NOTES: This is a parody of the story, "Spectrum", by JJ Arrow (jjarrows@aol.com), written with her permission. I got the idea for this while archiving stories -- Spectrum sprang out at me, and for some reason, I misread the title as "Speculum". At that point, it occurred to me that "Speculum" might be a fun story to write. ;) For the purposes of this story, I have made up certain details about JJ's life, personality and appearance. They are not true, except perhaps by coincidence, and come solely from my imagination. This story contains graphic descriptions of sex, sexual torture, and lots of poking fun at a fellow author. Many thanks to JJ for allowing me to borrow her wonderful story, which provided the structure and the substance for the graffiti I've written all over it. ;) SUMMARY: Parody of "Spectrum". TNG, adult, Q/f. Q is captured by the JJ'Shen and used for sexual experiments. Can anything make him whole after this? Speculum, by Mercutio (mercutio@europa.com) "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Humpty Dumpty had a great fall" "Through the Looking Glass", Lewis Carroll -Part 1- Doctor Beverly Crusher lay naked on her bed, and sighed into the still quiet. Alone, damnit. Everything seemed to be so fucked up -- unfortunately, not literally.... .....ever since the seventeenth letter of the alphabet appeared in a flash of light in Sickbay, and, after a few choice phrases of the usual rudeness-- -- crumpled to the floor, dying, emanating waves of overwhelming sexuality. They *had* stabilized his physical condition, at least. She sighed once more, wearily, having had to spend a good deal of time locked in her quarters in order to work off the urges that Q's presence had caused -- and a good thing it was that she hadn't met anyone likely looking in the halls along the way. Or a bad thing. Whichever. Dr. Crusher's head whirled around, as Q materialized in Sickbay. The "Exorcist"-style movement gave her an instant headache. Q leaned against the wall, broken, bent, and with an air that made it obvious he was not willing to sit down. "What's the matter, Beverly?" asked Q, his voice hoarse and wheezing, but still carrying that high-handed quality that set her teeth on edge and caused her to make so many trips to the dentist. "Haven't you ever seen anyone die before?" He fell to the floor, face-down. Crusher didn't bother trying to catch him. "Ogawa!" Crusher called out. "I haven't taken any readings yet, and I've never liked Q, but since I'm a doctor, it's obvious to me that he's dying, even though he's omnipotent and doesn't have human ailments," Crusher said grimly.... She sniffed the air for a second. No, she didn't smell anything. How strange. But..... "Nurse, don't you think that Q is really really attractive? Even half-dead?" They had stabilized his condition. In the space of three hours, he had gone into a coma, then woken up and went into a catatonic state, and now was awake in the rehab room, cringing whenever anyone came near. Of course, now that it was no longer a plot necessity for her to heal him, Q had now returned to his former omnipotent state and was no longer readable by tricorder. He was shivering, having nightmares and still sick. So naturally, Crusher felt she had to call in Counselor Troi. "Be careful," Crusher warned Troi, speaking as much for the Counselor's safety than for Q's. "He's..." Her voice trailed off. "Unstable" wasn't quite the right word. "Overwhelmingly sexy" came to mind -- they had stripped all of his clothes off, and my, didn't the man have a nice... um -- *body*. But that was just her hormones going awry. Troi wouldn't be interested in that. "What was he dying of?" Troi asked. Crusher shook her head like an Irish setter shaking off water, trying to shed her lustful thoughts. "Externally, he almost seemed fine, but there was so much internal damage, I'm almost afraid to ask what happened to him. Now that the author has remembered that Q's omnipotent, I can't even get a scan on him anymore. Damn all authors!" Troi nodded, and went on her way. The doors to the rehab room hissed open, parting for the counselor with a satisfied sigh. "Q..." she started to ask. He was asleep on a medlab table, curled up, caught in the grip of some terrible nightmare, and seeming quite... attractive. What a strange thing to think. His eyes darted around under his lids, locked in some nightmarish dream. If Troi listened carefully, she could hear him moan quite softly, fitfully, as he tossed and turned. She licked her lips. She could almost imagine those moans coming from him as they made love -- settling her weight over him as he laid on the medlab table and-- Q awoke with a start, his gaze wild, nervous, and not settling on one thing too long. Whirling from his lying position and falling with a bang on the floor, he looked up and saw Troi standing there on the opposite side of the table, her uniform tunic half-open. The sudden noise of his fall confused Troi. Where was he? And what the *hell* was she doing, for crying out loud?!?!? And how could she get him back on the table so she could keep doing it some more? Carefully, as if handling something venomous, she bent down and put a calming hand on his bare shoulder. "It's all right," she said gently. He shrieked, shrinking from her soft touch which had somehow turned into a stroking action, scrambling away into the corner. His arms covered his head protectively; his shoulders were hunched. "Don't touch me, don't hurt me!" "I'm not going to hurt you," she soothed, desperately trying to get her tunic off. She was so hot. Q opened one eye cautiously, leaving the other one shut as a back-up. "You... won't?" "No." She stepped toward him, and he eyed her breasts worriedly. Troi knelt beside him, slowly, lowering herself until she was hovering over his nakedness, her now-exposed breasts almost brushing his chest. "What happened to you?" she asked quietly, more to herself than to the fearful Immortal. She couldn't read him at all. He was keeping his mind shielded. But who needed to read his mind? The waves of sensuality he was giving off had their own meaning. "I can't help you if you don't let your guards down," she purred, her voice low and sultry. Q shook his head emphatically. "No. You can't make me. I won't let you." Troi sighed impatiently. "No, I *can't* make you. But whatever you're feeling.... if you lock it away, it will stay there. Feelings don't disappear, Q." "Yes, they can," he said emphatically, twisting away from her. Troi's eyes rose to the ceiling, as she realized what she was doing and the position she was currently in. She pulled herself up and got her tunic back on properly. She was a counselor, she was supposed to help him, not act like a crazed sex beast. She was a counselor...... She took another three and a quarter steps back, and then turned to Q. "Let me help you," she said. Q looked up at her, and something of what he used to be flashed in his eyes. "Come here," he said sexily. Troi was unable to resist the open invitation, and knelt down next to him. He grabbed her wrist, and the contact caused tremors of sexual pleasure to run through her body. "I've got something to *show* you." Q gave her a charming grin, and suddenly dozens of images, thoughts, sensations flooded the Betazoid.. "What are you *doing*?!" she managed to gasp out between orgasms, but he didn't answer. His memories took control of her senses, and the story drew her in, even as she fell unconscious into his virile, masculine arms.... Q meandered through the universe, looking for something to do which would *really* tick people off. And, if he couldn't find anything better, he supposed that showing up naked in Picard's bed would cause a little excitement. Hmm.... what's this? A spatial anomaly. How entertaining. The JJ'Shen -- due to a lack of science education on the part of the author -- made their home within the anomaly, where any sensible or well-written creature would have died within seconds. They were scientists, doctors, observers. And they were beautiful. Fluid and graceful in their movements, flawless in their features, their voices soft and lilting, perfect in every detail -- making humans look like gargoyles. But.... before all that... the JJ'Shen were still scientists, doctors, and observers. And they loved to experiment on live subjects. Especially live, otherwise omnipotent subjects, whose powers could be turned on and off by the whim of the author. Q floated in on a look-see. Hmm.... interesting place.... not really my style..... wouldn't mind bringing Jean-Luc here for a little visit though....... I could imagine using *that* on him... I wonder what that pathetic little creature thinks he's doing with that wand he's waving in my direction.... he couldn't possibly see me...... I'm hidden in all these ellipses......... Whoops! Hello, what's this? An "observer" who liked to call himself Sirhan Sirhan on his off-hours which he spent cheerfully murdering human beings as a kind of stress relief from his demanding job, approached the new test subject. His writing utensil moved across his clipboard. "Omnipotent powers removed? Check. Frivolous clothing removed? Check. Subject secured to examination table? Check." He turned around, and yelled, "Time for the examination!" A white-gowned team of women swarmed out, holding bright shiny metal objects. Sirhan turned to them. "Bring the speculum!" "Speculum, sir!" An equally shiny speculum was slapped into his gloved hand. Q, lying on the table face-up, naked, with his legs secured in stirrups, began screaming even before the speculum reached his ass. When it was inside and spread and the probing began, he started begging to be let go. Sirhan Sirhan simply smiled. * * * "How is the testing with Sixty-Nine going?" "I have just finished the examination. Join me if you like, my little Aussie Sheila -- the creature shows much promise. Why, he appears to have never experienced, shall we say, 'extreme possibilities'." "Hmmm..." she said, eyes widening. "That does open some interesting lines of research, doesn't it?" ....uhnnnghh.... gotta regroup..... must figure out what's going on here....................... where are my powers?.... not there, damnit..... stolen away *again*..... he needed to have a talk with his writers... not fair to steal his powers every ten minutes just so he could experience the so-called joys of being human..... Still hurts... such a rancid smell in here.... What do they want with me? Why me? Why not some other deserving soul? WHY ME????? ...oops, what's that feeling? something like velvet down there.... wait a minute....... that's a sexual organ.... and they're touching it.... no.... not touching.... it feels like... like... a mouth. (let me out! what did I ever do to you! get me out of here!! i don't have to put up with this! i'm Q! i am NOT interested in sex. no matter what the GiffStein people say!) ....it's hardening.... and now they're doing something.... sucking... (you can't make me squirm... you can't make me give in... I am *not* an animal...... you can't make me into an animal....) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO The observers snacked on their popcorn as their test subject shrieked in fear, chatting light-heartedly amongst themselves about the upcoming stationsphere game and whether Aleph Press had a chance against the Mining Company, the odds-on favorite. They heard their subject cry, listened interestedly to each moan, and shook their heads disappointedly when he claimed not to be an animal. Cool and proper, they sat there watching him, scribbling down notes whenever anything especially fascinating occurred. "Hey, beer-boy! Get me another Arrowweiser and make it snappy!" Light filled his chamber of horrors, and the wall slowly slid down. Test Subject Sixty-Nine raised his head about a half inch -- as much as he could manage being strapped to the table -- and looked over. The person staring back was ugly, even for an underevolved alien. But that didn't matter, at least he wasn't performing obscene sexual acts. "Sixty-Nine, we are now going to research each one of your body cavities....." A female JJ'Shen standing behind Sirhan stepped forward, holding a case of objects which Sixty-Nine did not recognize. She smiled sweetly at him, as if performing for an unseen audience. "What you experienced yesterday was just the beginning, Sixty-Nine. We have much more for you." Sheila placed the case on a small metal table next to Sixty- Nine, precisely in his field of vision, where he would be able to see clearly everything she brought out. She took out the first object. "Do you recognize this, Sixty- Nine?" (no... not going to give them the satisfaction....) "You will. This is a cock ring." She handed it to Sirhan, who attached it to Sixty-Nine's most abused body part. (no..... please no.... anything but that......) She took out several more of the same object and handed all of them to Sirhan. Then she brought out another, different object. "Do you recognize this?" (why me) She pinched his nipple sharply. "Answer me, Sixty-Nine." (no, don't recognize it... please don't use it on me.... I don't know what it is, I don't want to know.....) "You'll know, Sixty-Nine. This is a butt plug." She handed it to Sirhan with a surgical snap and then brought some more devices. (more? how can there be more? isn't this enough?) "And these?" (no, don't know... please............) "Nipple clamps." Sirhan attached those as well. Sheila pulled at it and Sixty- Nine screamed. "Shall we begin?" no..... don't do this :::::::groan::::::::::::: I can't stand this He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the sight of them laughing delightedly as they pulled at the nipple clamps, twisted the butt plug and encouraged his genitals to swell and harden painfully against the cock rings. That only made it worse, the feeling more intense. it hurts too much don't do that... please don't do that... don't make me...... AIEEEEE something.......you did something....feels broken.....what are you doing to me?......AUGGHHHH....no, please stop i'm begging you, stop....hard to breathe can't breathe, please.... Finally, blessedly, it ended, and he gasped, reeling, A voice floated to his ears. "How do you feel, Sixty-Nine?" aughh....hurts.....hurts...... "No," replied Sirhan, his voice possessing a strange calm, "you feel good, don't you, Sixty-Nine? You feel very good." aaaah......no, not again, please....aughhh.....not there...please not that, it's broken, stop it They did. The room emptied, and he laid there, the implements of torture still attached to him, crying in agony. why me..... ******************************* If, after renting a George Clooney movie from the local galactic video store, you had happened to pass by the JJ'Shen compound, and, on a whim, stopped by a most particular laboratory, and put your ear to the door, you would have heard the sound of hoarse screams, coming from within. But, then again, if you had been traversing the JJ'Shen compound, then you would have had to have been a JJ'Shen. So you wouldn't have been interested in George Clooney anyway. Troi gasped as the "story" cut off. She stared at Q, who was now asleep, leaning against the bulkhead. The feeling of sexual attraction was gone as though it had never been, which was all just as well, since otherwise she would have been deeply embarrassed at acting like her mother. *How long was he there, I wonder?