"You have studied this work, Loo-tenant?" she inquires, gazing raptly at a picture of an extremely lucky fellow with a rather scantily-clad lady on her knees in front of him.

"I've read it," I manage. It hardly seems the moment to admit that I was seventeen at the time and mostly interested in the pictures.

Later, of course, it dawned on me that there was actually more to it than the erotica, and I did find the other parts very interesting, if rather hard going – I'm not ashamed to admit that I skipped quite a lot of it. But for all the flowery language, there were nuggets of sound sense that stuck in my memory, and that came in handy when I finally got around to the sort of times in the bedroom that weren't only a matter of satiating a hunger that was sometimes as selfish as it was single-minded.

"It will take some time for our translators to work through the text," she pursues, turning to another page whose illustration is graphic enough to have me internally writhing with mortification, "but in the meantime you will have no objection to demonstrating some of the techniques?"

–What?

It seems like several years before I can muster the polite equivalent. "I … I beg your pardon?"

She seems genuinely surprised by my outright shocked expression. "You have strong zsimsti. I have already ascertained that. Why are you troubled?"

I don't know what a zsimsti is (I wasn't even aware I had one, whatever it is), and as for it – or indeed possibly them – being strong, well, I'm sure I should be flattered that she thinks so, even if it's news to me. But the primary emotion that grips me is absolute panic.

I'm on a diplomatic bloody mission here. I'm supposed to be elucidating Shakespeare, not participating in live demonstrations of the murkier ends of ancient Hindu eroticism!

During the rather inebriated period of our sojourn in Shuttlepod One, Trip confided to me in a tone of some grievance the way T'Pol had castigated him for his supposed 'misbehaviour' with the Xyrillian engineer that had ended up with him pregnant. She apparently waxed scathing about diplomats knowing where not to stick their fingers.

Well, if this specific illustration is any guide, fingers will be the least of my worries. And if ever this particular diplomatic faux pas came to light, the mind boggles on what either T'Pol or Captain Archer would find to say about it.

(I'm not worried about Trip. It's about time I had something to get one up on him about.)

I'm struggling to come up with something exceptionally tactful and diplomatic about it being far more appropriate for her to sneak a copy home and surprise her husband with it when I feel the sudden, sinister movement of my robe being snuck into.

It's not the first movement there's been down there, but it's the first one I wasn't expecting. I produce a sound midway between a horrified bleat and an ecstatic moan as her fingers home in on my zsimsti (I somehow can't see myself indignantly interrogating Hoshi later as to why that term hadn't been programmed into the UT). It may be the right word and it may not, but whatever it means, I find myself gripping the table and going weak at the knees as I struggle valiantly to remember I'm trying to be a diplomat here.

"I … er….mf…" My, a well-rounded education certainly comes in handy. I sound as if I've hardly mastered the technique of articulation.

I don't know what those sensory organs on her fingertips are doing now, well at least I don't know what they're doing for her. I know damn well what they're doing for me, and my despairing grasp of diplomacy is weakening by the second.

Her free hand operates a button cunningly concealed at the side of the desk. Almost without a sound, a rectangle of flooring in the clear space beyond it slides down and to one side, and in its place there rises a perfect vista of cushions, shaped and sized to facilitate any number of demonstrations of the weird and wonderful suggestions in the Kamasutra.

I'm still trying. God help me, I am. I'm a Starfleet officer and I'm on a diplomatic mission and I'm … I'm… Oh my God, if she doesn't stop I'm going to disgrace myself.

My forebrain tells my legs to remove me immediately. My hindbrain absolutely forbids me to move one bloody centimetre. I'm ashamed to admit that I'm too paralysed to heed either of them as I'm led gently but inexorably towards the cushions. Resistance right now would be extremely painful, for one thing.

"You will explain the meaning of the word 'courtesan'?" she enquires, delicately pulling loose the first of the ties on her own robe as she settles us among the cushions.

The word 'diplomat' emerges, somewhere in the middle of a long moan as the second of the ties comes loose. I'm sure that at some point I may have the time and thought to spare for the definition of 'courtesan', but right at this moment I haven't the mental capacity to spare. That said, it's not exactly my brain that's in charge any more, and the part of me that is, is not big on semantics. The words 'Yes please' are about the limit.

"Is not one of the purposes of diplomacy a meeting of cultures?" she asks, deftly pulling my robe off my shoulders, ignoring my feeble and admittedly rather half-hearted attempts to keep it on.

I'm not sure I've ever heard it described as 'a meeting of cultures', but as of now, A is definitely ready, willing and eager to meet B. We can argue afterwards as to whether that fits the specific definition.

My gracious hostess clearly has a fine grasp of detail, or she's spent the whole afternoon reading. Without further discussion she adopts she pose we just looked at in the book, and that's the end of my career as a diplomat. After all, before I was either a Starfleet officer or a diplomat I was an English gentleman, and not one of those worth the name would disappoint a lady. Especially not a lady in this position.

My last conscious thought is that if optimism works this well, I can see myself taking it up permanently.