Archive of Our Own

Julian arrived first for lunch, and sat fiddling with a padd puzzle Jadzia had given him. It was an enigmatic one where you first had to deduce what the rules of the puzzle were before you could begin to solve it, and he was pretty much just poking around with trial and error at the moment. He thought he was on to something, though, and was quite engrossed when he felt a firm hand squeeze his shoulder.

'Oh, hallo,' he said, looking up with a smile. 'I was wondering when you'd get here.'

'I had a very tricky customer,' Garak explained, taking the seat opposite him. 'Nothing was quite right for him. First my measurements must be wrong, because he knew for a fact his waist was smaller than that; then all my suggestions about style were hopelessly inappropriate for what he had in mind, but never quite explained to me.'

'He should just have done what I do, and let you invent something to suit.'

'Ah, but you trust me, doctor. And to be fair, you are somewhat easier to design for than this customer. Clothes hang well on you. He was... an awkward shape.'

'I can't help thinking you should have some sort of oath of confidentiality regarding what goes on in your fitting room.'

'You'll note that I have not revealed the gentleman's name. Or really any identifying details.'

'But every awkwardly-shaped man I see for the rest of the day, I'll be wondering if he's the one.' Julian half-rose from the table. 'Will you have your usual? I can get the food while you rest from your labours.'

'That's very kind.' Garak leaned his chair back slightly, watching Julian go, observing that he stopped to chat to a dabo girl who was clearly very keen on him. She didn't keep him for long, though, and he was soon back with a warm smile and two plates.

'I see you are not having your usual today.'

'I'm trying to expand my palate. It occurred to me the other day that I love trying alien food, but there are so many dishes from Earth that I've never even tried.'

'So that is...?'

'Poisson cru. Raw fish "cooked" with lime juice and done up with vegetables and coconut milk - it's a Polynesian speciality. Tahitian, I think. Mm! All right, this can go into regular rotation.'

'And Polynesia is...'

'A scattering of islands in the Pacific Ocean. Actually, I think the name means "many islands." There are some lovely places to go for a holiday - blue sea, white beaches, tropical forests, that type of thing.'

'That's a remarkable coincidence,' Garak said, leaning forward slightly and adopting a conspiratorial tone.

'What do you mean?'

'Well, I'm about to take a holiday myself, my first in many years. And I intend to go to a place where there are many islands, with blue sea, white beaches and tropical forests. Not on Earth, though; I doubt I would feel particularly comfortable there.'

'Where, then? I've got a bit of leave due but I can't make up my mind where to go.'

'A small planet in the Union called Amaya. They say it was really just annexed so that the senior Guls would have a nice place for their holiday homes. It's disputed these days, the usual clamouring for independence, and they've just had a rather nasty tsunami that devastated a lot of the little low-lying islands.'

'It seems a bit tasteless to go there on holiday just now.'

'Actually, they want tourists. They need to rebuild their economy. If everyone stays away out of some misguided notion of tact, it's only going to get worse. I saw the opportunity and thought, why not? In fact, why don't you come too? I'm sure you would like it. The climate is wonderful.'

'So of course I said yes,' Julian reported triumphantly to O'Brien.

'Of course?' O'Brien repeated doubtfully. 'Can you move over a bit? You're right in my light.' He bent back to the innards of the replicator he was repairing.

'Yes! Because it's so obvious what he's trying to do.'

'I suppose so. Can you at least hold the torch if you're going to stand there? That's better.'

'Amaya is politically unstable and this tsunami business may act as the catalyst for further unrest, which could have some profound effect on the Cardassian Union, given the likelihood of high-ranking officials being there at their holiday homes. There's something there he wants me to see, perhaps something that's coming to a head. It's just like that whole fitting-me-for-a-suit ruse. Oh, he plays a deep game. I think he'd be rather hurt if I let on that it's so obvious to me.' He folded his arms in satisfaction, remembered the torch, and held it up again quickly.

'You think?' O'Brien said, squinting at a small burnt-smelling object he had removed from the machinery. 'I suppose you know him best.'

'Better than he thinks, I suspect. Shall I send you a postcard?'

'You can if you like. You're only going for a week, though, right? So I won't really have time to miss you.' He discarded the object and fitted a replacement with a click, then closed up the access panel.

'A-ha! So if I were gone for longer, you would miss me!' Julian beamed.

'Now I never said that,' O'Brien objected, getting to his feet and closing his toolkit.

'You strongly implied it!' Julian wagged his finger in O'Brien's face triumphantly.

'I won't miss you trying to trap me into saying I'll miss you. Eejit.'

The first day

From the moment they disembarked from the passenger ship, the heat was intense, and by the time they had made their transporter connection and materialised on the beach of a shaggy little islet, Julian was finding it quite oppressive.

'Isn't it wonderful?' Garak remarked happily, taking a deep breath and looking around him. 'I can feel the warmth soaking into my bones. Not as scenic as Cardassia Prime, of course, but quite pretty.' The island was just a large bump of white-gold sand sticking out of a calm, vividly blue ocean, which sparkled in reflection of the blazing white sun. At its crown it was thicketed with a tangle of bushes and vines, a few palm-like trees sticking up above the jumble of green and the reds, yellows and purples of tropical flowers. A little way below that was a small wooden A-frame house on stilts, its front verandah invitingly set with canvas chairs. A path extended down the hillside to the beach where they stood, Garak beaming and Julian swaying slightly. The sun seemed to be beating down on him and up at him, reflected off the sand, simultaneously, and his head was swimming. He felt a sudden lurch.

The next thing he was sure about was opening his eyes in a shady room, because Garak had put a cold, wet cloth on his forehead. He was lying on a padded mat on the floor, and felt blessedly cooler, mostly because he was only wearing his underpants. It felt as if his body could breathe again; perspiration was drying on his skin.

'What happened?'

'I'm afraid you succumbed to the heat, dear doctor. However smart you look in your uniform, black wool gabardine may not have been the best choice for the trip.' Garak was sitting beside him, cross-legged. In a minor concession to the climate, he had taken off his jacket.

'My desert-dwelling ancestors want to disown me,' Julian mumbled, sitting up and wiping the cloth over his face. 'It just came on so suddenly. Going from a climate-controlled ship to that was a bit of a shock to the system.'

'Have a drink of water.'

'Thanks.' He sipped at the glass Garak offered. 'That's better. My hair's full of sand, isn't it?'

'Yes, but you wear it well.'

'I think I'd better go and change.'

'Your bedroom is just through there. Do you need a hand to get up? There you are.'

'Thanks, Garak.' Julian smiled sheepishly. 'I don't think I'll do any more collapsing while we're here.'

'Well, if you do, I'll be close at hand.' Garak watched him go, making sure he was steady on his feet, then tidied away the cloth and the glass in the small kitchen. He had just settled on one of the floor pillows with a cold, sparkling drink when Julian emerged from his room.

'Is that what you're wearing?' he asked, startled into speaking quite spontaneously.

Julian looked down at himself. 'Yes. These are my holiday clothes.'

'For when you go to a resort for the blind?'

'They're cheerful!'

'I feel almost personally hurt by those trousers.'

'They're no worse than that top that makes you look like a watermelon.'

'Which I have discarded. As you should discard that appalling tank top.'

'What's wrong with my tank top?' Julian asked plaintively, plucking at the front of it.

'The colours, the shape and the fabric. I haven't yet inspected the workmanship.'

'Well, I don't think you'll think much of the rest of my wardrobe.'

'In any case, you're still clearly too warm. Your face is red.'

'My face may be red because you're making fun of my favourite beach trousers.'

'Believe me, I find nothing fun about those trousers. Will you do me a great favour and wear something I choose for you?'

'If it makes you happy.'

