From ensdelk@aol.com Fri Mar 20 12:17:47 1998
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From: ensdelk@aol.com (EnsDelk)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.q
Subject: NEW: Escher Dreams PT 2 (1/12, TNG, P/m, NC-17
Date: 20 Mar 1998 19:17:47 GMT
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Title: Escher Dreams -- Part Two
Author: The Anon Sisters <anonsisters@yahoo.com>
Series: TNG
Rating: NC-17
Codes: P/m

Summary:  Picard begins having dreams of a mysterious 
lover at the same time the Enterprise begins study of 
an unusually beautiful anomaly.  Is the anomaly 
responsible for the dreams, or is something more 
complicated going on?

We are using Paramount's characters for non-profit 
entertainment purposes. This story contains m/m sex 
and some very mild bondage.  Feedback is welcome at: 
anonsisters@yahoo.com, or on the newsgroup.  Please 
request missing sections from us at: 
anonsisters@yahoo.com. OK to archive at the ASCEM 
archive and the Star Trek Slash Archive, but please 
ask before archiving anywhere else.


*Escher Dreams*
Part Two

by The Anon Sisters


Instead of the shock he would have expected, the memory caused him to
moan and arch his hips, thrusting his cock hard into his hand.  He
forced himself to stop, to take a deep breath, and then he began to
run his fingers slowly over his erection.  He'd never really paid a
whole lot of attention to it before.  Or rather he had paid attention
to it as a part (and a sometimes demanding part at that) of himself. 
Now he thought about what it would be like to touch another man's
cock.  He wasn't repelled by the idea, far from it, in fact. 

Putting aside any thoughts of what this meant to him, he just indulged
in the luxury of lightly stroking himself.  It was really amazing how
soft his skin was there.  It felt like silk, wet silk, and his fingers
glided over it.  He moaned as he touched *that* spot, the one that
always felt so good, and he wondered if all men had the same hotspots.
 Probably not, he thought dimly; all women didn't.  He tried to
remember more about the other man in his dream, about what his cock
had been like, and he stroked himself the way he wanted to stroke his
dream lover, teasing a little at first and then moving harder,
imagining how the other's body would move at his touch.   

*I'm thinking about...wanting to jerk another man off,* he thought,
and a fierce wave of lust swept over him and he came, suddenly and
intensely. 

He lay in stunned silence for a moment.  "A man," he said softly,
experimenting a little with the way it sounded.  "My dream lover is a
man."  Before he could talk himself out of it, he brought his hand to
his mouth and carefully licked one of his fingers. 

The watcher almost lost his self-control right then and there.  The
sight of Jean-Luc Picard, naked, his body sprawled on the bed in a
pose of abandon, licking his own semen off his fingers, was one of the
most erotic things he'd ever seen.  He knew that, in a moment, the
wheels in Picard's mind would start turning as he tried to figure out
whats and whys and wherefores, not to mention the all important *who,*
but for now, he was a simply a creature of lust and sensation, and the
watcher wanted nothing more than to pounce on him and pleasure him
until he passed out due to sheer sexual exhaustion. 

With a start, Picard realized he'd almost completely cleaned his hand
off without really thinking about it.  The taste wasn't unpleasant at
all, but he really hadn't expected it to be.  He had kissed lovers
after they'd gone down on him and it had never bothered him.  He
guessed that, like women, different men probably tasted different, and
he wondered what *he* tasted like. 

He.  Him.  The man he'd been dreaming about.  His dream lover. 

Absentmindedly, he cleaned himself off with a corner of the sheet and
then moved to the other side of the bed.  At least he knew why he
hadn't been able to remember whom he was dreaming about.  His
conscious mind had been looking for a woman where there was no woman.  

But now that he knew it was a man he'd been dreaming about, the major
question still remained:  who?  He tried to remember if he'd ever been
attracted to a man, any man, before.  There had been little flickers
of interest, times when he'd find himself looking at a man and feeling
something.  It had happened, he remembered, during puberty, that
confusing period of hormonal flux, when his sex drive was an enemy,
something he saw as an embarrassment and  a barrier to achieving his
dream of entering Starfleet Academy.   

And then, when he was seventeen, two very different women burst into
his life and any confusion about his basic orientation was gone. 
Shortly thereafter, there was the Academy, and the sudden rise of his
personal star.  Lovers seemed to fall into his hands the same way good
grades and piloting skills seemed to be his for the taking.  Oh there
had been men who were interested, but things being what they were,
he'd never had any reason to return the interest.   

He suddenly remembered Alec Marcus, an engineering cadet a year behind
him. He'd actually given serious thought to the quiet invitation for a
date that Alec had extended one day, but Lise Hampton, whom Picard had
been steadily pursuing for weeks, had interrupted the conversation and
he'd ended up going out with her instead of Alec.  Amazing that he
remembered everything so well, this many years later. And how strange
that Lise had turned out to be such a disappointment, boring and
self-centered... 

*I was an asshole at the Academy,* Picard suddenly thought, not for
the first time.  *And I seem to be doing everything I can to avoid
figuring out whom it is that I'm dreaming about.* 

Jean-Luc concentrated on what he'd told Troi the day before.  His
lover was tall, which wasn't so odd in a man, and dark-haired.  He had
large hands, and suddenly Picard had a distinct memory of those hands
running over his skin, teasing and touching him while Jean-Luc was
somehow restrained.  Frowning, he tried to remember more about the
man.  He had a full, expressive mouth, and was younger, or at least he
looked younger than Jean-Luc himself.  Again, that wasn't surprising. 
And his eyes were brown, Picard thought, feeling a certain tension he
hadn't really been aware of ease in his chest.  

Brown eyes, the man had brown eyes -- *not* pale gold eyes, or blue
eyes.   

Relived to be certain that he hadn't suddenly developed a passion for
Will or Data, Picard tried to remember more.  But there wasn't much
more to remember, except the recollection of a voice that was almost
tangible.  He thought of the way he felt when that voice said his
name, and wondered why he couldn't remember more, now that his
confusion over his dream lover's sex had been resolved.   Maybe it
*was* someone he knew, someone unavailable, or someone he thought was
unavailable because a relationship between them would be
inappropriate.   

*Well *that* isn't very helpful,* he thought a little sourly.  Anyone
on the ship would be inappropriate; his affair with Neela had taught
him that much. But what if it *were* someone on the ship, someone he
knew?  What if in the next day or two, he narrowed it down until he
had a name and a face to go with this overwhelming emotional and
sexual passion?  Would he back off? What if this hypothetical man
wanted Picard as badly as Picard wanted him? He hadn't felt like this
about Neela.  In fact, even at the height of his painful, guilty love
for Beverly, he'd never felt the sense of completeness about their
relationship that he felt with his dream lover.  For a moment he
entertained the notion that if he found this person on the Enterprise,
he would be willing to risk the fear of losing him on a mission for
the benefit of having a relationship with him. 

Suddenly not interested in sleep, he got out of bed.  It was close
enough to morning that he didn't want to try to sleep anymore.  He
would just do some of the paperwork he'd been neglecting while he
studied the Escher anomaly.  He got out of bed and grabbed his robe
off its hook in the bathroom.  He'd shower later, before he got
dressed.   

Halfway through the first departmental report in his backlog, his door
chime sounded. 

"Come." 

He stared in astonishment at the man who walked into the room.
"Captain...Jean-Luc," that incredible voice said, and Picard felt
himself get hard before the man said anything else.  "I just couldn't
go a minute more without seeing you." 

"Oh God," Picard said, rising from his desk.  His visitor was dressed
in loose-fitting civilian clothes and the contrast between the way he
looked now and his usual uniformed appearance was startling.  Picard
was suddenly glad that he hadn't showered and that he didn't have the
weight of those four small pips on his collar. 

Jean-Luc all but threw himself into the man's arms and they kissed
hungrily.  When he finally managed to pull his mouth away, he buried
his face into the other man's neck.  "I miss you so much sometimes,"
he said raggedly.  "I *want* you so much..."  That was all he got out
before his mouth was once more burned by his lover's amazing kiss.  He
was being maneuvered back toward the desk, and when he reached it, he
blindly shoved padds and things off the smooth glass surface, before
he ended up sitting on it, still kissing the man in front of him. 

Their hands collided as they both reached to get Picard's robe out of
the way, and then Jean-Luc's lover was closing his eyes and trying to
breathe properly.  "You smell like sex," he murmured, running his
hands all over the captain's upper body. 

"I was thinking of you...ohhhh...and I couldn't help it...yesss...I
had to..." 

"I wish I could have seen that," that dark, seductive voice said.   

Brown eyes met hazel eyes, and then Jean-Luc said softly:  

"Go ahead and get me wet." 

A second later, he was stroking that dark hair as a skillful mouth
made him even harder.  Sooner than he expected, he had to reach down
and gently grasp the other man's chin.  His lover came up off his
knees and backed off until he was leaning against one of the easy
chairs. 

Aware that those dark eyes were focused on his every movement, Picard
leaned back on one hand and slid the other hand over his cock.  "I did
this and thought of you," he murmured.  "And it was...good...but not
as...good as when...you do it to...me..."  He began to pant as he got
closer to release.   

"Oh, but you're so beautiful, Jean-Luc," his lover murmured, and now
there was no hesitation in his voice as he used his captain's first
name.  "Look at you, displaying yourself for me, letting me watch you
touch yourself."  His eyes almost glowed and Picard could feel himself
falling into that dark gaze.  "After you're done, I'm going to bury
myself inside you, inside all that beauty and heat, and fuck you." 

"OH YES!" Picard yelled as he came. 

A second later, he woke up. 

"Merde, merde, merde," he muttered under his breath.  The face was
gone.  That face, with those eyes that had both caressed and compelled
him as he showed off for his lover, had melted into the obscurity of
his dream.  He was alone again, alone in a bed with sheets that once
more needed to be changed.  And there was an emptiness in his life
that suddenly seemed vaster than he had ever imagined it would be. 

A glance at the clock told him that his alarm was about to go off and
he rolled out of bed to face another day.  *I'm going to find you,* he
thought, buoyed by his sudden determination.  "It doesn't matter who
you are," he said out loud.  "If you're real, I'm going to find you." 

For the first time, the watcher felt hope.   

Knowing that Escher Eight wasn't due for another four hours, Picard
informed Riker that he would be late arriving on the bridge and then
contacted Troi. He was suddenly a little wary of facing his crew
without talking things over with Deanna.  He felt like he should look
different from how he did, like discovering something like this about
himself would show somehow.  But his mirror had merely shown what it
had shown for the last several days.  He looked relaxed and content,
but not appreciably different.  *And why should you, really?* he asked
himself impatiently as he left his quarters.  

"What has changed?" Deanna asked him as soon as he'd sat down in her
office and accepted a cup of tea.

"What do you sense from me?" he asked in return.  It was a question he
tended to avoid with her, having learned that she could be bluntly
honest if she thought it was good for him. 

She closed her eyes for a moment, and then smiled.  "A shift in your
self-perception.  One that you are a little confused about, but not
frightened of.  You *are* worried, but it's not a...heavy worry."  She
smiled.  "Who is she?" 

"That's just it, Deanna.  I still don't have a name or a face."  He
paused to smile, and suddenly he looked half his age.  Troi hid a
smile of her own.  It was amazing to see him like this, looking sleek
and contented with life, looking, as Will had put it, like someone
"who's getting a lot of something very good." 

"But I know one thing I didn't know yesterday."  He drew a deep
breath.  "It's a man." 

Picard was accustomed to the fact that Deanna often knew more about
him that he did himself, and so it was very gratifying to see her eyes
go round with surprise.  She caught the feeling from him and shook her
head.  Before she could say anything, he smiled and said it for her: 

"How do you feel about that, Captain?"  He even managed her accent and
she laughed, flattered, as always, by the glimpse at his buried sense
of humor. 

"Well?" she asked. 

"As you said, I'm confused." 

"You've never thought of yourself as bisexual, have you?" 

"I thought about that this morning," he began, and went on to talk
about the attitude he'd had towards sex during his youth.  Deanna was
fascinated and found herself comparing the man she knew with the
picture he painted of the wild Cadet Picard.  

"So," he finished, "the opportunity was there a couple of times, but I
was too busy with women to take advantage of it." 

"Too busy," she asked, "or too nervous?"  He looked at her with
surprise.  "You say that by the time you went to the Academy, you were
fairly experienced with women." 

"Yes."  He chuckled.  "It's so very French that it's almost
embarrassing, but my first lover was thirty-five years old to my
seventeen years." 

"For Humans that's a little unusual, but my first lover was almost
that much older than I was." 

"I know," he said, and then, suddenly, his face got a little red.  "At
least I assumed so, based on what I know of Betazoid traditions and
your...background."   Deanna appreciated the fact that he'd
substituted "background" for "mother." 

"Was she, your first lover, a teacher?  I don't mean literally, but
what was her attitude toward the affair?" 

"Very much a teacher," he replied.  "I later learned that she had a
habit of 'teaching' young men."  Troi could detect no rancor in him
over the matter.  In fact, he still felt a certain gratitude when he
thought of the woman. 

"So you went into the Academy more, let's say 'talented,' than most of
your peers."  He nodded.  "But that experience and that ability was
limited to sex with women.  Do you think that you didn't want to look
inexperienced and therefore you didn't follow up on any interest you
might have had for other men?" 

Picard thought about that for a while.  At eighteen, he'd been
desperate to succeed, and his initial failure to get into the Academy
had loomed large over his life once he did get there.  He'd brought
several advantages with him:  the uncanny spatial awareness that made
him such a good pilot, the fascination with learning that made
studying a joy instead of a task, a natural athletic talent that made
him succeed at any sport he was interested in, and his skill with
women.  He'd had to discover the leadership skills while hiding the
fear that he wasn't good enough to succeed, and he realized that his
womanizing had served not only to cover for the fear of failure, but... 

"It was," he said aloud, almost talking to himself, "something that
everyone looked up to."  He shook his head.  "Good God, first and
second year cadets are amazingly shallow.  My leadership of my class
was based on my winning the Academy Marathon and the fact that I went
out with a new girl every week." 

"You were larger than life," Troi said.  "And you've looked at your
own file, so there's no pretending that you don't know that enough of
your instructors saw something underneath that shallow exterior."

