Fic: "Finally It Has Happened To Me" (excerpts)
Unlocking this just for idkmybffspock for 24 hours or so. Enjoy! :)
Whole new 'verse, whole new concept. Painted in quick strokes, and lighthearted. The premise: Bashir and O'Brien lose a game of chok-nivarr and Jadzia decides that they have to perform in drag as a forfeit. And who do you go to when you need a dress on Deep Space Nine? ;)
This plot bunny from hell is the result of a little too much thought devoted to how to write a DS9 story that would make a plot point out of Andrew Robinson's statement that Garak was originally intended to be pansexual. So blame him, not me!
Title: Finally It Has Happened To Me
Pairing: Garak/Bashir, with O'Brien also forced to wear a dress
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 mostly, but a definite R toward the end
Word Count: ~2720 (excerpts)
Summary: Julian Bashir in drag. Singing! Dancing! Sex! What's not to like?
Notes: Title taken from the following song, which is what Bashir and O'Brien have to build their dance routine around: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzNkM-rzzjw
WARNINGS: Guys in dresses. A lot of playing with the notion of gender. More than a hint of fetish kink around the edges.
**************
[It sounds like a bad joke: a Doctor walks into a tailor's shop one afternoon with a request he really doesn't want to have to make...]
“I... I need you to make me a dress.”
“Ah!” Garak approached one of the shelves and gestured at the ends of fabric bolts visible on the middle rack. “You’re in luck - I have some beautiful silks just in from Risa VI, in a wide variety of exquisite colors. If the young lady will stop by at her convenience I’m sure I can find a -”
“It’s not for a young lady.” He wished desperately that Humans had more control over their autonomic functions, like blushing for example. “It’s for me.”
There was a brief pause that was puzzled on Garak’s end and burning on Bashir’s.
“I see,” Garak said politely. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Doctor, but isn’t the wearing of dresses confined to the female of the species in your culture?”
“It is unless you’ve lost a bet,” Bashir practically mumbled.
The Cardassian cocked his head curiously. “I beg your pardon?”
“Well... it all started when Jadzia challenged me to a game of chok-nivarr...”
It took a bit of explaining, and Bashir felt like his face was going to spontaneously combust before he was through, but at last he was able to conclude:
“... and the loser of the game has to perform a forfeit at the winner’s discretion.”
Garak cocked his head a little more acutely. “So, she wants you to put on a dress?”
“Yes...”
“With high heels?”
“Yes...”
“And get up on a stage?”
“Yes...”
“And do a dance in front of a crowd in Quark’s bar?”
“In a holosuite, actually, but yes, the audience would be real.”
“While singing a song?”
“It’s called lip-synching, and yes, that too.”
“I see,” Garak repeated, but this time with the air of one processing a great deal of critical data.
“So I came to you,” Bashir continued, “because, well, I figured that if anyone around here knew anything about how to make a man look good in a dress -”
“Say no more, Doctor.” The Cardassian had a gleam in his eyes that Bashir recognized: he was busily formulating a plan of action.
“But there is more. Chief O’Brien may be coming to you for the same reason.” For the first time a hint of a smile penetrated Bashir’s general aura of miserable discomfort. “He lost at the same game of chok-nivarr, and Jadzia thought we’d look ‘cute’ on stage together.”
“I must admit that the prospect does have a certain appeal.” That smile was far too wicked for Bashir’s peace of mind, but fortunately it was gone almost before he had time to register it. “Very well, Doctor - I’ll help you.”
“Thank you,” Bashir said, with feeling.
“Please, don’t mention it. Such an opportunity doesn’t come along every day.” He crossed to his worktable; Bashir followed, his ears still burning. “Now, exactly when is this performance scheduled?”
“Jadzia told me she’d book a holosuite for one week today.”
Garak looked vaguely alarmed. “Then we have very little time! There are two dresses to make, plus makeup to finalize, plus rehearsals -”
“Makeup? Rehearsals?”
“Surely,” the Cardassian said with great patience, “you don’t expect to make the maximum impact on your audience with an unadorned face and no choreography?”
Bashir gave him a look that admirably combined exhasperation with Why am I not surprised? “You do choreography.”
“You’d be amazed what odds and ends of skills I’ve picked up over the years,” Garak handwaved vaguely.
