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Note: Takes place immediately after Chapter 22 of CRUSH II: Ostinato.
Carte Blanche
Stardate 45284.64
(Sunday, 14 April 2368, 04:17:12 hours, ship's time)
The image on the canvas is coalescing from stray lines and dots of color into something representational, and Data is in what he believes one would refer to as a 'groove' as he stands in front of his easel, paintbrush working furiously over the stretched, primed cloth.
The central figure in the painting is a woman he has painted before, and whom he suspects he will be painting time and again for many years to come. He estimates that it will take at least six years, three months, seventeen days, four hours, twelve minutes, eight point two seconds to truly master her hair.
Data is not currently working on her hair.
Instead he is trying to capture the precise shade, the one somewhere between blush pink and something duskier, of her nipples at the peak of arousal.
[Language processer: verbal pun identified. Analyze speech/language patterns for increased use. File under 'wordplay.' Cross-reference under Zoe, known linguistic patterns. Execute.]
It has been just over a week (seven days, twenty-one hours, eleven minutes, forty-eight seconds, approximately) since Data and the woman on the canvas have changed the paradigm of their relationship yet again.
In his limited experience, sexual intimacy has always been the end of a relationship.
His first partner had been a student on an internship with the Daystrom Institute, and had used their coupling as the source for a paper. His second, as he has revealed to Zoe, merely wanted to 'fuck a robot.' (He has not told Zoe that the woman in question was a classmate, or that he had seen her in at least one class every day for his remaining three years at the Academy.)
His third had been Tasha; he did not wish to analyze that relationship again.
He and Jenna had never made it to this point.
But Zoe…
His Zoe…
[Logic interpretation process error: organic beings cannot be owned. Eliminate possessive pronoun, yes/no? No. Interpolate: possession is not always literal, but can mean a claiming of relationship, imply a connection, reference intimacy, cf. 'soulmate.' Search for clarification. Supporting argument found yes/no? Yes. Accept terminology as accurate? yes/no? Yes. Redirect focus to primary action: painting? yes/no? Yes. Execute.]
Zoe had given him carte blanche to touch, taste, explore… experiment. She had also demanded quid pro quo, and he had accepted that exchange, even welcomed it, just as she had welcomed his touch and accepted his explanation of analogs.
Data's brush meets the canvas in short, quick strokes, applying the same blush color, layered to tint the portrait's lips, mixed with white to show the flush of her cheeks. The flesh color he has already determined from previous attempts to capture his lover on canvas; perhaps he should keep a quantity on-hand. (Her smile is never quite right in static form. He believes it will take a lifetime of study to properly render that smile. Will she give him that long? )
He replays, relives, their first merging. He recalls her hands on his skin, her nails playing lightly over his thighs, his buttocks. He has a perfect memory of her fingers and then her tongue testing and tasting his nipples, and his navel. He remembers the pressure of her breasts pressed against his skin, the moist heat of her mouth at his mouth, his neck, his shoulder.
Total recall. Perfect clarity. Something like a shiver moves through his body, just from the memory.
But this picture, this painting, is not from their first time, though that had been a 'milestone moment' for both of them. This image is drawn from their second time, mere hours ago, and the impact of having a second time at all was so great that Data had slipped from their bed seventy-three point two one minutes after Zoe had drifted to sleep.
He had needed to paint.
He had needed to paint her.
He had not even bothered to pull on the pajama pants that had become his standard lounging attire when Zoe was spending the night.
(He recalls the first time she wore his pajama top, the night of her seventeenth birthday. He had been transfixed by the sight of her in his blue cotton nightwear, her tan legs bare, the hem of the shirt just skimming her thighs, the top button open, exposing a good deal of her cleavage. He also recalls the way she looked the following morning, standing in the bathroom doorway in only her lace underwear, having balled up the shirt and thrown it at him.)
Their second time had been different. Zoe had been – they both had been – more at ease with each other. She had straddled him, looking down at him with an expression he was fairly certain combined joy and love, as well as desire. He had licked and sucked at her breasts, watching as her expression changed, feeling as her heartbeat increased, sensing as her most intimate place grew hot and moist on top of him.
It had jarred him slightly when she had asked for directions, but once Zoe understood how to execute her plan, she was fearless.
She had freed her hair and let it fall around her shoulders.
And she had been beautiful.
[Clarify definition: beautiful. Adjective. Literally 'full of beauty.' In conventional use: having beauty; possessing qualities that give great pleasure or satisfaction to see, hear, think about, etc.; delighting the senses or mind.]