'It will.' He got up, giving Julian the drink to hold, went to his own room and returned a minute later, bearing a sort of soft off-white tunic. 'Wear that.'

'Where's the bottom of it?' Julian asked curiously.

'Wear your swimming trunks - I just checked and they're tolerable.'

'But you went into your room, not mine.'

'We both have doors into the bathroom. Do forgive the intrusion.'

'Very well, then - strictly to please you, I'll change. But this means you have to put up with seeing my legs,' Julian said warningly.

'What's wrong with your legs?'

'Well, they're skinny. I've been told I look like a baby giraffe. Though apparently I compensate by also having the eyelashes of a baby giraffe.'

'Without ever having seen a giraffe, I'm afraid I'm no judge.'

'Just a tick.' Julian handed back the drink and went off to his room with the tunic, emerging in that and the trunks, bearing a padd. 'There. Picture of a baby giraffe.'

'What a wonderful pattern on its coat. And yes, I suppose I can see a resemblance - but it's not a bad-looking animal, doctor. You needn't be self-conscious on that account.'

'You think?' Julian asked, looking down at his knees.

'I find your legs completely acceptable.'

'I do feel a lot cooler in this, even though it has sleeves.'

'Special adaptive fabric - it thermoregulates. I had a sample from the manufacturer, and I think I'll be ordering more.'

'Could you make me pyjamas out of this? I do tend to overheat in bed.'

'Certainly. Now that you look so much better, I believe I'll change and sunbathe.'

Changing just meant stripping down to his own trunks, which he had had on under his clothes, and sunbathing meant lying down directly in the hot sand of the beach. After gingerly setting foot on the sand, Julian went back up to the house and dragged down the padded mat so he could lie beside Garak and read his book without burning on both sides.

'You're basking,' he remarked after a few minutes.

'Precisely,' Garak said contentedly, his eyes closed and a smile curling the corners of his mouth. 'Do you know how good this feels, after that dark, chilly station?' He laced his hands behind his head as he lay on his back. 'The idea is to fill myself entirely with sun. I want to store it under my skin like fat, so that I can gradually consume it when we go back.'

'What a lovely idea. Subcutaneous sunshine. Do you ever get sunburned?'

'That's not an infirmity my people have to live with.'

'I generally just get browner, as if I've been toasted.'

'Mm.' Garak rolled over to sun his broad back, resting his forehead on his hands now.

'Do tell me if I'm boring you.'

'Not at all. Tell me about your book.'

'O'Brien recommended this one - The Killing Floor by Lee Child. I quite like it so far. It's set in the 1990s, and a former military policeman is travelling through America like a drifter, when he stumbles upon something very fishy in a small town in Virginia.'

'A floor that kills people, perhaps?'

'Even fishier than that, I think. Do you want it after me?'

'Once I finish my annual rereading of The Neverending Sacrifice, certainly.'

'I used to have a friend who did that with The Lord of the Rings. He could recite all the poems in it. Though I suppose that's only one of the seminal texts of your culture if you happen to be a hobbit.'

'Which planet do hobbits come from?'

'Earth - well, Middle-Earth - strictly speaking they're mythical.'

'A mythical culture?'

'Yes, this professor of philology at Oxford University wasn't content with the real languages of Earth, so he invented them for beings from existing mythology like elves and dwarves and hobbits and so on, and from those derived imaginary cultures and wrote great fat books about the history of these races. They're among our great classics.'

'I rather fail to see the point.'

'Well, most people identify with the hobbits. They have to leave their safe, self-contained little land, the Shire, and go on a dangerous quest into the wider world. I'm sure you can see how people draw analogies between that and our exploration of space. When we encountered the Vulcans and they turned out to look rather similar to how we've always imagined elves, willowy and mystical with pointy ears, there was a lot of excitement, and then when the Klingons came along some people tried to say they were like orcs, which I've always thought was rather unfair... I think they're more like the Riders of Rohan.'

'Is it a roman à clef sort of thing?'

'No, it was written early in the twentieth century, long before first contact. People tried to make it out to be an allegory for World War II and the atom bomb, but as Tolkien pointed out, he'd worked out the plot years before any of that happened. He said people were welcome to see parallels but he hadn't intended any of it as direct allegory.'

'I suppose it's the mark of a great story that people are still seeing relevant parallels centuries later.' Garak rolled over again.

'Exactly. Although don't mention the elves to a Vulcan - for some reason it really annoys them. Garak?'

'Yes?'

'You're all sandy.'

'I'll have a swim later and rinse it off.'

'I could brush you off.'

'If you like.' Garak made a point of breathing slowly and deeply, enjoying both the red light of the sun through his eyelids and the light, warm touch of Julian's hand on his chest and stomach - not really a caress, since he was flicking away the clinging sand fairly briskly, but still very pleasant.

'I think I'll go for a swim now,' he heard Julian say, and felt the scuff and thump in the sand as he pushed himself to his feet. 'Are you coming?'

'A little more sunbathing before I attempt sea-bathing, I think.' He could feel Julian's shadow falling across him, too, allowing him to judge just where he was standing; if he put his hand out now he could touch his ankle.

'Well, join me if you hear yourself start to sizzle.' Julian walked away, the sand so clean it squeaked as his feet scuffed through it. At the water's edge, where transparent wavelets softly rushed in and out, he pulled the tunic off over his head and threw it back over his shoulder, wading in to where the water began to tinge blue as the sand dropped away. He dropped forward and swam breast-stroke a few metres out, then ducked his head under and opened his eyes. The water was blissfully cool under a sun-warmed upper layer, and so clear that, if it weren't for the rippling light-shadows on his arms and the blueness in the distance, it would have looked like being suspended in air. The taste was only very faintly salty, although there was some other mineral taste that he couldn't quite place. He dove down and picked up an empty shell from the bottom, returning to the surface with a childish sense of achievement. It was quite a pretty shell, similar to a scallop but a deep blue-green colour with goldy flecks on its back. It might make a nice souvenir. He would have to ask Garak if it was all right to remove things like shells and stones, or if there were rules like the way you mustn't take volcanic rocks away from Hawaii.

He was a bit puzzled by Garak's choice of accommodations. They seemed so isolated. If he looked around he could see a couple of similar islets some way off, but they would not be an easy swim, and there was no sign of boats or canoes. Still, they could always transport to other places on the planet, and he supposed they would when the time came for whatever Garak had in mind. It seemed that he really did want to spend some time simply relaxing, and that was fine with Julian. He welcomed the rest himself. He rolled onto his back and floated like a starfish, letting his limbs drift in the water, feeling the ripples gently rock him.

And then there was the old question, that he'd never quite been able to answer to his own satisfaction without asking a lot of embarrassing questions of his own: how much did Garak like him and in what way? If he'd had any prior experience of flirtation with men, or perhaps just more experience of Cardassians in general, he might have been able to feel sure and make up his own mind about what he wanted to do about it, but as long as he wasn't sure, he simply wasn't sure, and thinking about it only confused him.

Perhaps that sort of intimate manner was just how Cardassians were with their close friends, like how older Arab men would walk hand in hand and not see anything romantic about it. Every now and then he would try to give Garak an opportunity to tip his hand - touching him just now to brush the sand off, for example - but he never seemed to take it. His skin had felt so hot and dry, like a salamander - the mythical sort that lived in flames, not the real sort that lived in water. To be honest, Julian would have liked to feel it more carefully, to explore the difference in texture between the smooth areas and the scaly ribs, to see if it was softer in places like the underarms or inner thigh. It was impossible not to be curious. It was like wanting to trace where the trails of spots down the sides of Jadzia's neck went. It made him wonder if he had - well, not a fetish, but some sort of predilection for exotic-looking alien people, preferring them over his own species. Perhaps because on some level he recognised it might not be a particularly good idea for him to breed.

