BREAKFAST AT DENNEEZ
by ardavenport
- - - Part 1
Doctor Beverly Crusher strolled down the long corridor, her medical tricorder secured in a pouch at her waist. She could hear faint sounds of movement, half-heard voices and water sounds, through the closed doors she passed. The deep red, padded floor and the baffles hanging from the ceiling muffled the tread.
She turned a corner and stopped at a wide door, exactly like all the other ones she had passed in the dimly lit corridor. The curly script on the door at her eye level identified it as the one she wanted.
She knocked, the hard plastic echoing hollowly. There was no door buzzer.
She knocked again.
This time she heard something, someone getting up. The door slid aside. Captain Jean-Luc Picard looked back at her. Behind him the room was dark. The wide window drapes blocked out the bright sun outside, and only one lamp was on in a corner by the bed.
"Did I wake you?" Crusher asked.
"No," Picard answered quickly, and then, "I was just resting."
Crusher stepped into the room. Picard touched a wall switch, turning on the overhead fixture by the door, which only slightly brightened the gloomy, cave-like lighting.
"I don't blame you. I don't know why they don't have humidity controls in these rooms, especially if this facility is supposed to accommodate non-Denneezians," she commented. The air was thick and heavy with moisture, warm and almost steamy. Both she and Picard had been sweating in it all morning. The indoor vents occasionally made a pseudo-breeze as they circulated the air, but that only gave them minimal relief. Neither of them had exerted themselves much, but they both felt drained and weary. She sat down on the wide square bed in the central room. The chairs had low-slung, cushioned hammock seats that were comfortable enough to sit in, but it was a ridiculous chore getting up out of them.
"Did you find anything?" Picard, still standing, asked his medical officer.
"Nothing," she declared. "No contaminants, no bacterial growth, no genetic mutations. Nothing. There is nothing at all wrong with Brahga's cargo."
Picard sighed. "Why am I not surprised?"
"How are the negotiations going?"
"They're not," he snapped. "Brahga keeps going on about how he's being cheated and Shan'Kaar is just stalling for time. I think he's hoping that Brahga will get fed up with it and leave with his half payment."
"Will he?"
"A Ferengi leave with only a half payment for his cargo? Not likely. Not with three of his ships in orbit." The captain sat down on the bed next to Crusher, his weight sinking deeply into the overly soft mattress.
"You don't think they'll do anything."
"Probably not, especially with the Enterprise here. Brahga's threatening to destroy his cargo just out of spite. And personally I don't think that's such a bad idea."
"It would break Deanna's heart."
"If she wants to salvage that chocolate, it would help if she didn't let it distract her while I'm trying to straighten out this mess."
"It's not chocolate; it's genetic material for cocoa plants," Crusher corrected him. She turned toward him, folding one of her long legs up onto the bed, the movement momentarily jostling both of them.
"Well, Brahga brought chocolate to the meeting. Samples of the quality of his cargo. He knew it would be distracting. I never want to smell another gram of the stuff again. I thought Troi was going to faint. I sent her back to the ship."
"What?"
Picard turned to face her. "The more people that are in that room, the more chances that Shan'Kaar has to dissemble. Troi can't read Brahga anyway and it doesn't take an empath to see that Shan'Kaar is playing his own game. You don't have to stay here yourself if you've verified that the cargo is fine," he added.
"What about you?"
"I'm stuck here for a few days at least. The only thing Brahga and Shan'Kaar seem to agree on is that all parties in the mediation should be sequestered. It's some Denneezian formality," he grumbled.
"Well, when's the next session?"
Picard glanced back at the ornate, gilded timepiece imbedded in the wall over one of the bed's nightstands. Denneezian 'hours' were shorter than Starfleet standard and he paused over the mental calculation.
"Almost five hours. Lunch," he amended to her raised eyebrows.
"Lunch?"
"It's six, actually. I suppose it's too hot in the middle of the day for anybody to do anything, so they just all go to bed."
"Hmm." Crusher nodded. She lowered her eyes; her hand went to Picard's knee. "Almost five hours then." She nudged a little closer to him, and the soft bed caved in between them, making them slide together.