* Troi mused. Cautiously, she delved a little deeper into his mind, and realized, in surprise, that there was more than just that memory... much more... Not one, but three stories interweaving within his mind... the present, and then another two-- the experience she had just seen.... and another, an anchor, that he was trying to hold onto... which was keeping him sane... something that happened long ago... The little blue planet with no moons -- but one very attractive satellite -- calmly circumnavigated its sun. On its surface were the usual array of underevolved animals, in this case, the species that liked to call itself "humans", which was just as funny in its own way as the fact that they'd named their planet "Dirt". A Vogon construction ship could have demolished it in under three minutes. But the being now materializing had no interest in creating a stellar off-ramp or any other form of traffic device. He only wanted to have a little fun with the primitive ape-like inhabitants. If that wasn't an insult to apes. George, the Trimet bus driver, stomped on his brakes. Sure, pedestrians were morons -- every bus driver knew that -- but they didn't just appear out of the middle of nowhere. And they didn't stand gawking in the middle of the street on a rainy day while a ten-ton bus came roaring down on them. George hit his brakes harder, laid on the horn, and prayed to God that he could stop in time to avoid killing the man. His insurance rate was high enough already. ... Q absorbed his surroundings, the trees, the sky, the light shower of aqueous vapor condensed into liquid, the dark towers of metal that passed as architecture here, and scanned the passersby for someone worthy of his pestering. He smirked. The troglodyte driving the behemothic gas- belching vehicle bearing down on him was under the impression that he was about to kill him. Right. How ridiculous. He suddenly felt a strange pressure against his chest and then a hard slam as the ground hit him rather abruptly. How rude. He was mildly surprised to realize that he was bleeding. The vehicle shrieked to a halt, one fat tire right where he could see it, stinking of oil and asphalt. Well, this is a fine hello. He was about to heal himself and then go give the human a good talking to when he realized he couldn't. He was losing consciousness. Oh, great. Just what he needed. More plot tricks from writers. ============ -Part 2- JJ Arrow had turned instinctively towards the sound of the horn, two of her three personalities immediately interested. The writer in her wanted to get more material and, well, the superhero couldn't help it. She saw the man standing in front of the bus, and the bus bearing down on him. It seemed to happen as slowly as Calculus I. If it hadn't been for her nocturnal activities, she would not have believed what she saw was real. The man looked too much like a crash test dummy as the bus hit him and threw him backwards onto the pavement. JJ made her way over. A small crowd was already gathering, the passengers of the bus all getting off to gawk. Her first reaction was to wish she'd had her camera so that she could take some suitably graphic pictures of the accident. The Oregonian wasn't exactly a tabloid and the man wasn't exactly Princess Di, but nonetheless, the pictures would be worth something. Which made her actual behavior even more odd. She pushed her way into the knot of people surrounding the man. "He's my uncle! Let me through! Hey! He's my uncle." She got through. The man was lying on the pavement, the bus driver kneeling next to him. Traffic was stopped all around them now; fortunately, 5th was a bus mall and few drivers used it to get through downtown. "You're his niece?" the bus driver asked. "Yes." She knelt next to the man, looking at him. His clothes, a strange red uniform of some sort, were dirtied and torn. He was bleeding from a cut on his head -- those always looked worse than they were. But he was still unconscious -- something that was supposed to be a bad sign. "What the hell's wrong with your uncle?" the bus driver demanded. "He almost got himself killed!" JJ thought fast. "He's... not all well." She tapped the side of her head meaningfully. "He was coming to meet me, and well, he must have gotten confused." "Confused is right. Almost confused himself all the way to the morgue." The ambulance arrived at the same time as the police; the mounted officers clearing away the traffic and the crowd to let the ambulance through. "You a relative?" JJ was asked brusquely by one of the paramedics, who didn't even look at her. "Yes." "Okay, we'll be taking him to OHSU. You can meet us at the Emergency entrance. They're going to want you to fill out some forms." JJ nodded. She could catch the number eight bus straight up to the hospital. No problem. Only question was, what did she think she was doing? * Q's eyes flickered open, shut, open, shut, open, shut again as he realized he'd forgotten to take care of his electricity bill. No power. Well, that was a simple matter to correct. With a thought, he restored his health. *Silly me, getting hurt by a piece of lumbering metal. What *will* the folks back home say about that?* Full power restored, he opened his eyes again. Surroundings white. Antiseptic. Many beeping things in the room. And a girl. Helllllllllllllllll-oooo Little Miss Mary Sue. As was customary in these kind of stories, she had a heart- shaped face, large luminous eyes (green), and long silky hair (black). She was also drooling. Q felt mildly offended that this person, whoever they were, had chosen to fall asleep in his presence. "Excuse me," he said in an offended tone of voice, then louder when she failed to awake on his first challenge, "*Excuse me*." "Huh? What?" When she opened her eyes, he saw that they were exactly as green and luminous as his omniscience had told them they would be. Great, just great. "Thank you for your time and company," Q said, getting out of the bed. "It was sooooo entertaining. I'm sure you're lovely and all, but I'm leaving before I can be forced into some kind of kinky romantic relationship with you." JJ Arrow was confused. Maybe he really *was* a lunatic. "Well, at least you're awake." *At least?* "How long have I been here?" Q demanded. "About three days. All of which paid for by my credit card, too." "I'm sure that will thrill your mommy and daddy no end." "Actually I paid for it with the money from my night job." "Even better. I've been shacked up with a stripper for three days. Well... I must be going. Toodle-loo." "Excuse me? I don't think you're going anyway, buster." He drew himself up haughtily. "You can't stop me." JJ's eyes flashed. "Sure. Fine. Whatever. But first I get my money back. And then I get some answers. Because you've caused me to miss three days of school and three nights worth of rapes, robberies and murders. I've perjured my immortal soul to stay here, and you owe me some answers." "42. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. Hannibal Hamlin. 1814. Lansing, Michigan. Happy now?" "No." "Then see a psychiatrist. Ta ta for now." "And how do you expect to make it out of here in a hospital gown? You wouldn't get twenty feet." "Good point. It is a rather flimsy garment. Not at all my style." Q snapped his fingers and a glass of lemonade appeared. "No, that isn't what I wanted. Good Lord, am I *really* ill?" He tossed the lemonade away; the glass disappearing in mid-air. "Let's try that again." He snapped his fingers, and this time, the hospital gown was replaced with a Starfleet admiral's uniform. "Much better." "How did you do that?" "That?" Q asked. "A mere parlor trick. I can dim the sun, create life, age the universe into nothingness, instantly appear at any spot in the space-time continuum, alter history in any way I please." "Can you roll your tongue like this?" JJ rolled her tongue up into a cylinder and stuck it out. "Oh, pleeease. Why am I saddled with you? Why couldn't there be a halfway decent Mary Sue in this story? You know, someone intelligent and witty, who could present me with some sort of challenge mentally? Why not that?" "Because Alara isn't doing this parody, Mercutio is." "Why me? Why me? Will the agony never end?" "There, there," JJ said, patting him. "I'm working on a story where Q doesn't have sex with anyone. Very angst-y. That'd be better, wouldn't it?" Q drew himself up frigidly. "If I wanted angst, chapter four of 'Only Human' would be finished by now." "So what do you want?" "To be anywhere but here, and doing anything but this." "Are you going to leave? I could get you a cab." Q tried his best not to look at her. He didn't try hard enough, however. He was captured by her luminous green eyes. Damn the attraction between omnipotent beings and luminous green eyes. "No. Not yet." "No. Don't want to talk about it. Nothing you can do to *make* me talk about it. Not even if you get out the carrots." "It will make you feel better," Troi purred, trying to reason with the belligerent entity, who had started to come around. He was *so* attractive when he was awake. "It always feels better to talk about it." "Please," said Q, curling up smaller, "let me be. Don't want to talk about it." "Why not?" she asked, placing a hand on his thigh and stroking it sensuously. "Frightening. The room. Don't want to think about it. Go away." "I know," she said, trying to help him with his problems when all she really wanted to do was help herself into his lap. "It must have been very frightening. It might help to talk about it... to tell how you felt." "They wouldn't let me go... they never would stop... wouldn't let me sleep..." Troi stiffened slightly. Was that a tear? She licked her lips. She wanted to lick it off his face, and then keep licking him all the way down. "They always thought of something new to do to me..." He looked up at the counselor. "I said I was sorry. They kept me there anyway. Here, I'll show you." Troi tried to pull away quickly, instinctively, but the magnetic sexual attraction he exuded kept her there, allowing the stories to flood her, and she clenched her fists in sexual frustration, because there was nothing she could do to satisfy them when he kept blocking her like this... He slept in brief snatches, from sheer exhaustion -- the pain of the various devices they had attached to him kept him constantly awake, constantly in an agony of desire. But he always woke up. i hate it here don't know how long they have kept me here, it doesn't matter, i don't want to give in, don't want to have desires i find that....i want to come oh no The wall started to slide down and bright light washed over him, hurting his eyes and starkly illuminating his naked body with its straining member. please...please, not again, i beg of you, not again.......so tired...... His eyes started to close, beyond his control. "Wake up, Sixty-Nine," came Sirhan Sirhan's cool voice. AUGGHHHH.....no, no more....... "Today, we have a special treat in store for you, Sixty-Nine." Sirhan consulted his notebook. "You have been in this state for 72 hours. Tsk-tsk. Your recalcitrance is amazing. However, this should be a change." And then he removed the cock rings which had been on for so long. Q started screaming. agony pain oh no no no oh no must come, must satisfy the need can't satisfy them have to have to do something or i'll explode tooo much this is too much "You are not a person, Sixty-Nine," Sirhan said softly in the background. "You know that now. You deserve this, you know. Your denial of your sexual needs is what brought you here. You wanted this -- you knew you needed this and that's why you came here. It's your fault." Sirhan spoke these words firmly, calmly, but at the same time, he seemed to be convincing himself that these utterances were true... because they were... weren't they? Sixty-Nine convulsed spasmodically despite his restraints, and he was screaming, but his mouth was not open, and he was crying but there were no tears, and there were no wounds, and he understood, he understood it all too well, that it had never stopped, had never ended and had never begun, because everything was an endless circle of thwarted need for release and pain... and the