End 1/12






From ensdelk@aol.com Fri Mar 20 12:19:49 1998
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From: ensdelk@aol.com (EnsDelk)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.q
Subject: NEW: Escher Dreams PT 2 (2/12, TNG, P/m, NC-17)
Date: 20 Mar 1998 19:19:49 GMT
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*Escher Dreams*
Part Two
by The Anon Sisters
2/12 
disclaimers in 1/12


"Well..."  He shrugged, making light, as usual, of his 
genuine achievements. "If that's why I didn't indulge my curiosity at
the Academy, did I just carry that pattern with me as I got more
mature?" 

"That's part of it.  And there's no denying the fact that you really
do love women."  He looked startled by the blunt statement, and she
smiled.  "I'm not just talking about sex, but you like being with
them, talking to them, listening to them, looking at them.  It's
probably the reason that you managed to make it out of the Academy
without getting married *or* becoming a completely cynical cad." 

Picard smiled.  She was right as usual.  He'd never 
really thought about it before, but he did love all those things and
more about women.  "I'm not sure why I do, but you're right.  So why
is my ideal lover suddenly a man?" 

"You know better than to ask *me* that question." 

"I can't help the feeling that it's one specific person.  I still
cherish, probably foolishly at my age, the notion that there is
Someone (with a capital S) out there for me.  Someone who is my
perfect mate.  Not in the sense that Kamala was, but someone I was
born to be with."  He looked down at his hands.  "And the only
question is, have I found him, or am I making him up?" 

Troi looked at him, hoping she was being successful at 
hiding her surprise. Not at the fact that he was such a 
romantic, which she'd figured out long ago, but at the 
fact that he'd shared that information with her so 
readily.  She found herself hoping desperately (and quite
unprofessionally) that his dream lover was real and that they would
meet and be together.  Her captain quite simply *deserved* to be that
happy, to find that person.  

"Captain," she said, then paused and thought:  *Oh the 
hell with it!* 

"I hope you have found him." 

He looked at her gratefully.  "Thank you, Deanna." 

She nodded and looked at her clock.  "We should probably talk more
later, but I do have another appointment today."  Something made her
grin at him. "A premarital session." 

Picard accepted her teasing with surprising grace, and 
bent to kiss her cheek as he stood up to leave.  He 
paused for a second before walking out the door and she 
felt him shift back into Captain mode.  When he nodded 
and left, however, there was a faint smile lurking in the corner of
his mouth, and she looked forward to a day of contented patients. 

Picard had made it about half-way to the turbo-lift when Riker hailed
him. 

"Picard here." 

"Ambassador Arlic, Li, and Data have asked that you join them in
Stellar Cartography." 

"How long until Escher Eight?" 

"Three hours, twelve minutes." 

"Tell them I'm on my way.  Picard out." 

"But it explains so much," Arlic was saying.  "And I can see no other
reason why the lace should keep appearing." 

"The concept of a signature to denote the author of a 
work of art has been almost universal in my experience," Data agreed,
moving slightly back so that their small circle now included the
captain.  Before them loomed the three-dimensional display of Escher
Seven. 

"Despite all the activity of the anomaly," Li said, 
nodding to the captain, "there continues to be absolutely no effect on
any tactical systems, apart from the visual, of course.  For such a
phenomenon to occur naturally...well, there's impossible and then
there's just so implausible that you've got to look elsewhere." 

"I have analyzed the lace pattern in conjunction with 
every known system of communication, and have yet to find a
recognizably coherent system.  However, that conclusion becomes
irrelevant if I am searching for a signature." 

*Brown hair,* Picard was thinking.  *Tall.  Could it 
be...Li?* 

He waited to feel horror.  He waited to feel like a dirty old man or a
confused virgin.  Instead, he simply felt intrigued.  Li was someone
he'd underestimated, and though he was younger than Picard, he wasn't
a child. 

Hoping he wasn't giving off any signals yet, Jean-Luc 
looked carefully at large, strong hands, a long, solid 
body, dark brown eyes, and lips definitely cut on the 
full side.  His body wasn't leaping into a state of 
arousal, but he found he was definitely looking at Li as he had often
looked at a woman, and it didn't feel bad at all.  If Li were his
dream lover -- oh, all that warmth, all that love...who cared what the
package was? 

"So the lace pattern, if it is the signature, tells us 
nothing other than that this is probably not naturally-
occurring," Arlic said.  "Could we find some way to 
manipulate it?  Perhaps some rearrangement of the 
pattern?  If it *is* a purposeful puzzle, perhaps we've 
been left clues regarding how to solve it." 

Data nodded and proceeded to the computer console.  "I am establishing
parameters for a comparison of the lace 
patterns we have seen so far." 

Arlic rattled off a stream of figures and calculations 
Picard didn't bother to follow.  Instead, very carefully, he stood
just a little closer to Li and smiled at him with a captain's nod of
approval, everything circumspect. 

"A very good theory, Lieutenant," he said quietly.   

"But just a theory, sir," the security chief said, 
obviously pleased with the compliment. 

"But certainly the best one we've had so far."  Picard 
lessened the smile into something a little more manly and distant, and
almost absently stuck out his hand for Li to shake.  Readily, Li
grasped his hand, shook it firmly, and then released it as Picard
turned to Data and Arlic. 

"Please keep me informed of your progress, gentlemen," he said warmly,
then turned and headed for the bridge. 

Only once he was alone in the lift did Picard allow 
himself to shiver.  Li's hand had been as cold and clammy as a
jellyfish.   

"How are things in Stellar Cartography?" Riker asked, 
turning from a rear science station as Picard walked onto the bridge. 

"Last I saw they were comparing variations of the lace 
pattern."  He walked up close to Riker and murmured, "I 
have to admit, it's given me an idea of my own."  The 
first officer's eyebrows shot up in a pleasant question, and Picard
grinned just slightly at him before turning for his ready room. 

Riker's smile turned slightly indulgent as he grew aware of the great
mood Picard's manner had brought him.  No question:  it was shaping up
to be quite a day. 

Deanna caught his eye from her chair, winking at him, and he had to
smother a laugh. 

Picard got his cup of tea and settled comfortably behind his desk.  He
had quite an idea about that lace pattern, one so simple it just might
be correct. 


"I want you to take me home!" 

Picard sighed.  Another public scene. 

"My love," he said as quietly as he could over the music, "I was just
talking to him." 

"You were *looking* at him!  I could see it.  Everyone 
could see it!" 

*Everyone can see you working yourself into a state for 
no reason at all.*  "It's my job!  I have to talk to 
other people.  That's what 'Public Relations' means.  We both have our
jobs.  You don't see me getting worked up when you have to kiss
someone on holo-camera, do you?" 

"That's different!  And besides, it's usually a woman!" 

"What difference is that supposed to make?  There you 
are, touching someone, kissing them, sometimes buck naked with them,
and I have to watch the whole thing in 3-D and applaud at the end!" 

His lover opened and closed his mouth, his eyes going 
soft in that way he had no defenses against.  "Do you 
really not like it?" 

"It's hardly my favorite thing," Jean-Luc admitted, 
moving just a bit closer to the man in order to avoid a 
waiter and his large tray of empty cocktail glasses, "but I accept
that it's part of what you do, what you need to do to pursue your art
and your job.  Please," here he placed a hand on his lover's broad
chest, "can't you do the same for me?" 

His lover smiled, half-tenderness and half-mischief, 
placing his hand over Jean-Luc's and squeezing.  When 
Picard smiled shyly back, the man pounced, lowering his 
head quickly to press a possessive kiss on his lips even as he was
gathering his body into his arms.  With a mental sigh, Jean-Luc kissed
back, quickly losing all 
sense of place while warmth enveloped him and pleasure 
filled and caressed. 

Dimly, he saw the tell-tale flash of light which meant 
someone had snapped a holo of them, a holo that would 
doubtlessly show up on the 'net with rude captions 
beneath it.  At least it happened before his lover's 
hands moved over his backside to press him against the 
bulge in his pants. 

Picard pulled away from those lips enough to gasp, 
"Sometimes, I think you'd make love with me right in 
front of everyone, if I let you." 

"Oh, Jean-Luc, who knew you were so kinky?"  A warm thigh pressed
tightly against his groin, and Picard moaned just slightly.  Would he
let his lover fuck him right here? He seemed in danger of it. 

"Excuse me, sir?" a young female voice.  "Could I have 
your autograph?"" 

"You have my autograph already.  You just need to put 
your glasses on." 

Picard's eyes opened, instinct making him stare at his 
tea.  Yes, there was still a faint hint of steam coming 
from the liquid.  He hadn't been asleep long.  His 
erection pressed against his uniform painfully, but 
desire wasn't the primary sensation in his body...or at 
least, it had strong competition from a feeling of being on the verge
of a discovery. 

*Glasses?  Why am I thinking about glasses?  What type of glasses?* 

Quickly, he took a sip of his tea and turned on his 
monitor, getting a schematic of the lace pattern. 

Could it somehow rely on a filter?  Could it be something that simple?
 Wait, he'd been thinking about something simple before he dozed off.   

A screen.  But what kind of screen? 

Quickly, he had a list of how they'd found all the 
previous lace patterns.  The odd-numbered anomalies had 
them in obvious place, the even in not-so-obvious or not-at-all. 

A screen. 

"Could it be that simple?" he asked the empty room, his 
eyes wandering to his new lionfish.  Neuss glumped at 
him.  Perhaps the author of this anomaly wanted to be 
found.  Perhaps...but that would mean his dream lover 
made the anomaly.  Who could do that? 

Well, only one way to proceed.   

"Computer, super-impose the lace pattern from Escher One over Escher
Two, compensating for scale."  The computer complied, but the image
wasn't helpful.  "Computer, super-impose Escher One over Escher Two,
compensating for scale."  Nothing again.  "Computer, make a negative
of Escher One and super-impose that on Escher Two, compensating for
scale." 

The lace pattern clearly emerged.  When he did the same 
thing with Eschers Three and Four, and Five and Six, the pattern
appeared again.  In fact, though the pattern was the same, the
solidity of it seemed to improve, to be working towards some sort of
new coherent pattern. 

And he was only a little away from Escher Eight.  He 
glanced at his monitor.  Less than an hour now.  Time 
enough to think about his other puzzle. 

Li.  He was almost certain it wasn't Li.  The physical 
form was close enough, although he had the feeling that 
the lover of his dreams was broader across the chest than Li. 
But...There had been nothing when they touched, no spark, no *feeling*
that this was the One.  And that handshake...Li had been *nervous* and
Picard suddenly wondered if he'd been staring at the young man too
intently.  Had his tac officer thought that Picard was making a pass
at him?   

Picard drew a slightly shaky breath, noticing that any 
trace of desire from his brief dream was completely gone.  Sexual
harassment was one of Starfleet's crash and burn offenses; one didn't
get a second chance.  And as a command cadet, everyone had it pounded
into their head over and over. Picard could still hear Commander 
Ravenhurst speaking in that clipped Oxford accent: 

"The men and women you will commanded will *trust* you. 
You will literally hold their lives in your hands.  Any 
attempt to take personal advantage of that situation 
destroys that trust, and it destroys your command." 

It had been the first time the command cadets in Picard's class had
heard that.  It hadn't been the last.  And now, over forty years
later, Picard wondered if he'd crossed the line.  He didn't think he
had; he was personally sure that he hadn't ogled the young man
overtly.  But *his* perceptions didn't matter; what mattered was how
Li had seen it. 

Then a thought pushed itself gently toward the front of 
his mind, and he brought up Li's personnel file.  *Well, no wonder
he's nervous,* Picard told himself ruefully.  In one week, Li was due
for his first annual evaluation with Picard.  And in the past week,
he'd had a grueling battle drill flung at him with no warning, and now
he was in the middle of an investigation that he probably felt was way
out of his area of expertise. *Poor boy,* Picard thought.  And that
thought settled it, his dream lover wasn't Li.  He couldn't imagine
thinking "poor boy" of the man who haunted his sleep. 

His monitor beeped at him, and he realized that Escher 
Eight was due to make an appearance in twenty minutes.  
He looked once more at the picture attached to Li's file.  A handsome
young man, Picard thought and one who would go far in Starfleet. 
Resolving not to let those moments in the Astrophysics Lab color his
perception of Li, Picard calmly closed down the file, and headed for
the bridge. 

As the ready room doors closed behind him and Picard 
automatically looked around the bridge, he hid a smile.  
Riker was pacing from console to console, trying to look like a first
officer who was merely doing his job, and not someone who was waiting
for something important.  He was succeeding for the most part,
although Troi looked at Riker and then at Picard with a slightly
indulgent smile on her face. 

Smiling, Picard stopped at Troi's station and bent down.  "Am I
mistaken," he asked very quietly, "or is everyone on this bridge
twitching with anticipation?" 

"If we could get away with it," she replied, her voice 
equally quiet, "we'd *all* be pacing." 

"Privilege of rank, I'm afraid," Picard replied.   

Eschewing that particular privilege of rank, he sat down in his
command chair, and simply waited, not bothering to hide his curiosity.
 He wanted to send a message to the people on the bridge, to tell them
that it was important not to become blase about the wonders the
universe had in store for them.   He didn't know if Will got the hint
or if he just realized how transparent his actions were, but with
about a minute to go, the first officer sat down in his own chair. 
Picard flicked one more glance at the time display on the arm of his
chair and then waited. 

The whirling colors of the interstellar kaleidoscope 
seemed to melt, slowing and swirling into what almost 
looked like a model of a galaxy being born.  And 
impressionistic model, Picard suddenly thought.  As if 
Monet had painted the formation of the Milky Way Galaxy.  He wondered
why Monet came to mind, but the colors swirled more, this time
spreading outward even as they blended together, until the whole thing
looked like a bucket of paint overflowing even as it was blended. 

The final color achieved was red, several shades of red.  And the
final pattern...Picard frowned, he'd seen 
patterns like that before, but he couldn't remember where right away. 
As if caused by the blending effect, there were spirals intertwined
with other spirals, until, even with the varying shade of color, it
was impossible to see where one began and then first left off,
particularly as the pattern was three-dimensional.  And each spiral
*moved,* slowly, but there was definitely motion here, each spiral
flowing sinuously into the next one, each shade of red shifting from
almost rose to near burgundy.

End 2/12



From ensdelk@aol.com Fri Mar 20 12:21:48 1998
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From: ensdelk@aol.com (EnsDelk)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.q
Subject: NEW: Escher Dreams PT 2 (3/12, TNG, P/m, NC-17)
Date: 20 Mar 1998 19:21:48 GMT
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*Escher Dreams*
Part Two
by The Anon Sisters
3/12 
disclaimers in 1/12



"*The Book of Kells,*" Picard murmured softly.   