Data has always assumed that pleasure would be forever unknown to him. He has, of late, altered his answer when people asked if he had emotions. Where before he has always answered with a curt, "No," he now responds with, "Not as such."
Coupling with Zoe, merging with Zoe, making love with Zoe – he would be lying if he maintained that all he experienced was completion and connection. Was it satisfaction? In his experience satisfaction meant that a situation was ended.
He and Zoe are just beginning, and he does not believe either of them are anywhere near satisfied. He has not yet memorized every millimeter of her skin, or catalogued every tiny sound and infinitesimal movement that she makes in response to his touches, his kisses, his thrusts.
As to pleasure, perhaps that is less an emotion and more a condition. His programming allows him the expected physical release, but he cannot deny that there is something more when that release occurs.
That more has never been there... before.
Data's theoretical knowledge of sexual practices is extensive. He knows, for example, that Bajoran women often refer to the point of orgasm as flying. He cannot fathom what that point feels like for Zoe, but if the physical sensation of her muscles contracting and releasing around him is an accurate representation, he understands the metaphor.
A few more brushstrokes. A black line here, paler gray there. Brown for her eyes and hair, softened by the merest hint of red. Chestnut. The color of Zoe's hair is chestnut. The color of Zoe's other hair - the soft bed of it between her legs - is darker, but still holds the hint of red. Roasted chestnut?
[Hue identification, match pantone, yes/no? No. Delete palette, yes/no? No. Hold in memory for later analysis. Execute.]
Smudge the outline there. Brighten the white at the center.
Zoe has told him that his kisses and his skin remind her of cashews. Her skin, her lips, do not remind him of anything. Her scent and her flavor are uniquely hers.
Data stands back from the painting and surveys the finished work.
The image, complete, is from after. She had rolled off him, tired and sated, but there had been a moment as she reached for the covers, when they realized that the sheets were pinned beneath them - a flash of a moment - so swift that Zoe herself was probably not aware of it, when she had been framed by the soft charcoal cloth.
Zoe Amidst Rumpled Sheets, the title of the painting is there before even he has taken a conscious moment to consider it.
Zoe says he tastes like cashews.
Zoe has given him carte blanche.
He wonders if that extends to tasting her most secret flavor.
He envisions, extrapolating from known responses, what her reaction might be.
"Intriguing," he says to no one but himself.
Data cleans up the painting supplies, but leaves the easel out, and the canvas resting on it. He is not tired – he does not become tired - but he has found that when Zoe is in their bed, he prefers to be there with her.
With Zoe, he has experienced his first second time.
He tries to conceive of a time in which he will have stopped counting the times they join, and finds that there is no number so high that he would cease being amazed by the love and acceptance Zoe has given him.
Zoe stirs slightly as he slips back into bed.
"You've been painting," she murmurs, in a voice made thick and husky from from sex and sleep.
[Begin background analysis: pitch and timbre of Zoe's voice, before and after physical (non-sexual) intimacy, before and after sexual intimacy, before and after sleep. Compare and contrast. Hold results for later retrieval. Execute.]
"I was," he answers softly, whispering the words into her ear. "I did not mean to wake you."
"You didn't," comes her drowsy reply. "I can smell the linseed oil."
"I am sorry."
"Don't be." She is already alert. It is always that way – she is muzzy one moment and fully awake the next, and even he cannot always keep up. "I like it. Linseed and cashews and rosin. Essence of Data. What time is it?"
He could specify for her, telling her that it is roughly thirteen minutes, forty-two seconds after zero five hundred hours, but by now he knows that she does not require that level of detail. "Early," he answers. "Very early."
"What'd you paint?"
"You," he tells her truthfully.
"May I see it?"
"Yes, when it has dried. Sleep now; I would prefer that you not be cranky when you view the piece."
He ceases breathing, waiting for another question, but her wakefulness was transitory, and she has already succumbed to sleep's call. Even so, he remains completely still for three full minutes before resuming normal respiration.
He curls himself around her, and buries his nose in her hair, content to experience her sleep in every way he can.
Notes: Data first answers 'not as such' to Ishara Yar. Data first paints Zoe in the one-shot "Muses on a Saturday Morning," and in chapter 13 of Crush II: Ostinato (the two coincide). Information on Bajoran sexuality comes from some ancient fanfic I read years ago. It was a Kira/Odo piece. No apologies for the weird structure, it's sort of disjointed and stream-of-consciousness on purpose. The definition of "beautiful" is modified from the entry at Dictionary DOT com.