writer would never let him go..... * * * i claimed...i knew myself to be a god, above all this animal feeling what a crock of shit it's all so pointless, i see now......this stupid, fragile thing that humans call life....i have been reduced to a sniveling, broken toy that my tormentors amuse themselves with.....i have nothing.....i am nothing......all their fault....... Alone in the room, he strained against the restraints, unable to reach his hands, unable to do anything about the throbbing center of need and desire dominating his thoughts. And wanting to. Desperately. Outside, hearing fragments of Sixty-Nine's strange soliloquy through some sort of magic doohickey that the writer had invented in order to let them hear thoughts, Sirhan felt a strange, new sensation that he tried to push to the back of his mind as best he could: The desire to fuck one of his subjects. ==== ============ ===== -Part 3- "Q, you're staring at me." He made no attempt to remove his gaze, although inwardly he was trying very hard to do so. Unfortunately, the author had used some sort of super-stick substance on his eyes and he was forced to watch every move that JJ Arrow made. Since Q said nothing in reply, JJ shrugged and continued retying her string bikini which had somehow fallen off when she wasn't paying attention. "You aren't *attracted* to me, are you, Q?" "What?" he stammered, unwilling to admit that he had been focussed on the bobbing motion of her breasts. "I don't know what you're talking about." "Attraction. In the dictionary between 'attention' and 'attribute'." Well, he was certainly having no difficulty paying attention to her attributes. Partly the two large round ones. After a few moments, Q became aware that JJ was staring at him and that he was gawking at her as though he didn't know what a half-naked female primate looked like. "I don't want you," he snapped irritably. "Mmm hmm," she murmured, having noticed that his eyes *still* hadn't risen above the level of her chin. "Suuurrrre you don't." She turned around and padded off to the kitchen in the apartment. She removed a flat cardboard box from the top of the refrigerator and opened it. "Mmm, two day old pizza. The best stuff on Earth." "That's not saying much," Q muttered. She pulled a piece of the box. The grease had not so much drained off the pizza as congealed to the bottom. The olives had wrinkled, and the pepperoni no longer stuck well to the cheese. "Want some?" she asked, holding up a slice. "No. What I want is for you to leave." "First of all, it's not your apartment. Okay, so it's not mine either -- it's a gift from a grateful city for my service as a superhero -- but you still can't order me out of it. If I want to stay here, I will, and you can't make me leave." That wasn't entirely true -- all he had to do was outwait her; eventually, she had to get back to school. Survey of Art was waiting for her. How dare she tell him what to do? And why did everyone think that they could get away with that? Authors, Paramount, the Continuum, Picard... -- it was unbearable. "I could kill you just by thinking about it," he hissed menacingly. "I don't think that's really what you want to do," she replied, reaching behind her to untie the top of her bikini. There was a moment of the blackest silence. And then, suddenly-- "You're not worth it," he hissed, with a sneer, and disappeared in a flash of light. Grumbling inwardly, JJ retied her top. Men. Couldn't live with them, couldn't chase after them with superhero powers. Not until she acquired some wheels, anyway. She was getting pretty tired of chasing criminals down on foot. Even if it sometimes was horse feet. The lasso had to go though. The Oregonian kept referring to her as Wonder Woman. So really, all she'd acquired from this encounter was a bunch of coursework she was behind on, missing out on capturing whatever criminals had been ransacking the city in her distraction, and a bunch of insults from a creep who was only interested in her breasts. She must be desperate or something. Because she couldn't figure out any other reason why she was hoping that Q would come back. *=*=*=* JJ Arrow sat in a chair next to a window at the newly refurbished Central Library, swinging her legs and reading a textbook. She supposed she could have gone to the PSU library, but it had all the wrong atmosphere and entirely too many interruptions. Q appeared suddenly beside her, leaning against the wall. It startled her, almost causing her to upset the chair. "Are you done sulking?" she asked dryly. "I wasn't sulking," Q sulked. "When it comes to how humans procreate, I find it inherently disgusting. Vulcans only do so when they have to, like felines in heat. Klingons bite and throw things at each other... which doesn't really surprise me. I don't even want to talk about the Ferengi. I could go on. Each of these rather limited species have their own mental and physical concepts of love, however limited, which I have tried my best to understand, believe me." "Who brought up sex? Did I bring up sex? I don't think so." She grinned laviciously at him. "Are you saying you *love* me, Q?" "And what exactly is love, my little primate?" "Right. Like you don't know." "Perhaps the right question would have been to ask you to explain your monkey version of love?" "So you want to know all about wild monkey love. I'm not sure whether to be insulted or turned on." "I'd prefer if you'd just be talkative," Q replied. "Oh, all right. Love. Let's see." JJ closed her book and stared out the window, trying to formulate a response. "Love is an illusory feeling that people use to delude themselves into sex." "My feelings precisely!" "But..." "But?" "But the real thing also exists -- it's commitment. Making the best choice of someone who's right for you and you for them, and then sticking by that choice no matter what. Without 'love', but with passion, caring and a deep respect of the other person. Caring about their happiness more than anything in the world. And missing them when they're gone." She looked up. Q was now staring out the window himself, his expression unreadable. "Q? Do you miss me when you leave?" "Despite the deliberate maunderings of the author to remove my godlike status, I am never actually gone -- the definition of omnipresent, as you should know. Therefore, I cannot miss you when I'm not here, because I'm always here." "Uh huh," JJ replied dubiously. "Well, I suppose I should be getting to my next class." Q suppressed a cry of "Wait! You can't leave!", mentally scolding himself. He didn't miss her. He had just explained in terribly untechnical terms how it was that he *couldn't* miss her. And yet, there was something about her. Her eyes. Her breasts. The way he had to force his grin off his face before oh-so-casually appearing next to her. The desire to sit at her feet and curl up like a beloved pet, licking her feet and then up her body until... Yikes! He was worse off than he thought. God, how he missed her. * * Q appeared in a flash of silent sound, peering into the dorm room, covered with detritus from two separate students, where JJ Arrow slept. He stepped inside, invisible. Her roommate was also asleep in her bed on the other side of the small room, but Q was uninterested in her. He walked over to JJ. Asleep, her bewitching green eyes could not fascinate him. Covers pulled over her shoulders, her breasts were equally inaccessible. And yet... he still wanted her. ARRGHHH! This was so frustrating! He hated her, hated everything about her, most especially that she wrote Star Trek stories featuring him. How revolting. To be manipulated like that. To be fascinated by a woman who dreamed of disgusting and sordid things to do to him. The right thing to do was kill her right now and get this story over with. With her dead, the author would be unable to force him any further in love with her, and he could go back to what he was doing before the keystrokes on the computer had summoned him out of his after-summer nap. Q moved to snap his fingers and found himself instead bending over JJ and placing a kiss on the soft mass of her hair. Sighing in disgust at compassion, at the whole concept of love -- and, most of all, at the vagaries of writers -- Q vanished. * ** Q looked up, almost slightly relieved, seeing JJ Arrow enter the apartment, jarring him out of his thoughts. The pink tights and the even tighter pink Lycra top were certainly enough to jar anyone. Especially with the cape and the scarlet A (for Arrow) on her chest. "Why are you here?" he demanded flatly. "You think I could go back to my dorm room looking like this? You can't imagine what I had to go through before the mayor gave me this apartment. You start to understand why it was that Clark Kent was using phone booths, you know. You think -- if I can just change clothes fast enough, no one will notice a thing. Of course, they always do." "Please spare me your babbling and just leave." JJ sat down, trying not to scream at him or start crying. She'd had a hard evening tracking down a car thief -- she realllly needed some wheels -- and a harder time dealing with the scrawny little thirteen-year-old. He deserved to be arrested, but the criminals just seemed to be getting younger and younger. She didn't need attitude from Q on top of that. Q looked up, hearing a tiny noise escape the creature who was his closest thing to a friend. She was crying. Why was she crying? He wanted her to leave, he hadn't wanted to make her cry... His mind rebelling against the dictates of the story, he put a hand on her shoulder -- ick! touching her! -- and stroked her hair gently with the other. "You know, I didn't have to tell anyone you were my crazy uncle," she cried. "I could have just walked away and never seen you again. I *helped* you. You occupy all my waking thoughts. I lie to my friends at school to come here more often than I should because I think you might be here -- I never come here except when I need to be the Arrow of Justice. But I'm missing my classes and increasing my risk of being identified as the Arrow, just because I want to see you. And I thought you were happy to see me too!" She choked. "But you don't appreciate anything! Not kindness, not friendship... nothing!" "And you feel justified to be upset?!" Q almost shouted, spreading his arms wide. "I want you, JJ, and I don't want you! I have an author pressuring me into a sexual relationship with you that I don't want -- especially when I have zero respect for your intellect or anything else about you! How do you think it feels to be overwhelmingly attracted to someone because of something as idiotic as the shape and mass of a portion of flesh?" JJ sniffled. "Is it so bad, wanting me?" "It's disgusting. It isn't right. I can't -- I am Q. I am above that." "Take off your shirt." "WHAT?!" "Your shirt. Take it off." Q rolled his eyes. "There's nothing wrong with my hearing. What I'm asking is -- why?" "What you asked was 'What?'" He flicked his hand at her. "Just tell me why." "You said you want me. I've seen a lot of movies -- I know how this works. You take off your shirt, I'm overwhelmed with passion for you and we end up rolling around on the floor naked before the guy with the ax comes in and murders us both." "Oh, yeah. Like that's supposed to sound attractive." "I never said I had good taste in movies." Beep! Beep! Beep! JJ's head swiveled toward the alarm clock. "Damn, it's time for class. I gotta go." She was halfway towards the bedroom, shedding clothes as she went before Q could say a word. "Wait!" He couldn't stand for her to leave so soon, not after this... Never had he felt such a need in his life; it almost scared him... (but, no, he was Q, he could never be scared, no, just... on terrified and developing a definite phobia both of human females with luminous green eyes and parody authors avoiding work on their real stories) JJ turned around, dressed only in lacy silk undergarments, and moved close to him, looking up at him with those bright green eyes. "Does this mean you'll miss me?" Q opened his mouth to speak, but he didn't know what to say. Somehow "take the rest of your clothes off so I can see your breasts better" didn't sound too good. "Well, this means I'll miss you," she said sweetly, and kissed him. And then, she ran into the bedroom, slamming closet doors as she changed quickly and then ran back past Q, grabbing her backpack as she left the apartment. And -- he found, that... for an instant... he liked the kiss, and the feel of her body pressed against his. Deanna Troi rocked back and forth, as if that would do any good at relieving her sexual tension. Her eyes were dilated both from arousal and from the shock of Q's trauma. She looked at Q, shaking her head to try to resist the urge to insinuate herself into his arms. He lay curled up against the wall, a broken man, a cracked shell of what he used to be. Thousands, millions of years of living and venturing through space and time had been undone in a time that was painfully short. She approached him, and he did not back away this time. Good. Perhaps he had the feeling that she would not harm him now. Which was entirely true. What she had in mind would be pleasurable for the both of them. A little sex was just what he needed right now. "I want to help you, Q." Q chuckled mirthlessly. "No one wishes to help me." Troi sighed in exasperation.... he wasn't making this any easier... "Q....." she started, her tone a little louder, a little more testy, and sounding almost like the impatient of voice of a certain alien that loved to hurt him so... Q's eyes snapped open, and he hunched his shoulders. "I'm awake, see, no more hitting..." Troi bit her lip, apologizing silently, when she realized something touching her mind in the same way that she wanted to invade his body. "What