“Actually, no, I wouldn’t.” At least he felt more amused now than desperate, which was a distinct improvement.
The Cardassian looked him up and down critically, then turned to the shelf and chose a bolt of silk in a deep, rich shade of cornflower blue. He unfurled two turns of it over his worktable, revealing ripples of light and shadow that seemed to glow with their own inner radiance. “This will do for the base of the dress, I think. It sets off your skin tone marvelously.”
Curious, Bashir came over to run his fingertips over it; it glided under his hand like cool water. “It is gorgeous,” he admitted.
“I believe in matching a fabric perfectly to its intended wearer,” Garak observed, smoothing it out on the table. His gaze returned to Bashir and parsed him like a laser scanner. “Something mid-thigh and off the shoulder, I’m thinking - you do have lovely shoulders, and you may as well play to your strengths - with an overall effect of oblique drapery to emphasize your slender build.” He came around the table to stand behind Bashir, and Bashir sensed his hands come up to hover on either side of him, almost touching his elbows. “May I?”
The tailor’s tone was professional, but Bashir felt a frisson of something both hot and cold run up his spine as if their bodies had just exchanged a subtle charge of electricity. “Go ahead.”
Those hands slipped in under his arms and came to rest on his waist. With brisk efficiency they stroked up and down, as if measuring Bashir’s waist and hips strictly by touch - and perhaps they were, giving Garak an intuitive sense of what he was working with that would save him from checking numerical measurements later on. Then up to his shoulders, running down his arms to the wrists; and lastly the tailor knelt behind him and scouted his legs and buttocks with the same impersonal air that nonetheless managed to leave Bashir feeling subtly shaken. By the time Garak rose to his feet again Bashir found himself almost wanting to lick his lips.
“Yes,” Garak said with evident pleasure, “this will be quite an exhilerating challenge.”
Bashir actually had to swallow at that. “Meaning?”
Garak came back around to pick up a PADD from the worktable and started to enter notes. “Adapting fashions meant for the female of your species to a male template while still retaining the essence of the message the style is meant to convey.”
“And what message would that be, exactly?”
“Why, to look sexy, Doctor.” His tone of voice was absent, but there was that smile again, slight yet full of insinuation. “Surely you of all people, with your keen eye for feminine beauty, can appreciate that?”
[It doesn't take Garak long to whip up a stunning little blue number for Bashir, and a scarlet sheath for O'Brien, but we pick up the story when Bashir comes in alone for his first fitting and shrugs into his dress, feeling quite uncomfortable. Garak's taken the liberty of picking up a pair of high heels for him as well in a fetching shade of silver. Bashir's in the dressing room feeling intensely nervous when Garak breezes in with the box:]
“Put the shoes on as well,” Garak ordered. “You have very little time to get used to them and you’ll need all the practice you can get.”
[Bashir sits down and obeys, then tries to stand up. Whoa!]
He tottered precariously and Garak caught hold of his forearm just long enough to steady him.
“Thanks.” He stared at his own reflection in the mirror as Garak closed the seal at the back of the dress. “How do women walk in these things?”
“Surprisingly well, for the most part.” He stepped to one side and surveyed Bashir’s image critically. Bashir found himself practically biting his own lip, until Garak smiled. “You look absolutely enchanting.”
Bashir cautiously turned to one side, then to the other, surveying the fit of the dress skeptically. He smoothed the tight silken ripples over his hips. Oh, it clung to him in what on a woman would be all the right places, and he had to admit that it did show off both his shoulders and his legs... not to mention his trim buttocks. “You really think so?”
“Would I lie to you?” Garak asked mildly. Bashir almost choked, a piece of commentary which the Cardassian chose to ignore.
[Garak goes into full tailor mode, turning Bashir to face the mirror fully again as he works, but Bashir's still trying to distract himself and so he strikes up a conversation. Some action descriptors missing but the dialogue's all there:]
“This must seem very strange to you.”
“Oh, not really.”
“’Not really’? How can you say that? You don’t fit men for dresses every bloody day!”
“Ah. You think that this is offending some sense of gender norms on my part, is that right?”
“Something like that.”
