Garrus' mandibles tightened into a scowl as he pored through the holographic display. Screen after screen of lotions, creams, ointments, and jellies blurred past him like some sort of erotic nightmare. He really should have watched more vids.

"Now with sanitizing microbeads!" one boasted. "A zesty cooling effect for her pleasure!" Zesty? Really? He flashed on the bottle of levo salad dressing in the Normandy's refrigerator that advertised in kind. That was one mental image he could do without, and he quickly dismissed it with a shake of his head. He was familiar with the human idiom for the act they were preparing for, but this particular correlation was just… wrong. Garrus had learned enough about quarian anatomy to know Tali was not shaped like a salad – he had all but memorized those vids – and if his dreams were any indication, she wouldn't want to taste like one, either. Damn it, now he was hungry.

But maybe that was something she wanted… Her instructions had been vague, after all. He glanced at the list she had pinged him: intimate cleanser for her, lozenges for him. Not a single caveat, no hint to her preferences. She did it on purpose to mess with him and make him sweat, Garrus decided. He would have deserved it after all the relentless teasing. How was a turian supposed to know that "eating out" didn't imply food play? None of the vids he downloaded mentioned anything about taste or customs, and the one they'd watched together was of such poor quality that it was impossible to see detail, so he had no choice but to fill in the gaps the best he could, and apparently that meant… salad. Damn, and wasn't there some other euphemism that actually involved salad, specifically? That couldn't be a coincidence. All he wanted to do was make Tali happy. Who knew making his girl feel good would be so exasperating?

All unseemly analogies aside, Tali always complained about being cold, he remembered. That settled it, then. Cool and zesty wouldn't do at all. But even with Zesty Salad Dressing eliminated as a contender, there remained enough choices to lubricate a Taetrus whorehouse. Would one tube even be enough? Did they all serve the same function? They seemed to be organized and separated by color, not by formula or manufacturer. Naturally, Garrus gravitated toward the blue section of the catalog, but a quick glance at the ingredient list had him frowning again. Most of the tubes' contents were innocuous enough: purified water, a few hydroponic herbs cultivated on the liveships, and the occasional seed oil; what had Garrus scratching furiously at the back of his neck, however, was the single ingredient in all of them: drogha berry extract.

Garrus was wont to admit it now, but as a wee boy he had been quite the adventurer – gilded summer afternoons were often spent skipping across outcrops of slippery rocks in shallower parts of the Capitoline River, searching the pockets of darkness beneath the stones for the same grand, arcane treasures that were chronicled in his pirate stories.

One particular morning, young Garrus had left the house without a breakfast. It didn't occur to him to mind until his stomach started to gurgle like a drowning varren a few hours later. He was deep in the woods by then, and on the trail. He couldn't head back; it would take too long and he'd lose his place and his treasure along with it. No, pirates ate in the wild. He would be fine. It'll put plates on your hide, his dad would have told him. His grandpa Titus had once mentioned that he survived on tiny dark berries for two weeks straight when he was stationed on Galatana. Yes, berries would be a perfect breakfast for an adventurer, and it just so happened that a cluster of shrubs along the river were dotted with the very same berries! What a find!

He scrambled over to the bushes and plucked a handful of the black spheres, then stuffed the whole fist of them right in his mouth and swallowed them whole. He grabbed another handful from an adjacent branch and mashed them into his teeth, sucking on the seedy pulp with delightful relish. But by the time the first globule of mushy juice trickled from his chin to the silted clay below, his little stomach had twisted into a horrible knot and his face had broken out in dark, burning welts. He dropped to his knees and howled, his soft talons clawing at his throat, which too had broken out in an itchy rash as dark as the night sky.

In those days that section of the river was a popular spot among fly-fishermen. On any given day the surface of the river practically gleamed from the reflection of the palladium poles. All manner of wild royal pescati swam the depths of that river, their scales such a verdant green that the water actually glittered like a sea of emeralds during the spawning season. It was a beautiful sight, the Capitoline River in summer: a jewel all its own.

But little Garrus wanted more than the treasure that swam in the river, and he was not the first boy to fall victim to the deceptive fruit. The Palaven Division of Forestry estimated that seventeen children fell ill that year by the same berries that were ripping apart Garrus' insides. Drogha berries weren't inherently dangerous for most people, but an antioxidant in the flesh of the berries was impossible for some turians – our little Garrus included – to digest, and the resulting allergic reaction was quite unpleasant.

Lucky for Garrus, several fishermen were wading in the river that day and heard his anguished cries. An older turian with kind gray eyes and familiar blue clan markings reached him first. Garrus was clammy and shivering, his knees curled tight into his chest. The rash on his throat had radiated around to his backside and now extended all the way down to his thighs. His howls had given way to quiet, raspy moans, and he didn't protest when the old fisherman scooped him up and threw him over his shoulder. The smooth, rocking gait of the fisherman lulled little Garrus to sleep as they made their way back to town.