are you--" Q looked especially distraught. "I didn't mean to!" He buried his head in his hands, bracing himself for something, anything. Troi sank to her knees as images smacked into her brain. It was too much... too much.... must have.. orgasm..... They had reattached the nipple clamps. They had heard him through their microphones, heard him beg them not to, monitoring him through their black shiny box. Heard him plead for mercy. They reattached the nipple clamps anyway. And they left him like that for hours, restrained on the bed. :::moan::: take them off please :::gasp::: :::shivering::: so hot.... let me go can't do anything, can't do whatever it is that you want.... I would have done it if I could... please...d-don't do this to me....don't l-leave m-me like this..... try...........not.......to.............give in..........think of......Richard....Simmons....... And after a while, they finally took the nipple clamps off, leaving him there, crying from the pain of the blood rushing back into that part of his body. why??!!!! came a hoarse cry, called out into the silence. i used to understand everything, but I don't understand this!!!! you don't need to know anything! i am here just to amuse you! isn't that the truth, JJ'Shen?! your tiny, primeval brains find it pleasant to watch me writhe in agony! Sheila entered the room, holding a cock ring. She slipped it on him. "Articulate, Sixty-Nine." Sixty-Nine moaned softly at her touch, moving his hips toward her hand. "How long do you think it will be, Sixty-Nine?" she purred, stroking his thigh. "How much longer, do you think, until your mind gives into your body, and you come despite yourself? How much more can you stand, Sixty-Nine?" He couldn't answer, because his mind, body and all other miscellaneous and assorted parts of him were focussed on the feel of her hand on his body. But he knew the answer anyway, and mused, not much longer, i'm afraid. After a few teasing, torturous moments... "Since you won't answer, I suppose we will have to continue this test, and find out." a trick! you tricked me! no use...can barely talk, can't stop moaning long enough to even say it......hate this form, i never want to see it again...if i ever visit the Enterprise again, i will have to see them as a flea or something.....i could irritate Data's little cat that way...... :::moan::: *if* i ever visit....... but they will never let me free...... asking....she's asking me something.....the touch...it went away......asking me things again......not fair! they don't play fair! can't...can't answer, if i answer wrong, they'll do something to me...but..if i keep silent much longer, they will anyway......wish they would stop asking if I can stand this...... so obvious I can't.... A hand grabbed his penis, twisting it cruelly, and he jerked into it, wanting more even though it was too tight and too painful to allow him release. "Could you please tell me that you like this?" asked Sheila, her voice emotionless. Sixty-Nine said nothing, gasping and groaning. Sheila let him drop, studying him and making another note on her pad. Sirhan entered the room, his icy blue eyes focusing on his partner. "Why did you do that?" He turned to the table, watching his experiment try to suck in air. The JJ'Shen observer winced. While his sexuality was different than the subject's, he could still feel the pain in what Sheila had done to him. "Stop it, Sheila." Sheila looked at him strangely. :::gasp:::gasp:::gasp::: air....need air....:::cough:::gasp::: Sirhan tried another tactic. "Let's let him rest a bit, friend. He can't... and won't... be able to respond intelligibly now." Sheila didn't presume to think his comments any more sane than before, but she obliged grudgingly. :::gasp::: ahh.....never again will i take oxygen for granted...... wait.... no, no, don't put the clamps back on -- don't put that in me.... why do you always have to do that-- c-c-can't....shhhsshh.... can't stop mmm-moaning.... Sirhan shook his head, looking away. Sheila turned to him, satisfied. "Let's let him rest," she echoed. -Part 4- Having been allowed to rest a bit, Sixty-Nine found himself lost in lonely introspection. The realization of how utterly alone he felt suddenly hit him like a brick. ::thud:: "Ow!" There were no mental voices inside his head to comfort him. Which, if he were human, would make him perfectly sane. As he was a Q, it made him cut off from his family, the Continuum. He didn't understand.... why didn't they come for him? Even attempt to reach him? They must not know. Somehow, in their omniscience, his "family's" knowledge was blocked. Something must be keeping this factlet hidden from their huge, collective minds. Yes, that must be it. It couldn't be that they were sitting idly a galaxy away, watching the goings-on and laughing hysterically. No, it couldn't be that. He cringed as Sirhan entered the lab. Sirhan palmed a small device, pushing back the strange new feeling that was plaguing him, this "guilt" sensation, pushed it back far away, so it would not bother him, would not interfere with his work. Sixty-Nine was a rare and valuable subject. He had insights that they needed for their paper on "Fucking God: A Study Into Sexual Dynamics in Omnipotent Beings". In return, they were giving him the gift of sexuality. They were helping him. "Sixty-Nine," he started quietly, "do you see what I hold in my hand?" Sixty-Nine moaned and looked up. yes, i see another of your instruments of fun. "Do you know that, while we cannot control what you think, we can send images to your brain? If we wish it, you will see what we want you to see. I can control your five senses right now. Do you understand?" Sixty-Nine opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He knew exactly what they were going to make him see... don't do it, JJ'Shen.....don't...... Sirhan touched a few smooth buttons, and suddenly a vision of Geraldo appeared before Sixty-Nine's eyes. "Stupid machine," Sirhan cursed, hitting it against the wall. "Stupid bargain basement mind control devices." He reset it, and restarted the program. This time, Sixty-Nine cringed as bad music started playing and naked bodies started flinging themselves everywhere. Except that it was all in his head and none of what he was seeing was really here at all. :::scream::: Sirhan watched Sixty-Nine curl up into a fetal ball, trembling, and forced himself not to turn away. "It's loud, isn't it, Sixty-Nine? Can you hear the music? Do you see the people? Can you touch their skin?" The only answer he received was a heart-rending scream that ripped through his very soul. He wanted to stop, but he couldn't stop, he just couldn't stop... just a few button pushes, and Sixty-Nine's ordeal would have ended, but he couldn't make himself- permit himself- to do it. Sixty-Nine whimpered. please.....stop it......please...... "Just... give in, Sixty-Nine, give in to the pleasure, and this will all be over." He was answered by a desperate, pleading cry. i can't do it! i can't!!!! :::trembling::: :::whimper::: Sirhan's stomach started to hurt, a throbbing pain at each shriek and groan. Or was the pain really in his stomach at all? Perhaps it was a little lower and he knew exactly what he needed to relieve it. Gritting his teeth against the desire to rip the restraints off of his subject, throw the self-same subject on the ground and rape him, Sirhan shut off the visuals. Sixty-Nine trembled profusely, a soft moan escaping him. His voice, barely a whisper, came out strained, his throat tight. why.....why are you torturing me like this? i don't understand...please....never again....cruel.....so cruel....can't go on like this... Sirhan felt the rock encasing his heart start to crumble, and desperately tried to keep the stone shield intact. Sixty-Nine was just another test-subject, a very stubborn test subject, just an experiment with a loud voice and a rock-hard penis... just another man to break like a wild stallion... The last thought came unbidden, and he shoved it away savagely. He ran a hand through his short, golden hair. Was he going out of his mind??? Just a little more... just a little more, and Sixty-Nine would be theirs, totally theirs, just a couple more pushes, a few small pushes over the edge... and he would give in and they could complete their study... Sirhan couldn't allow himself to compromise the data by fucking the man... he was just another test subject, that was all... "How do you feel, Sixty-Nine?" Sixty-Nine's tired brain whirled around, running in circles like a deranged hamster. horny.....that's all i have to say.....just tell him what he wants to hear, and there won't be any torture, there won't be any nipple clamps, no butt plugs, no teasing.....just tell him i feel horny...... but....i *don't* feel horny, and i can't understand why he wants me to say that i do.....i can't understand anything anymore, not here....i want to go home...... trying....trying to feel horny....it's not working.....can't he see i'm trying??? everything will be all right, just tell him what he wants to hear..... .....but its not true! why? why should i tell him what he wants to hear, why give him that pleasure, after putting me in hell *again*....... Sixty-Nine's voice was very soft, but the dying ember that glowed inside of it was unmistakable. impotent Sirhan steeled himself, trying to call up everything he had been taught, what was right... and that didn't include Sixty-Nine. He deserved this, he was unwilling to give into the natural sexual urges that he possessed. He had come here, he had tormented others, so that meant he deserved to be tested... (didn't he?) "We're going to have to do this the hard way, aren't we?" he asked. * * * "Sixty-Nine? Sixty-Nine, can you hear me?" He who was being spoken to laid in silence, trying not to moan. His abused body twanged with what he supposed was sexual desire, but he closed his eyes against it even as a convulsive, painful shudder ran through him unbidden. i tried not to come.....i tried very hard...... i am not an animal................. they would be proud...... The device slipped out of Sirhan's trembling hands, and clattered to the floor. He stared in amazement. Sixty-Nine... hard, moaning, begging, in every way straining for sexual release.... But he hadn't come. Sirhan was jarred out of his wild thoughts by a hoarse voice that he had to strain to hear, a voice that sounded much smaller than when he had first heard it. home Sirhan swallowed hard, and nodded, kneeling by his experiment. "Yes, yes, I will send you back to your home, I promise." Sixty-Nine gazed up at him with bloodshot eyes that were shadowed from the deprivation of the rest he now needed. Softly, a word escaped him, something said almost to himself, 'Row. Sirhan tilted his head slightly. He didn't think Sixty-Nine was talking about boats... "I'll send you home," he echoed. His footsteps padded softly out of the lab. JJ 'Row..... "Huh?" JJ's head snapped around like the tail end of a game of Crack-the-Whip, looking around the busy downtown street. Did someone just call her name....?... She shook her head to relieve the pain and took another Snackwell's out of the box she was carrying, munching on it. It was happening again. She was thinking about him again. Was she going out of her mind?!?!! She couldn't get Q out of her head! She ate, slept, and breathed him. JJ took a sudden suspicious look at the cookie. Was this Q? With a large crunch, she bit into the cookie. Fudge. Yum, yum. If this was Q, then he was delicious. *I should stop going to the apartment to see him,* she thought firmly. *Sooner or later he'll leave, anyway. And then I can get the place cleaned up. Stupid hamsters. I don't need to keep stopping by to say hello. *...but I don't want to stop going to see him...* "Q?" she called out, entering the apartment. She set the box of Snackwell's down on the counter. Damn Mondays anyway. He knew she would be here. Where was he? Was he hiding? Gliding through the apartment as she would glide through the night when hunting for an unwary human predator, she surveyed the apartment. Pushing open the door to the bedroom, she saw that the closet door was open-- --and there he was, standing there in a pink miniskirt with a green top on, preening in front of the mirror. The inside of her closet was spread all over the room, clothes on the bed, the floor and every other available surface. "Really, you've *got* to be more imaginative than this," Q complained, putting his arms on his hips. "These clothes are *terrible*." "On you, yes. Has anyone ever told you that you have no color sense?" "No." "Then they should." "Ha ha, very funny," Q said. He moved closer to her. ""Why did you... do that... the last time we met?" JJ's eyes darted around the bedroom, as if searching for the answer. She was sure she'd written it down somewhere, although it had probably gotten lost under all the clothes Q had thrown around. "I'm not sure..... Why are you asking?" "When two humans.... oh, this is stupid!" He turned away from JJ. "Excuse me, author?" Mercutio stopped typing for a moment. "Yes?" "These are the stupidest words I've ever had to say. I mean, these are even more idiotic and ridiculous than what you had me do in PropinQuity." He snapped his fingers and a print-out of Speculum appeared in his hand. "Listen to this drivel I'm supposed to speak. 