He shook away that unpleasant thought as the sound of water rippling and splashing alerted him to Garak's arrival; Julian twisted round and trod water as he swam up.

'Hallo,' he said, smiling.

'Did you have to come out so far, doctor?' Garak asked, treading water in turn. 'I'm not the strongest swimmer. I prefer it when I can put my feet down and touch the bottom.'

'It's all right. If you start to sink, I'll rescue you. And you didn't have to come out and join me, but I'm glad you did.' He found it rather endearing to see Garak literally out of his depth, but braving it for his sake.

'I really came to suggest something,' Garak said, and stopped to spit out water that had lapped into his mouth when he spoke. 'Lunch. I'm hungry now; aren't you?'

'I am a bit, yes.'

'And under the house is a little boat that we can take out to fish for dinner, if you like.'

'Ah, I was wondering about that. "There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats",' Julian quoted. 'And that's from another seminal-ish cultural text, if you happen to be a mole, water rat, badger or toad.'

'I find your people's tradition of anthropomorphic literature quite bizarre.'

'Well, don't write off the whole tradition because you thought Watership Down was weird. That one is allegory.'

'It's about rabbits. How did you ever reconcile eating animals with writing stories about them talking to each other and having visions of the future and believing in gods?'

'It's called double-think - and there's another book I absolutely have to get you to read. But come on, let's go and dry off and see about lunch.'

By the time they returned to their islet with a bucket of interesting-looking pink fish, the sky was shading from blue to violet and a few stars were appearing on the horizon opposite the sunset. Since catching their own food had made them feel very outdoorsy and man-in-the-wild, they built a small fire on the beach and grilled the fish over it, although they did make use of fairly sophisticated kitchen utensils in the process.

'Who's on the other islands?' Julian asked as he picked pinbones out of his share of the fish and wiped them on the side of his plate. 'Other holidaymakers?' He expected to hear that at least one of them was some important Gul's seaside cabin, but Garak only said 'I suppose so' and contentedly poked the fire with a stick.

'Any thoughts about what to do tomorrow?' he asked, further expecting to hear that they were going somewhere where, doubtless, something fishier than their dinner was going on, but again the answer puzzled him.

'I want to sleep in, then spend the day in utter idleness,' Garak said. 'Finish my book and perhaps start one of yours. Soak up the sun and your conversation.'

'That sounds lovely.'

'I think it will be. Thank you for coming with me, my dear doctor. I can't think of anyone I'd rather have.'

'I'm plain, simple Julian on holiday.'

'Then thank you, my dear Julian.'

'Thank you for suggesting it. This really is a beautiful place. And I'm getting used to the heat. It's just lovely and warm in the evening. Doesn't the air feel soft?'

'I hope you won't overheat in bed tonight.'

'Oh, if I do I'll just kick off the covers. It doesn't seem to be buggy at all.'

'Apparently they come out later at night - there are nets over the beds.'

After they turned in, Julian lay under his tent of cloudy white netting thinking about the day, thinking how the tone of Garak's voice had faintly changed when he said 'my dear Julian,' thinking how much he would like to know. He tried to imagine what he would do if he did know, knew for certain that Garak was really attracted to him. Go through the bathroom to his room and see what happened, he supposed.

Weren't you supposed to know what or who you wanted without having to test it out? The thought of actually having sex with another man was both intriguing and hard to wrap his mind around. How did you sort out who was going to do what? How was he supposed to know which part he wanted to do, for that matter? Ask to try both, perhaps. How would it feel to be that close together with another man, to have a hard, angular body pressed up against yours instead of a soft curvy one? Having such a solid, burly sort of person as Garak on top of you or under you? And that hot, dry skin? Garak never seemed to sweat. What would the friction be like? Now, of course, he was getting hard, and did that mean this was what he wanted or just that thinking about sex in general had that effect on him?

Whatever he wanted, masturbating would help him to go to sleep, so he rubbed himself to a quick and lazy climax and rolled over into warm drowsy darkness.

The second day

Julian slept a long time, woke, dozed again, and finally woke properly to the sound of the shower running in the bathroom next door. When he heard the water stop and the stall door open, he called out 'Good morning.'

'Good morning, dear Julian,' Garak's voice came back. 'Sleep well?'

'Yes, thanks.' Dear Julian again. 'Did you?'

'Blissfully. Are you decent?'

'Um, yes,' Julian said hesitantly. He rolled onto his side and pulled the top sheet a bit higher, since he had a touch of morning wood that had been tenting the covers. That seemed a trifle indecent.

The door adjoining the bathroom slid open and Garak stepped through, smiling. All he had on was a towel around his hips, which actually covered slightly more than his trunks since the lower hem hung down to his knees, but it seemed closer to naked to Julian, and he felt his face grow warm. He hoped that would just look like a flush from lying in a warm bed on a warm morning.

Garak sat down on the side of the bed, perched with one foot on the floor and the other leg crooked up on the mattress, pushing back the mosquito net to look in. 'Do you have those books you mentioned? I sat up late reading and finished the Sacrifice, and I'm ready for something fresh.'

'I've got some of them in my padd reader, yes - the Tolkiens. Did you want them right now?'

'Oh, there's no rush. What do you want for breakfast?'

'I don't know. Do you think the replicator in the kitchen does a full English?'

'Very unlikely. They're programmed with Cardassian tourists in mind. Shall I choose something I think you'd like?'

'All right. I trust you.'

'And while I see about breakfast, you can dash through the shower. Your hair is... striking this morning.'

'I can feel it's gone all crispy. That'll be the seawater.' Julian pushed his fingers into his hair and found that they got snagged. 'Are you going to get the breakfast, then?'

'Are you in a hurry?'

'I was warm in the night and took off my pyjamas. So...' He made a walking-away gesture with two fingers.

'Then whyever did you tell me you were decent?' Garak asked with feigned astonishment. 'I'd better go.' He got up and strolled back through the bathroom door.

'Sorry,' Julian called after him. The truth was he still had his pyjama bottoms on, but he was also still embarrassingly hard and the towel had not helped matters, particularly the way the overlap had split over Garak's thigh and made him remember he'd been wondering about the texture of the skin there. It had changed from the sort of morning erection that could be alleviated by a pee to one that required a wank, so he took care of it in the shower, feeling stupid and embarrassed and yet slightly anticipatory.

He got dressed in the mysteriously cooling shirt and trunks again and wandered out to the kitchen, where breakfast was on the table, or at least on a tray on the floor between cushions.

They spent the morning lying on the sand (at least, the sand and a mat) reading and absorbing the sun, intermittently getting up to swim or wade. The heat made Julian feel languid and drowsy, and he sometimes fell into a doze over his book, waking up to realise he had 'read' a few pages without understanding what had happened to Jack Reacher at all. Lots of punching, evidently. He shed his shirt and lay in his trunks, trying to think whether this counted as making a move, and if it didn't, what kind of move he wanted to make. The usual principles just didn't seem to apply.

Garak was working his way through the early chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring, with apparent interest but occasional sarcastic comments when Julian asked him about it. 'I like a hot bath as much as the next man but I think this Pippin person goes a little too far in singing about them.'

'Oh... Pippin was my favourite.'

'I don't really know what I'm learning about human culture from this... perhaps I should just try Shakespeare again.'

'I didn't know you'd tried him in the first place.'

'I thought he was a Klingon author at first, so I didn't bother. Then I read Romeo & Juliet.'

'Ah! What did you think?'

'If they had just listened to their parents, there needn't have been a tragedy at all.'

'Most people wish the parents had listened to their children.'