Picard stared down at her hand, stroking his leg, and then up at her. The quiet comfortable room was silent, except for the background of a gurgling fountain in the bathroom. He laid his own hand over her wandering fingers.
"Beverly, I don't think that this is the right place. And I'm not sure it would be wise, especially if our hosts need us for anything," he told her gently. They hadn't been sleeping together for very long, less than two months. They were still tripping over each other in the morning in his quarters, and occasionally her quarters. But they had been intimate with each other long enough to have one serious argument. They had resolved it a few days ago, but he did not want her to think that he was rejecting her because of it. She put her other hand over his.
"Jean-Luc, I don't think you know this, but the Midday break that the Denneezians take isn't just for lunch and an afternoon nap."
"It isn't?" he questioned, his back still straight. Her hands escaped his, her fingers wandering up his arms and back to his thigh.
"No. Physiologically, Midday is the optimum time for Denneezians to couple. Because of the heat," she added.
"You looked that up?"
"I am a doctor, Jean-Luc."
"I see."
His posture was still reluctant, which only made Beverly Crusher all the more interested. One thing that she'd learned over the past few weeks was that Jean-Luc Picard was awfully fun to seduce. And they had not made love since before their argument about her letter to Wesley, nearly a week ago. He'd had the sense to apologize and they had mutually declared the matter settled, but some of the tension remained, giving them excuses to stay apart. She leaned forward to nuzzle his cheek and he did not object as she slid her arms around him. It was about time that they really made up.
Still uneasy, Jean-Luc Picard returned her kisses cautiously. He was technically still on duty, mediating a heated trade dispute between a Ferengi captain and officials of the planetary government. This was only the second day of the negotiations on Denneez but he had learned already that the Denneezian lunch break was sacrosanct. Her explanation of the Denneezians' physiological motives now explained why. He had no idea what the rest of the planet did, but it seemed that the government completely shut down at Midday. Forgetting his weariness of the heavy air, he caressed her hips, enjoying the feel of her body in his arms before his hands moved up her back. When in Rome...
They kissed, their bodies pressed together, the heat and humidity between them increasing. He brought his hands up to brush her hair back away from her face. They had been unusually cool toward each other since she'd sent that damned letter to Wesley without telling him. Picard broke the kiss, hesitating, but only for a second. The damage was done. By now her son had gotten the news of their new relationship and that was it.
Jean-Luc brushed back a damp strand of red hair clinging to her face and kissed the place where it had been. Beverly felt his hands unfastening the back of her uniform and then slowly peel the top of it down off her shoulders. She closed her eyes, her own hands at his waist, her fingers sneaking under the hem of his tunic. His palms slowly massaged her shoulders, working lower to the front, into her undershirt. And then they left her.
Oh, no, she silently moaned. He's going to take his shoes off.
It was the most un-romantic thing that Jean-Luc Picard did. Somewhere near the beginning of their lovemaking, if he was wearing them, he would always stop and take his shoes and socks off. She was sure that he thought that the delay was tantalizing somehow, but she always found the interruption annoying. There was just something about the way he did it that took just long enough to momentarily stifle the mood. She opened her eyes and yes, he'd brought his legs up onto the bed and he had his hands on one of his boots.
She leaned forward and caught him off guard, her mouth trapping his. His hands returned to her shoulders.
There's got to be a way to get those boots off of him without making a production out of it.
She tickled him behind the ears as they kissed. She stroked his shoulders and massaged his neck, the muscles there loosening. Her lips wandered down his chin to his neck, next to the collar of his uniform and the four captain's pips there.
Or maybe I should just leave them on.
One of Beverly Crusher's own private sexual fantasies was that the man she made love to was so weak with passion, so mesmerized by her that he could not resist making love to her. In this case, she decided, she wanted him so helpless with desire that he couldn't even think to take his shoes off.
She lowered Picard to the bed, nudging him on the soft bedcovers toward the pillows. She freed her arms from the top of her uniform, letting it slide down to her waist. He lay under her, still wearing his own red and black uniform, his half-shadowed face looking surprised by her change of routine.
Too much routine, Jean-Luc, that's your problem.
She straddled him and his uniform, fully intending that he wasn't going to be able to remember to take it off.
Well, most of it at least.
- - - End Part 1