Garak made a soft tsking sound. “Have no fear, Doctor - I’m not that easy to shock. I’ve never been one to concern myself overly much with matters of gender.”
“I got the impression that Cardassians were highly gender dimorphic.”
“For the most part we are. I, however, have never really been a typical Cardassian.”
“I can believe that.” He watched Garak dart in to adjust the fit over his ribs and slide back out again, studying the result. “So,” he prompted.
“So?”
“You’re not concerned with gender?”
“Let’s just say that I appreciate beauty in whatever form I find it.”
This was something that Bashir had never thought to imagine, in spite of all his speculations about the spy-turned-tailor. “So you’re saying that it doesn’t matter to you whether...?”
“Whether a potential lover is male or female? Not particularly. Nor how they view their own sexuality, nor what trappings they choose to dress it up in.” A flash of an ironic smirk. “So to speak.”
“Ha, ha,” Bashir quipped.
[A little more conversation. Garak does not miss what Bashir's trying to get at:]
“You look like you’re ready to make a diagnosis.”
“I believe the applicable term is ‘pansexual’.”
“Very good, Doctor!”
[Snip, a bit more conversation, and then]
“You’d be surprised at how few people are willing to sleep with a Cardassian.” He didn’t sound self-pitying, just matter-of-fact.
I don’t think I’d mind, Bashir almost said. Mercifully his internal censor leaped upon the response and tackled it to the ground before it made it out of his mouth. Theoretically speaking of course, he added hastily for his own benefit, before saying aloud: “I’m sorry.”
“Your concern is touching, but misplaced.”
[Poor Bashir: he manages to put his foot in his mouth and say something to the effect that Garak is the last person he would have pegged as pansexual, given that he's, well, never been with anybody in the year and a half that Bashir's known him. Garak smacks him down, but relatively gently:]
“I’d have expected a medical doctor to appreciate that being pansexual doesn’t mean that one is willing to sleep with anyone who comes along. It merely gives me a wider range of potential choices.”
“So, basically anyone on the station?”
“Only the beautiful, Doctor - and only the exceptionally beautiful and intelligent at that. My tastes are, I flatter myself to think, quite discerning.”
“That must boil down to relatively few people.”
“Just one, actually.”
Bashir’s heart almost stopped for a nanosecond. “One?”
“One,” Garak confirmed.
A long moment of silence while Garak turned his attention to the dress’s hem, checking the fall and fit.
“So who -?” Bashir began, at the same instant that Chief O’Brien’s voice rang out from the main area of the shop:
“Julian? Are y’here?”
“He is indeed, Chief,” Garak called back, getting to his feet. “Just one more moment...”
He moved as if to open the curtains. Bashir spun in place, managing not to fall over in the process. “Garak!” he hissed in an outraged whisper. “You can’t just leave me hanging like this! Who’s the ‘one person’?”
“We mustn’t keep Chief O’Brien waiting.” He started to leave again, but Bashir took a surprisingly steady step after him and laid an urgent hand on his shoulder.
The Cardassian turned enough to meet Bashir’s pleading eyes. He looked down at the hand on his shoulder. Bashir refused to remove it. “Really, Doctor,” he chided at last in an equally low voice, “this is neither the time nor the place for that sort of discussion.”
“Neither is lunch at the Replimat.”
“True.” He nodded with the air of one reluctantly conceding to pressure. “I’ll tell you after the performance, if you’re still interested.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Bashir warned.
The quality of the tailor’s smile conveyed a flicker of strange heat. “I’ll see that you do,” he murmured, and stepped out from under Bashir’s fingers to throw back the curtain of the fitting room with a flourish - leaving Bashir with the distinct impression that a lot more had just been said than the mere words themselves conveyed.
O’Brien was looking at one of the suit-clad male torso forms. He turned around, and his eyes got considerably larger as he stared at his erstwhile raquetball partner.
“Well?” Garak said triumphantly, indicating Bashir with a sweep of his right hand as if presenting a piece of fine artwork. Bashir wondered if he should be striking some sort of pose; he settled for not falling down as he stepped out from between the curtains.
For a moment O’Brien seemed to be speechless. “I’ve gotta admit,” he finally said, “that’s... not bad.”
“Not bad?” Garak protested. “Not bad? Are you blind? He looks delectable!”
