Chapter Four: The Art of Massage
AUTHOR: Mnemosyne
RATING: R
NOTES: Hey there, everyone! You might have noticed the rating for this chapter has been bumped up from PG-13 to an R, thanks to some suggestive situations, courtesy of Hoshi "Hot Lips" Sato. ;) Nothing graphic, but certainly a bit steamier than previous chapters. ;) You could characterize this installment as "sweet" (and hopefully, in parts, "sexy"), rather than out-and-out "funny," though I've certainly tried to throw in the humor, especially in the beginning. After all, even comedies have to have their more dramatic moments, right? :-D If this doesn't do it for you, never fear - the comedy will be back in full force for the next chapter! :-D
"Unbelievable! Inconceivable! Absolutely indescribable! I'm the laughing stock of Olympus now, did you know that? I, the all-powerful Goddess of Love and Beauty, am the LAUGHING STOCK OF THE ENTIRE MOUNTAIN! It was hard enough trying to get them to respect me in the first place, what with the hair and the fluffy clothes and the incurable addiction to Meg Ryan movies. But this? This is the last straw. The absolute LAST STRAW. And it is ALL your fault, junior. It is entirely. Your! FAULT!"
Cupid winced away from his mother's tirade as the enraged goddess stomped back and forth in front of him. Immediately after his phone had exploded, he'd suddenly found himself POOFed away from the Enterprise and POOFed back to his mother's illustrious palace. Aphrodite, suffice it to say, was a gorgeous ball of green eyed fury when her son arrived. That had been an hour ago, and she hadn't let him get a word in edgewise the entire time. Much as Eros wanted to interrupt and tell her that he had a plan to make everything right again, he knew that trying to interpose on the irate goddess would most likely just fetch him a one way ticket to Tartarus for the summer, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dinars.
"…and then HERA - yes, old goat face herself - HERA told me that if I couldn't keep my own son in line, then perhaps she needed to appoint a MINDER for you. A MINDER! As if the Goddess of Love were somehow incapable of controlling the actions of her own SON!" She snorted. "Well, I told her to shove her minder where Helios is loathe to tread, not that he could fit, since she's so INSANELY anal, and she took that pretty badly. But then Hera never took much WELL, not even in her heyday. I was feeling quite proud of myself then, until Artemis decided to get on her high horse and start preaching about how love is a preposterous waste of time, blah, blah, men are pigs, yadda, yadda, all hail the conquering hoardes of her royal majesty, Queen Bitchalot, etc, etc…"
This was getting ridiculous. Cupid loved his mother to pieces - it was kind of hard not to, since she WAS Love - but she was a talker. If he let her, she'd keep hemming and hawing and carrying on until the next millenium rolled around, and he just couldn't have that. There were things that needed doing, and they needed doing quickly, and if he was going to get them done, he needed to do them now. So for the first time in his eternal life, Cupid decided to do something very brave.
He interrupted his mother.
"Um, mommy?" he broke in quietly, careful to keep his face and voice appropriately humble. "May I say something?"
Aphrodite's mouth snapped shut and she stared at him with what could only be disguised as open disbelief. Cupid decided to capitalize on the momentary silence, and started speaking. He had to talk quickly, before she started up again, so his words tumbled over each other like a stampede of wild boar. "You see, I hear what you're saying, and I'm very sorry mommy, and that was a great jibe at Hera, good for you, but you see, I actually have a plan to fix everything, and I came up with it all on my own, although the Vulcan helped me a little, she's really not that bad, once you get to know her, and I already called Oberon to set everything up, and all I need to do is swing by his pad and pick up the herbs, and then I just have to go back to Enterprise and do a little sprinkle with the magic dust, and bingo, problem solved, so you see, keeping me here is just compounding the problem that you brought me here to discuss in the first place, so don't you think it'd just be best for everyone if you transported me back to Enterprise so I can get on with fixing this stupid, stupid, idiot mistake I made, and then you can go tell the rest of the Pantheon how smart your son is, and everything can be right with the world again? Mommy? Don't you think?" He was panting and out of breath by the time he finished his explanation, so he took a minute to gasp in some much needed air.
Venus, in the meantime, was staring at him as if he'd grown a second head, and that second head was playing a concertina with its nose. "You mean… I'm not going to have to fix this for you?" she said, quite obviously awestruck by the prospect.
Eros shook his head firmly. "I'm a grown god now, mommy," he reminded her. "I should be taking care of my own problems, not running to you to clean them up for me."
The admission made her angelic green eyes grow even wider, and suddenly fill with tears. "My baby's growing up!" she crooned, scampering forward and wrapping him in a tight, sweet-smelling hug. Everywhere her tears fell, a pristine white rose blossomed unbidden from the ground.