"Captain?" 

"Early Celtic artwork, Number One.  The Celts were very 
fond of spirals and flowing lines like this.  It's called 
interlace."  He smiled, remembering the first example of 
Celtic interlace he'd ever seen.  "A...friend of mine had 
a very impressive set of tattoos, all of them interlace.  
I always swore that if you stared too long at her back 
you'd get dizzy." 

Following up on his earlier inspiration, Picard used the 
super-imposed lace pattern from Escher Seven as a filter, 
and the overall pattern seemed to become a little 
clearer.  He had no idea what it would look like, but 
just watching it as it came together made him feel 
extremely privileged.  And he wasn't the only one.  The 
bridge crew almost seemed to hum with contentment.

Several hours after the appearance of Escher Eight, 
Picard made his way to the Astrophysics Lab to find Data 
and Arlic bent over their monitor screens, ignoring the 
swirling red spirals as they slowly flowed into one 
another in the model.  Picard slowly circled the model, 
trying to follow one single line.  He wasn't sure, but he 
had a feeling that there was only *one* line to the whole 
thing.  A line that changed color as it moved through its 
complex maneuverings.  After getting lost in the middle 
of the anomaly, he turned and shared his findings with 
Data and Arlic.   

"Incredible," Data said.  "Are we really seeing the 
'signature' of the artist take shape?" 

It wasn't a question that they had any answer for, but 
Picard remained in the lab for a long time as tests were 
run and theories were discussed and tossed aside.  It was 
exciting to be at the heart of this kind of 
investigation, and he felt himself relaxing into the pure 
discovery of it all. There was no indication that the 
anomaly was harmful, nor did it want to take over the 
Federation or threaten life as he knew it.  Instead, it 
seemed to be pure in a way that he very much needed to 
see.  It was beauty for beauty's sake; it and its creator 
seemed to be saying, "Look! Isn't this great?  Wait until 
you see what I come up with next!"   

And there, in the middle of the Astrophysics Lab, Picard 
was faced with the truth about his dreams and his dream 
lover.  He was in love with the artist.  

There was no evidence whatsoever to link his dreams with 
the Escher Anomaly, and there wasn't even any evidence 
that the anomaly was, in fact, a work of art.  But deep 
in his mind, Picard felt the thought settle in with the 
weight of truth.  Something about this anomaly touched 
him in a way that couldn't be explained in any other way.  
There *was* a mind behind it, and it *was* a work of art, 
and Picard was in love with the creator of that work.  He 
left the lab shortly thereafter, relieved that everyone 
had been so caught up in their work that they hadn't 
noticed when his manner became subdued. 

He ate so hastily that he couldn't have said what he ate; 
it was fuel and he needed it.  He didn't bother to 
shower, knowing that he'd have to in the morning anyway.  
Instead, he rearranged the bed.  Tonight, he thought as 
he put his head where his feet normally were, he'd take a 
different object with him into his dreams.  As they had 
been on the Enterprise-D, his quarters were on the 
leading edge of the saucer, Deck Six, Forward, to be 
exact.  When he turned off the running lights near his 
window, and turned off all the lights in his room, there 
was nothing before him but the anomaly.  And as he slid 
down into sleep, he focused on that single line of red as 
it wove in and out of the spirals. 

The scout was young, this was his first campaign.  And so 
it was understandable that he would gulp nervously as he 
made his report to the captain of the King's best 
warband.  "I'm sorry, sir, but...  It was awful, and them 
men of the cloth..." 

"Calm down, lad," Picard said, "and tell me if the 
raiders are still there."  

"No, m'lord, the boats were already a half an hour out to 
sea." 

"Damn them to Hell!" Picard's Second said angrily.  "Will 
we never be on time?  What was that crazy old man 
thinking when he told us to wait for..." 

Picard glared at him and the younger man went silent.  
Now was not the time to get caught up in court politics.  
"We need to find out what they took and how much damage 
they did.  If they filled their long boats, they'll be 
heading home.  If they didn't..."  He didn't need to 
finish the sentence, and the warband swiftly mounted 
their horses. 

The monastery was burning.  As the warband rode through 
the fields with their weird standing stones, they could 
smell the smoke, and as they reached the out buildings 
they could see all the signs of a raid: burning 
buildings, dead and wounded lay brothers and tenant 
farmers, and one or two dead Northmen.  Picard looked 
straight ahead after telling five men to go down to the 
shore to look for clues as to the raiders' next course of 
action.  He tried to ignore the dead that lay in the 
courtyard as he wondered if the Northmen had come across 
the Channel from Ireland or from York, or if they had 
come all the way from Denmark. 

"Heathen bastards," one of the men muttered. 

"Spread out," Picard ordered curtly.  "See if you can 
find any survivors." 

No doubt his men would think him indifferent to the 
slaughter.  They wouldn't know about the nightmares to 
which he was already resigning himself.  They wouldn't 
know how much it hurt him to see this place of learning 
destroyed simply so that a Danish thane could have more 
silver in his long hall.  He had once thought to be a 
scholar before his brother and father died in battle, and 
he had once dreamed of a place like this,  a peaceful 
place of learning and the close-knit brotherhood of 
scholars.  Shoving the thoughts aside, he dismounted and 
climbed the stairs, not into the sanctuary, but into the 
small library.  Here the brothers had copied books and 
kept their histories current, here they communicated with 
scholars in places as distant as Rome and Byzantium, and 
here they had died.   

Smelling the stink of burning vellum, he pulled off his 
cloak and smothered the fire he found burning in a study 
carrel.  Most of the books were destroyed, burned after 
their rich covers had been ripped off for the value of 
their metal.  Picard was about to leave when he heard a 
groan from a carrel near the end of the room. 

"Come no closer," a man called out in oddly accented 
Latin. 

"I'm Lord Jean-Luc Picard," Picard called out, also in 
Latin.  "The raiders have left." 

He looked into the small cubicle and saw a man huddled 
under the great slanting desk.  "Of course they did," the 
man said coming out from under the desk.  "They took 
everything worth taking."  He swore in some language that 
Picard didn't recognize.  As the man got to his feet, 
Picard also noticed that he wasn't wearing a habit, but 
was wearing a colorfully embroidered tunic and checkered 
trews.  He was a big man, and his hands clutched 
something to his chest.  Tears had left their tracks on 
his face, and more started up as he looked around and 
swore further.   

"You're not a brother." 

"No, I'm an Irishman.  I was hear to learn to speak your 
confusing Frankish tongue.  In return, I was teaching a 
couple of the brothers how to illuminate the way we do at 
home."  He looked around as the absurdity of their 
conversation sunk in.  "How could anyone..."  His voice 
broke off and he looked away.  It took a moment, but 
Picard realized that the Irishman was crying harder.  He 
was trying to disguise it, no doubt believing that this 
Frankish knight would think him weak. 

Picard didn't think him weak at all.  It seemed to him 
that someone needed to mourn, and he suddenly felt 
ashamed of the pride he took in his ability to keep his 
anger and pain so tightly under control.  Acting on a 
rare impulse, he stepped up to the other man and laid a 
gentle hand on his shoulder.  He didn't say anything; 
there was nothing to say that would provide any comfort.  
He hoped that the simple closeness of another living 
person would let the man know that he wasn't alone. 

Picard hadn't expected that his small gesture would have 
the result it did. The man turned and almost fell into 
Jean-Luc's arms, sobbing as if he would never stop, and 
he bundle he'd been clutching fell to the floor. 
"Darkness..." the Irishman sobbed.  "The lights...are 
going...out and there's nothing...nothing but 
darkness..." 

Picard held him closer, feeling tears burn at his own 
eyes.  He thought of the weak vacillating man on the 
throne in Paris, and the raids which grew worse every 
year.  He thought of his mother and sister-in-law, both 
widowed on the same day, the day that had destroyed Jean-
Luc's own hopes of being able to learn in peace.  "We do 
what we can," he murmured gently.  "Protect what we can, 
save what we can."  It was what he told himself at night 
when the dreams came and it was all he had to offer this 
man. 

The other man clung to him harder and his hands stopped 
clutching at the hard leather on Picard's back.  Those 
hands began to move differently, and suddenly Picard knew 
that there was something else he could offer.  It wasn't 
much, but he knew it for that grasping need to reaffirm 
life in the midst of death and darkness.  It happened 
between soldiers, and far more often than most people 
knew.  Who else would understand?   

They were kissing then, tears still running down their 
faces.  The other man was murmuring something in what 
Picard assumed was Irish and suddenly those foreign words 
sounded like music.  Jean-Luc almost pulled back, aware 
that he was drawn to this in a way that wasn't what he'd 
expected.  For some reason, this had the sudden potential 
to go beyond mere comfort.  Then the other man pulled 
back and looked at him and he was lost in a pair of dark 
brown eyes.  Needing to assuage the pain he saw there, 
Picard reached for the straps and buckles of his armor, 
tugging at them impatiently. 

And then with hurried and fumbling movements, they were 
on the floor, both mostly undressed.  The surroundings 
didn't matter, there was skin against skin, and the 
other's breath, and they were somehow holding the dark at 
bay.  For Jean-Luc, it were as if, in the act of giving 
comfort, of being strong, he found comfort and strength.  
He ended up on top of the other man, holding him close, 
stroking the dark hair, and kissing at the tears that 
still spilled from those sad eyes.  He could feel the 
hardness of the man's cock against his own painfully hard 
erection, and he moved, slowly at first and then with 
more urgency, spurred on by the need in the other man's 
eyes.  He imagined that he saw a lifetime of loneliness 
and loss in those eyes, and he wanted nothing more than 
to spend whatever years he had left building something 
lasting with this man.  And then, as their bodies moved 
roughly against each other, he saw what the Irishman had 
been protecting. 

Even as the strong body beneath him thrust against 
Picard's aching cock, Jean-Luc felt as if he were falling 
into a spiral of red.  He'd never seen anything like this 
before and suddenly those sinuous curving lines seemed to 
wrap themselves around his heart the way their creator 
had.  He had no doubt that this was the Irishman's work, 
and it was simply the most beautiful thing Jean-Luc had 
ever seen.  And there was a question he *had* to ask.  
"Who are...you?" he gasped out. 

"You know...me," was the ragged reply.  "I'm...ohhhhhhh!" 

The man came then and it was enough to set Jean-Luc off.  
Crying out, he thrust once more against the warm skin 
beneath him and... 

He woke up. 

Picard's eyes opened onto the swirls of red. 

"Oh, please..." he moaned, frustration making him ache 
with the blood-heavy pressure between his legs.  "Don't 
leave..."  His hips pumped involuntarily, rubbing him 
against the sheets, and he closed his eyes when the 
sensation felt almost like a lover's warm hand caressing 
him.  When he pumped again, however, there was nothing 
but the sheet. 

His eyes flew open, staring into the wondrous artwork as 
though it were his lover's face.  "Don't," he whispered.  
"Don't leave.  Don't you understand?  I know you're here.  
Please..." 

The watcher had never been frightened quite this way 
before.  One wrong step here, one wrong move...he almost 
forced himself to leave rather than take the risk.  But 
he couldn't leave, not when Jean-Luc looked like *that,* 
and he couldn't appear, not yet.  But perhaps he could 
help Picard a little with that lovely, lovely cock. 

He moved down again, pressing just a thought of himself 
against the man's erection, something light enough for 
the man to believe later had only been his imagination.  
His fear and his delight spiraled up when the man 
responded by closing his eyes once more with a groan and 
pressing his cock back against that touch. 

"Please," the man begged, somehow making the one word 
sound like poetry.  The watcher thought of seeking refuge 
in another dream. 

"No, please," Picard asked gently when he felt the tug of 
sleep in his mind.  "I don't want to dream of you, I want 
to be *with* you, even like this..." 

There was a pause, and somehow the man knew a decision 
was being made.  He lay there unmoving on the bed, except 
for the pulse of his heart and the reaction in his cock 
to each beat of blood.  The red of the anomaly's swirls 
and counter-swirls grew thicker to his eyes, darker, 
pulsing in synch with his heartbeat, responding to him.  
The red shine of it glinted off the sweat on his skin, 
outlining the hard curves of his form where they were not 
wrapped inside the twining black sheet. 

Picard gasped.  Heat.  Warmth.  Touching him, lightly.  
There, the same place the red shine grew brighter.   

Breathing quietly, trying to project his calm as though 
he were approaching a wild animal, Jean-Luc watched the 
red warmth around him increase and spread until his whole 
body was wrapped several times around by tendrils of the 
vibrant shades of rose and blood.  One tendril trailed 
over his nipples, and he almost screamed at the pleasure 
of it.  Another tickled the curve of his stomach and 
teased his navel, and he did scream, quietly, hoarse with 
the need for more.  Two more tendrils were moving slowly 
up the inside of his thighs, then down, then even more 
slowly back up again.   

"Yes!" he shouted, painfully, wonderfully aroused.  His 
hands longed for something to caress as well, and even as 
he thought it, tendrils made their way to his fingers and 
palms.  He was stroking them and being stroked, 
connecting himself to the lace vortex of crimson heat 
that marked him. 

Tendrils moved now everywhere, over his legs and arms, 
tenderly over his face, around the swirls of his ears, on 
the soles and tops of his feet and between his toes.  
Several now were playing with his nipples, brushing his 
lips, sliding with gentle, insistent warmth between his 
buttocks.  Picard knew he was groaning and crying out 
almost constantly now.  "Yes!" seemed to be the word he 
said most, but there were also "More!" and "So good!" and 
always, "Please, please, please."  He tried to put into 
those words something for his lover to hear and 
understand, something...*something* to make those 
tendrils finally move to his leaking, straining cock.  
Just one touch there, and he would die. 

"Ahhhhh!" he cried as a tendril slipped just inside his 
anus and teased ever-so-gently while one thick red 
tendril curled itself into a series of bands, poised 
itself over his cock even while Picard thrust vainly at 
it, then very slowly lowered its tight heat around his 
needy, aching flesh. 

