She hadn't expected more than the one night with Spock, and so far he had behaved exactly according to expectations.

She wasn't thrilled with it. "But you knew the job was dangerous when you took it," she said to herself, and she wasn't talking about the 'fleet.

One night had been sufficient, then, to tell him all he needed to know about human sexuality. It hadn't even begun to scratch the surface of what she wanted to know about Vulcan sexuality.

She had, however, scratched the Vulcan's surface, so at least she had that going for her. Which was nice.

A few weeks later she was sitting in the Rec Deck with a motley assortment of shipmates. It had been a long couple of weeks, with several Red Alert drills at ungodly hours, in addition to a stomach virus tearing through Engineering before McCoy and Spock were able to isolate and eliminate it.

Christine sketched and nursed a glass filled with sparkling wine; admittedly she was far better at drinking the wine than at sketching, but she enjoyed both. Flipping through her collection of rough drawings gave her a more vivid sense of the memories than any holos ever would. She could look at a line and remember what she had thought about as she made it.

Tonight her oblivious subject was one of the lieutenants from Stellar Cartography as he played his newly-acquired Andorian guitar. He was lost in his new instrument, so entranced by the unique sounds he could coax from it that he didn't notice Christine's scrutiny. She roughed-in the angle of his head and the stretch of his arm to the neck of the guitar. The guitar's shape was what had drawn her to sketch the lieutenant. It was made of Andorian ironwood, and looked like a cross-section of a nautilus, with strings attaching at odd points and crossing or weaving through each other. She thought she would have the most difficulty representing the pearlescent finish of the wood; the sheen was beautiful.

"That is a good likeness of Lt. Pham," a deep voice said from over her shoulder.

She looked, registered the presence of Spock, and returned her gaze to her sketchbook. "Thank you."

Spock remained standing behind her; she could feel his gaze on her shoulders, on her hands, on her hair. She made a weak, wavering line with her pencil, and then stopped, sighing. "Do you need something, Commander Spock?"

He blinked, startled. "No, Miss Chapel."

"Would you stand somewhere else, then, please?" She looked up at him. "It makes me uncomfortable."

She'd surprised him; she could see it in the tilt of his head. "Of course," he said.

He walked away, and she returned her attention to her sketch. When she looked back up at the lieutenant, she saw him in conversation with Spock.

"That's great, Commander," Pham said, grinning with eagerness. "Thanks." He left the Rec Deck, taking his interesting guitar with him.

Spock sat in Pham's abandoned chair, looking completely at ease.

Christine sighed again, tucking her pencil into the sketchbook and tying the book closed with a thin leather thong. She picked up her glass and joined Spock at his table. He had the nerve to look surprised when she sat down.

"Commander," she said, taking a sip of her wine.

"Lieutenant."

"Perhaps I should have asked you if there was something you wanted."

He gave her a level look. "I did not know you were an artist."

"There's a lot of things you don't know about me. And I'm not an artist, per se; I just like to draw."

"You like to draw men," he clarified.

She goggled at him for a moment and then burst into laughter. "You have got to be kidding!" She clapped a hand over her mouth as heads swiveled towards them from all over the Rec Deck.

Spock just sat there, impassive as ever.

"You actually convinced that poor guy to leave just because I was drawing his guitar."

"I believe the lieutenant left because I informed him that his survey of the Aquilae V system was complete; he wanted to check the data."

"He was awfully happy about it," she said; sarcasm dripped from her voice.

"I understand he is searching for a suitable planet for a shore leave excursion. Hence his enthusiasm."

"So it's merely a coincidence that I was looking at him and then you sent him on an errand."

He cocked his head, his eyebrow going up. "Astoundingly enough, yes."

"I see. So, since you disapprove of my previous subject, what would you like me to draw?" she asked.

"I would not presume—" he began, but she cut him off.

"Like hell you wouldn't." She tipped the last swallow of her wine down her throat and stood up. "Well… perhaps I could be convinced to experiment with studies of the male nude. If only I had a model." She tapped her forefinger against her lips thoughtfully, and then, tucking her sketchbook under her arm, headed toward the turbolift with just the hint of a swagger to her hips.

Ball in his court. Would he return it?

The turbolift doors hissed closed behind her, and she felt her shoulders slump a little in disappointment. Really, was it too much to ask for him to follow her inside, stop the turbolift and press her against the wall? Janice, Nyota, Lisa, they'd all had turbolift trysts (separately, or so she presumed); Nyota had had two. When the door opened on her deck she went to her quarters.

Christine had just washed her face and brushed her teeth when her door alert chirped. Despite the fact that she was wearing her nightgown she pressed open the door and found Spock standing there, looking unsettled.

"You did not respond to my messages," he said. "Is twenty-four hours' notice required on this occasion?"

Even though he was taller and much stronger than she was, she grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him into her quarters; since he was off balance it was quite easy. She pushed him against the wall and kissed him, discovering anew the heat and taste of his mouth. His hands slid down, cupping her ass and pulling her closer. They turned together and then she was pressed against the wall.