Garrus' mother administered concentrated allergy medication between colorful chastisements for a week, until he fully recovered. It would be a year before she allowed her son to return to the banks of the Capitoline River unaccompanied, but for Garrus it was a lesson learned.

That fateful day so many years ago was Garrus' first and last brush with the drogha berry, but judging by his fitful scratching, he had never forgotten it. So that was that – drogha berry extract in quarian lube was the figurative thorn in Garrus Vakarian's side. The galaxy really was a small place.

Garrus shuddered at the recollection of it all – his tongue had been so swollen he couldn't speak for three days. When Tali had mentioned she was up for anything, he assumed "anything" didn't include a trip to the med bay. A slightly swollen tongue was one thing, but anaphylactic shock was quite another. Too bad, though; he looked so good in blue.

As Garrus distanced himself from the unsolicited memory, he glanced around the cluster of shops, suddenly hyper-aware that he was the only turian in the quarian enclave of Zakera Ward. A human C-Sec officer stationed near rapid transit gave him a friendly nod. Garrus assumed the slight, tanned man with the cheery eyes was fresh on his post; he looked too optimistic to be anything but a rook. It made him sick to see it, that shiny idealism. It had been a lifetime since Garrus had freed himself from those shackles, but he could never truly escape it, the nagging rot. They were corrupt bastards, all of them. Whether you fought C-Sec bureaucracy and favoritism or Blue Suns savagery, you were swimming against the same tide. They were all after the same thing: more power, more money, a bigger boot to crush more innocent souls under. If anything, the cops were more ruthless; they had a uniform to hide behind and a hell of a lot more to lose. You knew what to expect from a merc, but get in deep with a tainted cop and there'd be a knife at your back while you slept. The merc would boast, but the dirty cop would give your eulogy. Such endemic injustice was too much to bear. Garrus turned abruptly back to the kiosk when he realized he had begun to stare at the poor kid.

He queued up the table of contents to travel to a new section of the catalog, but before he could choose his destination, he was interrupted by a thick, soft Khelish accent.

"Can I help you, sir?"

Garrus looked up from the console to regard the female shopkeeper. Her veil was a deep shade of burgundy with pewter accents and lighter silver patterns that he recognized as ancient Khelish script. The fluorescent lighting on the lower levels of the Ward was harsh enough that he could make out the outline of her eyes and the bridge of her nose through the helmet – her eyes were a bit further apart than Tali's, her nose a bit wider.

"Uh, yeah. I guess so." He'd be there forever otherwise.

"Is this your first time shopping at Visions of Rannoch?"

She spoke confidently, but there was an unobtrusive kindness in her tone that struck him as unusual. She must have been the owner; every other clerk on the Citadel spoke in the same monotonous way that made them sound like literate mechs. There was grit in her voice, too, a toughness that told him this was not her first career, and whatever she did before she landed on the Citadel probably left a body count.

Garrus coughed uncomfortably. He was still rubbing the back of his neck, though now it was more out of habit than nerves. "Yes. First time."

"I see. Well, allow me to welcome you to the premiere destination on the Citadel for dextro-specific pleasurable wares. My name is Maya'Taam vas Qwib-Qwib, and this is my shop." She extended her hand, which Garrus shook warmly.

"Garrus. Vakarian."

"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Vakarian. So tell me," she said casually, dropping a box of impossibly large ball gags on the counter, "what can I interest you in today?"

Garrus simply stood there; it's all he could do. His synapses were firing so fast he thought he might combust if he so much as twitched. Maya'Taam was Qwib-Qwib watched him with gleeful interest – a nervous turian in her shop was old hat, but there was something special about this one: a quiet, roguish eagerness that set him apart from the others, who were interested in nothing but vortex suction machines and copies of "The Morning Score*." She appraised him quickly: long, well-tapered fringe; plates were an agreeable color, if not a bit unusual, yes, and those Cipritine blues implied a family of good stature. Though meticulously polished, his gashed and dented armor had clearly seen battle, but he wore them with confidence and nonchalance, like a favorite tunic that hung in all the right ways, especially at that chiseled waist. Even the bandaged mandible gave him a rakish old-world charm that appealed even to her, and she had long outgrown any desire for a partner. Nonetheless, stammering and mandible twitches aside – and mandibles altogether, of course – this was Sal'Chan vas Haestrom^ in the flesh. His partner was a lucky quarian indeed.