"Yes!" Jean-Luc screamed as he thrust his hips forward in 
an insistent rhythm, fucking the anomaly and knowing only 
the pleasure it brought, the pleasure he tried to share 
with his body's dance, his voice's song of endless, 
boundless joy.  He kept pumping instinctively, and the 
bands of red light responded by moving against him, 
pressing along each nerve, pressing against his straining 
sac, over and along and under and over again with 
absolute perfection of delight and arousal until the man 
knew he had to die with the sensations filling him.  He 
couldn't take any more.  There seemed to be nothing of 
himself left, no captain, no man, no humanity, only a 
pulsing shell sprawled out on a soft bed, wrapped in 
vermilion energy and filled with hot ecstasy.  When he 
came, he knew he would explode into nothing.

"Yes!" he screamed, feeling that explosion coming nearer.  
Let there be nothing, let there be only the red light and 
the joy it brought.  He was pressing now in urgency to 
bring it on, straining inside that light wrapped around 
his cock, pumping down against the small tendril still 
teasing just inside the opening to his body, caressing 
the light which held his hands down, writhing his arms 
and legs against the tangible warmth that covered him 
completely.  He would come, and be nothing, and the red 
swirls of light would see it all. 

His nipples were pinched, his anus teased just a little 
more insistently, his cock stroked just a bit harder, and 
then he came and it was an explosion as powerful as his 
whole life's essence, ripping through a path of no 
resistance, taking everything he was and transmuting it 
into bliss and joy.  He screamed and screamed and plunged 
himself deeper and deeper inside.  All light, all 
darkness, even if it were death, whatever he was feeling, 
he wanted it.  He would always want it, need it, crave 
it.  So fucking *good.* 

"Love..." he whimpered as oblivion took him.


End 3/12



From ensdelk@aol.com Fri Mar 20 12:25:18 1998
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From: ensdelk@aol.com (EnsDelk)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.q
Subject: NEW: Escher Dreams PT 2 (4/12, TNG, P/m, NC-17)
Date: 20 Mar 1998 19:25:18 GMT
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*Escher Dreams*
Part Two
by The Anon Sisters
4/12 
disclaimers in 1/12



On the bridge, Data noted a slight fluctuation in the 
anomaly's energy signature, but then, he had been noting 
them since Escher One first appeared. 

Picard woke up to an empty, semen-stained bed, his eyes 
dazzled by the red swirls, his body filled with joy.  He 
felt wonderful.  Incredibly wonderful.  Invincible and 
treasured.  Sated and pampered and decadent and content. 

Then he remembered something from the dream, something 
about actually being inside the anomaly, being loved by 
it directly.  The memory felt...different from a regular 
dream fragment, but when he tried to get more of it, it 
all slipped from his grasp except the sliver of a moment, 
an instant of pressing his cock inside red light and 
being unbearably pleasured. 

"You're a little kinky, aren't you?" Picard asked his 
dream lover, for the moment quite certain his rumbling 
voice was being heard and understood.  He stretched 
luxuriously, uncaring of the sweat and cum stains on his 
body, feeling for all the world like a harem boy who'd 
been well-loved and then given the day off to enjoy the 
afterglow.  "I think I like that." 

The captain chuckled and slid a hand down over his chest, 
not to become aroused, but simply to enjoy the feeling of 
his own solid warmth.  He knew his alarm would go off in 
a minute, and instructed the computer to give it a miss.  
Slowly, wanting to go to the bridge and see what new 
colors and shapes might appear on the viewscreen while 
his crew enjoyed studying this mysterious artwork 
designed, it seemed, especially for them, he sat up, 
looking deeply into the anomaly his lover had somehow 
created. 

"Thank you for this," he said solemnly.  "Whyever you are 
hiding yourself.  Whatever it is that you fear from me.  
I will always cherish the memory of how I feel right 
now." 

And then, not really sure why he was doing it, Picard 
pushed away the last of the sheet and lay there naked in 
front of the anomaly, bathed again in its red light.  For 
just this moment, he could not feel absurd or self-
conscious, could not worry that he was being perverted or 
presumptuous.  Instead, he spread his legs just slightly, 
leaning back on his strong arms, trying to say clearly:  
*For you.* 

The watcher knew he would cherish this memory forever as 
well, making a record in his mind of the placement and 
motion of every last atom in the room.  Picard was 
displaying himself to *him,* and it wasn't in a dream, or 
in the grip of sexual need. 

Again the watcher felt a stab of hope.  Could this work 
out?  Could he be...accepted? 

Picard sighed with contentment and rose from the bed, 
quite certain that somehow his message had been conveyed.  
He stripped the bed slowly, feeling his nakedness and the 
satisfaction which had settled in his stomach.  A lengthy 
water shower followed, and though he didn't masturbate, 
it felt unbelievably good, and he reached out the door 
for his sonic shaver simply to linger a while longer 
under the water.  He dried himself roughly with a towel, 
reveling in the sensations against his flesh.  Into his 
uniform next, then a stop by the mirror and -- 

*Oh, dear,* he thought.  This wasn't going to work. 

Even to his own eyes he was glowing.  Light danced in his 
pupils, his expression was full of soft wonder, and his 
skin was slightly flushed. 

*Was it a dream?*  He could recall so little of it, and 
yet... 

He strode to his desk and called up the sensor records 
for the past eight hours.  He noted, like Data, five 
energy fluctuations, but nothing unusual, at least, in 
terms of this anomaly's unusualness.  No sensors had 
detected the anomaly coming into his bedroom and making 
love to him in his bed. 

The sliver of memory had returned, slightly more 
insistently, and yet it did feel like a dream. 

*Or perhaps, it's a real memory someone wants me to 
*think* is a dream.* 

It was a disturbing idea, being manipulated mentally like 
that, but he felt too good to think about it now. 

Besides, right now he had a bigger problem.  It was time 
for him to be on the bridge, and another look in the 
mirror told him he was still shining like a...a... 

He started laughing, hard belly laughs that nearly 
doubled him over.  What a ridiculous position!  Unable to 
take command of his ship because he had "love slave" 
written all over his face.   

*Morning, Will, Data, everyone.  Sorry if I'm glowing in 
the dark, here, but last night I fucked the anomaly, and, 
well...* 

His laughter got worse, or better, depending on how he 
wanted to look at it, and he ended up collapsing onto his 
couch, lasting through the urge to laugh until it was 
completely spent.  He wiped a few tears out of his ears 
and splashed his face with cold water, then realized the 
strain of laughing had taken away the diffused glow he'd 
found so inconvenient.  He was obviously still in an 
absurdly good mood, but he wouldn't make everyone gasp. 

During the short ride in the lift, he concentrated on 
captainly thoughts, including a report he'd been putting 
off on his screen idea for the anomaly.  He thought he 
had his expression under control when he came onto the 
bridge, and Riker and Data, standing with LaForge near 
the port science station, nodded at him. 

The engineer was concentrating on his report, facing the 
read-out he was manipulating with skilled fingers over 
the controls.  Looking at those hands made Picard think 
of something he didn't want to think about on the bridge, 
so with a little inner anger, he focused on the read-out 
and realized it was a chemical break-down of a 
composition he hadn't seen before. 

"It's simultaneously solid and yet perfectly malleable," 
LaForge was saying.  "It seems to be produced by the 
gravimetric forces unique to this area." 

"You've found a natural cause of the anomaly?" Picard 
asked, his voice a little hoarser than it should have 
been.  He tried clearing his throat slightly. 

LaForge turned to look at him in slight surprise, then 
shook his head.  "Oh, no, sir.  Nothing like a cause, but 
I have found something inside the anomaly which might 
explain why our cosmic artist chose this location." 

"It seems we've uncovered a naturally-occurring space-
born alloy," Riker explained.  "It's being used as the 
primary component in the structure of the Eschers." 

"We couldn't see it at first," LaForge said, "because it 
looks like a collection of common minerals in flux, but," 
he manipulated the display again, and Picard was looking 
at a diagram of the molecules, "as you can see, the 
gravitational stresses have caused several electrons out 
of their orbits, creating a network of bonds. 

"We have scanned the area, sir," Data put in, "and found 
this alloy in great abundance.  From what we can tell, it 
would seem to be completely natural and endemic to this 
sector of space." 

"Enough to...harvest?" Picard asked, getting smiles from 
LaForge, whose face was alight with the possibilities. 

"You bet.  Sir, a property like this....properly 
manipulated, it would be a perfect conduit for warp 
plasma.  It seems almost to have no boiling point." 

"It would also help out in more than one surgical 
instrument," Beverly's voice said from over Picard's 
shoulder.  They opened their circle a bit to include her. 

"The uses for this material would seem to be almost 
unlimited," Data said.  "I recommend informing Starfleet 
Command as soon as possible so that they can dispatch an 
appropriate science team for further research." 

"Agreed," Picard said with a nod at Riker.  "Although I 
have no intention of leaving here until our own studies 
are complete." 

Geordi beamed.  "Thank you, sir." 

Riker nodded and moved off to begin constructing the 
report, and LaForge turned back to his display. 

"Mr. Data," Picard asked.  "How far are we from Kes-Prytt 
space?" 

"Almost sixteen light-years, sir." 

Picard nodded.  "Please inform the ambassador of all 
we've learned and invite him to join in our study." 

"Aye, sir." 

That left only Beverly, and when he turned to her, he 
realized somewhat guiltily she might be here to ask about 
his absence from breakfast all these days. 

"Captain," she said, her eyes on the display the chief 
engineer was reconfiguring yet again.  "I'd like 
permission to take a shuttle and gather a sample of the 
material for study." 

"From the anomaly?" 

The doctor looked scandalized.  "No, no.  I was thinking 
of this section of space here."  She walked to the second 
port science station and brought up her own display.  
"It's far enough away from the anomaly and the ship for a 
nice buffer if there should be any difficulties." 

"Take Mr. Data with you after he has talked to Ambassador 
Arlic." 

She smiled and looked to the android, who nodded and went 
with her to the turbo-lift.  Picard himself went to his 
ready room and began his official report on the 
situation, aided by Riker, who came in an hour later with 
his own report on the material. 

"We need a name," the first officer commented.  "LaForge, 
with your permission, wants to call it Escherite." 

"Seems appropriate, Number One," Picard agreed.  The 
reports were completed and dispatched, and Riker was 
going to leave, when the captain asked him to stay.  It 
was time to let him know some of what was happening. 

If there were anything to know. 

"I think we may be dealing with an intelligent lifeform 
which has not only created the anomaly, but may still be 
here," he stated flatly. 

Riker's blue eyes brightened and his broad grin appeared.  
"The dreams?" 

Picard opened his mouth and then closed it, before 
grousing, "You've been overly influenced by Counselor 
Troi." 

Riker was careful not to laugh too hard.  Picard in a 
jovial and teasing mood was a rare gift, and one to be 
enjoyed very, very privately.  "She does get to you, 
sir," he agreed.  When Picard didn't instantly respond, 
he asked with a strictly professional tone, "You've felt 
someone trying to communicate with you?" 

"Perhaps.  I don't really know anything.  I'm trying some 
of the Counselor's techniques to remember my dreams 
better, but so far I have very little."  Riker watched in 
surprise as a look of annoyance crossed the captain's 
face.  "But it doesn't seem to matter what I have.  I'm 
certain of it, Will.  I'm certain that someone is there 
and trying to reach...us.  We're already running all the 
scans we can, but I just wanted you to be aware of what I 
am expecting us to find...and to keep it under your hat 
for now." 

"Understood, sir."  Riker thought a moment.  "I'll start 
looking for any sort of patterns in the ship's behavior, 
anything unusual or a little too routine." 

Gratitude washed through him.  Riker really was an 
exemplary officer, and he was damn lucky to have him.  
"Thank you, Will." 

"Thanks for telling me," Riker said, getting up before he 
said something stupid or cracked a joke.  "I just hope we 
make contact.  I'd sure like to meet the sculptor." 

*You're not the only one," Picard thought as he watched 
Riker leave the ready room.  The captain was still 
fighting the strong hold of the not-quite-dream he'd had 
the night before and he didn't want to think about it 
now.  He'd dozed off in his ready room once already, and 
he didn't want to do it again.  "Come on Jean-Luc, it's 
time to do some work," he muttered. He then called up 
LaForge's primary report on Escherite and began to write 
up a report of his own for Starfleet.  Once that was 
done, he went over more paperwork.  For a long time, the 
ready room was silent as he worked. 

Finally, his monitor beeped, informing him that Escher 
Nine was due in about 15 minutes.  Picard called up a 
still shot of Escher Eight and looked at it for a long 
moment.  It was so beautiful and so complex, and he 
wondered how he would display the moving 3-D copy of it.  
It moved through one cycle every 23 minutes, the red 
swirling thought the spiral and shade changes before 
starting all over again.  Picard was determined to find a 
way to keep a copy in his quarters, and he was once more 
filled with a sense of wonder. 

Reaching out to touch the small screen, he murmured, 
"Your work is brilliant, absolutely beautiful.  You're 
one of the most gifted artists I know of.  Thank you."  
He still maintained the feeling that the artist (or the 
"Artist" as he was beginning to think of his dream lover) 
could hear him, and he knew he should be more worried 
about addressing the empty air of the room.  The computer 
beeped again and he left the room quickly, wondering what 
new beauty his lover would come up with. 

Noticing that Riker was keeping an eye on the bridge 
crew, Picard felt sorry that he'd had to ask his first 
officer to do part of his job for him.  Then he mentally 
shrugged; they'd been in circumstances before where one 
or the other of them had been under the influence of 
something or another.  Once more grateful that he had 
someone like Will to trust, he smiled at the man and then 
turned his attention to the viewscreen. 

Picard may have missed the look of surprise that washed 
over Riker's face at the captain's swift, but radiant 
smile, but the watcher did not.  He had to laugh as Riker 
suddenly seemed to understand what it was that made 
Picard such an object of desire among the crew.  Then the 
anomaly was changing again and the watcher's attention 
was split between it and Jean-Luc's reaction to it. 

The speed of the red spirals' turning motion increased, 
and Picard felt his eyes strain as they struggled to take 
in the almost dizzying motion.  He couldn't help flashing 
to that instant of memory from last night and he felt a 
sharp stab of longing as he thought about being wrapped 
up in those red coils of energy.  Hoping that he wasn't 
infringing on Troi too much, he stared at the viewscreen 
fiercely.  