'How could they, when the little wretches only lied and kept secrets from them? And poor Paris! Dutiful in every way, keeping a vigil for the girl he would have married, and Romeo murders him. Is that fair?'

'All right, I feel sorry for Paris. And Mercutio.'

'Well, Mercutio should have known better in some ways. I don't understand why he puts up with Romeo.'

'Really? Because many critics argue that he's in love with Romeo.' Julian felt a flutter in his stomach as he raised that point.

'Then why doesn't he do anything about it?'

'I don't know,' Julian said carefully. 'Why doesn't he?'

'I just asked you, my dear.'

'Well. Realistically. The time and the place. The dominant religion in Renaissance Italy was Roman Catholicism, which considered homosexuality a terrible sin. If you felt that way you had to be extremely discreet about it. And since Romeo was clearly only interested in girls, there would have been no point in bringing it up anyway.'

'Which do you think was the real reason? The danger, or the fact that it wouldn't have got him anywhere?'

'Perhaps he should have tried.'

'You just said there was no point.'

'Well, we don't know that.'

'Make up your mind,' Garak said, laughing at him, though not unkindly. 'You think about it, and while you do I'll see if I can get any further with these ridiculous hobbits.'

'You're nearly up to Tom Bombadil. I think he'll really annoy you,' Julian mumbled, turning his attention back to his own book. Getting my-deared again didn't make up for being stonewalled. He thought he was going to have to make some kind of direct approach, but he felt idiotically shy about that, and stubborn besides because it didn't seem as if it should be his job to clear this up. If only Garak were a woman, because he felt perfectly all right making advances to a woman; but if he had been a woman, probably their relationship would have gone that way ages ago instead of staying nebulous so long. He tried to imagine a lady version of Garak but came up blank; he just seemed too solidly masculine.

He slid his eyes sideways, taking a surreptitious look at the man beside him, the rather stocky body. Garak always gave him the impression of square, compact strength, everything in contrast to his own shape. Broad deep chest, thick but firm waist, sturdy legs. If he was going to seriously admit the possibility that he was feeling attracted to a man he would need to acknowledge that his bum wasn't bad either. He tried to concentrate on his book again, so he didn't have to think too much about that, and succeeded in putting himself to sleep.

He woke up with the padd reader under his cheek, glued there with sweat, and a fiercely dry mouth. Garak seemed to have temporarily given up on high fantasy and was rather fondly watching him sleep.

'Somehow we have to get you acclimated to the heat,' he said. 'You look flushed all the time.'

'Ugh,' Julian agreed.

'Have some water,' Garak suggested, offering him a bottle.

'Thanks.' He drank deeply and felt slightly better.

'You don't have to stay out here with me, you know. You could stay in the house where it's shady.'

'What's the point of going on holiday together if you're not together?' He sat up and poured some water from the bottle on top of his head, then finger-combed it through his hair. 'There, that'll help. Evaporation.'

'Ah, so the secret is to keep sponging you down.'

'I've just remembered something,' Julian said, shifting to sit cross-legged and pile the sand in front of him together, making a little hill.

'A way to keep cool?'

'No, something about Romeo and Juliet. I think my English teacher must have said it when we read the play at school. There's some sort of cosmic rule that everyone has to read Romeo and Juliet when they're fourteen because English teachers think it will be relevant. Anyway, she touched on the same point you did - you thought they should have listened to their parents? Well, Shakespeare didn't often write plays with original plots. He mostly did adaptations of existing stories. And in all the earlier versions of R and J, that was the authors' attitude - that the cause of the tragedy was the kids being so rash and impulsive and not listening to their parents. Not that the parents' judgement was perfect, mind you, since they'd been carrying on this destructive feud for years... but Shakespeare's version was the first to take the more romantic view that they should have been able to be together.'

'Now, that's very interesting.'

'According to Miss Barnes of Form 4A, anyway.'

'Perhaps humans used to be a bit more like Cardassians in some ways.'

'I think we did, but the thing is, we've got more and more individualistic and I suppose romantic in our views.'

'And less dutiful and filial.'

'But to our credit, less likely to have bloody family feuds so nobody else in Verona feels safe. We went there on a class trip after we read the play. You can still see the house where Juliet supposedly lived, with the balcony. And there's a bronze statue of her, and people rub its breasts for luck.'

'That's terrible! The poor girl.' Garak gave a mock-scandalised laugh.

'I know, but the rest of the statue is brown with oxidisation and the breasts are always bright brassy yellow from all the rubbing. It used to be just one of them, but it started to wear away so people tried to even them up. I am sorry to admit I gave them a squeeze myself. If I'm lucky, perhaps that's why.'

'Indeed?'

'And my girlfriend-of-the-time Meena and I wrote our initials in a heart when the teacher wasn't looking - the archway into the courtyard is completely encrusted with lovers' graffiti centuries old. Meena brought a special poster-paint pen so it would show up over the rest. She was a clever girl; always had good ideas. So if it hasn't faded or flaked or just been worn off, there's still a little heart there in Verona with "JB & MS" inside it.'

'Breast-groping and vandalism. How romantic.'

'I got to feel Meena's breasts later, too, which made me feel very lucky.'

'I'm not at all sure I should be hearing this.'

'Oh, it's all long, long ago now, and Meena is happily married to a very nice graphic designer. I haven't thought of her or her breasts for years.' Julian was speaking lightly while making an earnest effort to determine whether Garak seemed to be even vaguely retroactively jealous. 'I mean, who was your first girlfriend - or boyfriend?'

Garak gave him a sharp look. 'I didn't have either until I was quite a lot older than that, because I was too busy.'

'But then?'

'But then, I think the least I owe them is my discretion.'

'Well, if it's a matter of principle, I won't press.' He decided to push his luck. 'And is there anyone now?'

'What do you think?'

'Well, you're quite a private person. I don't know.'

'Don't you?' Garak said with a faint smile. 'You disappoint me.'

'I think I could take a guess,' Julian said, suddenly wishing very much that he could backpedal, 'but what if I'm wrong? Could be embarrassing.'

'True. Perhaps you should give it a little more thought. Just to be sure.'

'All right. I'm going for a swim - I've baked long enough. Are you coming?' He got up and dusted sand off his trunks.

'I'd like to bake just a little longer.' Garak rolled onto his front and stretched out.

Julian swam out a long way thinking that one over. All right, it was a pretty clear invitation, but one that made it clear Garak wasn't going to take the matter out of his hands. If he wanted something, he needed to ask for it, which made him feel acutely awkward and shy. To be honest, he wouldn't even be giving it this much thought if he didn't want to at least try it out.

'But what do I do?' he asked the sky. 'Try to walk out of the water looking sexy like Ursula Andress?' At least he made himself laugh with that idea, and he supposed it was funny that he was so stuck. So much of his repertoire revolved around getting-to-know-you and telling-you-about-me, with an emphasis on looking impressive. He simply couldn't use that on Garak. He imagined holding his hands and telling him the Starfleet Medical finals story in his best warm, sweet courting voice, and it was just ridiculous. He would just have to wait for a good moment, and try something much simpler.

If he had attempted to look special while coming out of the water, it would have been a wasted effort; Garak had gone back up to the house, where he found him having a drink.

'Ah, so even you can have enough of the heat.'

'It's possible to have too much of a good thing. You seem to be dripping.'

'I do, don't I. How long did I sleep, by the way?'

'Two or three hours. I don't think that's just the heat - you must be tired.'

'I have, possibly, been working a bit hard lately. It's always nice to catch up on sleep. However, you don't get to enjoy my conversation when I do that, so I feel like a bit of a bad guest.'