Her customer being of no help whatsoever, Maya swiveled around the catalog console to access his browsing history. Maya grinned as she studied the readout: eighty-nine individual captures, all intimate feminine cleansers used to sanitize the vaginal area for otherwise unprotected intercourse and oral play. This was most delightfully unusual, considering most turians were voracious, single-minded lovers who finished as quickly as they started. A shame too, as Maya knew there was no finer worldly pleasure than enjoying those masterful fuzzed tongues between one's thighs. And here was this charming young man, unwitting turian heartthrob to every quarian female from here to the Veil: a tor'zhan, oh yes, and a gentleman to boot! Maya wondered if his girl knew she was beloved by the greatest dextro catch in the galaxy.

Motor skills having finally returned, Garrus wrung his hands, his eyes shifting between the copies of Fornax plastered on the walls of the booth and the woman who was trying to help him get laid. He was confused, overwhelmed and a just little bit horny. It was weird.

Maya was quiet save for a few sporadic hums until she abruptly snapped the console shut and began moved quickly and with purpose around the booth, as if there were a varren nipping at her heels, though there was really no place to go. She seemed to Garrus the sort who would eat and check her vid-mail in the shower – the hypothetical shower, that is – just to maximize her efficiency.

"Your girlfriend, does she practice?" she called from the opposite end of the booth as she hung beautifully braided himlah3 floggers and platinum-handled paddles from the ceiling with the same routine detachment as Garrus would file his talons and brush his teeth.

Garrus swallowed the lump growing in his throat, his thoughts drifting to the nerve-stim Tali had tested with him, all feedback and purple gasps and foggy breath and delicate gloved fingers clutching his back. You have no idea, he wanted to say, but offered her a quizzical stare instead.

Maya let out an amused sigh as she descended her ladder. Despite his good looks and winning personality, this one still had a lot to learn. "I'm sorry, dear. I assumed you knew her eating habits – is she vegan? Does she eat meat?"

As his fantasies continued to assault him, Garrus struggled to think of a response that wouldn't make him sound like a complete lech. "Uh, no, not that I know of. She usually eats nutrient paste and sterilized vegetable rations unless we're on shore leave." He paused again, knowing he was forgetting something that might be important. Ah, right. "Well, she does like turian chocolate. They're made with dairy substitute, so I suppose that's vegan—"

"Indeed," she nodded. Fascinating, a quarian on a turian military ship… Maya had never heard of such an assignment before, and she was well acquainted with the customs of turian ships, having stowed away on one in her more capricious days. Futhermore, the turian government would never allow a girl on her Pilgrimage onto an active vessel – too much sensitive data could be lost or tampered with. There was only one ship in the galaxy that boasted a cross-species team, and that had been … could it be? She studied the man in front of her, suddenly recalling that it had been a human, a turian, and a quarian that led the assault against Saren Arterius two years ago. The chances were astronomical, yet the state of his armor corroborated Maya's deduction. "Thank you, Mr. Vakarian."

"Garrus, please."

"As you wish." She gave a few quick punches to her omni-tool before disappearing beneath the counter again, her voice slightly muffled from the barrier between them and the clang of metal that held her attention. She spoke a bit louder to compensate: "That eliminates our red line of oral products, and I assume you have a gamene intolerance given your reaction to the blue line."

"Something like that," he replied with a small laugh, ignoring the flush that was darkening his neck. No sense in being embarrassed about an allergy when there were quarian sex toys to be dealt with, he figured.

You'd be surprised how common that is, especially in males about your age," she assured, throwing a quick glance in his direction as she continued her frenzied inventory, now placing a small vidscreen near the end of the counter. "But that's neither here nor there, is it? Well, you already know that we have a wide array of products that will suit your needs, and if you don't mind telling me a bit more about yourself and your partner, I'll be able to give you the most appropriate recommendations. I realize our catalog can be quite daunting to the untrained eye."

Garrus should have expected this – to unearth every kink and sexual proclivity in the name of mind-blowing sex – but it disarmed him all the same. Still, he should be as honest as possible. For science or something. And Tali. He did all he could to look unflappable as the vidscreen began to broadcast a series of slaps and satisfied moans followed by a crash of heavy chains.

"'Palladium Dungeon,'" she explained. "Bondage is becoming increasingly popular among young adults. I've sold thirty copies of this vid already, and I received the license codes only yesterday."

Garrus couldn't help but stare and thank the spirits his arousal was concealed by his armor. He focused his rapt attention on the quarian female who hung suspended by her arms and legs from the ceiling with a series of ropes and chains. Her long, dark hair lay in damp waves against her cheeks that sloped like granite, and her plump mouth quivered in anticipation. A fully suited quarian male attached small electric clamps to her rosy nipples, and she cried out at the spark. Her skin was inflamed where the binds dug into her flesh, but the gleam of moisture between her legs implied she was in no mood to complain.