Suddenly the pulsing interlaces were moving at speeds 
impossible for the eye to follow and Picard had to 
squint, forcing himself to not focus on the swirling red 
lines.  Then the center of the multiple spiral began to 
glow, almost as if lit from within by some warm gold 
light.  The gold flared and then paled and in the place 
of the spiral was complex series of interlocking rings.  
To Picard it looked almost like an orrery, the ancient 
model of the Solar System used by the astronomers of the 
1700s.  However, this was far more complex a design than 
those simple models had been.  Rotating around what 
appeared to be a solid sphere of gold were several bands 
of gold, each tilted on a different axis until it looked 
like some sort of Chinese puzzle ball.  Each band was 
marked with a glowing sphere of color, looking for all 
the world like a jewel.  Of course, if Picard's reading 
of his monitors were correct, each of those "jewels" was 
as large as his ship.  The whole thing moved with a 
clockwork precision and Picard couldn't shake the notion 
of those early scientists and alchemists who had sought 
order in the heavens and resorted to mechanical models to 
explain their theories. 

He mentioned his notions to Arlic and Data in the 
Astrophysics Lab, selfishly and very privately glad that 
Li had apparently decided that he could contribute no 
more to the investigations and was nowhere to be seen.   

"Could that model out there represent an actual star 
system?" Picard asked. 

"It's possible, Captain" Arlic replied, "but it would be 
a very complex system."  He frowned and looked over 
Data's shoulder as the android's finger moved rapidly 
over an LCARS control panel. 

"If it is a star system," Data reported a short while 
later.  "It does not correspond to any system in our data 
banks."

End 4/12



From ensdelk@aol.com Fri Mar 20 12:27:25 1998
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From: ensdelk@aol.com (EnsDelk)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.q
Subject: NEW: Escher Dreams PT 2 (5/12, TNG, P/m, NC-17)
Date: 20 Mar 1998 19:27:25 GMT
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*Escher Dreams*
Part Two
by The Anon Sisters
5/12 
disclaimers in 1/12


Viewing Escher Nine through the filter made up by the 
other Eschers revealed that the jumbled pattern that 
Picard assumed was the Artist's signature was becoming 
clearer.  "We probably won't recognize it when we have a 
clear view of it," he said after staring at it for a 
while.  "We can't expect that he's signed it in a 
language we understand." 

"Who knows what we'll have?" Arlic murmured.  The Prytt 
ambassador was staring almost absently at the anomaly and 
he shook himself slightly and looked back at Picard.  
"I'm sorry, but the movement of those colored spheres is 
almost hypnotic." 

"Ambassador," Data said, excitement obvious in his voice, 
"you may have just said something very important.  One 
moment..." 

It was several moments before he turned and smiled at 
Picard and Arlic.  "I traced the movement of the spheres 
through one complete cycle of movement.  You can see what 
pattern they make when connected." 

Picard wasn't all that surprised to see the lace again.  
It was as familiar and as welcome as an old friend, and 
without thinking he reached out and brushed his fingers 
lightly across the screen on which Data had displayed his 
findings.   

"Brilliant," the captain murmured.  "I wonder if there's 
ever been any work of art so complex and so beautiful." 

"I doubt it," Arlic said quietly.  "We're privileged to 
be witnessing this." 

Picard agreed and remained in the lab for quite a few 
more hours as they ran tests and speculated on the nature 
of what they were seeing.  Data reported that LaForge and 
Crusher were ecstatic over the samples of Escherite that 
had been obtained near the anomaly.  Picard left a 
message for the two of them, asking that they keep him 
posted, and then he headed for his quarters and another 
night of dreams.  He had been awake through both the 
Alpha and Beta watches and the Gamma watch was starting 
as he quickly ate dinner. Once more, he slid in to bed 
naked, and once more he concentrated on the anomaly as he 
prepared for sleep. 

"What is it?"  The PI was glad he kept his curiosity out 
of his voice as the lovely red-haired woman handed him a 
photograph. 

"The Cambridge Orrery" she said, her husky voice 
caressing his senses.  "It was being brought to San 
Francisco to be displayed at our exhibit of scientific 
devices."   The beautiful woman who claimed to be from 
the De Young Museum looked down at her hands. 

"And now it's missing."  Dixon Hill tossed the photo of 
the strange gold model onto his desk and leaned back in 
his battered chair.  "Why hasn't the museum contacted the 
police?" 

"We've been asked not to involve the police." 

"Who asked?" 

Her gaze met his and then slid away, and Hill prepared to 
hear a lie or an evasion.  "The owner of the Orrery." 

After much pulling and prodding, he extracted a name from 
her and took the generous amount of money she handed 
over.  "Just find where the Orrery is being kept and 
we'll deal with the rest of it," she said, as she stood 
up and prepared to leave the dingy office.  She tugged at 
her skirt, emphasizing her lovely figure and shot a 
sidelong glance in his direction.  "If you need 
*anything* Mr. Hill, don't hesitate to call me." 

*Dr. Marilyn Lynley.  Assistant Director.*

Hill looked at the card she'd handed him and muttered, 
"Assistant Director of what?" 

A few minutes later, he was on the phone with a source of 
his.  Art historians and PIs didn't normally move in the 
same circles, but Hill had once recovered a stolen 
painting for Professor Saunders and the professor had 
helped him out on a few cases.  After receiving an 
invitation to drop by the professor's house that evening, 
Hill put Dr. Lynley's money in the bank, paid his rent on 
both his tiny apartment and his office and went back to 
that office to give Madeline the three weeks back pay he 
owed her.   

"Nice case," his secretary drawled nasally.  "A red-
headed broad with dough." 

"My favorite type of woman, doll." 

"Yeah," she said looking at him shrewdly.  "Right up 
there with blondes and brunettes with money." 

"Don't forget black-haired dames with fat wallets." 

"Dix, you're too much."  Madeline giggled, and grabbed 
her purse.  "I gotta go, Danny's taking me to dinner." 

"You still stringing him along?  He's no good for you, 
Mad." 

"And who is? You?"  She turned in the doorway.  "See ya, 
Dix." 

She was a nice girl, Hill thought as he tucked the photo 
in his pocket, and headed for the professor's house.  A 
nice girl, and he could do a lot worse than settle down 
with her.  He would be better for her than all those 
crazy jazz musicians she hung out with.  He'd helped her 
bail out more than one of the men in her life, and he 
supposed he'd keep on helping her.  But she didn't 
interest him, at least not as a girl should interest him.  
*Women,* he thought.  *Can't live with 'em, can't toss 
'em off the Bridge.* 

"Ah, Mr. Hill, come in, come in."  Professor Saunders 
smiled as he led Hill into the parlor.  "Would you like a 
drink?"   

"Thanks, I'll take a scotch, if you've got it." 

"Here." 

Hill turned to find a handsome, dark haired man offering 
him a glass. "Drink up, Dr. Saunders only buys the good 
stuff." 

Dixon took the glass out of the man's large, long-
fingered hand, trying not to reveal his shock at the way 
he felt as their fingers brushed.  He thought about what 
he knew about Saunders, and assumed that the other man 
was a close "friend" of the professor's. 

"This is Dr. Havers," Saunders said, smiling.  "He's an 
art appraiser, and an expert on obscure antique 
scientific devices. 

"Well, this is sure obscure, Doc," Hill said, feeling 
embarrassed at his automatic and incorrect assumption 
about Havers.  He fished the photo out of his pocket and 
handed it to the younger man. 

"My God!" Havers burst out.  "The Cambridge Orrery!  
What's that doing here in the States?" 

Hill explained about the exhibit and Saunders shook his 
head.  "There's no such exhibit at the De Young, and 
there won't be anytime soon." 

"I didn't expect that Miss Lynley was on the level with 
me, Professor." Hill finished his scotch.  "She had too 
much money and she didn't want to bring the police into 
it."  He paused and looked at the two men.  "Do either of 
you know of a Limey named Lord Tavers?  He's supposedly 
the owner of the Orrery." 

The two academics exchanged a glance.  "Burton Travers?" 
Havers asked.  "He no more owns that thing than I do." 

"He's not exactly a lord either," Saunders said.  "Some 
say he's a thief, but he's never been caught stealing 
anything, just like he's never been caught forging 
anything.  He's just been involved in some...shady 
deals." 

"Shady deals?  In the art world?" 

"Mr. Hill," Dr. Havers said, smiling at Dixon.  "The 
material in the Orrery is worth a half a million dollars 
alone.  Furthermore, the Orrery has been missing from its 
accustomed place in Pembroke College, Cambridge for two 
years now."  He shook his head.  "Most people assume it's 
been cut up for the gold and the gemstones that mark each 
ring, but this tells us it hasn't."  He tapped the 
photograph. 

"Oh?" Hill asked.  Perhaps there was more money in art 
and antiques than he thought. 

"The Orrery was displayed in the chapel at Pembroke.  
This picture was taken in what looks like a warehouse." 

Hill walked home, trying to work the problem of the 
Orrery over in his mind. He was finding it hard to think 
about the antique astronomical instrument and the 
mysterious woman who had paid him to find it.  Instead, 
he kept thinking about a slightly mocking voice and long 
fingers cradling a glass of scotch.  He sighed, thinking 
that he'd gotten over this sort of behavior, that after 
Stephen and his betrayal, he knew better.  Men were 
dangerous, and it was too easy to fall for one.  Women 
were safer.  So why was climbing the stairs to his 
apartment, thinking of a pair of dark eyes and wondering 
what Dr. Havers' first name was? 

He was too preoccupied, and by the time he knew something 
was wrong, it was too late.  A fist came out of nowhere 
and connected with his chin.  It was quickly followed by 
another one that struck him solidly in the stomach, and 
he doubled over.  The attack was too sudden for him to 
try and fight them off, and when another blow connected, 
he went down, hitting his head on the banister and 
falling down into unconsciousness.  He felt hands rifling 
through his clothes and then...nothing. 

"Come on, just wake up, give me your keys, and we'll get 
you into the apartment."  Hill obeyed the voice, letting 
a tall, broad form help him to his feet.   As his head 
cleared, he saw Dr. Havers' concerned face looking down 
at him.  "It's all right, Mr. Hill." 

"Ohhh," Dixon groaned, putting a hand to his head.  He 
paused for a moment and then patted his pockets.  Handing 
his keys to Havers, he checked to see if his wallet were 
still in his breast pocket.  It was, and as he followed 
Havers into his small apartment, he frowned.  "Did you 
scare them off?" 

"No," Havers replied. "I didn't see anyone."  He looked 
around and headed for the kitchen.  He reappeared with a 
bottle of bourbon in his hand. "Here, you look like you 
need a stiff drink." 

Hill gulped down a swallow of the bourbon, sighing at the 
feeling of warmth that radiated from his throat.  "That's 
the stuff," he muttered, letting Havers help him out of 
his trench coat and suit jacket.  "It's odd," Hill 
continued after another hit of bourbon, "but they didn't 
take my wallet or keys." 

"Anything else missing?" 

"Hmmm...damn!  The photo of the Orrery!"  He rechecked 
his pockets, but it was gone.   

"Don't worry about the photo, Hill.  That's a nasty cut 
you have on your chin there, we need to get that cleaned 
up." 

"I have to worry about that photo," Dixon replied, 
allowing Havers to follow him through the bedroom to the 
tiny bathroom.  He pulled off his shirt and tossed it 
into the corner that served as a laundry pile.  As he 
began to wash his face, he was suddenly aware of Havers' 
presence behind him.  Annoyed at the feeling of well-
being that presence brought on, he scowled at the other 
man.  "If I don't have that photo, I don't have any way 
of finding the damn thing." 

"Yes, you do; I'll sketch out the photo for you.  I have 
a photographic memory, very useful for an art appraiser."  
He looked around.  "Do you have any iodine?" 

"Will you stop hovering?" Hill snapped.  He caught a 
glimpse of a hurt expression on the other man's face 
before Havers backed away. 

"I'm sorry," that expressive voice said.   

"No," Hill said following Havers back into the bedroom.  
"I'm sorry.  It's just that..." 

"I'm not Dr. Saunders' lover," Havers burst out.  "I know 
that's what you thought, but..." 

"Was I that obvious?" 

The other man looked down at the ground and then back up, 
a sheepish smile on his face.  "Only to someone who was 
staring at you."  He shrugged.  "You are rather 
devastating, you know, and when you looked interested..." 

"I can't do this," Hill muttered.  He looked at Havers 
almost desperately, thinking about how good it would feel 
to touch the man, to be with him.   

"No one will know." 

"It's not that..."  Suddenly tired, Dixon sat down on the 
bed. 

"Who was he?" Havers asked gently, moving to sit next to 
Dixon on the bed. It seemed that Hill could feel the heat 
of the other man even though they weren't touching. 

"His name is Stephen Girabaldi and his father is..."  
Hill tried to come up with a discreet way to describe 
Antonio Girabaldi.  "A rather independent family 
businessman." 

Havers nodded.  "I know what you mean. I take it he 
didn't take too kindly to discovering certain things out 
about his son?" 

"He tried to use me," Hill said dully.  "I'm no cop, but 
I don't get involved in drug running.  When I told 
Stephen to make the decision between me and his 
father...the old man won." 

"I'm surprised you didn't end up face-down in the Bay." 

"If I hadn't told the old man that I had arranged for 
certain information to be made public on my death, I 
would be." 

"You haven't done that, of course." 

"No, but how did you guess?" 

Havers looked at him.  "Brian Saunders said you could be 
trusted.  I didn't think you'd expose anyone, even 
someone who..." 

"Betrayed me."  Hill sighed.  "I couldn't do it.  He was 
young and scared and...at the time...I loved him."  He 
sighed again and rose to his feet, going into the 
bathroom and returning with the bottle, which he handed 
to Havers after taking a gulp.   

"God," Havers said softly.  "I'm sorry, Dixon." 

Hill looked up when he heard his first name, and smiled.  
"Dr. Saunders?" 

"I asked about you."  Havers looked at the bottle in his 
hands.  "I couldn't help it, I felt something..." 

"I know...so did I." 

Looking as if he scarcely believed his luck, Havers 
reached out his hand and brushed it across the unbruised 
side of Hill's face.  "Look, I understand if this is 
too...ohhhh..." 

Hill had decided, with one of his sudden impulses, that 
he wanted this too much to hide behind the past.  Stephen 
was gone and this man was here, and, right now, that was 
enough.  And so, as the large warm hand caressed his 
face, he turned slightly and captured the other man's 
thumb in his mouth, swirling his tongue around it and 
smiling privately at the response. 