'Then let's converse. A drink for you first - Tarkalean tea, iced, extra sweet,' he told the replicator, and handed Julian the resultant glass, condensation already beading on its sides. 'Please. Sit. Tell me something interesting to beguile the time and earn your keep.' He made himself comfortable on one of the floor cushions and smiled up at Julian, what Julian thought of as his special bland plain-simple-Garak smile, and therefore the most dishonest expression ever to cross a humanoid face.

'Something interesting?' Julian repeated, sitting down beside him. 'You know, next to "say something," "say something interesting" is probably the most stumping thing you can say to a person.'

'Is this Julian Bashir at a loss for words?'

'Never. Ahem. Something interesting.' He cleared his throat again, frowned and grimaced. 'Nothing's coming. Good tea, though.'

'Now how will you earn your keep?'

'I could try to look decorative.'

'You don't have to try.'

'Oh, thank you!' Julian stretched out on his side, propping his head up on his hand, starting to enjoy the attention, even while it sent nervous flutters through his stomach. He sipped his drink again to buy time, trying frantically to think if there was something really clever or flirty he could say here. 'Then I'll provide decoration until I think of something interesting to say.'

'Decoration may not be enough to justify your presence.' Garak reached out and brushed Julian's damp hair back from his forehead. 'If I only wanted something pretty to look at, I would have brought some art along.' His fingertips traced around Julian's air and along his jaw to his chin.

'Oh, um, well, if you want to touch as well as look...' Julian faltered, half-smiling.

'I thought I would.' His fingertips brushed down the line of Julian's throat and into the notch of his collarbone, hesitating a moment before gliding over his chest. 'I have to ask you.'

'Yes?' Julian asked, trying not to quiver too visibly.

'Why do you have nipples? They seem so pointless on a man.'

'They're - they're redundant, it's got to do with our foetal development, and - is this the moment?'

'Is it lucky to rub them?'

'It's lucky for me.' Julian bit his lower lip. 'You know, it's customary to kiss someone before you try that.'

'They're just so strange and fascinating.'

'They're not strange, you just haven't got them.'

'Will you feel better if I do kiss you?'

'Much.'

The kiss, when it came, was far lighter than he was expecting, very warm, the sun's heat still radiating from Garak's skin, and Garak pulled back before Julian was quite ready for it to be over, drawing a little disappointed sigh out of him.

'Not enough?'

'Not quite.'

'Show me what you'd like, then.'

'Like this.' A deeper, softer kiss, parting his lips just slightly as an invitation.

'Just like that?'

'And stop hunching over like a frog and lie down with me.' Julian laced his arms round Garak's shoulders, pulling him in, feeling awkwardly as if he was trying to be the girl, but loving the feeling of hot dry lips and warm wet tongue stealing into his mouth, a faint grunt in Garak's throat as he settled beside him and wrapped a thick arm tight around his waist, a knee pushing between his thighs and a hand firmly grabbing behind his knee and pulling his leg up over Garak's hip.

'Mmm...'

'Shh...'

'No,' Julian said with a faint smirk. 'No, I won't shh, you know me better than that.' But he kissed Garak again, giving himself up to it completely, their tongues surging together, breathing rapidly against Garak's cheek, sliding his fingers into his sleek hair and feeling the deep dry heat of his chest, his belly, his thighs up against his own. It was like lying on a hot rock that came to life and groped you. Garak rolled onto his back, pulling him on top, sliding his hands down Julian's back and inside the waistband of his trunks, cupping and squeezing.

'I knew,' Garak mumbled, 'I knew you would make two perfect handfuls.'

'You measured me up with your eyes?'

'Tailor's habit.'

'Right.' Julian smiled and helped himself to another kiss, shifting his hips against Garak's, feeling heat rush into his cock, stretching and stiffening. 'My wonderful tailor.'

'I am a good tailor.' Garak rolled again, putting Julian on his back, gently pinning him and lifting his arms over his head. Holding his wrists, he kissed him deeply, greedily, sucking his tongue into his mouth. 'Do you know what I'm going to do to you?'

'In general terms.'

'Your lips are getting so red.' He traced Julian's lower lip with his tonguetip, drew it into his mouth, sucked and gently bit.

'Ah!'

'Do any other parts of you change colour?'

'Don't make fun of me.'

'Shh.' Mouth on his, tongue fighting with his, hands fumbling his trunks down, rough sucking kisses descending over his neck, chest, stomach. Julian could only close his eyes and try to breathe, feeling deep waves of warmth rolling through him. Garak had to let go his hands as he went lower, and Julian reached for his shoulders, gripping the ridges.

'Careful - don't pinch,' Garak said, lifting his head. 'Rub, yes, pinch, no.'

'Does it hurt?'

'No... it just feels... odd. But the look on your face when you were worried about hurting me made up for it.' He moved back up to kiss Julian again, lingering over it. 'You have the most expressive face... I'll need to be able to see how you look when you first feel me inside you.'

'I - I've never actually done that.' The flutters of nervousness were back, because what if it hurt? What if it just didn't work and was awkward and disappointing and messy?

'Not at all?'

'Unless you count one girlfriend who liked to push her finger in when she could see I was close to coming.'

'Did you like that?'

'Well. Yes. It always set me off.'

'Then expect it to be just like that, only longer and thicker. Here.' He took Julian's hand and guided it to feel the bulge in his trunks. 'That's nothing to be afraid of, is it?'

'Garak, that's huge,' Julian said, with a kind of joyful dismay.

'You're just trying to flatter me now.'

'Do I need to cite some comparative statistics about penis size? Because we have that data. Believe me, my people have devoted a lot of research to anything to do with our cocks.'

'You're babbling,' Garak said, with an undercurrent of laughter in his voice. 'But you're also rubbing, so it's all right.'

'You're above average, in any case.'

'How did I get downgraded from "huge"?'

'Can I see it?'

'Of course you can. Just take it out. I hope you like it.'

It was long and thick and somewhat club-shaped, the head graphite-grey and releasing a steady drizzle of clear fluid. 'Oh - you even have ridges here.'

'How do you do without them? They hold it up.'

'And you're very wet. Natural lubrication?'

'That's for your benefit. I get the feeling you're looking on this as a learning experience as much as a sexual one.'

'Well, it's so interesting!'

'Promise not to write a paper about it. You have wonderful hands, dear.' Garak closed his eye blissfully.

'I'm just doing what feels good to me.'

'It's perfect, and you're perfect.' Another long, deep, probing kiss, and a warm hand returning the favour, making him gasp and sigh as the sweet heat grew in his belly and groin.

'Oh... ooh...' This was almost too much, it felt weirdly like the first time ever, wildly over-excited and breathless. He didn't want to come that quickly, particularly given that there was no longer a 'teen' in his age, but it was overwhelming and glorious and giddy.

'Hold still,' Garak said, and made things a hundred times worse and better simultaneously by shifting down and taking him into his mouth. Julian gasped, his hips twitching upward involuntarily, and struggled up onto his elbows to watch.

'Garak...'

'Hmm?'

'Oh God yes, keep doing that.' He sank back, tangling his fingers in Garak's hair.

'Hmmph.'

'Ohh... oh Garak, I can't... I'm going to come.' He was sucked in deeper, and that was all it took, sending him into a spasm of joy. Everything went swirly in his head for a little while, until he was once again aware that he was lying sprawled on the floor, feeling elated and loose-limbed and unable to stop smiling. Garak was leaning over him, watching him with an affectionate smile, and he bent and kissed Julian on the forehead. He reached up to wrap his arms around him, pulling him down into a hug.

'Thank you. Sorry about coming in your mouth.'

'I didn't mind, believe me.'

'You can come in mine as long as you give me fair warning.'

'You blushed saying that.'

'Telling a man he can come in my mouth is a first for me.'

'Are you looking forward to it?'

'Um... yes... I am, and I feel very... happy and weird about it.'