"Is that all I have to do to interest you? Make you jealous?" She was breathing hard, lifting her bare leg to wrap around his hips.

"I was not jealous," he said, his voice choked. "It is unseemly for a female to study a male."

"I'll show you unseemly," Christine said, laughing and dropping to her knees. She unfastened his trousers and dragged them down, followed by his 'fleet-issue underwear. He looked down at her with morbid fascination, his mouth open and wet.

She looked back up at him from under her eyelashes, a wealth of filthy promise in her expression. She licked her lips and exhaled hot breath on his trembling cock before taking him into her mouth.

He jumped and cried out as though mortally wounded; she had never heard him make such a sound, not even in the throes of illness or injury. She sucked him, hollowing her cheeks and making obscene smacking and slurping noises, gripping his taut buttocks. The angle of his cock changed, and she realized that he was sliding down the wall, his legs limp; she followed him.

She closed her eyes and concentrated, breathing him in, familiarizing herself with his unique, earthy scent. His crisp pubic hair brushed her nose, and the surface of his skin was silky on her tongue, covering solid, steely flesh. His breath came fast, rasping in his throat as she took him deeper.

She didn't know where his hands were, and she reached forward blindly, finding one of his hands and planting it on her head. His other hand joined it, and he stroked her hair unconsciously, his fingers tangling in the strands. She sighed around her mouthful, and continued, stroking his balls and his perineum as she sucked him.

So far, apart from his initial cry, he hadn't made a sound other than his panting breath. She would have expected love words, or Vulcan obscenities, or something. Were there Vulcan obscenities? She'd have to ask Nyota…

The tension in the muscles of his thighs increased suddenly, and she braced herself for his climax. Semen shot into her throat, and she gagged, pulling away from him. The taste wasn't the objectionable part; it was the quantity and the way it made her tongue feel starchy-dry, as though she had eaten an under-ripe banana. She spat helplessly into her hand before stumbling to the sink.

"I apologize," he said, panting.

She looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "Why?"

"I shouldn't have—" he began, and stopped, looking uncomfortable. He pulled up his underwear and trousers.

"Of course you should have; I wanted you to." She washed her hands.

"Which is why you nearly vomited."

"Gag reflex. It happens." She coughed. "Physiological response." She drew herself a cup of water and gulped it down before refilling the cup and offering it to him. He accepted and took a few sips. "Besides, you must know what I was feeling… touch telepathy and all that."

He ducked his head a little, flushing a pale green that, god help her, she found fascinating. "It is an odd thing to accept; I never would have expected that a lover might do something so… intimate. Willingly."

"Perhaps you should expect more."

He nodded. "Perhaps I should."

She sat on the floor across from him, cross-legged. "We always seem to end up on the floor, don't we?" she asked, not really expecting an answer.

"Two occurrences do not constitute a pattern, Christine," he said. "Three occurrences, however…" His voice trailed off, and he looked at her with veiled amusement.

"One more time, then," she said, smiling and hugging her knees. "Can you tell me something?"

"I can try."

"What would Vulcan lovers say to each other during sex?"

"They would not speak, I know that much."

"How do they communicate?"

"The marital bond facilitates telepathic communication."

"So what would they say? Is there such a thing as Vulcan dirty talk?"

He cleared his throat. "There are erotic texts from Vulcan's ancient past, but I was never permitted to read them."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "That doesn't mean you didn't read them."

He looked at her sharply. "No, it doesn't."

"So…?"

His body language relaxed somewhat; he leaned almost casually on one arm. "There was a paragraph about the juice rising in a succulent plant and I remember thinking that the eroticism had been wildly overstated."

She laughed, low and throaty.

"The narrative went on to describe how sucking the stalk of the plant could slake a female's thirst during her time in the desert. That part was too outrageous to be believed, and I abandoned erotica for my studies, like a well-bred young Vulcan."

"And here that part turns out to be true. How disconcerting!" She grinned at him.

"Is your thirst slaked?" He looked closely at her.

"It's getting there," she said, and laughed a little, nervously.

His expression looked briefly as though he was scowling, but the effect was of concentration. "Mine is not."

She met his gaze and gulped before regrouping her expression into a seductive smile. "How may I help?"

"I remember a part—"

"—In the aforementioned erotica?" she asked, and he nodded even as his mouth thinned with mild annoyance at her interruption; she grinned, unrepentant.

"—a part about a life-sustaining nectar that a male would find on the petals of a flowering plant, but only after he had cared for the plant, protected it, fertilized it, cherished it. It was a bit like reading one of my mother's horticulture texts, and I didn't understand the allegory until… much later." His voice was low and deep and seemed to rumble through her very bones.

"I have no intention of being fertilized," she said, meaning it. "But the rest sounds…" She cleared her throat. "…great to me."