Stunned by his own need, Hill reached up and grabbed 
Havers' wrist.  Leaning back, he pulled the other man 
back until they were lying face-to-face on the bed.  In 
spite of the pain pulsing from his own injuries, Dixon 
wanted to be the aggressor here, wanted to take what was 
being offered, what he'd denied himself for two long 
years.  As he let got of Havers' wrist, he began pulling 
their clothing out of the way.  His urgency was obviously 
echoed by his new lover, who helped with buttons and 
zippers until they were both naked. 

Wanting to learn everything he could about the long body 
stretched out on his bed, Hill stroked and touched and 
kissed his way across that broad chest.  His efforts were 
met with sighs and moans of arousal, and when he started 
moving his head further down, those long hands caressed 
his shoulders. 

"Feels sooo good..." his partner moaned as Dixon bent and 
kissed the leaking tip of his erection.  "I wanted 
you...ohhh...the minute I saw...you...ahhhh...that's 
what's going...on here..." 

Something nudged the back of Hill's mind, even as he slid 
his mouth down over the smooth-as-silk skin of the other 
man's cock.  He relegated it to his subconscious as he 
paid lavish attention to what he was doing.  His partner 
was moaning rather steadily now, and Hill felt his own 
need spike in response to that voice as it pleaded with 
him. 

"Please...so good...need you...want you...wanted 
you...for so long..." 

He sat up suddenly, looking down at the naked form 
stretched out and writhing on his bed.  Forcing himself 
to ignore the hungry demands of his own body and the joy 
he felt at seeing how gorgeous his lover was when fully 
aroused, he stared intently at the man's face. 

"Who are you really?  Your name isn't Havers." 

"No.  And your name isn't Hill."

End 5/12


From ensdelk@aol.com Fri Mar 20 12:29:46 1998
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From: ensdelk@aol.com (EnsDelk)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.q
Subject: NEW: Escher Dreams PT 2 (6/12, TNG, P/m, NC-17)
Date: 20 Mar 1998 19:29:46 GMT
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*Escher Dreams*
Part Two
by The Anon Sisters
6/12 
disclaimers in 1/12



"I *need* to know," Picard said, fighting the other need 
that threatened to keep him in the dream.  "I love you so 
much, and I *want* you..." 

He looked into those confused brown eyes and leaned down 
and kissed the man, moving to cover that firm body with 
his own.  "This will all be gone when I wake up," he 
said.  He bent for another searching kiss, claiming the 
mouth of the man below him with intensity.  His lover 
pressed up against him and Picard reached down and pinned 
him to the bed by his shoulders.  "What are you afraid 
of?  I *love* you!" 

The long body shuddered and the brown eyes gleamed 
fiercely with pain.  "You almost do, don't you?" 

Picard growled furiously in response and lowered his head 
to grind a kiss against those full lips.  He pressed his 
body down as well, moving against the broad chest, long 
legs, strong arms.  His erection rubbed deeply into his 
soft belly, made slick with Jean-Luc's precum.  At first 
the Artist beneath him only accepted his kiss and 
shuddered to his touch, but then, with a groan that 
rumbled out from deep inside him, the mysterious lover of 
Jean-Luc's dreams enfolded him in those strong arms and 
wrapped his long legs around Picard's own. 

Lust rose up in the man like a storm, a blinding crash of 
it, all through him.  As the body pressing up against him 
moved and moaned, he wanted almost savagely to be 
*inside* all that heat and strength.  He wanted to see 
those intent brown eyes he adored grow unfocused with 
pleasure while he drove his cock between the firm cheeks 
he slid his hands down to caress.  He wanted to hear him 
scream and call his name, his *real* name. 

And so he moved his hands towards the center of the body 
he wanted more than he'd ever wanted anything, and with a 
gentle fingertip brushed the tight opening he found 
there:  a question, urgent and yet tender. 

"Uggghhh!"  The sound the Artist made was not entirely 
pleasant.  And Picard raised his head with concern to 
stare into the expressive face.  "You can't.  I can't let 
you." 

Contritely, Picard withdrew his hands, though he slid 
them up that body to keep the warm strength close. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered. 

"No, no."  The man shook his head and looked both wildly 
aroused and horribly uncomfortable.  "I'm sorry.  *I'm* 
sorry.  I shouldn't have...but when you dreamed of me, I 
couldn't resist.  And it felt so wonderful.  I couldn't 
stay away." 

Before Picard could ask for explanations, he was suddenly 
on an archeological dig in Egypt, in the 1920s, leading a 
team of archeologists who were investigating the Valley 
of the Kings, and looking at the stars. 

"You just don't see them this way anywhere but in the 
desert."   

Yes, he remembered it clearly now, standing there in the 
chill wind of the desert night, too excited to sleep, too 
wound up thinking about opening the tomb to relax. 

"I can think of a way to help us relax," that sensuous 
voice suggested.  Then a tongue was tracing the contours 
of Jean-Luc's ear and a pair of arms was wrapping around 
him.  He leaned back against that strong, warm body, and 
sighed.   

Yes, he recognized this dream.  His dream.  And yet still 
he wasn't remembering everything.  He wasn't remembering 
the owner of the body he leaned back against. 

"I knew you before that dream?" he asked now, looking 
into the same face from his dream, now in *this* dream. 

"I was in another galaxy," the man said, "watching a hive 
of rugch beetles form one of their trap-colonies.  The 
queen had a slight mutation which was allowing her to lay 
almost twice as many eggs as is normal, and I wanted to 
know whether the colony would accept her offspring 
completely or thin out the hive and then...all of the 
sudden..."  A look of joy spread across that incredibly 
expressive face, and Picard felt his heart, mechanical as 
it was, constricting in response. 

The smell of desert blossoms mingled with the stale sweat 
of slumbering workers, the men who would help them dig 
the tomb out from centuries of sand.  The stars seemed 
bright enough to read by.  Those strong arms held him 
tighter, and an erection pressed into his hip. 

"How I wanted you," the voice said in his ear, caressing 
him as he looked into the universe.  "And for this 
incredible moment you wanted me back." 

"I still do," Picard said quietly.  "I love you." 

The body against his winced.  "Don't say that!  You'll 
only hate me for it later." 

"I won't," the captain said with confidence.   

Then they were standing atop a cliff.  Below them a 
village lay as smoking rubble.  His lover was tall and 
strong with the smell of blood and victory about him like 
an ermine cloak. 

"So in my real life you're someone that I know and 
started to want, subconsciously.  If you were in another 
galaxy, I suppose you're not a member of my crew.  You 
must be someone I've met during my explorations.  Some 
sort of lifeform the ship has had contact with." 

The man simply nodded, and Picard looked around.  "I was 
reading a book..."  He turned and stared at the man now 
sharply, feeling his own twinge of pain.  "So, was this 
just a distraction for you?  I wanted you and you decided 
to play along?" 

Pillows.  Piles of them.  Velvet and silk and satin and 
suede and brushed cotton and something that looked and 
felt like warm liquid silver.  He lay naked among them, 
on his stomach, his body covered in warm oil, strong 
hands moving over his back. 

"I love you," that warm voice soothed from behind him.  
"I've loved you for years.  I've wanted you since we met, 
though it took me quite a while to realize just what I 
wanted.  But I never thought you could be interested in 
me, not in this way.  Not like...this..." 

Fingers now worked lower on his back and teased the 
bottom of his spine.  Picard moaned softly and spread his 
legs, just as he had before, inviting more touches.  
Everything felt so *good.*  He groaned and arched his 
back slightly. 

The hands moving over him quivered, and a gentle weight 
was pressing the pillows down between his legs.  "Ohhhh, 
don't do that, Jean-Luc.  You have no *idea* what you 
look like right now." 

The urgency returned now to Picard's body, hot and tight 
and almost maddening, but now the shape of that urgency 
had changed.  Perhaps, if he weren't going to be allowed 
to be inside his lover... 

"Don't you want me?" he asked, allowing a faintly teasing 
note into his voice. 

"Uggghhh!" that voice said again, with the same 
frustration he'd heard before.  Picard tried to turn 
over. 

And was wrapping his lover in his arms and legs as they 
hung weightless in the combat simulation.  The zero-gee 
combat suit was uncomfortably tight against his erection, 
but his lover's body was so warm and alive and *real.* 

He pressed forward eagerly for a long, deep, impossibly 
sweet kiss.  He ground his hips now against the bulge he 
felt under the other's suit. 

"I know you want me," he murmured as he gently ended the 
kiss.  Somehow, on his own he was easily now remembering 
being wrapped in red bands of energy.  A coil around his 
cock, others teasing his nipples and anus.  "We've 
already made love.  You've pleasured me..."  He thought 
of waking the next morning, in his *real* life, laying 
there naked on the bed and displaying himself.  "Didn't 
you see me thanking you?"  Another memory, a dream this 
time, of a hot and throbbing cock found under the hem of 
a tunic and fondled as they crouched in a dark out 
building.  "And I've pleasured you."  He slid a gloved 
hand down to his lover's hip and caressed his way towards 
the smooth center of the suit. 

And all the dreams were gliding through his mind now:  
the opera box, the despotic pharaoh, chocolate fondue, 
chaining himself to his own bed as a present, racquetball 
at the club, Dixon Hill and the Cambridge Orrery. 

"The anomaly," he asked, standing now in the dorsal 
observation lounge while the gold-jewel pattern of the 
anomaly swirled and twisted and shone outside the window, 
"you made it for me after the first dream?" 

His lover nodded, his naked form glowing gold, his eyes 
shining darkly with love.  "I didn't think flowers would 
be quite enough." 

"To catch me?" 

"To catch your attention."  Sadness flowed into his brown 
eyes.  "I'm not likely to catch you." 

Picard took a step forward.  "You have caught --" 

"Enough!" his lover snapped, holding up a hand that shook 
just slightly.  "I'm just not this much of a masochist." 

Bright light.  A chamber of hatred and horror.  
Malformed, diseased, half-insane spectators laughing 
scornfully. 

"This is not an illusion or a hallucination," Troi told 
him quietly.  "This is real." 

Picard looked around.  Tasha and Data were with him as 
well.  He had to protect his new crew.  He had to justify 
the expense and ceremony which invested the Enterprise 
with the name of "flagship."  He had to confront this 
dangerous new entity.  At least he had thought to 
separate the ship. 

And then the judge was brought into the court on his 
chair.  Data remarked that they already knew him. 

"Yes," Picard murmured, standing up.  He did know the 
judge. 

"Oh, God." 

He closed his eyes and wished himself awake.  It really 
was that simple.  And the dreams disappeared from before 
his eyes, though not from his memory.  He could recall 
every moment now, every feeling, every lie. 

He opened his eyes to his bedroom and looked around.  
Gold light from the anomaly shown off his bare skin.  
Yes, he'd gone to bed naked, knowing he'd probably awaken 
covered in his own semen, gasping through another post-
coital loss of his dream lover. 

His bare feet slapped the floor as he stood and quickly 
retrieved his robe from his closet.  He tied the belt 
firmly and turned towards the window, even now astonished 
at the beauty beyond it. 

Even now having to clear his throat quietly before he 
said the name that had so completely changed his life: 

"Q." 

He waited, refusing to say it again. 

"Mon Capitaine?" 

Tall, dark-haired, with brown eyes and full lips and that 
incredibly expressive voice that's timbre seemed to 
linger in the room long after the words were spoken. 

Oh God.  He still wanted Q.  Badly. 

"How much have you been...responsible for what I've been 
feeling?" 

Q's eyes glinted dangerously.  "Are you accusing me of 
manipulating you emotionally?  Of using my powers to make 
you feel --" 

This time Picard held up his hand, and it shook just 
slightly as well.  "No.  No.  If you were willing to use 
your powers that way we'd never have had a real 
conversation." 

Q looked slightly mollified.  "Correct, Picard." 

"You say you wanted me soon after we met --" 

"I wanted you the *second* we met," Q hissed at him. 

Picard felt himself flush slightly, then more deeply as Q 
smiled.  It wasn't a cruel smile.  In fact, it looked 
incongruously tender. 

"So if you wanted me," Picard plowed on, "you could have 
just wished me into doing...things."  He took a deep 
breath while Q's smile faded.  "You didn't, and so I 
assume that you haven't.  However, these haven't simply 
been my dreams." 

Q shrugged, looking off slightly, his eyes eventually 
sliding to the window and glowing like honey in the 
golden light.  "The first one was completely you," he 
said quietly.  "I just entered into it and let you do 
everything.  When you started waking up, I was deeply 
tempted to see if I couldn't stretch things out just a 
bit further...but I didn't.  And then when you woke up, 
you forgot your dream, just like you always forget your 
dreams, and I was going to leave and then..."  Q took a 
breath and Picard could tell it wasn't steady or easy.  
"You started touching yourself." 

Jean-Luc flushed hot and wanted to hide his face.  He 
wanted to scream at Q for spying on him.  He wanted 
to...listen to Q and figure out what was really going on. 

"I've seen you do that before," Q told the window.  "I've 
had to.  You do it all the time, getting through your 
lonely life, and, frankly, there's little in your life I 
haven't watched."  Q laughed suddenly, a hard, painful 
sound.  "Actually, I have skipped over some times when 
you weren't alone.  I made myself look at first, trying 
to get it into my thick head that you weren't interested 
in me that way, that you would never be interested in me 
*that* way.  And then I just stopped, because it 
hurt...and I just ended up hating them, like I ended up 
hating Vash.   

"I didn't even realize it at first, that I was taking her 
places designed to make her angry or uncomfortable, that 
I was crowding her and spoiling her fun.  I didn't 
realize how much I enjoyed watching her rant.  I was 
rather cruel to her, actually." 

Q looked at him suddenly, earnestly, as though he were 
looking for approval.  "I made it up to her, though.  She 
was going to be executed for theft on Ya'brel-Atax VI, 
and I got her out of there, without her even knowing it 
was me." 

"You seem to be straying from the point, Q." 

"Do you want me to say I'm sorry that I watched you jerk 
off while you were trying to remember a dream about me?  
I can't.  I'm not sorry.  It was just about the most 
erotic thing that's ever happened to me.  The only things 
I can think that top it are wrapping you up in energy and 
making you come, and watching you taste your own semen 
while you thought over the revelation that your dream 
lover was a man." 

Q broke off suddenly and chuckled, shifting slightly on 
his feet and looking away again.  "I'm getting excited 
now, thinking about it." 

"How much did you direct my dreams?" 