The engineer stuttered for a moment. “I - really wouldn’t know,” he said hastily. “But that color really does suit him.”
[And a taste of what it's leading up to... it's backstage, after the performance. The audience is still going fairly wild out front. O'Brien has hastily departed to get out of that damned dress, and Garak turns his attention to Bashir, who's in no such hurry...]
Looking into Garak’s slate-blue eyes, Bashir felt as if the rest of the holodeck faded into insignificance. That gaze was running over him like slow savouring fingers, appreciating every male contour of his body both in and out of the clinging feminine wrapping that the tailor had carefully crafted to embrace him. He realized, with a shock that made him momentarily dizzy, that he was being seduced - and that the caresses had begun the moment Garak had taken his measurements... all though the fittings... through the guiding touches during the rehearsals... that final encouraging hand on his back, lingering just a little too long...
Hell, the dress, made to fit him as intimately as a glove. The hair and makeup, carefully and lovingly groomed. The choker, bestowed on his naked throat like a final kiss of possession.
A whole week, building up to this moment.
He couldn’t remember ever being this hard in his entire life. The pulse of his cock, trapped under the tight sheath of luxurious silk, was absolutely maddening.
“Well, my dear Doctor!” That voice, as soft and warm as silk itself, sent a thrill of pure lust through Bashir’s entire body. “You did quite well, I thought.”
“Thanks to you.” Damn, he sounded like a sixteen-year-old again, trembling in anticipation of his first kiss. And maybe he was: after all, he’d never been with another man before, although he’d had offers in the past. And he’d certainly never been kissed while wearing a dress before either.
Garak inclined his head in a modest little bow. “I had the finest material to work with,” he said graciously.
[Fortunately they're in a quiet part of the set, back near the dressing rooms. Privacy, for the moment at least, seems assured -- and Bashir doesn't want to wait.]
He had a good four inches on Garak at the moment, far too much of a difference to make kissing easy. With a little mumbled curse he leaned back against the wall and bent his left leg, reaching back to fumble one-handed with the delicate buckle of the high-heeled shoe.
“Allow me,” the Cardassian said, stepping forward and going down on one knee. Bashir relented, allowing him to deftly undo the clasp and slip the shoe off. The touch of his cool grey fingers was unhurried and sensual, and the way he idly stroked his thumb down the side of Bashir’s stockinged foot in passing made the Human bite back a little moan. The sensation seemed to be only heightened by the delicate layer of nylon that separated skin from skin: it made him feel more than naked, and wildly excited. He wanted more of it, to feel those caresses everywhere. But he knew who he was dealing with and so he waited, trusting that a spy knew more than a little about the art of timing.
Garak gently guided his foot back to the floor and he wobbled for a second, then stabilized and bent his right knee to allow the tailor to take care of the other shoe. Looking down at the elegant brocade of Garak’s tunic in the dimness, at the graceful angle of his ridged neck as he concentrated on his task and the sleek midnight fall of his hair, Bashir felt a sudden surge of tenderness that blended almost indistinguishably with the carnal heat burning in his flesh. He wanted to kiss him for so many reasons: gratitude, admiration, love, lust. The days and months ahead seemed to open up before him, a new and splendid country he couldn’t wait to explore.
And the nights. Oh, especially the nights.
“There.” He set the shoes neatly to one side, against the wall, and looked up into Bashir’s lidded eyes with a small and secret smile. “Is that better?”
“Much.” Garak was still holding his foot with one hand. He waited, and when the Cardassian stroked delicately up the sole he shivered and made no effort to hide his reaction. The smile grew more wicked.
“Do you like that?”
“Yes...” He heard the tremor reach his voice.
“The stockings add a certain... additional dimension to the experience, don’t they?” His other hand joined in the gentle assault, enclosing Bashir’s foot in a cool embrace, then running slowly up over the Human’s slender ankle while he held the foot steady. Bashir looked at him and trembled again, and Garak sighed as if perfectly contented. “Ah, my dear... you really are quite exquisite! Just as I knew you’d be.”
“You planned this from the beginning.” It wasn’t quite an accusation. After all, you couldn’t blame a snake for being a snake.
“Well,” Garak purred, “from the moment you told me about your little forfeit, anyway.”
