From ereshkgl@cyberg8t.com Sat Nov 08 18:19:41 1997 Path: news2.ispnews.com!news1.ispnews.com!nntp.flash.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-feed4.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.meganews.com!news.cyberg8t.com!not-for-mail From: ereshkgl@cyberg8t.com (Ruth Gifford) Newsgroups: alt.fan.q,alt.startrek.creative Subject: NEW: Sorry Isn't Good Enough [G] (TNG/RL, revenge challenge) Date: 9 Nov 1997 02:19:41 GMT Organization: GiffStein Lines: 263 Message-ID: <6436jt$qip$1@nntp.cyberg8t.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: host30.riv.cyberg8t.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=US-ASCII X-Newsreader: WinVN 0.99.8 (x86 32bit) Xref: news2.ispnews.com alt.fan.q:888 alt.startrek.creative:8777 On ASC Stephen issued his "revenge" challenge and I thought about it, but nothing came. The Greywolf posted his reply to that challenge and gave me the perfect intro to write something. This is my personal nightmare. One character belongs to Paramount, I belong to myself and yes I fibbed a little because the bedroom's messier than the way I describe it. Sorry Isn't Good Enough by Ruth Gifford (c) 1997 >"Ahhh, *shit*. I *hate* when this happens!" Then something >occurred to him, and he whistled in relief. "Geez. I guess it's a >good thing I *didn't* write that Q story..." Ruth looked a little nervously at her computer after reading Greywolf's post. She had written a Q story. Several of them. Of course she hadn't done anything *that* bad to Q, had she? And Picard . . . but she wrote him so that he *enjoyed* the things he did with Q, and that those things were all consensual. Well, there was the whole heart break thing . . . But she was making up for that, really she was. "And taking your sweet time about it," a voice drawled. Ruth gulped and looked nervously over her shoulder. The big, broad shoulders, receding dark hair touched with silver, and Starfleet captain's uniform were a pretty good indication that this was not a Certain Actor wandering from Pasadena to the Inland Empire, but an omnipotent entity who had dropped in on her. She looked at her watch, yep, the second hand had stopped moving. He looked around and sniffed. Ruth also looked around, a little embarrassed. It wasn't as bad as usual, this was a "kid weekend" so the toys were all safely locked in the toy chest. True, there was a pile of books on the floor, a bunch of paper near the printer and clothes scattered liberally on one of the dressers. And, of course, the bed wasn't made, but Q seemed to be irritated by something other than the general clutter. He looked at the cookie sheet covered with magnets and pictures that was propped on the top shelf of Ruth's desk and frowned. She wondered what the problem was. Could it be the bad magnetic poetry? Maybe the two month old jury duty summons? Perhaps he didn't like the picture of Xena, or the one of Torres. Even if this was the canonical Q and not her version of the entity, he'd hardly object to the really good head shot of Picard or the fairly decent one of Janeway. Then he turned and looked behind her and she wondered what he was seething about now. OK so the two Thai scarves draped on the wall over the bed screamed Berkeley in the early 70s, and the silhouettes of the kids were from Disneyland, but what was his problem? Was he going to steal the "Read" poster featuring Patrick Stewart that Jeanita had given to Ruth and atara as a wedding present? Or the autographed program from the Shakespeare in the Park production of The Tempest? "Two pictures," he said, his voice sulky, "one of them a damn nice poster, *and* an autographed theater program." Ruth nodded nervously. "Uh . . . you can have the poster if you want it," she said. "I'm a fucking Q!" he snapped and she giggled a little. He had quoted himself. Or at least atara's version of him. "If I want a poster, I'll snap one up." "Well what's the problem, then?" Ruth ventured to ask. "You're a Leo with an ego problem, you tell *me*" "Oh shit!" She bit her lip. "Um . . . well . . . that is . . ." "Well at the least reason for your appalling over use of ellipses makes sense; you really do talk like that." "See that space there?" she asked, pointing to an empty space on the cookie sheet. Above it were the words "Let's play Master and servant" written out with magnetic poetry pieces. "If I were Sophie, the missing picture would be Garak and Bashir, but I'm not and so it's you and . . ." More ellipses, she realized as her voice trailed off. "Uh . . . it's a really good picture of you." "Really?" "Yeah." Struck with sudden inspiration, she minimized everything on the computer screen. "See, I'm using it as wallpaper this week." He looked at the picture. "Nice shot. From 'Tapestry' right?" "Yep," Ruth said. "Very nice, what with him in focus and in the light and me sort of fuzzy and in the dark." "Uh . . ." "But that's not what I'm here to discuss with you." "My stories?" she asked nervously. "Well I wasn't really fond of that beating you had Johnny give me at the end of HBP, but I do like being on top most of the time, so I'll forgive you." He looked over her desk and then picked up a roll of undeveloped film. *Oh fuck! Oh shit!* Ruth thought as she smiled weakly while he looked at it. "What's on this?" "It's left over from the end of our honeymoon, so there are pictures of London." "And?" "A few pictures of the cats being cute." "*And?