'When two humans press their lips together, it is considered a sign of affection, or.... love. I found... that when you... when we... when that happened, I--' Then JJ interrupts me and says," Q imitated a high squeaky female voice, "'You mean, you liked it?' and then I reply, 'I couldn't have liked it! I... I can't be actually *falling in love* with... with a mortal!'" Q snapped the manuscript into nothingness and looked up at the author. "What is this nonsense? If you *must* have us fall wildly in love and then mating like wild minks, couldn't you at least give me some intelligent dialogue to go along with it?" Mercutio shrugged. "I'm just writing a parody of JJ's story. Those are the lines she wrote. I'm stuck with them." Q turned on JJ. "Aha! So this is all *your* fault then!" "Q, just shut up and kiss me. You know she's going to make you do it anyway." "I know I'm going to regret this," he muttered. He leaned toward her like a man going to the gallows, and gently, tenderly, almost tentatively, as if he didn't know quite how, he gave her what humans would call a kiss. JJ took out a protractor, measured Q's lips, made a little mark in the exact center of his lips with her eyebrow pencil and gave the kiss back right in the middle. === -Part 5- "JJ, where ya' going?" The woman froze, turning slowly. The sun, just starting to rise, had begun to light the room, and she saw her fiance, Richard No or, as his traditional Chinese parents called him -- "No Dick" -- roll over, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. She was up early. "Uh... um... for a jog. I'm going on a diet and exercise program, you know." "Oh," No replied groggily, his sleepy mind forgetting that she had gorged herself last night on a two-pound crab at dinner at Red Lobster, not to mention the cheese biscuits, the extra clam chowder she'd ordered, the salad, the appetizers (mozzarella cheese sticks and fried mushrooms -- yum yum) and then a Fudge Overboard as a dessert. And then come home and gone through a half-gallon of Swiss Almond Fudge ice cream. Or maybe he thought she needed some exercise after a night like that. She left their house on Skyline Boulevard, and took the car to drive down to her loft -- or rather, the Arrow of Justice's loft -- in downtown Portland. Still in the car, parked alongside the curb, she looked up at the windows of the apartment. No lights were on. She put the club on the steering wheel, locked the car and went inside the building. She let herself into the apartment with her key. The apartment was dead silent, and JJ felt a moment of disappointment. It was silly to hope that Q might be there. JJ picked up a package of Snackwell's that was sitting on the counter. Funny, she usually put them back in the cupboard when she was done. Hmm... she must have forgotten to put these away. No problem. She'd just have one now and then put them away. She reached into the package for a cookie. Wait a minute... did that cookie just... *giggle*? JJ grasped the chuckling cookie firmly between her fingers and opened her mouth to take a large bite out of it. You-know-who appeared beside her in a flash of light and sound, shaking his clothes off. "That's disgusting, you know. I can't believe you were about to eat me." She surveyed him lazily, a smile on her face now that he was there. "Sounds good to me." Snuggling against him, she murmured, "Isn't the sunrise pretty?" Q regarded her strangely. "It's simply the ascent of the sun above the horizon. Hardly an unusual phenomenon." "Magic," she whispered, closing her eyes and feeling the warmth of his body against hers. Q rolled his eyes at her lack of scientific knowledge. Surely she could have at least taken a few courses in the primitive form of science that 20th century humans practiced in the process of acquiring her degree in Fine Arts. And yet... he tried to see it as JJ saw it, putting himself behind her eyes... and then realized that she wasn't looking at the sunrise at all, but rather appreciating him. Q smiled smugly. Magic. As the daylight became blinding, Q spoke. "JJ?" Her eyes closed, savoring the moment, she murmured wittily, "Mmm hmm?" "Tell me... when you die.... will you remember me?" "You're awfully morbid this morning." She looked at him curiously, managing a half-smile. "I'll try. Will you remember me?" Deadpan, he replied, "The Q only die by unanimous request." "So what are you still doing here?" "I've always managed to have at least one person on my side." "But... umm... I hate to mention this, Q, but what if everyone does turn against you?" Q chuckled unpleasantly. "My little Arrow, until they can get *me* to turn against myself along with all of them, it's not unanimous. Nothing bad will ever happen to me." He laid limply in the restraints, trembling. It was almost as if he had dared them to force him into orgasm. And they had taken the dare. The vibrator in his ass hummed as the technician leaning over him continued her work on his cock, delicately -- and painfully -- piercing his penis. The sensation was at once terrible and wonderful -- the pain was overbalanced by the feel of her hands on him, and it was enough... almost enough.... He groaned softly. so hard to resist so, so hard especially when they touch me like this tired want to sleep they never let me.... can't fall asleep like this they always wake me up... more they want to do to me.... to speak the truth is to hurt and it would be so easy.....so, so easy, to say what they want me to say, do what they wish me do.....the torment will stop, if i break but....i can't.....not yet....just, hold out a little longer (but how much longer can i hold out? how much longer is longer?) no one should fool themselves there is no feeling of triumph when you resist, no feeling of victory, however slight it never stops when you resist it does not end and will not end until you give up but i can't do that but.....it's so hard to resist..... He barely heard the door hiss open, hours later, after five silver rings had been inserted along the base of his cock, with one right on the tip. Sheila strode in calmly. "Wake up," she said. how many longer? how much more? "None." The restraints clicked open, but he laid there, unable to move. She briskly clicked the vibrator off and removed it. leave me alone....please.....please just like this rest for a few minutes "After you answer a few questions, Sixty-Nine." can't stay awake.....please, let me.....just a few minutes... She leaned closer to him, her voice cajoling, coercing, full of an almost-mock sympathy. "You're exhausted, aren't you, Sixty- Nine? And yet you fight us. You remain stubborn. It's hard, isn't it? Resisting, when you know that by simply admitting the truth of how much you want to achieve orgasm, you could rest, in total peace... It would be so easy to answer, so easy to be cooperative, because you're ever so tired, aren't you Sixty-Nine, you can barely keep your eyes open, and wouldn't it be lovely to just lie there with the lights out, all alone? Wouldn't that be nice?" oh yes...that would be nice.....yes, it's so clear, just answer what she wants, and i can sleep.... no! no, can't......can't do it....have to hold on...a little longer "You don't have to resist anymore, Sixty-Nine. Just answer us, help us in our research, it is all we ask. All we ask you to surrender to is peace." no! can't. Her violet eyes penetrated him, and he felt strangely exposed. "It is your choice, Sixty-Nine. It always was. You acted out the events that led to your coming here. And now, you can choose again- peace, or more of this? You know what you have to do to obtain peace." and this -- this is how you obtain things....by torture? "This is only torture to you because you refuse to give in to what is natural and what is right. What is it you choose? An end to this? Or will you remain stubborn?" :::moan::: can....can i go home? If he answered her queries? She considered his request, weighing the factors carefully. Unthinkable. Never. Q was a pawn for their games, and nothing more. A character in their story. "Yes." home.....bliss....my powers.....peace.....i...i could go home.....escape this stupid plot... .....what do you want to know? Sheila smiled. She had him. "Tell me, Sixty-Nine, are you turned on? Excited? Wishing to find a physical release for your sexual tension?" i....the....i.....(don't don't tell her, just hold out a little longer, you can hold out a little longer...resist! resist, damn you) ..... yes yes i am Sheila smiled. "Very good, Sixty-Nine. Very, very good." His eyes brightened. home? now? i can go home? She stood, looming above him calmly. "No." He stared at her. No. No. No. No. The word resonated throughout his brain, bouncing and echoing throughout his mind. His world shattered. :::howl::: you promised me!!!!!! you PROMISED!!!!!!!!!!!!! "I lied to you, Sixty-Nine. Get used to it." :::sob::: she promised she promised me :::sob::: home i want to go home :::sob::: Trapped inside a hell that he felt doomed to eternally, Sixty- Nine rocked back and forth on the bed. And he cried. He knew that the Continuum watching him. Knew that every time he was near JJ Arrow, they were watching anxiously. And they were worried. Because they knew that if he decided to up and move to Earth and settle down and become an accountant, there would be nothing that they could do about it. The author wanted it to be that way, and that was the way it would be. Even getting close to Q was a risk -- the last time anyone had tried, Q2 had gotten himself pulled into Only Human, not to mention the various spin- offs. The Continuum shuddered collectively at the very thought of finding themselves exposed in a story. Canon was bad enough -- they still hadn't lived down "The Q and the Grey". However, in a desperate situation such as this one, it had to be risked. The last situation this desperate had been when Q turned himself into a human female and disguised himself as a college professor in order to win the love of another human, Jean- Luc Picard. Fortunately, all had turned out well there. Q now had the human where he belonged -- on the floor at the end of a leash. Humans were good for pets, and that was about it. Q glared at Q2. "What do you mean, 'I can't go back there'?" He folded his arms. "Honestly, do you think I *want* to? You know what I want has nothing to do with it." Q2 sighed. "I didn't say 'can't'. I said *shouldn't*. But it could come down to 'can't'." Q's mouth quirked into a cynical smile. "Really, what are you going to do? Please enlighten me. I could use some tips on how to deal with rabid authors." In exasperation, Q2 replied, "This." Q was now an unattractive squirrelly creature with legs like celery stalks. Like that would stop the author from changing him back into his usual handsome self. True to form, a passing comet altered the space-time- thingamagummy fields, changing the subatomic whatamacallits enough to restore his form. This time with a Kirk Douglas-style chin. "Look, call me when you get some *good* ideas," Q said. "Until then you're just wasting my time." and disappeared. Q2 didn't have to guess where. He sighed. Q smitten. It was too much.... JJ sat on the couch in front of the TV, when she heard that sound behind her that heralded Q's arrival. She smiled, her eyes wide in surprise. "Where have you been all th--" Abruptly, totally unexpectedly, he dived onto the couch, burying his head against her breasts and held her close, and yes, yes, he need this he needed this he needed this..... He had scorned loneliness and love and affection and comfort until *he* had felt it and *he* had *needed* it.... His embrace almost crushed her, as she heard him whisper desperately in her ear, "Come with me, come with me 'Row, let me take you with me, let me take you away..." "I missed you," she whispered. Her luminous green eyes shone with tears. She couldn't admit to him how much time had passed and how hard it had been to remember him. It had been two years since the last time she had seen him, and time made her begin to believe that he had almost been a dream. Her voice became softer. "I... I thought you weren't coming back. Sometimes.... I thought you were dead." "You humans..... ever the optimists." She looked down at him. "Are you here to stay?" He did not answer. JJ grinned and took it as a yes. Forget Richard. Forget her job at OMSI. Remember Q. Fuck Q. ** * Q propped himself up on an elbow and gasped. JJ rolled over and turned to him, catching her breath, her green eyes laughing. She giggled. "You're omnipotent and you've been around since the days of Howdy Doody, and this is the first time you've had sex?" "Not in *this* story. You're an author, you know how it works. I'm eternally virginal, as long as the writer wishes me to be so. And they all do. Every story starts out with me never having had sex, and then I go wild when I find out about it. How absurd. As though an omnipotent, omniscience, omnipresent being would be ignorant of something so basic. I've been so far beyond that that the human variation is like saying 'Hello' for you." "Hello." He frowned at her, then continued. "It takes a sick, twisted, perverted mind to obsess so much about virginity and losing it. I worry about those writers. Well, not *literally*, but what do they take me for, a monk?" "Oh, so you believe in chastity and self-sacrifice?" she teased. The immortal grinned like a crocodile and snapped his teeth. Immortals were notoriously promiscuous once coaxed into having sex with someone. "Come here." * Months passed. JJ found him relaxing on the balcony, staring at the stars. *This isn't like him,* she thought. *He's been acting strangely. Look at his eyes... I remember my eyes looking like that once... I had just gotten my driver's license... and I got lost. I was so afraid... but the fear went away... and I missed my family so much...at least, for a few minutes..... Q? Homesick?* Standing inside the apartment, looking out at the balcony, she clenched her fists. *It's not fair! He can't stay here forever... he'll be really sad that way. I know he'll deny it and deny it, and then we'll get in some big argument about it, and he'll stay... but he won't be happy. But I want him to stay!