[To Be Continued, if it amuses me to do so...]
Whole new 'verse, whole new concept. Painted in quick strokes, and lighthearted. The premise: Bashir and O'Brien lose a game of chok-nivarr and Jadzia decides that they have to perform in drag as a forfeit. And who do you go to when you need a dress on Deep Space Nine? ;)
This plot bunny from hell is the result of a little too much thought devoted to how to write a DS9 story that would make a plot point out of Andrew Robinson's statement that Garak was originally intended to be pansexual. So blame him, not me!
Title: Finally It Has Happened To Me
Pairing: Garak/Bashir, with O'Brien also forced to wear a dress
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 mostly, but a definite R toward the end
Word Count: ~2720 (excerpts)
Summary: Julian Bashir in drag. Singing! Dancing! Sex! What's not to like?
Notes: Title taken from the following song, which is what Bashir and O'Brien have to build their dance routine around: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzNkM-rzzjw
WARNINGS: Guys in dresses. A lot of playing with the notion of gender. More than a hint of fetish kink around the edges.
**************
[It sounds like a bad joke: a Doctor walks into a tailor's shop one afternoon with a request he really doesn't want to have to make...]
“I... I need you to make me a dress.”
“Ah!” Garak approached one of the shelves and gestured at the ends of fabric bolts visible on the middle rack. “You’re in luck - I have some beautiful silks just in from Risa VI, in a wide variety of exquisite colors. If the young lady will stop by at her convenience I’m sure I can find a -”
“It’s not for a young lady.” He wished desperately that Humans had more control over their autonomic functions, like blushing for example. “It’s for me.”
There was a brief pause that was puzzled on Garak’s end and burning on Bashir’s.
“I see,” Garak said politely. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Doctor, but isn’t the wearing of dresses confined to the female of the species in your culture?”
“It is unless you’ve lost a bet,” Bashir practically mumbled.
The Cardassian cocked his head curiously. “I beg your pardon?”
“Well... it all started when Jadzia challenged me to a game of chok-nivarr...”
It took a bit of explaining, and Bashir felt like his face was going to spontaneously combust before he was through, but at last he was able to conclude:
“... and the loser of the game has to perform a forfeit at the winner’s discretion.”
Garak cocked his head a little more acutely. “So, she wants you to put on a dress?”
“Yes...”
“With high heels?”
“Yes...”
“And get up on a stage?”
“Yes...”
“And do a dance in front of a crowd in Quark’s bar?”
“In a holosuite, actually, but yes, the audience would be real.”
“While singing a song?”
“It’s called lip-synching, and yes, that too.”
“I see,” Garak repeated, but this time with the air of one processing a great deal of critical data.
“So I came to you,” Bashir continued, “because, well, I figured that if anyone around here knew anything about how to make a man look good in a dress -”
“Say no more, Doctor.” The Cardassian had a gleam in his eyes that Bashir recognized: he was busily formulating a plan of action.
“But there is more. Chief O’Brien may be coming to you for the same reason.” For the first time a hint of a smile penetrated Bashir’s general aura of miserable discomfort. “He lost at the same game of chok-nivarr, and Jadzia thought we’d look ‘cute’ on stage together.”
“I must admit that the prospect does have a certain appeal.” That smile was far too wicked for Bashir’s peace of mind, but fortunately it was gone almost before he had time to register it. “Very well, Doctor - I’ll help you.”
“Thank you,” Bashir said, with feeling.
“Please, don’t mention it. Such an opportunity doesn’t come along every day.” He crossed to his worktable; Bashir followed, his ears still burning. “Now, exactly when is this performance scheduled?”
“Jadzia told me she’d book a holosuite for one week today.”
Garak looked vaguely alarmed. “Then we have very little time! There are two dresses to make, plus makeup to finalize, plus rehearsals -”
“Makeup? Rehearsals?”
“Surely,” the Cardassian said with great patience, “you don’t expect to make the maximum impact on your audience with an unadorned face and no choreography?”
Bashir gave him a look that admirably combined exhasperation with Why am I not surprised? “You do choreography.”
“You’d be amazed what odds and ends of skills I’ve picked up over the years,” Garak handwaved vaguely.