Cupid blushed. "Mom, quit it," he said self-consciously, awkwardly returning her hug.
"I always knew you'd grow up to be a good boy, Cupie. Even when you were in your terrible two-thousands and I had to spank you for being so naughty with those Montagues and Capulets."
"Mooooom, stop it," he protested, blushing even darker.
"Oh, the wheedling I had to do with your grand-uncle Hades to get those two into the Elysian Fields! All because you were such a naughty, naughty, sweet, dear, wonderful little cherub-pookie bear!" She showered her son's face with kisses.
"Mooooooooooooom!' he whined, prying himself out of her embrace and scrubbing at his face. "Come on, I'm not a little baby anymore!"
"You'll always be my little baby, pookie!"
He winced. "Pookie" was even worse than "Junior."
"Can I go now, mommy?" he asked, pouting a little. "I have all kinds of things to do, and people to help, and I can't do them standing around here."
Venus beamed at him. "You can leave," she told him, but held up a finger before he could teleport himself away, "but I don't want you going just yet."
Cupid's jaw dropped. "Huh?" he said. "Why not!"
The goddess clucked her tongue and shook her divine head. "Tsk, tsk, pookie," she cooed, pinching his cheek in a motherly fashion. He batted her hand away, embarrassed. "That's the one thing you've NEVER learned about humans. You with your bow and arrow and blunt force trauma to the heart." Smiling fondly, she took her son gently by the arm and led him towards the edge of her heart-shaped pool.
"Humans don't need to be hit over the head with love, pookie," she told him quietly, kneeling beside the pool and tugging him down with her. "The capacity for love is always with them; even in the sourest of sour individuals. It's buried in every human heart, waiting to be nudged to the surface by a look, a touch, a word. All it takes is a little finesse."
Reaching out, she touched a delicate finger to the surface of the water. It rippled, then reformed into an image of Malcolm and Hoshi. The communications officer was stretched out on her stomach in the lieutenant's bed, naked to the waist, blankets pooled around her hips, head pillowed on her arms. Malcolm knelt beside her on the mattress, bent forward slightly as his hands kneaded tenderly at her shoulders, then slid soothingly down her back to massage her hips.
"You see?" Aphrodite murmured, as Cupid watched, transfixed. "Even this - a mistake - is enough to bring that spark of love to the surface. Do you see how carefully he touches her? Do you see how much she enjoys his touch? Much as he worries about what he's doing, he doesn't do it unwillingly. And your love dart would not have had such a strong effect if she felt no stirrings of love for him from the start." Tilting her head to the side, the goddess smiled at her son. "They can't continue like this indefinitely, but a short time won't hurt. It may even help." She smiled at the couple reflected in the pool. "Finesse."
Cupid smiled when he saw Hoshi giggle as Malcolm's fingers brushed over a ticklish spot. "I told Oberon I'd stop in to pick up those herbs," he mused quietly, not looking away from his study of the scene unfolding before him. "But he can wait a while. Ever since that little mix-up a few years back, he's been a bit testy with me anyway."
"Poor choice of words, pookie."
"Oh, yeah. Er… Whoops."
Malcolm was having a difficult time deciding just exactly what he was supposed to be feeling right now. On the one hand, he was in heaven, running his oil-slicked hands up and down Hoshi's toned, supple back, grazing his thumbs along the ridge of her spine. Conversely, he wanted to jump up from the bed, scurry to the bathroom, and hack his own hands off with a utility shaving razor.
It was a very confusing state to be in.
Hoshi, however, didn't seem to have ANY indecision about her situation at the moment. In fact, she seemed intent on telling him - quite loudly, and in quite explicit terms - just how exactly he was making her feel.
"Ohhhhhh, God, yes," she moaned as his fingers probed a particularly tight knot of muscles under her left shoulder blade. "Mmmmmm… You make the soles of my feet tingle, Emmy bear," she purred. "You should have been a masseuse."
"Oh yes, I can just imagine how father would have reacted to THAT cheerful bit of news," he murmured, making circular patterns in the oil on her back with his fingertips. "Gosh, sorry, dad. I'm going to throw away generations of tradition and familial history and blow it all on a massage parlor in Baton Rouge. Hope you don't mind, there's a good chap."
Hoshi laughed, a trilling, bubbly sound, and Malcolm couldn't resist grinning in response. "You're so funny, too," she enthused, looking over her shoulder at him with dark eyes. "You could have had a massage parlor slash comedy club."
"Now you're just being silly," he said with a grin.
"But it's making you smile, so that's good." She beamed at him, then pushed up on her elbows. Malcolm quickly averted his eyes to make sure he couldn't see any of her more… tantalizing bits. He focused intently on her back. "May I have a foot rub?"