* She peered out the open sliding glass door at the same stars that he was seeing. *Why can't I be selfish, just this once? I need him, too... * "You're going to leave, aren't you?" she asked quietly. *You just got here!* her mind cried. He sighed. He couldn't believe it had happened, that he had become the thing he had disdained, and that which most reviled him, he had suddenly found... wonderful. He really was a sap. He replied finally, his gaze still steadily on the stars that he knew so well, "JJ... you know that it would be no greater bliss to me than to make love to you endlessly, and to be with you for more years than your primate brain could ever hope to count......" He gave no outward sign of his silent fight, his facade as cool and nonchalant as it had ever been. "...however...." She stepped out onto the balcony, moving closer to him; she felt so comfortable with him, why was this happening?! She calmed herself, and forced her mind to see reason. "You miss the stars. You miss your home. You think lattes are the ruin of coffee and you hate rain." He couldn't-- wouldn't --answer. Instead, he stood quickly, abruptly. "Remember me, JJ," he whispered softly in her ear. She tilted her head upward... this was it..... she had to see his eyes, windows to the soul, one last time.... if she could just meet his gaze with her luminous green eyes, she knew she could get him to stay-- He was gone. She swallowed hard, clearing her tight throat, and then collapsed on the ground, crying. * * * Years passed. JJ moved out from under Richard's arm, climbing out of the blankets and padding quietly out into the living room, to watch the sunrise, as she usually did, now. He was tremendously understanding about her "other" activities, which included her superhero duties, her affair with Q and her involvement in the PTA. Not that he actually knew about the first two, not in any detail. In return, she was understanding about his being constantly on call to the hospital. JJ pulled an afghan up over her legs. She felt the cold more in the mornings now; she wasn't young anymore to sit here and ignore those kinds of things. It wasn't as brilliant as always... just a light lemon yellow, this time. JJ was so disappointed. Didn't the dawn know that *she* was the central character of the story and that it should be pleasing her? She jumped at a noise, and almost fell off the couch. Her head snapped around, and her green eyes widened. "Miss me?" asked a voice so familiar and yet so strange, that she rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't still sleeping. "Q!" she cried, joy enveloping her. JJ suddenly hushed, silently scolding herself, hearing her daughter stir. At least she hadn't woken up Richard -- not that that would be easy given that he'd only gotten back from the E.R. at 3 a.m. She got up from the couch and peeked into Natasha's room, hearing her murmur groggily, "Whuh?" The toddler snuggled back into her blankets, murmuring sleepily, "...I wanna' pet the tigrrrr... " "Who's that?" Q asked curiously. She was usually so devoted to him; it was rare that JJ gave her attention to anything else when he was around. JJ's eyes clouded. "Q... that's my daughter, Natasha. She's three years old." She paused. "...You've been gone a long time." He blinked. "I have?" The time hadn't seemed too long. "Yes." Her heart perked back up quickly, yanked into the present. He had come back! She closed the door behind her, and wrapped her arms around him with no intention of letting go. Not for now. Not for this brief dream in the midst of squalid reality. "Q?" His eyes snapped open wide. Impossible. She couldn't be here, in this hell-- But she was. He could only stare, as she moved toward him, concern filling her eyes, as she tried to keep her voice soft, afraid of scaring him. He felt horrible, that she should see him in this wretched state. But she was here, she was *here*, and she *hadn't forgotten*... There had to be some merciful god out there, some benevolent, merciful creature that had taken pity on him, for this was a miracle, a beautiful miracle... He struggled to sit up, holding her. "You didn't forget me," he murmured, almost to himself. "You didn't forget me..." "No one will hurt you like this again," she promised, her voice gentle, her small hands on his thighs, and every pain and torment seemed to ease... she was a bliss, touching his penis gently, and everything was so perfect Right Now, as he was filled with every sense of peace, wonderful, blissful peace, and he was going to hold her for the longest time and never ever *ever* let go He awoke with a start, and blinked. oh god he'd almost had a wet dream He kept his eyes open, watching the JJ'Shen enter. Sheila smiled. They just about had him. This was it... "We're going to show you something, if you wouldn't mind." of course i mind like, duhhhhh (have to make up for breaking, i'm worse than a human, i broke, worse...worse than Picard..... at least he keeps some of his dignity even when one of the Giffsteins has him at the end of a leash........ i *will* hold out, i *will*, moronic JJ'Shen, they like to play God, don't they) wait...don't show me... no! no, i don't want to see! don't make me see! no She stood beside Sirhan, whose face had suddenly clouded, and slid her fingers across the black box. Sixty-Nine blanched, and his face grew white. The visuals had started, pausing at intervals, streaming endlessly through his brain and to his eyes like a demented music video.... The laboratory was silent for a few brief moments. Then get them off me! get them off! HELP! get them off, get them off! :::shudder::: He clawed through his hair, at his face, at his arms, at the invisible succubuses tormenting him, trying frantically to shake them. :::sigh::: gone Suddenly, his eyes grew wide. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out, and he trembled, scrambling off into a corner and cowering. Sirhan wasn't successful in fighting off the impulse to ask, "What is it, Sixty-Nine?" He felt his eyes of ice grow wider, in spite of himself. don't make me see this... not again, don't make me live this again please, i beg of you, don't make me live this over It was too late. Sirhan could not bring himself to turn away, although almost every part of him screamed to, except, of course, for that little lousy part, which was keeping his cock hard and his hand buried deep in his pants' pocket. no... it's happening again... the cruelest torment, the worst image... please, turn it off....it's starting, turn it off! ... ==== -Speculum, Part 6- Q appeared in a flash of light and sound, inside JJ's house. "Surprise!" He blinked. She wasn't there. Strange, he had sensed her presence... He materialized at the downtown loft, and peered around -- but she wasn't there, either. The loft was dark and empty, as dusty as though no one had lived there in years. This was getting bizarre. Had she moved away? He hadn't been gone all *that* long, had he? Besides, he felt her presence nearby... He materialized where her presence felt the strongest. It was a meadow on the side of a hill, next to a freeway. The meadow was full of.... full of stones sticking up out of the ground... very like.... very like *tombstones*, Q realized. He froze, his eyes wide, as the horror of what he had just realized seeped into his brain. *He was right on top of her.* The truth hit him full in the face, as he paled, trembling slightly. He had come back too late, he was too late, he had come back far too late... Why?! Why hadn't he kept track of the time, why oh why hadn't he come earlier why?! A cry ripped through his shredded heart and up through his throat. "WHY?!?" He knelt on the ground, reading the tombstone. She had died almost a year before at the age of 73. "Why," he whispered to the earth, "why you? Somehow, I thought you would be different... that you wouldn't--" He ran a hand through his hair, as sudden, genuine anger flared in his chest. "Why did you leave me?!?!?!" He stood and screamed at the sky. "WHY?!?!" Sinking back to the earth, his mind ran around in circles, images and thoughts intertwining-- her touch... how could he have been such a moron, a day to him could have been a lifetime to her... why had he come so late... her eyes.... her voice..... her smile...... it wasn't fair! it wasn't fair, she couldn't leave him like this, he needed her, he needed her... he had seen it happen to other mortals, she was mortal, but not her, not *her*... her laughter...... *JJ, JJ, don't leave* *why did _you_ have to die? * He couldn't even cry. He had the feeling that one was supposed to cry, or express some sort of grief at moments like these, but he *couldn't* and he felt suddenly, inexplicably selfish, realizing that if he ever would experience something to the equivalent of crying, it would probably only happen when the tragedy was happening to *him*. Leaning toward the earth, a tiny part of him feeling uncharacteristic, but the rest howling in grief, he murmured softly, over and over, "Remember me, remember me, remember me..." "Stop it, Sheila." She turned to her partner. "What?" "Stop it." Sheila stared at him for a moment, as if looking at a strange, an almost hurt expression in her eyes. She slowly took off her mask, shaking her long red-brown hair free. "Look, Merc, we agreed to this plot in advance. I get to hurt him as much as I want, and when I get done, you get to fix him. Are you trying to back out on me?" "Sirhan" held his/her hands up. "I didn't say..." "And take off that stupid mask. I know we don't want him to guess who we really are for fear of ruining our experiment, but we don't have to wear them when we're not around him." Mercutio removed her mask, shaking her head to get her short brown hair back into place. "Okay, okay, already. The mask's off. Look, I just think you've gone overboard on the hurt. You're overbalancing the plot. You know what Julia said about having too much torture in one of our stories -- it alienates the reader." "And *you* said you liked torture and that you thought Julia was being squeamish," Alara replied. "So what if I did? You really have gone overboard here. There's no point to it -- no dramatic necessity. You're just hurting him because you like hurting him." "Yeah, and? So does everyone else. Look at Ruth and Atara. Or JJ. Or Jeanita. Hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt." "But still, can't we work in some kind of comfort? You know, maybe a little sex." "Is that all you ever think about? Sex? Never mind, forget I asked the question. You wrote PropinQuity, after all. But sex isn't an option because it would ruin the experiment. We need to know what Q's limits are -- how far we can take his 'I am not an animal and will not give into my sexual desires' thing before he cracks. It's important research. It's vitally important to my finishing 'Only Human'." "Right. Like that's ever going to happen." Alara jammed her mask back over her head. "I am." She glared at Mercutio. The expression vanished quickly, as she composed herself, and replied coolly, "I'm going out for a moment." She walked off. Just before the door, she turned. "And don't have sex with him!" The door hissed shut behind her. Mercutio sulked. "I never get to have any fun." But she put her mask on and went back into character. Sirhan grumbled, and then asked the next question on the checklist. "...Did you... love her... Sixty-Nine?" :::whisper::: yes that....that was cruel thing....to show me that....to make me relive it what do you want from me, JJ'Shen? my freedom? you have that information? i doubt it you :::cough::: you obviously have enough information from my past, to have fed me....that....image so what do you want?? my *soul*? do you want me to sell you that, too? or will you try to break me, and then steal it? as you have stolen everything? The JJ'Shen observer's heart wrenched. ==== -Part 7- "So." The blonde young man, aka Q2, hunkered down on the cold ground next to his companion, glancing up for a moment at the sky; it was completely overcast, washed in grey, and there was a brisk chill in the air. I.e., a typical day in Oregon. The other visitor simply stared straight ahead, past the yellow-green grass and dead leaves, straight into the maw of hell that was the Sunset Highway. "Go away." Q2 remained staring at the sky. "Sorry. No can do." He cast a sideways glance at his little brother. "You made her The Promise, didn't you?" Q's gaze remained straight ahead. "I don't know what you're talking about." "Sure you do." Q2 tilted his head towards him. "You know, The Promise. 'I can do things for you that no one else can do. I can give you things no one else can, show you things no one else has ever seen, and all you have to do is sign right here on the dotted line, in blood'. You know, The Promise." There was a slight stillness, and then a quiet laugh. "You know, I have made that promise before. Many times, as a matter of fact. But after a while, you get tired of collecting souls. This time..... Never... never before was I so captivated, so fascinated, so completely *taken* with a mortal creature... He swallowed, still staring at the traffic. "And now she's gone." He paused, turning toward Q2, and saying quietly, "Dreadfully ironic, don't you think? The last time I saw her, I told her I'd stay forever when I got back. I told her I'd leave one more time, and then come back to stay interminably." The blonde Q opened his mouth, but Q kept talking. "I knew you would all be completely furious, but at the time, I didn't care. Hmmm." He chuckled again. "One of the universe's little jokes. The author forces me together with some sappy Mary Sue who has -- at best -- five percent of my intellect, and then I fall in love with her all on my own." "It's not that funny," Q2 replied, somewhat apologetically. He sighed. "That's the trouble with mortals. You just start to get to know them, and then they die on you." Q's voice was barely audible. "She didn't have to." Q2 made no reply. Counselor Troi floated free in the vast reaches of space, surprisingly unafraid. And, for once, not afflicted with severe bouts of nymphomania. Freed of that desire, she mused upon her current failure. *I'm a COUNSELOR. I've dealt with traumatized patients before. I SHOULD be able to DO this. I should be able to deal with Q without wanting to make love to him.