The male moved offscreen for a moment, presumably to retrieve another instrument. While he was gone the female wriggled in her restraints in such a way that she presented her beautiful dark crease to the camera. Before Garrus could memorize her every glorious dip and crevice, the male returned with a bulbous black rod tipped with tiny fiber optic feelers. He had removed the codpiece of his suit, and his member jutted out from between the clasps in such an uncouth way it almost looked as if he were wearing a dildo. He approached the female and slathered her genital area with some kind of lubrication ["That's our cleanser," Maya proclaimed proudly.] before lining up the rod at the delicate pucker of her ass. She moaned as hungrily as Tali did in Garrus' dreams when the male pushed the plug deep inside her and brought his hand to her ample flesh with a resounding smack. The slap sent her swinging and despite the obvious pain the tension was causing her, she whimpered, begging him to bring her to release as the fiber optics tickled her walls, but he responded only with a teasing swipe to her vulva before burying himself in her.

Garrus was lost, so deliciously lost. And now he had ideas. "That's… impressive," he said, clearing his throat. It most certainly was.

She agreed. "It will be a classic."

Once the warm grip of quarian bondage porn had loosed itself from his groin and he was equipped with everything on Tali's debauched grocery list, Garrus found himself in the back office of Visions of Rannoch. Maya had already probed him – no pun intended – for his sexual history, though it was really nothing to write Palaven about: one long term girlfriend during his time at C-Sec and a smattering of one-night stands and third dates gone wrong. They even discussed the dreams he'd been having.

"This is your first time together, is it not?"

"Yes. Well, sort of," he corrected. "She's still recovering from a high fever, but she's been taking a lot of supplements and is being monitored by our ship's physician, so we wanted to try some partial suit removal. We haven't linked yet, and we don't want to until she's fully healed."

Maya nodded; that was just what she wanted to hear. Too often she convened with young women who became violently ill after linking suits with their partners without taking proper precautions.

"I'm no doctor, but it sounds as if you two are doing everything just right. Just make sure to file your talons before any skin-on-skin contact," she advised, glancing down at his talons. "Do you mind?"

Garrus was not in the habit of flashing his talons to just anyone, and certainly not under the bright lights of Zakera Ward, but he obliged, and Maya clucked her tongue in disapproval.

"No, no, no. They're too long. You're a soldier, right?" He nodded. "You keep them sharp for close combat?" Again.

Garrus frowned. A good turian never clipped his talons, but then again he never was a very good turian. And he was a sniper anyway, damn it; if he couldn't hit a target from two thousand meters, a nasty pair of claws sure wouldn't save him. "Consider it done. What else?"

"Well, I think we've hit all the necessities, but there is always the matter of preference," she replied, motioning to the plethora of exciting merchandise that lined the walls. "I couldn't help but notice how much you enjoyed that vid. Have you two discussed more interesting activities?"

"I, ah… yeah. She's been very… brazen… in the last few days, so I think she would be amenable to it, but I don't want to get ahead of myself."

"I understand. It's a tough subject to broach, especially early on in a relationship. If I may, though, I carry a kit that is a perfect segue into light BDSM," Maya said as she brought up a screen on her omni-tool. Garrus was never one to dismiss good advice, so into his queue it went.

Once he had purchased enough cleanser, lozenges, and toys to last until the next Reaper invasion, Garrus thanked the shopkeeper again for her help and extended his hand to her, this time in friendship.

"You have a remarkable voice, if you don't mind my saying."

Garrus flicked his mandibles politely in thanks, but he had been the recipient of such a compliment more times than he could recall and it had completely lost its meaning. It was a well-established joke among turian males that untethering their harmonics could make any xeno-leaning quarian or human female cream her pants. Although Garrus found that particular euphemism a bit blue and rather uninspired, he agreed with the sentiment and intended to find out just how true it was.

"I don't want to presume anything," she continued, now quite confident she understood what these young lovebirds needed, "but I think your girlfriend would be most pleased if you made full use of it."

What an interesting turn of events. Garrus leaned forward onto his elbows and tented his hands. "You read my mind."

"That's what I do."

The Morning Score: The bestselling pornographic vid of 2172, a rousing, albeit historically inaccurate account of the geth incursion, in which quarian vidstar Jara'Shir is brutally violated by 500 geth trooper units. The Morning Score was the first vid to feature real geth units, all of which were rebuilt from salvage components collected in secret by Captain Rael'Zorah in the late 2160s.

Sal'Chan vas Haestrom: The biochemist-turned-quarian-leader of civilian guerrilla fighters on Haestrom during the Battle of the Rim in 1896. In addition to being a skilled, if not formally trained, warrior, Sal'Chan has been depicted as having "eyes the color of Manaa crystal, a jaw that could withstand a thousand blows, and an intellect that could undress a woman before she even entered the room."

Himlah: A versatile and useful plant grown on the liveships. Himlah plants are most commonly refined into fiber for rope and bioplastic, but it can also be used as a food garnish.