hurt."
"Think they'd hurt if you had 'em wrapped around my back?" At her alarmed look, he chuckled. "Another time, I mean."
"Another time, we'll just have to try it out. For now…"
"Shower. And bed."
She whined, slumping to the floor. "How 'bout just bed?"
"Come on," he said, climbing to his feet. He slapped her on the ass. "We'll both stick to the sheets in our current condition."
"There're worse things," she grumped.
"You're not the one whose pubes'll get yanked out when he gets morning wood." He slapped her ass again. "On your feet, lieutenant."
She groaned and hauled herself up. "I thought you were going back to sickbay as soon as I finished with you."
"I need the rest," he said. "I'll need my strength for, how'd you put it, tear-assin' around sickbay tomorrow."
"Oh, Len, we're ready for this inspection; we're in great shape."
"There's always something we've missed, and that's just what bites us in the—you know what? I'm not talking shop right now. Shower, then sleep."
"Okay," she said, allowing him to push her into the shower stall.
Shortly thereafter they lay in her tiny junior officer's bed, squeaky clean and curled together virtuously like spoons in a drawer. Christine's hair was slightly damp and smelled of jasmine shampoo.
"Hey, Cee?" he began, nudging her.
"Um?" she replied.
"Next shore leave, how 'bout you and me go do something together?"
"Like a date or something?"
"Something like that."
She was silent for a moment, and he nudged her again.
"What makes you think I want to spend my hard-earned liberty with a cranky sonofabitch like you?" she asked, rolling to face him and kissing his mouth. "That sounds nice, Len." She grinned, and even in the dark he could see the pleasure on her face.