Alcohol
Gaila and Uhura had been living together for less than two weeks when their game began.
It originally started because Uhura couldn't resist sharing interesting facts from her assigned reading. Pleased by the opportunity for conversation, Gaila had reciprocated with her own, generally extracurricular, information.
"Did you know that the Bajoran symbol for 'fetus' is almost identical to the symbol for 'lower ventricle of the heart,' because both are considered equally delicate and precious?"
"Did you know that a small minority of Bajoran women can bend their knees backwards?"
Uhura's head shot up.
"That's not true."
Gaila, who had been sprawled across her bed, reviewing a code for her Network Security class, had shrugged. "Prove me wrong."
Uhura had tried. She had searched every Bajoran biology text in the Academy's system, and some outside of it, and had eventually discovered that, yes, a small but constant minority of Bajoran women could bend their knees backwards. She had brought it up in her Xenobiology class the following week, even managing to stump her professor. She had never underestimated Gaila again.
Within another two weeks, Gaila had introduced alcohol into the game.
"It'll be fun! Listen: if one of us gives a fact and the other one can't come up with something on the same topic, she has to take a shot."
Uhura had hesitated at first, but they hardly ever stumped each other, and a shot of Jack's couldn't damage her reading-comprehension too badly.
"You know Romulans are an offshoot of Vulcans, right? Well, when they left Vulcan, they wanted to change their language, so they reverted to Old High Vulcan, and now they say that they spoke the language first, and that the Vulcans are their descendents."
"Really." Gaila narrowed her eyes and smiled. "Who told you that?"
Uhura arched an eyebrow. "Do you have a response, or are you going to take a shot?"
"No, I have a response. Was it that sexy Vulcan professor?"
"Gaila!" Uhura tossed a pillow at her roommate to hide the fact that she was blushing. "You can't talk about Commander Spock that way; he's our superior."
"Superiors can't be sexy?" Gaila teased, tossing the pillow back. "If that were true, we Orions wouldn't get anything done."
"You know what I mean. Anyway, what's your fact?" This round had taken an unexpected turn, and Uhura really wanted to get back to her reading before all future productivity was spoiled by the words "Commander Spock" and "sexy" swirling around in her head.
"So you don't think he's attractive?" Gaila pressed, still grinning and looking far too perceptive.
"Gaila, no, he's… Just, no."
"Convincing."
"I'm going to throw the Jack's bottle at you next. What's your fact?"
Gaila eyed her a moment longer, a smile lingering on her face. At last, she replied.
"Vulcan males are immune to the pheromones of Orion females."
"I knew that," Uhura said, not quite able to keep a hint of smugness out of her voice. She told herself she was only pleased by her own knowledge of Xenobiology, and not for any other, more personal, reason.
Gaila was still watching her, almost biting her lips to keep from grinning.
"But every seven years, Vulcan males experience this intense need to mate. All their repressed emotions just boil over, and they can't contain themselves – they have to have hours and hours of passionate sex just to burn off the frenetic energy of all the tension that builds up over years of sexual repression. It's incredibly primal. And pretty kinky, don't you think?"
Uhura noticed that her mouth was unaccountably dry.
"That's ridiculous," she said, but the statement came out like a question.
"It's called pon farr," Gaila said, affecting disinterest as she examined her nails. "Most non-Vulcans don't know about it. Vulcans are ashamed to talk about it because they're so repressed. Mostly they go back to Vulcan when it happens and get married and, I don't know, lock themselves up with their new wives and just have sex constantly until it passes. Vulcan males are susceptible to Orion pheromones during pon farr. Although," she appeared to consider, "they'll probably just have sex with the first female that gets in their way, whether she's Orion, Vulcan, Romulan… Human."
She widened her eyes at Uhura. "Hey! I wonder when Commander Spock's pon farr is!"
Uhura, who had already started to wonder herself, was too distracted to reprimand her roommate for disrespecting a commanding officer.
She swallowed, but her mouth and throat were still too dry, and her face was too hot.
"What are you doing?" Gaila asked, furrowing her brow. "You didn't lose; you don't have to take a shot."
Uhura screwed the top back on the bottle of Jack's and let out a deep breath.
"Yes, I really do."
A/N: Thank you for all your wonderful reviews! I look forward to hearing what you think of this one.