* She shook her head. *He won't talk to me, which is probably the right decision, considering that the sound of his voice is so enticing. He shows me what happened, but it's not enough when I can't talk to *him* without attempting to seduce him.* A voice suddenly spoke in her head. *Don't do this to yourself, Counselor. You'd be incompetent, even if the author hadn't randomly decided to afflict Q with sex appeal.* *I can't help it,* Troi replied. *I've failed.* *Please, Counselor. Let him go--* *Where?* asked Deanna. *Where is he to go? Most people can talk to a family member or a lover, or *someone* to ease the pain, and make it less frightening.... * *There is still someone he can talk with... * *WHO?* *Let go, Counselor... Your battle has been fought, and won! There is still someone...* Troi sat upright in bed. "Incompetent?" she asked indignantly. Velvet... engulfing velvet darkness, all-encompassing, folding him in soft, teasing, tormenting warmth... touching his body..... devouring all and any hope of resistance, devouring any and all thoughts of control... "Surrender," the voice purred seductively. "Give in to what you want." The arousal in the air was thick and palpable, wrapping around him, difficult to resist. "Go fuck a Rigelian warthog." The darkness swirled around him now, black and thick, behind and above him, and almost *through* him. Tendrils of velvet caressed him, stroking his skin softly. "How does it feel to have one's sexuality suddenly... *turned on* ?" the voice whispered. He lifted his chin slightly at the great consuming darkness. "You're wasting your time. Go away." "Surrender," the voice purred. "It's so easy..... so very easy, extremely pleasurable..." The unexplainable anger suddenly welled up inside him. "NO!" he screamed. "You can't make me. I won't do it. I won't give in to you." A tendril of darkness smoothed over him gently, enfolding him almost lovingly. "But you already have," it purred. "You have always been our toy, have always been at our feet...." And then, there was no more protest. Only velvet. Q's body jerked awake, his eyes shifting shade to light blue, searching the room wildly. He saw Troi, naked, writhing against him, his leg between hers. "NO! Don't touch me!" Troi pouted. He'd been thrusting against her in his sleep, and she had been *so* close.... "I just wanted to know if you were all right," she explained lamely. "You were having a nightmare, that's all." He seemed to be catching onto her. Troi pulled away from Q, and then, once out of the overwhelming field of desire that surrounded him, realized what she had been doing. *Oh, shit. I forgot again.* She had to put her clothes back on. The barrier might give her some protection against her lust. The counselor walked back toward the doors, "I'll be right back." The door opened before she could get to it. Captain Picard stood in the threshold, looking slightly uncomfortable at her nakedness. "Counselor? May I have a word?" Troi nodded guiltily, letting the door close, leaving her alone to speak with Picard. "Yes, Captain?" She could see that he was trying to keep as business-like a demeanor as possible, his eyes focussed above the top of her head, rather than down at her body. "How is he?" Troi looked up at him. "A little better, I think. Q is talking to me... but, honestly... I feel like an amateur, at this point." *An amateur hooker, you mean.* "My behavior has been less than professional, captain. I *should* be doing better than this, it's inexcusable..." "I'm sure you're doing the best that you can." The captain stayed silent a moment, then asked, "May I see him?" "It may help. Be my guest. Just... umm.... try to keep some distance between you and him and..." *And if you fuck him, I'll scratch your eyes out.* Troi flushed, embarrassed by her uncharacteristic thoughts, and fled. Picard stared after her for a moment in confusion, then shook his head and went to see Q. Despite Troi's reports, seeing Q in such a state was a complete shock. The *feeling* of it was even more intense. Q radiated immense sexuality, as though somehow his sexual frustration and tension had become a palpable, living thing, reaching out to grab hold of anyone in its vicinity to use to satisfy that need. But this... *this* was beyond all of Picard's imaginings. That sentient beings could be capable of such cruelty, Picard was painfully certain of. The incident in prep school with the toilet plunger was quite memorable. But he had never once thought of Q being on the receiving end. Well, maybe once or twice. All right, he'd thought about it a lot. "You look like.... umm... like you could use some sleep," Picard remarked, after realizing he had just been standing and rubbing his hand up and down his tunic for the past five minutes. "I have nightmares," Q muttered, hugging his knees. Picard nodded, feeling sympathy. "I think we all do, especially when we've just experienced or witnessed something terrible." Q looked up. "You don't have *these* kind of dreams. Not poor, repressed Jean-Luc Picard. Not in this story." Picard's eyebrows raised. "My nightmares are mostly about the Borg." Q rested his head on his knees, and his voice came out muffled. "I'm sorry." He paused. "That wasn't what I wanted at all. I didn't want you to be raped by the Borg. I'm sure you're happy that I got what was coming to me, though." "*No.*" Q's features twisted in anger. "What?" he snarled. "I haven't suffered enough, then?" Picard took a deep breath. " That isn't what I meant." "Do tell, then. I still know what's in your mind, you know. I haven't lost my powers, even with all the idiotic plot tricks the author keeps using. And you've been thinking about people raping me ever since you came in here. While you watch. And it turns you on." Picard's voice was very firm as he disciplined himself into the correct sort of behavior. He would behave correctly no matter what his thoughts might be. And if they didn't get in line, too, he'd have a strict talking-to with them after this. "Q, I think that their treatment of you was cruel and inhumane, and as far as I'm concerned, *no one* deserves that." The captain watched Q search his face in disbelief, probably looking for some sign of sarcasm of deception, although there was none to find. The entity sighed. "You can guess what I dream about." *********************** When Deanna Troi re-entered the rehabilitation room, now fully clothed, she almost swooned from the waves of loneliness and need that washed over her. Instead, she started taking her top off. Q sat up against the wall, curled into a tight ball, his arms folded extremely tightly, his head on his knees. "Do you want to talk about what's bothering you?" she asked, kneeling down next to him, her breasts bobbing over his thigh. Q shook his head emphatically. "Why?" He did not speak. Troi took a deep breath, and tried once more, gently. Why couldn't she just push him down on the floor and have her way with him? Why did her damnable conscience keep insisting that she had to "help" him?? "Q... maybe it would be a good idea to involve your family in this. To talk with them. I'm sure that they would be glad to help you through this." An anguished noise escaped Q, and he rocked back and forth. Troi's eyes widened as she caught sight of his exposed, swollen member. "What's wrong?" "My family hates me! I can never go back there," he insisted. "Why not?" The urge to cover his body with hers was becoming too strong, and she laid down next to him, stroking his chest with one hand. "It doesn't matter. I can never go back there. Never. And you can't make me." Troi looked at him with pleading eyes. Couldn't he see that she didn't really want to talk, that all the words were just a smokescreen for 'I want you, I need you, I want to fuck you like a jackhammer'? "Could you tell me why?" After a moment, Q replied, his voice very soft. "Would you like to know how I escaped, my dear?" By this time, she had no choice. uhmm.... what happened.... oh, yes, i remember.... :::shudder::: wait a minute. something's wrong. i'm forgetting something. who am i? this is bad. think, think, think.... ah, yes, i remember. i'm Sixty-Nine, yes, that's ri -- no! no, no that's not right. i'm Q. yes. i'm Q. i'm Q. whatever that is Sirhan steadied himself on the doorway, as a tremor ran through the laboratory. The anomaly was beginning another Shift. Sirhan shook his head, feeling slightly queasy and uncomfortably hot. He had no problem with plot devices, and in his alternate personality, was comfortable with using them whenever and however necessary. But the overt un-scientific-ness of this particular plot trick was annoying. Alara would hate it, and would hate the loss of their research. Mercutio was reluctantly for it -- it seemed as though Alara would never voluntarily cede control of Q over to her. Hurting him was too much fun for Alara, and that was unacceptable to Mercutio. She had to see that Q got comfort one way or another, or else the story would be ruined. So the Shift was necessary. But why did JJ have to pick *this* method of rescuing Q? Really. Anomalies that block off Q-powers and then change unpredictably allowing the Q-powers to work again... On the other hand, what was there to complain about? It was better than some of the plot devices *she'd* dreamed up. Would Alara ever let her live down the telepathic interstellar chicken that originally ended InseQurity? Probably not. Mercutio slipped fully back into the Sirhan persona, and went to check on Q. Sirhan Sirhan entered to see Sixty-Nine shivering convulsively in his restraints, jerking back and forth on the table, attempting to do something, Sirhan didn't know what. The cock rings were still on, and the piercings on his penis stood out in vivid red. Sirhan glanced down at the black box, looking at Sixty-Nine's temperature. "You're burning up. The piercings have probably gotten infected." Sixty-Nine's murmured deliriously to himself, slipping in and out of consciousness. He drifted on a dark tide, from darkness to fevered dream, to darkness once more. my skin's burning.... this isn't right... JJ's s'posed to be here..... His body slumped, and his eyes closed in exhaustion. "Sixty-Nine, stop acting like an infant and wake up." Sirhan turned to see Sheila, and his hunch that the Shift was grating on the both of them was confirmed. "The bar on his power wanes today," he warned. "His power could come back to him while we're in mid-Shift, Alara." Sheila tilted her head, negating him. "It doesn't matter. The fever he is running is extremely high; I doubt he has the strength to escape. In any case, I'm not finished yet. And don't call me that." "But this isn't our story. Anything could happen." "Wuss," Sheila replied somewhat sharply. She looked down at Sixty-Nine. "Are you ready to answer some questions?" He did not answer her, his eyes rolling around the room crazily, too exhausted to focus. His face turned to the side as she pinched his cheek. "Wake up." :::moan::: where am i? He snapped his fingers weakly, and gave them a reproachful glare when nothing happened. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he began to fall into darkness. He was dimly aware of being grabbed by the nipple clamps on his chest and being shaken. His words came out slurred and confused. just want sleep. make them lemme sleep, Q. "Sheila, stop. Forget it. He is delirious." Sixty-Nine felt a sharp pain in his anus, as something was shoved in. There were words, too, but they were hard to hear. "Pay attention when we ask you something. Wake up." It hurt, and he cried out, not understanding why they were hurting him. stop. please. i don't know the answers. "This isn't working," he heard the observer murmur. Sixty-Nine moaned as they continued to try to force him to cooperate. Their methods were failing though.... his body was not responding anymore.... 