Malcolm frowned and looked up. He made sure to keep his eyes riveted to her face without drifting downwards. "Why?"
"You have such nice hands. I want to feel them all over my body."
He swallowed. "Well…"
"Pleeeeeeease?" She wiggled closer to him, bumping her hip against his knee and arching to the side a little, rubbing her head plaintively against his arm.
He moaned. He couldn't help it. A very naked, very wily, very sexually hungry Hoshi Sato was rubbing up against him like a cat at a scratching post; this was someone's sick idea of torture, he was certain. For a moment, he let himself wonder just which alien god he'd managed to piss off since starting this voyage that would choose to torment him thusly. Then he decided that what with the number of ships, comets, asteroids and bits of space debris he'd blown up in his years aboard Enterprise, it was hopeless to try and narrow down the list of potentials.
"Hang on," he relented, sliding his hands away from her body and sitting back on his heels. "I have to check the PADD."
"Awwwwww, why do you have to keep checking that stupid old thing?" she pouted, idly kicking her feet as he clambered off the bed and went to his desk.
"Because I value my life, my career, and my unspoilt body," the armory officer replied as he picked up Phlox's data PADD and began scrolling through the list of acceptable touch activities. "All of which are forfeit if the captain finds out I've been doing anything improper during our… time together. Now, foot rub," he muttered to himself as he watched the items roll by. "Foot rub, foot rub, foot rub. Foot rub, foot rub, my kingdom for a foot rub."
Hoshi giggled again. Malcolm smiled.
"Ah, here we go." He held the PADD up for her distant inspection. "Foot rub. Screen six, fifth option from the bottom." Setting the handheld computer down again, he climbed back onto the bed and sat near her feet. "Okay, flip over."
She did.
"COVER UP! COVER UP FIRST!" Malcolm howled, throwing an arm across his eyes as The Wonder That Was Hoshi's Chest was revealed for the world and its brother to see.
"I'll get massage oil all over your blankets," the comm officer said reasonably.
"You could roll in marmalade and a pile of goose feathers before snuggling under my blankets, Hoshi," he told her, counting slowly and deliberately to ten, "and I wouldn't care, so long as you kept the blankets tucked high and tight under your arms."
"I'll have to remember that for the future," she commented as she positioned the blankets over her naked upper body. "Especially that bit about the jelly."
Malcolm swallowed. She'd been getting remarkably more lucid as their session had progressed, and she sounded just enough like her normal self in that sentence that he was almost inclined to believe she meant it. "Your feet, madame?" he said, trying to dislodge the image of Naked Hoshi Drenched in Marmalade from his head.
Giggling, the ensign wiggled her feet until they protruded from the bottom of the blanket. They were small and pale, with delicate pink soles and slender ankles. Malcolm swallowed, and gently lifted her left foot into his lap. "Could you pass me down the oil?" he asked quietly, hoping his voice wasn't squeaking like a schoolboy's. He took the bottle as she handed it down to him and poured a bit more into his palms. Rubbing them together, he wrapped his hands around her foot, pressing his thumbs into the arch, and began to knead.
The effect was immediate. Hoshi threw her head back, arched her spine, and moaned. "Oh, gawwwwwwwwd…!" She whimpered and wriggled her toes as he kept up the steady rhythm of his hands. "Yes… Oh yesssss… Right there, Malcolm… Mmmmmmmm…"
The armory officer watched the twitching and occasional rippling of her body with ill-hidden fascination. Hoshi Sato had always been something of an enigma to him, although he was certain he knew her personality inside and out. But this - this had always been a mystery. What it was like to touch her; how she liked to be touched. He'd spent entire sleepless nights trying to decide if she'd prefer having her shoulders massaged or her hair brushed on any given night. In a way, this curse was a backwards blessing - a chance for him to discover all the things Hoshi Sato liked, so that when she regained her senses at some point, he would have some way of getting back into her good graces. After much groveling and pained silences at the supper table, of course. He had no doubts about THAT.
A particularly throaty moan from the ensign jarred him from his thoughts, and he realized with horror that his hands had moved up from her foot and were currently working on her calf. He released her leg as if it had burned him.
"Why'd you do that…!" Hoshi yelped, gazing down at him, eyes puzzled. "It felt good!"
"The data PADD said foot rub," Malcolm said nervously. "It didn't say anything about shin rub, calf rub, thigh rub, or… well, it didn't mention other things getting rubbed at all." Gingerly, he lifted her other foot and began giving it the same attention as the first. "Best not to run away with the poetic license."
There was silence for a moment as Malcolm focused entirely on Hoshi's foot. He made sure to keep his mind - and in turn, his hands - from wandering by counting each swipe of his thumbs over the sole of her foot. One… two… three…
"Why are you so afraid?"