"I didn't.  I never did.  *You* chose the scenarios.  I 
just joined in.  I said what I felt and reacted to your 
leads.  And, may I point out, I didn't go nearly as far 
as you were willing for me to go." 

"Only in my dreams, Q." 

Q looked suddenly dangerous again.  "I know that, Mon 
Capitaine.  I *never* forgot it." 

Picard looked away, unable to bear this.  He'd never 
exposed himself to another as he had to his dream lover, 
and now that lover was Q.  Was he devastated?  Was he 
embarrassed?  Had he any more respect for himself?  What 
the hell did he feel? 

He found he was looking at the anomaly.  So beautiful.  
Gold lace the size of a small solar system and jewels the 
size of moons.  And yet with that enormity still there 
could be found such subtlety of shades and shapes.  And 
the precision of the movement, the grace of each line. 

"It's perfect," he said.  "Did you really make it?  I 
mean, is it all you?" 

"Yes and no," Q answered quietly.  "It's based on 
something, but other than that it's all me.  All the 
Eschers, they're things I made as I thought of you." 

Again, Picard raised a hand.  "Q, I..."  He turned away, 
suddenly unable to deal with all of this.  "*Why?*" 

"I've told you..." 

"You created all that just to get me into bed with you?" 

"No," Q replied and there was such sorrow in his voice 
that Picard had to turn and look at him.  "Listen to 
yourself, Jean-Luc, and remember what you were saying to 
me not ten minutes ago.  When has this been just about 
getting into bed with you?"  He clenched his fists, arms 
to his side, obviously keeping himself from any other 
motion.  "You said you love me."

End 6/12






From ensdelk@aol.com Fri Mar 20 12:32:37 1998
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From: ensdelk@aol.com (EnsDelk)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.q
Subject: NEW: Escher Dreams PT 2 (7/12, TNG, P/m, NC-17)
Date: 20 Mar 1998 19:32:37 GMT
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*Escher Dreams*
Part Two
by The Anon Sisters
7/12 
disclaimers in 1/12



If the words had come out in any other way, Picard might 
have been able to maintain some distance.  If Q had 
accused, or insisted, or even whined, it would have been 
easy.  Instead, he spoke with a kind of resigned 
weariness that tore at Picard.  Q had, by his tone of 
voice, expected this, expected Picard not to believe him, 
not to want him.  And he'd done what he had done anyway.   

Picard sighed.  He had told Q, his Artist, that he loved 
him, and he had meant it.  But there was more to it than 
that and Picard couldn't ignore the pressure of his 
duties. 

"Is it love that motivates you?" he asked quietly.  "Is 
it love that made you do something that compromised my 
principles?" 

"What?" 

"Your anomaly, your 'flowers,' has had a profound 
influence on my negotiations with the Prytt." 

"I was afraid you were going to say that."

Picard felt a sharp burst of anger wash over him.  In 
fact, everything he was feeling seemed to be sharp, as if 
his emotions were operating on overdrive.  "Then *why,*" 
he snapped, "did you do something that you *knew* would 
upset me?" 

Q shook his head.  "It's not like that...not exactly.  
Don't you remember that he said he was getting tired of 
the whole paranoia routine?  Have a little more faith in 
yourself, Jean-Luc; you two would have found your common 
ground sooner or later." 

"That's not enough!" Picard yelled.  "What about the 
Escherite?  You're interfering with the Federation too." 

"Look, Jean-Luc," Q snapped back.  "I know you want to be 
mad at me, and you may even have cause to be, but give me 
credit for some intelligence.  The Escherite was *there* 
before I came along.  You'd have found it eventually." 

Picard lost the thread of Q's words right after the 
entity said something about him wanting to be mad.  Was 
that it?  He *did* have a right to be angry; Q had 
invaded his privacy in a fashion that Picard had had no 
defense against.  By the moral codes of most telepathic 
societies, Q had engaged in harassment, if not actual 
rape.  Well, maybe that was a little harsh, but still...   

Aware that Q was staring at him, Picard tried to recall 
the entity's words.  "Perhaps," he replied, thinking 
about the Escherite.  "I can't think right now.  This is 
all too...It's too much for me to take in and be calm 
about." 

"I'm not feeling all that calm myself, you know," Q said, 
then scowled.  "I knew this was a bad idea."  

And then, with a flash of light, he was gone.

Picard ran a hand over his head and sighed.  His mind was 
buzzing, filled with a thousand details.  He could 
remember still everything about the dreams and he found 
himself going red in the face at the thought of some of 
them.  Had those really been *his* desires playing 
themselves out across the canvas of his mind every night?  
It was a frightening thought, because he'd been so 
vulnerable in those dreams, admitting to fantasies that 
he'd never shared with anyone.  He had to accept that his 
subconscious had *known* that he was dreaming about Q, 
and if he accepted that, what did it say about his needs? 

He couldn't believe that he'd actually dreamed of 
chaining himself to a bed for his dream...for Q.  Had his 
brain been telling him that he trusted Q that much?  
Trusted him enough to do something he'd always wanted to 
do but had never found a partner with whom he was willing 
to be that vulnerable? But he couldn't trust *Q* that 
much, could he?  He thought about wanting to fuck Q, 
about how he had felt as they lay on Dixon Hill's bed and 
he slid his fingers down to brush... 

Oh, God, just thinking about it was making him hard.  As 
he thought about lying on those pillows and practically 
asking to be fucked, he got even harder.  It would be so 
easy to reach down and...what?  Bring himself off while Q 
watched?  Was Q watching?  And what was wrong with him 
that the mere thought of masturbating while Q watched was 
making his breath grow ragged?  Would he ask Q to share 
his dreams for the rest of the night?  Jean-Luc gulped 
hard.   

*Enough,* he told himself, walking into the living room 
and requesting a glass of cold water from the replicator.  
He took it to the sofa and sat down and tried to think a 
little more rationally.  What about Q?  What did all of 
this mean to the entity?  For some reason he thought 
about the two men in the old attic and wondered if that 
were the closest to reality that he'd gotten.  Of course 
it wasn't all that close; those men had had a lifetime of 
friendship to build on.  

"Sometimes I've gone for a few hours without thinking of 
you."  The words rang in his memory and he wondered if Q 
had really meant them.  He thought about how distressed 
*that* Jean-Luc had been when he realized how much time 
they'd wasted being friends.  He could almost feel it, an 
emotional urgency mixed with a powerful physical urgency 
that had only been temporarily assuaged by that strong 
hot hand stroking his cock...   

This would never do; he *had* to either deal with his 
erection or stop thinking about all those nights of sex.  
*I could do it, right here and he'd watch me.  And it 
would be so good, because it would be real...*  His hand, 
which had begun to move, seemingly of its own accord, 
stopped.  *And I'd be using him,* he told himself in 
disgust. 

"Q." 

Q appeared with his usual flash of light and Picard's 
breath caught as he looked at the entity.  Q was as he 
had been at the opera in Prague, resplendent in plum 
colored velvet trimmed with silver cording, his long 
brown hair caught back in a queue.  "I really liked this 
one," he said, looking down at the court shoes with their 
elaborate buckles.  "Why Human men have let their clothes 
get so *boring,* I don't know." 

"Oh, I don't know about that," Picard replied almost 
automatically.  "I rather liked that black and burgundy 
suit you had on at the holo-film premiere party." 

"Hmph," Q snorted, leaning against the bulkhead near a 
window.  "So good of you to cast me as a totally jealous 
queen." 

Picard looked down at his hands.  "I felt bad about 
checking out poor Lt. Li."   

"You shouldn't; you were far more discreet than you 
thought you were being." 

"What now, Q?" Picard asked softly. 

"Well, you might start by telling me how *you* feel.  I 
think I've made my intentions quite clear, and that bulge 
under your robe isn't really evening the score." 

"It tells you more than I knew a few minutes ago." 

Q sighed and snapped up an ornate opera chair in which he 
gracefully sat, crossing his legs to show off one 
elaborate and sparkling shoe.  Picard found himself 
running his eyes over all that smooth, warm velvet, and 
his palms tingled at the distant memory of what it had 
been like to touch him.  He remembered the way his lover 
had been so surprised at his passion, and so pleasured... 

"I want you so badly I can't seem to think past it," 
Picard confessed at a volume just over a whisper. 

"Sorry, but that's not quite enough," Q said tightly.  
"And frankly, I find it infuriating that you could offer 
your heart so completely to the 'Artist' of the anomaly 
and the mysterious dream lover you couldn't even remember 
in the morning, and then find it so impossible to care 
for me."  Genuine rage was coloring the entity's words, 
and Picard became aware of enormous power held in check.  
He'd never before been as aware of just what Q *was* as 
at this moment.  Starfleet training was trying to kick 
in, telling him to protect his ship, his race, and his 
own personal well-being from such a dangerously empowered 
lifeform.  Sheer lust, however, and whatever else he was 
feeling, were keeping that training at bay. 

"Almost ten years we've known each other," Q went on.  
"Ten years where I tormented you a bit, I admit, but also 
where I've helped you.  I've saved your life, your 
Humanity's existence, your Starfleet's ideals...Do you 
know my fellow Q now refer to me as the 'Human's Q?'  
I've become quite the joke to them all." 

"How would I know that?  I know almost nothing about 
you." 

Q turned his intent gaze to Picard with almost tangible 
heat.  "You know more about me -- the real *me* -- than 
anyone alive." 

Picard felt his stomach drop and his cock get even 
harder, almost to the point of pain.  He might come, 
right here, just from being looked at like that.  "I 
think I could say the same about what you know of me." 

"Then why can you trust me only when I'm a dream...or an 
anomaly?"  Q's eyes became sad again, and Picard almost 
rushed into those strong warm arms to drive that look 
away.  "I'll never forget that, you know.  You sitting 
there on your bed, legs spread, naked, offering yourself 
up like the prize you are.  But I knew, when you realized 
who I was..." 

Q's voice trailed off when Picard's hands went to the tie 
of his robe.  He had to do this quickly, and yet he 
couldn't move quickly.  He was shaking, hard, and though 
all he had to do was grasp one end of the belt and pull, 
his fingers fumbled and the tie almost tangled. 

But then it was undone, and he shook harder as he slowly 
pulled the opening of his robe apart. 

"What...?" Q strangled out, his eyes trapped by the sight 
of exposed skin.  Picard's thighs were pale, as was the 
skin over his chest and then down along the concave 
curves of his stomach. 

And then Jean-Luc spread his knees slightly, and Q saw 
the flushed and glistening tip, the long smooth shaft, 
the tight sac, the slight pulse of his blood.   

"I...told you," Q whispered.  "That's not...enough." 

Picard was listening to Q intently, but he was also 
watching those dark brown eyes staring at his cock.  The 
anger the entity had radiated was being replaced by an 
almost hypnotic wonder, and abruptly he looked simply 
like a man in seventeenth-century aristocratic garb 
gazing at his aroused lover.  Picard wasn't sure what had 
created the change, though surely it had been aided in 
part by Q's now overt erection. 

"I want you," Picard said again, his voice so deep it 
seemed someone else's, a voice of someone who was used to 
saying such things.  "My whole body wants you."  And now 
the voice was taking him over, making him someone the 
voice demanded him to be.  "Do you want to watch me?" 

Q breathed hard in response. 

Picard moved enough to let the robe slip back off his 
shoulders as he spread his legs a bit wider.  He was on 
fire now, lost in the delirium of what he was about to 
do, vaguely aware that later he would be shocked at his 
own behavior.  He had done this before in a dream, but 
those sensations were pale shadows, and every second now 
was sharp and clear and stretched to almost the breaking 
point. 

He didn't suppress his own gasp as he brought his right 
hand to his left nipple and pinched it just slightly.  
His left hand trailed lightly over his stomach, feeling 
the warmth of his own blood as his heartbeat roared in 
his ears.  With his eyes locked on Q's gaze, he slowly 
moved his hands to his cock.  It wouldn't take much, only 
a few strokes, and he would come. 

"No," Q grated out, closing his eyes and clasping his 
hands together.  "No, this isn't enough.  Damn you, 
Picard." 

The man groaned in frustration.  He couldn't come without 
Q.   

Quickly, he was up and crossing the room in rushed steps 
before he knelt beside the chair, placing one hand on the 
warmth of the guilded wood where Q's arms had been a 
moment ago.  The entity's eyes jerked open and stared at 
him almost with fear. 

Picard found he couldn't speak, couldn't find words in 
his head to put into his own mouth.  Instead, his hands, 
almost on their own, went gently to the velvet of Q's 
pants as it stretched tightly over his thighs.  Q's eyes 
rolled shut and he groaned at that warm, gliding caress.  
Up and down the outside, then the inside, and now moving 
towards the center.  One hand gently smoothed over the 
bulge there. 

"Uggghhh!"  Q grabbed his hand and pushed it away, then 
stood up from his chair and stomped to the window, 
staring at his own little artwork while he got his 
breathing back under control.  The chair and his costume 
flashed out, but instead of the uniform Picard expected, 
he replaced the fancy clothes with plain black garb, as 
though they were not clothes at all, just something to 
keep him covered. 

Picard stood up from his kneeling crouch and waited, his 
erection subsiding dramatically, the heaviness of his 
blood pulling at him now more than his arousal.  Reality 
was returning in a cold wave, and he was feeling more 
than a little horrified. 

And a little angry. 

"You come into my dreams," he muttered.  "You create 
something which completely disrupts my mission and my 
life.  You wait until I'm in love with you, then reveal 
yourself and say it's not enough!" 

Q twirled, his eyes full of scorn, the plain image he 
made now framed by the splendor of the golden orrery 
outside.  "But you're not in love with me, are you?  'Q 
the liar!  Q the misanthrope!'  I'm 'next of kin to 
chaos' and 'not to be trusted!'  Have I missed anything?" 

"'Q the incredible pain in the ass!' -- No, wait!" 

Frowning, Q paused, his hand half-raised in preparation 
for snapping. 

"What are you going to do?" Picard demanded.  "Flash out?  
Snap me to my bridge looking like this?  Destroy the 
solar system?  Don't you understand?  There are no half-
measures with you, nothing tentative, no small steps to 
take!  To trust you at all is to trust you completely!"  
The memory of being chained to his own bed swept through 
him and settled into his cock, which grew hard once 
again.  "To be known by you even a little," he continued, 
undaunted, "is to be known completely, in every detail.  
To love you at all is to love you heart and body and 
soul.  You would *own* me, Q!  And I wouldn't rest until 
I owned you too.  As much as part of me wants that, 
craves that, *needs* that...it's too much to promise so 
easily.  It would mean resigning my commission and moving 
away from everything I care about so it won't get hurt if 
you suddenly throw a fit." 