'Can we get into bed first? My knees and elbows have had enough of this floor.'

'All right. But your bed or mine?'

'Mine.'

'You're decisive.'

'I don't want any delays. Get moving, my dear.' Garak got to his feet, grabbed Julian's hand and pulled him up.

'Whoops. Rubber legs. Sorry, this happens.' Julian slung an arm around Garak's shoulder and leaned against him, giggling.

'I'm not carrying you.'

'Aw. All right. Come on, then.' He took Garak's hand, kicked off the wet trunks still hanging from his ankles, and led him into his room, trying to act a little more confident than he now felt. 'Sit down.'

'You look nervous.' Garak put one warm, heavy hand on Julian's head, smoothing back his hair.

'I do?' Julian stopped, kneeling by the bed, feeling foolish. 'I mean, am I doing this wrong, because I hope you'd say something...'

'You're doing everything beautifully, but you have such an open face. You can just about not show everything you're thinking when you're very calm and composed. Right now, there's no chance. If it helps, I'm enjoying it.'

'You have a mean streak.'

'I probably have. Would you be so kind?' Gentle pressure on the back of his head, pulling him in and down, and that great swollen cock looming up in his face. He felt a last-minute flinch of panic, told himself not to be pathetic and opened his mouth. It's easy, you know this, just from the other side, suck, swallow, move your head, use your tongue, don't use your teeth, rub the shaft, oh God I'm doing this, and he's panting and moaning so I must be doing something right, don't forget to breathe, it's so big and hot, oh no no no I don't want to dribble... oh I don't give a fuck if I dribble and I don't think he does either.

The smell of Garak's skin was getting stronger and his hips and thighs were trembling. Julian was surprised to find that, while he thought of this as a pretty submissive thing to do for someone, it made him feel powerful to have this kind of effect. Yes, powerful, on my knees with a big fat cock in my mouth, how about that, and he's stroking my hair and whimpering. Garak is actually whimpering because I'm sucking him off.

'Julian?'

'Mm?'

'Fair warning. Oh.' His mouth was flooded with thick sweetish stuff and Garak slumped back on the bed with a groan. Julian swallowed in self-defence, startled and thrilled and half-humiliated.

'That was not a fair warning,' he managed to say after a moment, 'and why do you taste like melons?' He had to stop and cough and sniff hard, catching his breath.

'Why do you taste like salt?' Garak asked faintly. 'I'll try to tell you sooner next time. Come up here.'

Julian climbed up on the bed beside him and got roughly pulled down into a tight embrace and a wet, lush kiss.

'How do you feel?'

'Sort of proud.'

'Oh, you should. Your technique is a little rough but your instincts are excellent.'

'Thanks awfully.'

'Now there was some strategy behind that,' Garak said, scooting himself back up the bed and pulling Julian along with him.

'Oh, you had a strategy? You surprise me.' Julian flopped down on the pillows and wiped his chin.

'I'm being very considerate, dear Julian. I can see you're nervous and skittish, so I'm breaking you in slowly and gently. I took care of you first, and now you've taken care of me, we can have a pleasant, cosy little rest together. There's no hurry. I will, obviously, have you eventually, but I won't rush you.'

'I do want this, you know.'

'I know you do, my dear. And I know you're nervous because you have always been the ladies' man, the Romeo, and this doesn't feel quite right to you yet. Soon, I promise, it's going to be second nature. Throw your leg over my hip again. That's right. I love your legs. You have no reason to be shy about them.'

'Oh, thank you. Are you planning to fondle them like that a lot?'

'Definitely. You have a strange, interesting body which I intend to explore thoroughly.'

'I could say the same to you, though I'm not sure what's so strange about mine.'

'All this hair.' He tweaked a hair on Julian's thigh.

'Not unusual on a mammal, and I'm not even really hairy.'

'Nipples.'

'Ditto. Something of a defining feature. Ow. Rub, don't pinch, remember.'

'But look how they stiffen up when I do. They're sweet. So eager. What do they want, do you think?'

'Gentle - I said gentle attention.'

'The little circles are puffing up too.'

'Areolae.'

'That's a pretty word.'

'It means "small areas". You can't leave them alone, can you?'

'Not really, and now I'm going to kiss them.'

'Umph. Oh... good, you can be gentle.'

'I am always gentle, except when it's better to be rough.'

'And you always know which is which?'

'Always. You should trust me, my dear. I'd never really hurt you.'

'Except in fun?'

'Well. Sometimes it is fun. A pinch here, a nip there... you'd like it really.'

'I'm not actually a virgin, Garak. That is not entirely a new concept to me.'

'In one important way you are, and I get to change that. I consider it a privilege.' Garak stroked Julian's cheek, thoughtfully. 'Am I right in thinking you didn't shave this morning?'

'I'm on holiday, and I'm out of uniform. I'm about as far out of uniform as I can get.'

'It's not a criticism. I don't think you should shave at all.'

'I'll get a bit scruffy.'

'You'll get no complaints from me. At least for this little holiday, be scruffy and be mine.'

'All right, you talked me into it. I'm still having a shower every day though.'

'Actually, some days you're having a bath, because I prefer it.'

'My dear Garak, you are becoming a trifle dictatorial.'

'More than a trifle.'

'What are you going to do if I defy you?'

'I don't know. I always think the most effective punishment is to withhold affection and attention, but that punishes me as well as you.'

'Let's not even think in those terms, when this is so mutually rewarding.' Julian wrapped his arms tighter around Garak's shoulders and kissed him to make his point. Desire was welling up in him again, and he was sure now that he liked the press of a male body against his, especially Garak's slight burliness, the bulk of him as he rolled on top of him, although he was enough of a gentleman to take some of his weight on his arms. He was starting to get the impression that Garak needed to be fairly dominant to feel comfortable, which was oddly endearing.

All right then, he'd surrender, he'd wrap his legs around Garak's hips and suck at his tongue and not worry if the little pleasure-noises he made tended to get high-pitched and embarrassing. As they moved together he could feel Garak's erection nudging at him, smearing him with its slippery wetness, and his stomach tightened with nervousness even while it fluttered with eagerness.

'All right,' Garak said hoarsely, 'roll over and I'll make you ready.' Julian obeyed and felt warm, kneading hands on his back, a hungry, sucking mouth at the nape of his neck, both travelling down his spine and making him shiver and gasp. By the time Garak got down to his buttocks he was whimpering and wondering if he would actually have to bite a pillow. The feeling of a tongue sliding down between them was almost too strange for him, but he told himself I want this, I want him and hitched his knee up to make it easier. The warm wet slide became a ticklish flicker, passing up and down the cleft, making him catch his breath and bite his lip.

I hope I'm clean - I mean I was just swimming, I should be okay - oh is he really, yes he's really, oh fuckthat feels good, why does something so, oh yes.

It was probably a good thing he'd given himself permission to make stupid noises, or he would feel awful about all this gasping and mewling and almost whinnying. Garak's tongue was fully inside him and pulsing in and out and the heat of it was almost unbearable. Then it slipped out and he was acutely aware of how empty he was.

'Oh... oh, why'd you stop?'

'You're ready. Roll over.'

'Again? But...'

'I told you I needed to see your face.'

'I don't really know how to...'

'Here, draw up your legs, just your hands, here...'

'Like this?'

'You look so worried, my dear.'

'Well, is it any wonder?'

'You are going to be completely fine. I'll go very slowly and give you time to get used to everything. Just one finger at first. Familiar territory.'

'Except your fingers are thicker than hers. Oh...'

'But look how sweetly it slips in.'

'Can't actually look.'

'I suppose not, but it looks good to me.' He moved his finger, beckoning, and Julian squirmed. 'Now, do you want me to go finger-by-finger or move straight to cock?'