The tactical officer looked up sharply, blue eyes meeting Hoshi's liquid black ones. "What?" he asked.
She tilted her head, considering him quietly. "You're afraid of me," she replied. "I don't know why, but you are. Do you think I'm going to hurt you?"
"Wha…? I… Well, no. Not HURT precisely. I…" He stopped talking and looked down helplessly.
She wiggled her toes to get his attention, and he looked up again. "I'm not going to bite, you know," she said softly, giving him a gentle smile. "I know what's happening here. I know you think I don't, but I'm not stupid. I'm a little hazy, like I've been walking through a thick fog, but that doesn't mean I can't see my feet. I know that throwing myself at you is out of character, and I know that you're trying your hardest not to take advantage of the situation. But did you ever stop to ask yourself if maybe I WANT you to take advantage of it?"
Malcolm swallowed again, harder this time. "But Hoshi, that's the problem," he tried to explain. "You want me to… do these things with you, but… Hoshi, you aren't yourself. You don't know what you're saying."
"Are you so sure?"
"Hoshi…."
"Are you so sure, Malcolm?"
He desperately wanted to bite his lip, but decided that would be too childish. It was getting harder and harder to stick to his principles now, confronted as he was by her quietly determined gaze.
"I… don't know," he finally admitted.
A small smile twitched on Hoshi's lips. "Did you ever stop to think that maybe, out of character as it seemed, all this flirting and innuendo has been something I've wanted to do for a long time? Perhaps - just perhaps - whatever this thing is that's affected me hasn't turned me into a ravening sex fiend. Perhaps it's just made me see - and you see - something that was there all along."
Her eyes were so soft, yet firm. Malcolm wanted nothing more than to believe every word she was saying. He wanted to wrap his hands around them and yank them out of the air, then store them deep in the back of his memory, for warmth on cold nights visiting his spinster aunts in the North country.
"Hoshi…" he managed to mumble.
"Kiss me, Malcolm," she said softly.
He balked. "I -" he began, but she cut him off.
"Don't think, just act," she told him, a little firmer this time. "Kiss me."
His eyes darted to the PADD on his desk.
"Don't think about the list," she said, seeing his eyes move. "Don't think about anything. Don't think about Phlox or Jonathan or Trip or T'Pol. Don't think about anything outside of this bed; you, me, a bottle of oil, and some rumpled blankets." She tilted her head, her luxurious black hair tumbling around her shoulders like midnight waterfalls. "What do you want to do to me?"
He stared at her for a long second. Then, carefully, he placed his hands on her legs, one on each ankle. Slowly, he began to run his slick palms up her calves, moving the blankets higher as he did so.
Hoshi's eyes grew darker. "That's right," she murmured, never breaking their eye contact. "This is instinct."
It was. He could feel his hot blood pumping, hammering away in his veins like a herd of elephants. Someone growled. It took him a moment to realize it was him.
"I want this, Malcolm," Hoshi purred, hooding her eyes seductively, one hand playing idly along the edge of the blanket that covered her chest. "This isn't a joke. This isn't a trick. I really, really want this. I want you. Please?" Inch by inch, she let the covers start to slide.
He moved like a leopard, throwing himself up the bed to cover her body like a tent, hemming her in with his arms and legs. "You're a temptress, my lady," he murmured, his hot breath disturbing her eyelashes. "You want to make me betray who I am, what I am, and what I believe. You want me to throw away the relationship I have with my Hoshi just to feed your hunger, and future perfect be damned." With a low growl, he bent forward and nipped at her temple with his teeth. He felt her gasp slightly beneath him.
"Two can play at that game, lady," he whispered near her ear. "I won't give you what you're asking for, but I'll give you what you need. And when my Hoshi - the real Hoshi - reemerges from this fog you spoke of, I think she'll understand that I did what I did to keep from doing more." Burying his face in her shoulder, he sucked fiercely on the pulse point that fluttered like an exuberant bird at the crook of her neck.
"God, yes…!" she whimpered, almost a plea, as her arms wrapped around him and her legs hooked around his hips.
"None of that, Hoshi," he told her firmly, reaching down with one hand to push her legs away. "Don't you know I know a thousand ways to blow your mind without resorting to THAT?" He grinned down into her face. "And I'm going to show you each one in excruciating detail."
She shivered with anticipation. "How do we start?" she asked breathlessly.
He stopped and considered her for a moment. Then, he smiled. "I rather thought we could start… with something like this."
Cupping her face gently in one hand, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. After a moment, he heard her moan, and felt her body press up against him, inexorable like a tidal wave, as her mouth moved over his in firm, hungry ripples.
As first kisses went, he could safely say, it blew all the competition away.
TBC…