'Row, help, please, where are you? :::gasp::: help..... Sheila circled Sixty-Nine's shaking form like a group of fans around Patrick Stewart. "She is dead. You do not remember that you killed her?" Sirhan held his hand up. "Sheila, forget about this. He probably cannot understand a word that you're saying. He is *delirious*." But Sixty-Nine *could* understand, could understand every word. there was no way i could have prevented her death, and you know it. Sheila smiled coldly. "Do not lie to me." Her voice became deceptively soothing as she leaned closer. "You did not stop to think... you were irresponsible, and you made a mistake. As you always do, in every story. You are not all-powerful. You are *not* better than everyone else. And I will drag you down and force you to confront your essential humanity until you admit that you're just like everyone else, so that I and everyone else can continue to fail to accept our own problems. That's what you are *for*. Other than that, you are *nothing*. It is impossible to be better, impossible to be arrogant and proud and virginal and get away with it. And you are going to see the truth of that." Her voice quickly snapped back into its prim, scientific tone. "You could have gone back in time and prevented JJ Arrow's death, couldn't you? You could have kept it from happening. She circled around him once more, continuing viciously. "And you *killed* her. Yet another character that gave everything for you. The *only* one who loved you unconditionally despite your faults, and despite your evil. By not saving her, you killed her." Flames stoked in Sixty-Nine's dark, fevered eyes. who told you? "And now, she is dust." who TOLD you?! He grabbed her wrist, unconsciously digging his fingernails into her skin, finding himself talking in a voice he had never before heard himself use. which of my family betrayed me? "Get off of her," Sirhan growled menacingly, as Sheila wrenched her hand away, standing up. "Sixty-Nine, I think that there is something you should know about your family." The lab rocked as if struck by a seismic wave. The Shift was past its beginning stages. "Sheila, wait!" Sheila spun on her heel to face him. "After I tell him this, we will *have* him." "Have him for *what*?!" Sirhan gripped his partner by the shoulders, his words intense. "Alara, we're not even *learning* anything anymore. He hasn't been responsive to any of the sexual things for days, and he barely speaks. This is useless." Sheila shook free of him. "I don't know what's happened to you. You're not the person who had Q dangling Deshanya over a pit of alligators or who had Q raped during PropinQuity--" "Harry was consensual! Sort of." "Or who wrote 'Tempted Too Far'. You used to *like* this kind of stuff. And now you have qualms about it, and when you're not criticizing me to my face, you're putting snide comments into the narration about me." She shook her head, her scientific demeanor crumbling around her. "I can't work with you like this. I don't know if I can even be *friends* with you like this. I don't *know* you anymore." She walked out the door. Sirhan stood rooted to the ground in shock. The quiet, final click of the door echoed in his ears. "You just got rid of my partner, Sixty-Nine," Sirhan whispered, his eyes taking on a weird gleam. He stalked slowly toward his experiment. "Do you know what I suppose? I think she doesn't enjoy my company any longer. Perhaps she actively hates me." He paused for a moment. "Yes, I think that she does. Or will." His blue eyes glared at Sixty-Nine. "Because we were fighting over *you*." His voice became very soft and very dangerous. "You begged us to let you go home. *Our* home is Shifting, Sixty-Nine, and its hold on your power wanes as we travel. You may possibly have the ability to leave and rejoin your family. "Would you like to know the truth about your family?" The laboratory rocked. Sixty-Nine's eyes widened, and his breath caught in his throat as he felt something wonderful and familiar trickle back to him. Fervently, he sent a mental outcry to his brothers and sisters, literally screaming out to their minds, frantically straining to hear any stray scrap of their thought streams that were once again starting to murmur with his. And then he caught something. "You heard it, didn't you?" ....no.... "You know now, don't you?" NO! Sixty-Nine stared out into space, his face a twisted mask of anguish, his entire body trembling. Sirhan's eyes glinted with revenge. "They KNEW, Sixty-Nine! They knew about your arrival inside of our lab, and they *left you here*." :::hiss::: you're a poor liar. "They heard your every scream, your every moan, your every cry. They watched you plead and beg and sob for mercy. And they left you here." His voice had degenerated into an angry snarl. "They think you're *amusing*, Sixty-Nine. They *want* to see you degraded. *Everyone* wants to see you degraded." He smiled then, and his fetal compassion died inside him. "And if you could bring *her* back to life and talk to her now... she'd be laughing at you too." no, no, no, no....... they couldn't have..... they wouldn't have.... they wouldn't leave me to be tortured like this, wouldn't just sit there and watch as I was made into some sort of animal! they wouldn't allow me to be tormented, and just look the other way, they would come and rescue me.... His small reassurances were of no use, as he delved once more into their thoughts. Because he knew it was true. The odor of popcorn was immistakable, as was the flavor of their laughter. They thought this was even more amusing than when Mercutio had had Worf rape him in "Truth or Q?". They *had* known. They had always known. And they had done nothing but sit there and laugh about his plight, laugh about how far he had fallen. And take bets on how much further he could fall. He heard Sirhan's voice clearly, as his entire universe spun and cracked to pieces around him: "Do you want to go home now?" Q screamed an anguished scream. A lone figure floated, alone in the void of space. what? where am i? The figure glanced around. how? Streaks of various shades of gray shot around him, as well as other, unnamed colors, painting in strokes around him. He realized that this was the anomaly, and that it was Shifting. once i could reach my powers, they must have yanked me out by instinct...... why had the author decided to be merciful? He realized that it didn't matter. If he didn't get the hell out of here, the anomaly could swallow him up again. That particular thought did not appeal to him. He wasn't willing to take the chance that the author really wanted to help him recover -- he was going to get out of here on his own while he still could. where to go, where to go..... Certainly not back to the Continuum (they probably had home movies of his moaning and whimpering; he couldn't go back for at *least* a millennia) The Enterprise..... to Jean-Luc.... should probably do something about the nipple clamps and the vibrator and the other devices first. With slow painful thought, he removed them -- as the anomaly started to settle itself around him. Near mindless with sexual desire, and near collapse from exhaustion, Q vanished. "So now you know." Troi stared at Q, stunned out of her passion for a moment. The immortal laughed; it was a mirthless, hollow sound. "Oh yes, you're surprised, aren't you Counselor? That my brothers and my sisters of the Continuum could leave one of their own to be tortured... tormented..." "There must be a reason. Perhaps--" "I know exactly what the reason was. For their sick amusement." Q seemed implacable. And as determined not to crack as before. She remembered the voice from her dream: *There is still someone he can talk with... * And then it hit the counselor like an abusive date. The question was, why tell him? Giving him away to a rival was *not* what she had in mind. Wouldn't it be better to just keep him here, half-healed, and work on patching him up through having sex with him? It was a time-honored technique, used in many stories. Sex was the ultimate cureall for everything from loneliness to corns to infatuation with one's toaster. But her professionalism insisted in being heard. "I..... know someone you might not mind talking to," Troi said reluctantly. Q wasn't omniscient for nothing. "I can't! She won't want to talk to me! She--" Troi was sure that this was the right thing to do. Painful, but the right thing. Maybe she could sneak herself into the captain's quarters and wait for him under his covers, naked. She'd felt the way he had been thinking about her when he'd entered the room and found her there naked -- she knew Picard wanted her. "You have the power to do this," Troi said firmly. "And I know you want to talk with someone." Q shook his head. "No." "Please," she added more urgently. She had to get him out of here before her control broke entirely. "Do this for your own sake. Talk with her." "She won't want to talk with me," Q repeated more firmly. Troi gave him a sideways glance. Right now, the greatest danger was exactly that -- that anyone he tried to talk to wouldn't *want* to talk -- they'd want to have sex with him. He raised an eyebrow. "I know exactly what you're thinking." He leaned over and whispered in her ear, his breath sending a soft shiver through her, "You're wise to forget about Riker and Worf. Take it from me, Picard is *much* more fascinating." And then she was alone in the rehab room. ******************** The house -- the villa, rather -- dominated the sheltered portion of the slope of Halekala that it rested on. It sprawled out haphazardly, an open air dwelling shining like white marble. On this windward side of Maui, just on the Hana side of Haiku, the foliage was green and lush, trees surrounding the villa. The smell of decaying fruit cloyed the fresh sea air, and the sound of laughter rolled up from the tier of the plaza closest to the Pacific Ocean. What was this? Some sort of "Exit to Eden" fantasy? Q materialized on the open plaza, just outside the threshold of the villa. The doors, nearly all window, were flung open to the breeze. This was where her presence was the strongest. He eyed the extensive structure. It was old, but not crumbling in the fashion of all things in a tropical environment. Instead, it conveyed the impression of better times gone by, preserved here in memory ever golden. But where was she? Something hurt inside his chest. She wasn't here... or perhaps she didn't remember him. Or even worse, she did, and she didn't want anything to do with him. *Nor should she,* Q mused bitterly with a great deal of self pity. A form wearing a T-shirt that read, "Leave Me Alone, I'm Dead", flung itself down the stairs, out the doorway and into his arms. "Q! Is it really you? Are you dead? Is something wrong?" He backed away from her. "Yes, of course it's me. Who else would it be? No, I'm not *dead*. You really are a morbid little human, aren't you? And no, nothing's wrong." He looked away from her shining, happy face, feeling shame wash over him. He took a deep breath, his arms folded tightly across his chest. His voice was barely audible. "I'm sorry." "What??" "You're here, and you're dead, and I'm the one to blame. We both know that." He shook his head, his face crumpling in misery. Suddenly, without warning, her arms were around him, and she was laughing merrily, kissing his chest, which was as high as she could reach. Q was taken aback. This was *not* the response he had expected. JJ chuckled. "Oh beloved, you're so silly! It's not your fault that I died! And do you *really* think that I want to go back to dreary old Oregon and reality when I could be *here*? Forget the Rodeo Grandmas -- being the Grandma of Justice was getting wayyyy too much to handle. My hip, you know. Old age sucks. This is wonderful!" "But I could have brought you back!" Q protested. "You didn't have to die. I could have granted you *immortality*." JJ placed a finger on his lips, shaking her head. "You never offered that to me, and my choice was to remain as I was. Or are you saying you forgot?" "Umm......... I'm Q. I don't make mistakes." "Surrrrre." Q stared at her, wanting too much believe in her, that it wasn't his fault at all and never had been......... He sank to his knees, burying his head against her stomach and holding tightly onto her legs while sobbing uncontrollably. "What's wrong?" JJ asked. "And don't tell me 'nothing', because I won't believe it." So he told her. Everything. She held him close, stroking his dark hair, as her expression darkened with sorrow. "I am NOTHING to them!!" Q wailed. "Just because they're authors, they think that they can do anything they want to me. I don't even want to be in this stupid story anymore. I just want to be left alone." He looked up at her. "With you. I want to be alone with you." JJ stroked his face, and held him close to her. Maybe this wasn't the time to tell him that this was the Alt.Fan.Q Retirement Home for Authors. She could see Julia down in the water, windsurfing, with her specially designed sail that showed Q's naked torso, neck to mid-thigh, his front on one side of the sail, dorsal on the other. And Mercutio was just setting up on the beach for the naughty Q puns contest. JJ had been planning to join in right after breakfast and a massage by two of their ubiquitous -- but handsome -- male servants. Who just happened to resemble a certain personage even now crying in front of her. Hmm.... maybe this might be a good time to clean the place up a little. Wouldn't bother her in the slightest if, say, the servants all looked like David Duchovny instead. Of course, Mercutio had that thing for Mitch Pileggi.... and Alara would probably insist on Magneto or Avon..... but that could wait. JJ held Q tightly, trying to calm his trembling. "Authors can be cruel sometimes. You haven't shamed anyone. I think you were *very* brave. And I love you." That was all it took. He pulled her down until she was kneeling next to him, then laid his forehead on her shoulder, crying. JJ murmured soothingly to him, holding him close, as the pain and fear washed away. He looked at her then in surprise, as a tan started to form on his skin. Something seemed to stretch, as his Starfleet uniform fell away, replaced by neon spandex. "What the.....?" JJ laughed. "Uniform of the day." She kissed him. Q hummed in pleasure. "Mmmmm... ohhhh, that feels fantastic. Ahh." JJ smiled secretively. "And if you don't like the clothes, you don't have to wear them at all." Q looked at her, a small smile beginning on his face. "Oh, really?" Slowly, they walked into the house and up the stairs. They entered JJ's palatial suite and each slowly gravitated toward the other. Their lips touched, each melting into the other and becoming one. JJ snuggled against him. "Stay here and heal, Q. I promise it will get better. It may take a long time, but I don't think anyone else here will mind." *That* was an understatement. He trailed a kiss along her neck. "You're eternal now," Q murmured. "We have all the time we need." JJ shut the door and tugged him toward the bed. -THE END- "I don't need a bed of roses because roses wither away. All I really need is some honesty from someone with a strong heart and a gentle hand to take me as I am." "Bed of Roses"