“Actually, no, I wouldn’t.” At least he felt more amused now than desperate, which was a distinct improvement.
The Cardassian looked him up and down critically, then turned to the shelf and chose a bolt of silk in a deep, rich shade of cornflower blue. He unfurled two turns of it over his worktable, revealing ripples of light and shadow that seemed to glow with their own inner radiance. “This will do for the base of the dress, I think. It sets off your skin tone marvelously.”
Curious, Bashir came over to run his fingertips over it; it glided under his hand like cool water. “It is gorgeous,” he admitted.
“I believe in matching a fabric perfectly to its intended wearer,” Garak observed, smoothing it out on the table. His gaze returned to Bashir and parsed him like a laser scanner. “Something mid-thigh and off the shoulder, I’m thinking - you do have lovely shoulders, and you may as well play to your strengths - with an overall effect of oblique drapery to emphasize your slender build.” He came around the table to stand behind Bashir, and Bashir sensed his hands come up to hover on either side of him, almost touching his elbows. “May I?”
The tailor’s tone was professional, but Bashir felt a frisson of something both hot and cold run up his spine as if their bodies had just exchanged a subtle charge of electricity. “Go ahead.”
Those hands slipped in under his arms and came to rest on his waist. With brisk efficiency they stroked up and down, as if measuring Bashir’s waist and hips strictly by touch - and perhaps they were, giving Garak an intuitive sense of what he was working with that would save him from checking numerical measurements later on. Then up to his shoulders, running down his arms to the wrists; and lastly the tailor knelt behind him and scouted his legs and buttocks with the same impersonal air that nonetheless managed to leave Bashir feeling subtly shaken. By the time Garak rose to his feet again Bashir found himself almost wanting to lick his lips.
“Yes,” Garak said with evident pleasure, “this will be quite an exhilerating challenge.”
Bashir actually had to swallow at that. “Meaning?”
Garak came back around to pick up a PADD from the worktable and started to enter notes. “Adapting fashions meant for the female of your species to a male template while still retaining the essence of the message the style is meant to convey.”
“And what message would that be, exactly?”
“Why, to look sexy, Doctor.” His tone of voice was absent, but there was that smile again, slight yet full of insinuation. “Surely you of all people, with your keen eye for feminine beauty, can appreciate that?”
[It doesn't take Garak long to whip up a stunning little blue number for Bashir, and a scarlet sheath for O'Brien, but we pick up the story when Bashir comes in alone for his first fitting and shrugs into his dress, feeling quite uncomfortable. Garak's taken the liberty of picking up a pair of high heels for him as well in a fetching shade of silver. Bashir's in the dressing room feeling intensely nervous when Garak breezes in with the box:]
“Put the shoes on as well,” Garak ordered. “You have very little time to get used to them and you’ll need all the practice you can get.”
[Bashir sits down and obeys, then tries to stand up. Whoa!]
He tottered precariously and Garak caught hold of his forearm just long enough to steady him.
“Thanks.” He stared at his own reflection in the mirror as Garak closed the seal at the back of the dress. “How do women walk in these things?”
“Surprisingly well, for the most part.” He stepped to one side and surveyed Bashir’s image critically. Bashir found himself practically biting his own lip, until Garak smiled. “You look absolutely enchanting.”
Bashir cautiously turned to one side, then to the other, surveying the fit of the dress skeptically. He smoothed the tight silken ripples over his hips. Oh, it clung to him in what on a woman would be all the right places, and he had to admit that it did show off both his shoulders and his legs... not to mention his trim buttocks. “You really think so?”
“Would I lie to you?” Garak asked mildly. Bashir almost choked, a piece of commentary which the Cardassian chose to ignore.
[Garak goes into full tailor mode, turning Bashir to face the mirror fully again as he works, but Bashir's still trying to distract himself and so he strikes up a conversation. Some action descriptors missing but the dialogue's all there:]
“This must seem very strange to you.”
“Oh, not really.”
“’Not really’? How can you say that? You don’t fit men for dresses every bloody day!”
“Ah. You think that this is offending some sense of gender norms on my part, is that right?”
“Something like that.”
Garak made a soft tsking sound. “Have no fear, Doctor - I’m not that easy to shock. I’ve never been one to concern myself overly much with matters of gender.”
