The Golden Odalisque Restaurant - San Francisco 2148

"We'll be having a guest joining us tonight," Forrest announced through a mouth full of dessert. Around them, music and ostensibly genteel conversation swirled, at the correct relative volumes.

"Oh? A guest?" Hoshi inquired, feigning shocked modesty - because she knew by now that he liked it - but mentally flicking back through her notes from the appropriate class. "Are you blackmailing someone I don't know about?"

Forrest chuckled, and spooned another chunk of blancmange into his mouth.

Hoshi noticed the little flecks of the white, gelatine mass between his teeth and forcibly settled her gorge. The man really should learn how to chew with his mouth closed.

"No, not blackmail. Not this time anyway. A volunteer."

"A volunteer?" Hoshi replied, this time feigning subtle arousal.

"Yes," Forrest replied, then added, a slight edge to his voice. "A Vulcan."

Hoshi straightened against the back of her chair. "I hope you don't expect me to play the subservient to a Vulcan," she hissed, although immediately adding, "unless that is your wish."

Forrest smiled. "I just want to see a show, my flower. I am happy to leave the stage direction up to you. I'm sure that your education is more than up to the task. Ah, look! Here she is now. Right on time."

Hoshi refused to turn her head, and so waited in irritation, until this Vulcan entered her line of sight. She timed her laugh, so it would spray into T'Pol's face, as she sat down. "Oh, THIS Vulcan. Quite the epicentre of intrigue. How delicious."

"T'Pol will be joining us on Enterprise, once construction is complete," Forrest said through yet another bite of blancmange, this one marinated in a mouth full of bourbon. "She has turned out to be quite the prodigy with defensive scanners."

"Enterprise!" Hoshi pouted, on queue.

"Hoshi is founding a school of the courtesan arts in Brazil," Forrest explained for T'Pol's benefit. "She is most displeased that quelling the rebellion is likely to take us into space, for a few years."

T'Pol raised an eyebrow. "A school for the courtesan arts? Training your own replacements... how altruistic of you."

Hoshi crinkled her nose. "Teaching is a passion of mine. I can think of a few lessons I am going to teach you this evening. I do hope you can take correction."

Forrest eyed them both, hungrily. "I think we shall adjourn to more comfortable surrounds, don't you, ladies?"

As Forrest paid cheques, greased palms, and organised transport, Hoshi stood beside the Vulcan, refusing to face her, and wearing what she knew was a glittering, but empty smile.

"I can smell Jonathan Archer on you," the Vulcan hissed to her, while Forrest was beyond hearing. "And, always remember, I can kill you with a flick of my wrist."

Hoshi's smile, smelted and forged by years of such trifling threats as these, never faltered. "And, with a few words from me, you could be stripped, mutilated, and nailed to a pool-table, in a MACO rec-hall. You don't want me as an enemy."

T'Pol sneered. "I don't want you at all. Either of you"

In reply, Hoshi shrugged. Then, smoothing the front of T'Pol's elegant silk gown with her hands, she added, "And yet, so the world turns."