"I wouldn't *do* that!" 

"Like you didn't do that with the Borg?  I say 'no 
thanks' to your offer to join the crew, and you -- " 

"I saved your precious Earth!  I showed you what was 
coming!  You even admitted to Guinan it was what you 
needed!" 

"But is that really why you did it, Q?  Did you think 
that all out before you snapped your fingers and tossed 
us into harm's way?" 

"Do you know all the possible consequences of your 
actions before you act?" 

"I don't have the sort of power or abilities that demand 
I do know!" 

"Bullshit!  When you hike through the forest, stepping on 
ant hills and...beetles, you have no idea what havoc 
you're causing, what sort of lives you're changing." 

"I also don't ask one of those beetles to love me!" 

Q crossed his arms and calmed his tone.  "How about your 
precious "first contact" then?  Do you know the outcome, 
guaranteed, of everything you do when you wander into 
town and introduce yourself?  Many a starship captain has 
asked some backwards alien to love him, believe me." 

"Beetle or backwards alien, Q.  I'm still hardly your 
equal." 

"Oh, bullshit redux, Mon Capitaine.  If you really felt I 
wasn't your match, you wouldn't keep distracting me with 
that gorgeous erection.  You've known since you solved 
the mystery of Farpoint and made that bet with me about 
Riker that you're not afraid of stepping into the ring 
with me.  Do you think I want you as an enemy?  You got 
me tossed out of the Continuum by luring your first 
officer back from godhood!  I may know everything, but 
somehow...you do more with what you know.  And then 
there's your bravery, your curiosity, your strength, your 
compassion, your ability to appreciate the world around 
you which -- I have to tell you -- outshines what you 
find in the average Q by about a million super-novae." 

Q suddenly began to pace, his arms still crossed, his 
gait a little lopsided from the pressure between his 
legs.  "So I can blow up suns with a thought, big deal!  
It can't get me what I want.  You could blow up a sun 
yourself, if you had hung on to the Tox Uthat or made 
notes on Soren's little weapon.  You've traveled through 
time, solved the puzzle of a temporal anomaly or two, and 
with none of the cushy guarantees my people rely on like 
breathing.  When I spent a day as a Human I completely 
folded...'hardly my equal' -- give me a break!" 

"I doubt I'd do much better spending a day as a Q." 

Q turned with a smile at the rueful tone, but his next 
quip was lost in a rise of hot lust at what he saw.


End 7/12



From ensdelk@aol.com Fri Mar 20 12:35:57 1998
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From: ensdelk@aol.com (EnsDelk)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.q
Subject: NEW: Escher Dreams PT 2 (8/12, TNG, P/m, NC-17)
Date: 20 Mar 1998 19:35:57 GMT
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*Escher Dreams*
Part Two
by The Anon Sisters
8/12 
disclaimers in 1/12



"So beautiful," he whispered, his gaze dropped to that 
perfectly sculpted cock.  "So *fucking* beautiful I can't 
stand it." 

"Either do something about it or leave," Picard growled.  
"I can't stand this anymore either." 

"Do you love me, Jean-Luc?" 

Q standing in judgment on Humanity.  Q standing next to 
the a pile of dusty boxes, tears in his eyes as he 
confessed to thirty-two years and seven months of 
unrequited desire.  Q casually discussing Amanda's 
execution.  Q willingly playing the role of a slave to be 
sucked off by his pharaoh.  Q watching as the Borg killed 
eighteen of his crew.  Q not fucking him when he asked 
him to because he knew Picard would regret it later.  Q 
touching him.  Q kissing him.  Q helping him with the 
temporal anomaly.  Q licking Grand Marnier off his chest.  
Q eating chicken while the executioner got ready to chop 
off his head.  Q too self-absorbed to care about Data's 
health.  Q looking at him with love. 

Right now.  So much love in those dark brown eyes.  The 
end of so much in his life if he returned that love.

"I don't know." 

Q sighed and turned again to the window. 

"I want to say I do," Picard said, forcing it out, "just 
so you'll touch me.  That's how much of my pride you've 
taken." 

He walked to Q's side and looked out the window with him 
quietly.  The golden bands outside were more beautiful 
than ever now, turning in their precision like a universe 
in miniature. 

"Yes, I love the Artist," he murmured.  "And I love my 
dream lover.  But you're so much more than that.  It's as 
though I'm being asked to love a community instead of a 
person." 

"I'm just Q, Jean-Luc, with the same many voices inside 
me you and your Kurlan Naiskos share.  I get conflicted 
and uncertain, just like everyone else you know.  But I 
can tell you that everything I am is in love with you." 

"And I have to feel the same way before you'll touch me?" 

"I got spoiled.  You loved me so much in your dreams." 

"It was easy because it wasn't real." 

Q frowned and looked at him.  "What if you awake from 
this and find it's only a dream?  Will this lose its 
reality then?" 

Picard sighed and closed his eyes briefly, shaking his 
head, sagging slightly.  "That's what I mean about 
trusting you, Q.  You could do that.  You could make 
everything I know a lie or a dream or nothing at all.  
How can I love someone I'm afraid of?" 

"I can't be your genie, Jean-Luc, using my powers at your 
discretion." 

"I know that!  Oh, the more we talk the more impossible 
this becomes!" 

"Is that a 'no,' then?" 

Picard's eyes opened and grew wild as he contemplated a 
life without his dream lover, without his Artist, 
without...yes, without Q.   

God, he could see it so easily.  The anomaly would 
disappear, the ship would resume course, and then...all 
those years, alone, until he died.  No one to love as he 
had loved...truly and deeply and in reality *loved* Q. 

"No!  I mean, no, it's not a 'no.'"  Something inside 
Picard finally just made the decision for him:  "I'll do 
it.  I'll resign.  Will can finally be captain.  Take me 
far from here and we'll work at loving each other.  I do, 
Q.  I do love you." 

Q stared at Picard as incredulous triumph rolled through 
him.  He had said it.  He said he loved him. 

And nothing anyone could have said to Q would have made 
those multiple voices inside him react more strongly or 
in greater opposition.  As much as Q was dumbfounded with 
happiness, part of him was furious.  Picard offering Q 
his love looked like Picard offering himself up to the 
Borg Queen in return for Data:  sacrificing himself for 
some noble cause. 

Of course, in this instance the "noble cause" was being 
with Q, which again flattered him enormously, but... 

No.  He couldn't do that to Picard, he thought, realizing 
anew just how much he did love this Human starship 
captain. 

"You wouldn't be you if you did that," Q said.  "I would 
still love you, but you wouldn't love yourself.  You'd 
get bitter and think constantly of what you gave up." 

Picard shook his head.  "I wouldn't think at all if you 
would just touch me." 

Q laughed very softly, smiling a hurt little smile.  "You 
know, I probably could just spend the next century or so 
lying on top of you, making you feel so good you never 
did think of it.  But it would still be *there,* hanging 
over everything we did." 

Picard groaned.  He'd almost come just from the image 
created by those few words, and as it was his breathing 
was shallow and his whole body was throbbing.  He had 
thought he couldn't take this anymore, and yet somehow he 
was enduring.  Would he die when Q finally touched him?  
Would Q ever touch him? 

"I'm willing to pay that price," Picard whispered, all 
those long lonely years so ready to wrap around him and 
freeze him back into what he was.  "I've been captain a 
long time." 

"And you'll be captain a long while longer.  The hell 
with Riker, anyway.  Let him get his own ship.  I want 
you to have both me and the Enterprise, both my love and 
your enjoyment of your life.  I can't diminish you like 
that." 

"And I can't ask my crew and everyone I work with, every 
race I meet, every mission I command to trust themselves 
to you.  Being with you would change everything, don't 
you understand that?" 

"Of course I do, but it doesn't have to change things for 
the worse.  Don't you think I can keep from --" 

"Q," Picard groaned, and simply pushed himself forward, 
pressing himself against that long, strong body, seeking 
the warmth and love he knew was there.  All Q had to do 
was touch him back, just a little, and any price was 
worth it. 

"Trust me just a little while," Q gasped out as his hands 
went to Picard's naked body and began to touch him:  so 
soft and warm and strong and perfect.  "Just don't resign 
anything until this mission is over.  Promise me that and 
I'll make you come now harder than you've ever come.  
Stick with it until Arlic is back on Kes-Prytt, and I'll 
make love with you every night, all night.  I promise I 
won't interfere with him or your mission in any way.  
Trust me just that much and I'll do whatever you want, as 
many times as you want." 

Picard had lost the ability to think that all through.  
He'd been hard, it seemed, for eternity.  He knew they 
were only talking about a few days here, if Q really did 
stay out of it, and if he didn't, then the deal was void 
anyway. 

"All right.  I promise.  Hurry." 

"I love you," Q told him just before his head lowered to 
let his lips join in their first "real" kiss.   

"I love you," Picard told him back as he opened his mouth 
and deepened the kiss instantly, needing to taste and 
explore the warm sweetness of Q's tongue.  The pressure 
and feel of Q's lips were perfect, just as he'd dreamed, 
and the arms pressing him close were strong without 
making him feel weaker. 

In fact, he was flying, his entire body exploding with 
joy.  He thought he might be coming, until Q's clothing 
disappeared and his erection strained harder as it 
touched that warm, soft skin. 

"Just hold me," Picard moaned into his mouth, "and I'll 
come." 

"Shhh," Q soothed, moving away from his mouth to nibble 
on his ear.  Picard's hips bucked slightly in response.  
"Relax.  We own each other now, don't we?  That means 
your cock is all mine, doesn't it?" 

"Yours." 

Picard found himself being led gently backwards, and went 
along with it until he was reclining once again on the 
couch.  Q stood before him, and the man thought to enjoy 
looking at him a split-second after the entity had 
dropped to his knees between Picard's spread legs.  His 
head bowed, and light kisses were tickling the insides of 
his thighs.  Jean-Luc groaned and felt his climax rising 
up.  He closed his eyes and felt his entire body 
gathering together.  If Q kissed him *there,* that would 
do it. 

"Shhh," Q said again.  "Open your eyes." 

Struggling, Picard managed it, and gasped.  Directly 
before him spun and shone the golden circles Q had made, 
suspended outside the window as though hung on the wall 
of the universe.  Q had made that for him, and the awe 
that made him feel pushed his climax gently out of reach. 

Warmth.  Wet and soft and moving against him now over his 
painfully hard cock.  

Q had him in his mouth. 

Picard screamed and couldn't help putting his fingers in 
that dark hair.  So warm and soft to his fingers, like 
Q's tongue on his... 

"Ugghhhh!" he said as Q took him in deep, all the way, 
his lips pressing into his hair and against his sac.  He 
was sucking hard, then releasing and using his tongue 
again, then sucking.  One hand was caressing his 
testicles, and the other traveled smoothly up his chest 
and pinched his left nipple hard. 

Picard's whole body undulated as Q worked between his 
legs and his eyes drank in the wonder of gold and jewels, 
and then he came, screaming and shooting deeply down Q's 
throat, and his lover stayed with him and touched him, 
drawing everything out, enfolding him in perfections of 
sensations harder and deeper than any he'd known, dark 
and hot and overwhelming. 

When the man's body slumped on the cushions and breathed 
quietly, Q let the spent organ slide out of his mouth.  
Gently, he kissed the soft skin, smelling and tasting all 
that lovely cum, before he turned to sit with Picard on 
the sofa and stare thoughtfully at the orrery -- for 
that's truly what it was -- he'd made for Jean-Luc's 
enjoyment. 

With a snap, he cleaned Picard up and got rid of his own 
bothersome erection.  Jean-Luc was out for the night now.  
There would be time to satisfy Q's need later. 

Over and over and over again. 

With a smile, Q wrapped the man he loved in his arms and 
thought about the task ahead of him.  Only a few days to 
work with here, though it would be a few more than Picard 
realized yet it would be.  Somehow Q had to convince him 
that the love they shared now made Q as devoted as the 
captain was to the man's goals.  Somehow he had to earn a 
trust beyond a lover's trust.  Somehow, he had to get 
past what he recognized intellectually, at least, was a 
legitimate worry on Picard's part. 

Of course, the good captain had it wrong.  It wasn't Q's 
powers that scared Jean-Luc.  When it came to handling 
that sort of thing Picard was better than Wotan giving up 
the seductive but cursed ring of the Nibelung. 

No, it was being loved that Picard feared.  He knew when 
he finally gave his heart to another there was a genuine 
possibility that it would overwhelm him, enslave him 
completely.  Fearing that, he was willing to risk himself 
on that love, but not to risk the welfare of others.  
Thus, he wanted to sacrifice everything to be with Q so 
that he could then continue to love without further risk.  
He wanted, essentially, to burn his own lands rather than 
watch while another invaded. 

But Picard didn't need to do that with Q.  Q would never 
harm him.  In fact, Q could help him to protect what he 
cherished. 

Picard felt he had been called on to make that sacrifice 
before, with Jenice Manheim, with Beverly Crusher, and 
most especially with Neela Darren.  But before he had 
always sacrificed the relationship instead.  And because 
these women had essentially agreed with him, the man had 
become trapped in this false either-or. 

That was Q's real challenge.  He had to show Picard the 
third option.  He had to show him he could love 
completely and still command.  That he could trust 
someone else absolutely and still not be controlled by 
them.  That he could compromise things for the 
relationship without compromising anything else. 

Which was all easy enough to figure out, and certainly 
something Q was willing to do all the work necessary to 
accomplish.  But there was one very big problem: 

He didn't have the slightest idea how to do it. 


The Pharaoh's court looked stunned as the majordomo 
finished reading from the scroll in a loud voice.  The 
slave who was prostrate on the floor below the dais 
forgot himself enough to look up at the living god for 
just a moment.  The pharaoh looked down at him gravely, 
and then looked around at his courtiers.  "Leave us," he 
commanded.   

Most of the court prostrated themselves, and then rose to 
back out of Pharaoh's presence, but the Captain of the 
Guard looked ready to argue.  "Do you question the 
Beloved of Amen-Ra?" Pharaoh asked quietly.  "The Son of 
Horus?"   

The Captain fell to his face before the dais and then 
backed away, bowing low, and leaving the Pharaoh alone 
with his northern slave.  Or the northern freedman,