“I got the impression that Cardassians were highly gender dimorphic.”
“For the most part we are. I, however, have never really been a typical Cardassian.”
“I can believe that.” He watched Garak dart in to adjust the fit over his ribs and slide back out again, studying the result. “So,” he prompted.
“So?”
“You’re not concerned with gender?”
“Let’s just say that I appreciate beauty in whatever form I find it.”
This was something that Bashir had never thought to imagine, in spite of all his speculations about the spy-turned-tailor. “So you’re saying that it doesn’t matter to you whether...?”
“Whether a potential lover is male or female? Not particularly. Nor how they view their own sexuality, nor what trappings they choose to dress it up in.” A flash of an ironic smirk. “So to speak.”
“Ha, ha,” Bashir quipped.
[A little more conversation. Garak does not miss what Bashir's trying to get at:]
“You look like you’re ready to make a diagnosis.”
“I believe the applicable term is ‘pansexual’.”
“Very good, Doctor!”
[Snip, a bit more conversation, and then]
“You’d be surprised at how few people are willing to sleep with a Cardassian.” He didn’t sound self-pitying, just matter-of-fact.
I don’t think I’d mind, Bashir almost said. Mercifully his internal censor leaped upon the response and tackled it to the ground before it made it out of his mouth. Theoretically speaking of course, he added hastily for his own benefit, before saying aloud: “I’m sorry.”
“Your concern is touching, but misplaced.”
[Poor Bashir: he manages to put his foot in his mouth and say something to the effect that Garak is the last person he would have pegged as pansexual, given that he's, well, never been with anybody in the year and a half that Bashir's known him. Garak smacks him down, but relatively gently:]
“I’d have expected a medical doctor to appreciate that being pansexual doesn’t mean that one is willing to sleep with anyone who comes along. It merely gives me a wider range of potential choices.”
“So, basically anyone on the station?”
“Only the beautiful, Doctor - and only the exceptionally beautiful and intelligent at that. My tastes are, I flatter myself to think, quite discerning.”
“That must boil down to relatively few people.”
“Just one, actually.”
Bashir’s heart almost stopped for a nanosecond. “One?”
“One,” Garak confirmed.
A long moment of silence while Garak turned his attention to the dress’s hem, checking the fall and fit.
“So who -?” Bashir began, at the same instant that Chief O’Brien’s voice rang out from the main area of the shop:
“Julian? Are y’here?”
“He is indeed, Chief,” Garak called back, getting to his feet. “Just one more moment...”
He moved as if to open the curtains. Bashir spun in place, managing not to fall over in the process. “Garak!” he hissed in an outraged whisper. “You can’t just leave me hanging like this! Who’s the ‘one person’?”
“We mustn’t keep Chief O’Brien waiting.” He started to leave again, but Bashir took a surprisingly steady step after him and laid an urgent hand on his shoulder.
The Cardassian turned enough to meet Bashir’s pleading eyes. He looked down at the hand on his shoulder. Bashir refused to remove it. “Really, Doctor,” he chided at last in an equally low voice, “this is neither the time nor the place for that sort of discussion.”
“Neither is lunch at the Replimat.”
“True.” He nodded with the air of one reluctantly conceding to pressure. “I’ll tell you after the performance, if you’re still interested.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Bashir warned.
The quality of the tailor’s smile conveyed a flicker of strange heat. “I’ll see that you do,” he murmured, and stepped out from under Bashir’s fingers to throw back the curtain of the fitting room with a flourish - leaving Bashir with the distinct impression that a lot more had just been said than the mere words themselves conveyed.
O’Brien was looking at one of the suit-clad male torso forms. He turned around, and his eyes got considerably larger as he stared at his erstwhile raquetball partner.
“Well?” Garak said triumphantly, indicating Bashir with a sweep of his right hand as if presenting a piece of fine artwork. Bashir wondered if he should be striking some sort of pose; he settled for not falling down as he stepped out from between the curtains.
For a moment O’Brien seemed to be speechless. “I’ve gotta admit,” he finally said, “that’s... not bad.”
“Not bad?” Garak protested. “Not bad? Are you blind? He looks delectable!”