'God, what a question.' Julian swallowed hard. 'Cock, please.'

'Can you say that again, right by my ear?' Garak leaned over him and nuzzled at his neck.

'Stop making fun of me, you bugger.'

'Come on.' Beckoning again, and making him tremble.

'G-give me your cock, please.' A wet kiss on his neck, and the finger sliding out, and the great hot blunt head nudging at his tender opening, pressing, at first seeming to get nowhere and then abruptly slipping in, stretching him within a hair's breadth of real pain and making him pant light-headedly. He realised Garak was panting too, shuddering, and knew he was exercising enormous self-control to keep from hurting him, and loved him for it. And it was getting better, the thickest part inside him now, the feeling of increasing fullness blissful and weird and urgent and visceral, and muscles that had seized up in shock relaxing, and a sudden fiery bump against his prostate making him yelp.

'I'm - I'm not hurting, am I?' Garak asked through set teeth.

'No... oh, no...'

'Thank fuck.' He put his head down on Julian's shoulder, shifting his knees, gradually lowering his weight onto him, into him.

Julian felt obscurely shocked to hear Garak swear, then ridiculous for feeling shocked when he was letting the man sink his cock into his bum, then nothing much but idiot pleasure as he began to move within him. Each time he thought Garak couldn't reach any deeper, he drew back a little and surged in further than before, and between the sweet sharp ring of friction around the shaft and the astonishing jolts that went through him with each nudge against his prostate he felt like melting or bursting into stars or just being fucked forever.

He locked his legs around Garak's waist and tried to pull him deeper in, rolling his hips. Garak gave a startled grunt and plunged in hard, kissing Julian's neck again, sucking at his shoulder until the skin burned. Everything was heat and sweat and bliss and the drumming of his blood, the rocking of their bodies together and the overwhelming closeness and pressure and presence of Garak covering him and filling him. There were moments when he thought he could actually come from this, without even touching his penis, if Garak moved just so and he squeezed back just so. He didn't quite get to find out; Garak was thrusting harder and faster, groaning deep in his throat, almost growling, and when he came, he bit Julian's shoulder nearly hard enough to draw blood. He slumped heavily on top of him, his chest and back heaving, hips still moving fitfully.

'Msorry,' he mumbled, after a moment.

'It's all right,' Julian said faintly. 'It was wonderful.' He was still so close, and Garak still felt so hard inside him; he flexed his back a little, hoping to encourage him to rally.

'What do you think I'm made of?' Garak moaned.

'Come on... please... you feel so good... aren't you glad I like it so much?'

'Oh...' Garak pushed himself up and forward, rocking slowly.

'Faster? Please? That's so, so good... ohh...' He arched against Garak, pumping his hips, panting in ecstasy as it all came to a peak, as a great convulsion of delight went through him and a thick spurt of white sprayed his belly.

'Pleased?' Garak asked him, gently lowering his weight again.

'Oh... oh... so... ohhh...'

'Yes?'

'Yeeeeees.'

'Perfect.' A drowsy kiss, and they sank down into sleep.

They slept until early afternoon, tangled together among damp sheets. Julian woke first, feeling fiercely thirsty and very sore about the shoulder, but surprisingly sound everywhere else. He lay forehead to forehead with Garak, thinking absently of a bit he'd read in one of his mother's magazines, when he was a boy looking for some sort of inside gen on how women thought. Couples newly in love were supposed to sleep like this, face to face and intertwined. Couples who had been together a while but still loved each other slept like spoons, while the ones who were out of love slept back to back. He'd slept in all of those ways with different people, and didn't think it was quite as simple as that, but he did feel in love at the moment.

Love or not, the combination of thirst and a very full bladder drove him out of bed. He caught sight of his shoulder in the bathroom mirror as he drank the second of three glasses of water - a chaos of overlapping love-bites, and it looked as if Garak's teeth were sharper than he'd realised, because there were definitely a couple of small punctures, just through the top layer of skin so they hadn't really bled. He felt rather proud of it, but to be on the safe side, went back to his own room, found his medical kit and cranked the dermal regenerator to its top antiseptic setting. He only cleaned it, because he felt a certain mischievous impulse to guilt-trip Garak about chewing on him like that.

When he returned to Garak's room he was still sleeping, although he had rolled onto his back and was sprawled out like a starfish. That was supposed to mean something too - was it that the person was very secure and relaxed, or just that they were more likely to snore if they lay like that for long? Julian nestled in beside him, resting his head on Garak's shoulder and wrapping one leg over him the way he seemed to like. He wasn't sleepy any more, and kept himself amused by tracing exactly where the ridges went, and where the skin was smoothest and softest (inner thigh, underside of the arm, lower belly). Julian thought of how Garak had talked about his open face, and how his own sleeping face was as closed and mysterious as any sphinx's. He wanted him to wake up so he wouldn't seem so remote.

Eventually Garak stirred and opened his eyes, looking at Julian for a moment as if he were not sure what he was doing there. His face melted into a smile of recognition and pleasure, the most unguarded expression Julian had seen on him yet, and he leaned over to kiss him, folding him back into his arms and keeping him very close for a long time, occasionally surfacing for breath before sinking back into the wet velvet of Julian's mouth.

'I wanted to ask you,' Julian breathed.

'Mm?'

'You said you needed to see my face when I felt you inside me. Was it all right?'

'It was exquisite. You have the very best fucked-for-the-first-time face I've ever seen.'

'I've never really used that word much but it seems like the very best for what you did to me.'

'Good. I'm fucking you again tonight.'

'All right... I might just about have recovered from the first time by then, so I'll need topping up.'

'But first, we're having a long bath, because I've been wanting to bathe with you for roughly as long as I've known you.'

‘Oh? Really? Not a hot bath, though... right?’

‘Of course a hot bath.’

‘I’ll melt,’ Julian said piteously. ‘I’ll die of overheating - then won’t you feel guilty? A little? Or at least annoyed that now you have to dispose of a corpse and come up with some plausible explanation of what happened to me?’

‘For you, I will settle for warm.’

‘Lukewarm?’

‘Warm, dear Julian, and don’t argue or I won’t keep doing any of the things you now like so much.’

‘All right, but I’m bringing a cold drink in there with me.’

‘You may.’

Julian got into the bath with great reluctance, but once he was settled, leaning back against Garak’s chest, Garak’s legs on either side of him, he remarked ‘Oh. This is actually quite pleasant. I’m not too hot at all.’

‘You see, dear? You really should trust me more.’

‘Well, I already fainted once from the heat here.’

‘And, knowing your frailty, I will ensure that doesn’t happen again.’ Garak wrapped his arms around Julian’s waist and squeezed him firmly.

‘I’m not frail. I’m very sturdy and durable. You know I have plenty of stamina. It was just too much too quickly.’

‘That’s why I take my time now.’ He smoothed his hands over Julian’s stomach and up over his chest, enjoying their firm contours.

‘Mmm...’ Julian closed his eyes and rested his head on Garak’s shoulder, looking utterly lazy and contented.

‘You’re the colour of honey.’

‘What kind? Because there are many different kinds.’

‘The kind I want to eat.’ Very gently and precisely, he bit Julian on the bruise from their first coupling.

‘Ow.’

‘Delicious.’

‘You’re cruel to me.’

‘Ridiculous. I lavish affection on you.’ He pinched Julian’s nipple, rolling the nub of it between thumb and forefinger, feeling it stiffen. ‘Like now.’

‘Hmm... all right.’

‘Beautiful Julian. Delicate, delicious Julian.’ Another light bite, although this time he was kind enough to do it to flesh that wasn’t already bruised.

‘Oh, so this is how I find out you have an oral fixation.’