*" "The pictures of the kids that I took today to send with the Christmas cards." "AND?!" "Uh . . . some . . . actionfigureshots," Ruth mumbled. "Picard and Q's Hawaiian Vacation," Q said, sneering at her. "Johnny in a hula skirt from your Hula Hair Barbie. Both of us in Ken's loud big shorts. Me carousing with the aforementioned Hula Hair Barbie and a Skipper. More *drag* shots." "Well, yeah. But at least Picard's the one being attacked by the stuffed . . ." He glared at her and the word octopus didn't make it out before she resorted to more ellipses. "Oh sure, but he got the decent looking plastic horse and I ended up with the jeweled unicorn thing." "Er . . . If I said I was really sorry?" "What were you going to do with them?" "Well . . . I was . . . and Julia was . . . and then maybe . . . Mercutio . . ." The minute Mercutio's name left her lips, Ruth knew she'd made a terrible mistake. Q's eyes glowed as he glowered at her. "Let fill in the blanks. You were going to sent them to Julia, and she was going to scan them and then you were going to offer them to Mercutio for that picture captioning contest of hers." For once in her life, Ruth decided that silence was the better part of valor. It didn't work. "WELL?" "Something like that," she mumbled lamely. "Look it's a joke, OK?" Suddenly she'd had enough. "Really, I get you laid all the time. I've turned the captain of the Enterprise into your personal sex slave, and made damn sure that both of you have orgasms so good that you need to soundproof his quarters." "But what if I'm not the Q with that Picard?" "Oh fuck you Robert Heinlien." Ruth muttered, "you and your goddamned 'writer as creator of a universe theory.' Q" she said a little louder, "which one are you? Are you the Q from My Fair Jeanne? You get Picard anyway you want him in that one." He shook his head. "'Camping Holiday' maybe? Sure it's sort of sappy, but you were about to fuck him when the story ended. 'Cantara?' 'Qonvesation?'" She ran through her backlist. "No, oh no, not from . . ." "Riker," Q said bitterly. "I ended up subbing to *Riker* in your oh-so-funny 'Klingon Kabaret Kareer of Miss Johnny Mae.' And don't blame Jeanita for it, at least *her* ending left me with some dignity." "Er . . ." "You took Johnny away from me and left me with Riker! That's just . . . I mean, if you were Terri, I'd understand that it was some sort of misguided compliment, but you don't even think he's sexy." He shuddered. "It's just so . . . Ewwww." He glared at her. "Now you've got me using those stupid ellipses." "Sorry," Ruth muttered. "What are you going to do? Can I write something? Another ending to it maybe?" "Oh no, that's way too little, way too late." He looked her over, taking in the Doc Martaans, the Silver Tab Levis, the tee shirt with the primitive dancing cats, and the long unstyled hair. "No, you left me stuck with Riker, but you also unloosed a nightmare on the Alpha Quadrant. Picard as a drag queen, or make that a drag empress. You've got to pay for that." He paused and then began to speak in a thoughtful tone of voice. "Picard in drag, hmmmm. Maybe you were Mary Suing." "Who, Amanda?" "No, you little idiot. Jean-Luc!" "Oh no. No! Q, you can't! I only do it sometimes and then only at . . ." He raised his hand and snapped his fingers. Ruth looked down at herself and began to shiver. "Can't you make it . . . goth or that sort of ethnic funky thing, or even a tailored suit? Something other than . . ." Her bottom lip trembled. Q laughed an evil laugh and produced a mirror. There she was, in a pink gingham dress. And it wasn't just a little pink gingham; there was a lot of pink gingham in the dress, with flounces and a set of crinolines underneath. She had on white sheer stockings, and a pair of dance shoes. She was wearing makeup, a lot of makeup, including false eyelashes and really pink lipstick. She had nails, long ones with pink frosted nail polish. "Go ahead," Q mocked. "Be a good little liberal and tell me some of your best friends square dance." "Maybe they do, but this is so *not* me!" Ruth wailed. She shocked herself by quickly bringing a finger up to catch the tears so that her makeup didn't run. "You've got that move down," Q sneered. "Well I've worn makeup before, but not laid on with a trowel. Or at least not after 8th grade or so." She looked at the mirror again. "Braids? With pink ribbons? And bangs with hair spray? Oh Q, I'm really, *really,* REALLY sorry." "Bye!" he said. As he vanished Ruth tried to cheer up. She could just get all this off before atara came back from picking up the cat. Goodbye square dancing clothes, hello jeans. The door opened and a few seconds later, Ruth's wife came into the bedroom. "Oh, thank god you're already dressed for tonight, sweetie." She went to her side of the closet and pulled out two dresses. "What do you think? The lilac gingham or the mint green?" Ruth began to scream. The End OK. So I'd like to apologize to anyone who square dances. I don't and the gingham and lace thing is not my chosen idiom when I go femme. No insult was meant to anyone. -- *************************************************** * Ruth | Visit GiffStein Productions * * Gifford | http://www.cyberg8t.com/ereshkgl/ * *-------------------------------------------------* * alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated * * Resistance is possible, but why bother? * *-------------------------------------------------* * Better living thru TrekSmut--See for Yourself! * * http://www.capital.net/users/rjs1/asce * *************************************************** "Their foreplay is gonna kill me." Iolaus about the A/U Hercules and Xena