The engineer stuttered for a moment. “I - really wouldn’t know,” he said hastily. “But that color really does suit him.”
[And a taste of what it's leading up to... it's backstage, after the performance. The audience is still going fairly wild out front. O'Brien has hastily departed to get out of that damned dress, and Garak turns his attention to Bashir, who's in no such hurry...]
Looking into Garak’s slate-blue eyes, Bashir felt as if the rest of the holodeck faded into insignificance. That gaze was running over him like slow savouring fingers, appreciating every male contour of his body both in and out of the clinging feminine wrapping that the tailor had carefully crafted to embrace him. He realized, with a shock that made him momentarily dizzy, that he was being seduced - and that the caresses had begun the moment Garak had taken his measurements... all though the fittings... through the guiding touches during the rehearsals... that final encouraging hand on his back, lingering just a little too long...
Hell, the dress, made to fit him as intimately as a glove. The hair and makeup, carefully and lovingly groomed. The choker, bestowed on his naked throat like a final kiss of possession.
A whole week, building up to this moment.
He couldn’t remember ever being this hard in his entire life. The pulse of his cock, trapped under the tight sheath of luxurious silk, was absolutely maddening.
“Well, my dear Doctor!” That voice, as soft and warm as silk itself, sent a thrill of pure lust through Bashir’s entire body. “You did quite well, I thought.”
“Thanks to you.” Damn, he sounded like a sixteen-year-old again, trembling in anticipation of his first kiss. And maybe he was: after all, he’d never been with another man before, although he’d had offers in the past. And he’d certainly never been kissed while wearing a dress before either.
Garak inclined his head in a modest little bow. “I had the finest material to work with,” he said graciously.
[Fortunately they're in a quiet part of the set, back near the dressing rooms. Privacy, for the moment at least, seems assured -- and Bashir doesn't want to wait.]
He had a good four inches on Garak at the moment, far too much of a difference to make kissing easy. With a little mumbled curse he leaned back against the wall and bent his left leg, reaching back to fumble one-handed with the delicate buckle of the high-heeled shoe.
“Allow me,” the Cardassian said, stepping forward and going down on one knee. Bashir relented, allowing him to deftly undo the clasp and slip the shoe off. The touch of his cool grey fingers was unhurried and sensual, and the way he idly stroked his thumb down the side of Bashir’s stockinged foot in passing made the Human bite back a little moan. The sensation seemed to be only heightened by the delicate layer of nylon that separated skin from skin: it made him feel more than naked, and wildly excited. He wanted more of it, to feel those caresses everywhere. But he knew who he was dealing with and so he waited, trusting that a spy knew more than a little about the art of timing.
Garak gently guided his foot back to the floor and he wobbled for a second, then stabilized and bent his right knee to allow the tailor to take care of the other shoe. Looking down at the elegant brocade of Garak’s tunic in the dimness, at the graceful angle of his ridged neck as he concentrated on his task and the sleek midnight fall of his hair, Bashir felt a sudden surge of tenderness that blended almost indistinguishably with the carnal heat burning in his flesh. He wanted to kiss him for so many reasons: gratitude, admiration, love, lust. The days and months ahead seemed to open up before him, a new and splendid country he couldn’t wait to explore.
And the nights. Oh, especially the nights.
“There.” He set the shoes neatly to one side, against the wall, and looked up into Bashir’s lidded eyes with a small and secret smile. “Is that better?”
“Much.” Garak was still holding his foot with one hand. He waited, and when the Cardassian stroked delicately up the sole he shivered and made no effort to hide his reaction. The smile grew more wicked.
“Do you like that?”
“Yes...” He heard the tremor reach his voice.
“The stockings add a certain... additional dimension to the experience, don’t they?” His other hand joined in the gentle assault, enclosing Bashir’s foot in a cool embrace, then running slowly up over the Human’s slender ankle while he held the foot steady. Bashir looked at him and trembled again, and Garak sighed as if perfectly contented. “Ah, my dear... you really are quite exquisite! Just as I knew you’d be.”
“You planned this from the beginning.” It wasn’t quite an accusation. After all, you couldn’t blame a snake for being a snake.
“Well,” Garak purred, “from the moment you told me about your little forfeit, anyway.”
[To Be Continued, if it amuses me to do so...]