‘It’s more of a skin fixation. Your colour really is lovely. And this is one of the things I’ve always found rather fascinatingly weird about humans, your variation. We are very homogeneous. We’re proud of it. We haven’t quite managed to breed out all the little quirks, such as light blue eyes like mine - which I might add are considered a mildly undesirable trait - but we all have nice black hair and nice grey skin and the effect is beautifully harmonious. And then there’s your people, every shade from darkest brown to palest pink, which you bizarrely call black and white. We actually used to be black and white, you know. Interbreeding led to strange mottling and spotted patterns - it took some genetic engineering to produce a blended grey.’

‘I might find you a little less attractive if you looked like a Dalmatian dog or a Friesian cow. But I like your blue eyes.’

‘Ah, you like all my worst qualities, my dear.’ He left that nipple alone for the time being and tried to even up the other one. By the time it was suitably hard the first one had softened a little, and some compensatory twiddling was necessary, which made Julian laugh and wriggle.

‘Control yourself,’ Garak murmured, resting his chin on Julian’s shoulder.

‘I can’t. And I don’t want to. I’m getting so hard - won’t you rub that instead?’

‘Mmm. No. I haven’t finished here.’

‘I’ll rub it myself.’

‘Feel free.’

‘Oh? I’m surprised you don’t forbid it.’

‘I want to watch you do it.’

‘Right you are.’ He nestled back against Garak’s shoulder as he wrapped his hand around his cock, gently tugging up and down the shaft.

‘I suspect you do that a great deal.’

‘What if I do? I have needs. Quite a lot of needs, actually.’

‘I know, dear. Shall I help you with that?’

‘Feel free.’ Julian gladly handed over to him and sank back with a sigh.

‘I can’t really decide whether you’re somewhat submissive or just lazy.’

‘I’m neither. It just feels nicer to have you do it for me. You have such clever hands. Ooh... just a little bit quicker, please.’

‘Better?’

‘Almost perfect.’

‘I’m interested to note that you’re greedy. I don’t say selfish, because you’re also generous, but sexually, very greedy.’

‘Well, I think greedy and generous is a good combination.’ Julian caught his breath and bit his lip. ‘And you know you need to be very very gentle if you’re going to play with my balls...’

‘Again, dear, I know. I will handle them like the fragile treasures they are, and allow no harm to come to them.’

‘Not fragile... just... ohh... just tender.’

‘And oddly furry.’

‘Not oddly at all. Don’t make fun of my body just because it’s different from yours.’

‘All right then. Endearingly furry.’ He cupped and rolled them. ‘Is it normal for one to ride lower than the other?’

‘Completely and totally. You’re the weirdly symmetrical one.’

‘Weirdly?’

‘Charmingly. Ohh...’

‘Thank you. And your cock is beautiful, you know. I especially like this upward arch it has. It looks eager, don’t you think?’

‘It is, it is.’

‘The head reminds me of a plum.’

‘Are you going to decide every individual bit of me is like something to eat?’

‘Probably not. I’m simply trying to be complimentary - but perhaps you don’t like that?’

‘I’m sorry. I should say more nice things to you, really, shouldn’t I? Like the first time you came over and talked to me, you put your hands on my shoulders and my stomach did a flip.’

‘Is that a nice thing?’

‘And the whole time you were talking to me I didn’t know what to do with my hands or my face and I didn’t understand why I felt that way at the time, I thought it was just because I thought you were a spy and fascinating and dangerous and strange... but of course I was attracted to you. It just... didn’t make sense to me yet. I sort of wanted you to touch me again.’

‘You weren’t quite ready, though. So I’ve just bided my time.’

‘And now I’m completely ready.’

‘What for?’

‘Absolutely anything you decide to do.’

'Wonderful. Get up, dear.'

'Back to bed?' Julian asked, getting up with a great enthusiastic slosh of water.

'Not quite yet. Sit here.' The bath was set into a tiled alcove, with flat ledges on three sides, where you were supposed to put your towels or sponge or bath oil, but where you could equally well put your Julian, warm and slick and compliant, and kneel in front of him and suck his lovely stiff prick while he gasped and moaned and very mildly blasphemed, and twined his fingers around in your hair.

The taste of him, even freshly bathed, was distinct and sharp, all earthy things, Earthy things like salt and onions and cinnamon. His come was sharp and slightly bitter, astringent on the tongue, and he rolled it around his mouth to taste it fully before swallowing. Julian was relaxed now, his head lolling back against the tiled wall, eyes half-closed and a blissful smile curling the corners of his mouth.

'I'm going to be very happy with you, aren't I?' he murmured.

'You seem to be,' Garak agreed, getting to his feet and bracing one arm against the wall above Julian's head. 'My turn, dear.' He gently tapped the head of his cock on the end of Julian's nose, making those drowsy eyes pop open.

'I want to get better at this,' Julian said, wrapping his hand around the shaft. 'So tell me what feels good, won't you? Talk to me.' He kissed the tip softly, gazing up at Garak, wide upturned eyes making all kinds of sweet promises.

'All right... you use your tongue very, very well.' Garak stroked Julian's jawline, lifting his chin a little. 'I feel your teeth slightly more often than I'd like - don't misunderstand, I do like to feel them a little. So open wider... good... and press with your lips, keep them between me and your teeth... just like that. A good... good tight seal. Oh, Julian.' He could have purred, and those wonderful eyes were still fixed on his, Julian's desire and the last sweet residue of shame swirling together in their dark centres. 'Good boy.'

He sank his free hand into Julian's hair, rubbing over the crown of his head and down to cup at the back, cradling the hard curve of his skull, wondering at how beautifully made he was, as fragile and as strong as an eggshell. And his mouth, oh, his mouth, so warm and wet and shaping itself to his pleasure, tongue soft and coaxing, then stiff and probing, the elastic sleekness inside his cheeks, the occasional rough nudge of his teeth sharpening the sweetness. He lost all sense of whether this took a long time or a very short one; the downward swirl into deep dark joy seemed stretched, and yet it got thicker, not thinner.

'Oh, my sweet little... oh...' He was shuddering now, and had to tell himself very sternly that the second time Julian went down on him should not be the first time he fucked his mouth. He came with a deep, hoarse grunt and a fierce grin, and almost fell, his feet slipping fractionally from under him in the bottom of the tub. He leaned against the wall for a little while, his forehead on his forearm, eyes closed, absently caressing Julian's hair, feeling pleasantly mindless.

'Dear Julian,' he murmured, taking a step back and subsiding to sit in the warm water. Julian slid down from his seat and scooted forward, wrapping his legs and winding his arms around him, chest to chest, chin on his shoulder.

'Dear Elim,' he breathed, and dropped his head to kiss the ridge that ran up the side of Garak's neck. Garak was amused and impressed and exasperated all together that he didn't yet seem spent; the kiss became gentle suction, nibbling, tongue-tracing up and down.

'I like your cartilagey ridgey bits,' Julian murmured. 'They're very decorative.'

'I like your... oh, your everything.' He gently disentangled himself and stepped out of the bath, pulling down a towel. 'Back to bed.'

'I suggest my bed, which is much fresher.' Julian got out and insisted on being wrapped up in the same towel with him.

'Well, if we push mine into the floor it will come back up clean and newly made in a few minutes.' He rubbed the towel over Julian's back, curious about just how far he took this behaviour. He hadn't been with anyone quite so... cuddly. Would he stick this close all day and all night? Would Garak eventually have to peel him off and insist on breathing room? For now, of course, for now the clinging was a delight, cosy and intimate, springing from a wish to be familiar with every pore and fold of each other.

They fell into Julian's bed and nestled together, Julian pulling the insect net down around them. 'Enclosed,' he said, 'you and me together, our little space is everywhere.' That obviously sounded lovely to him, while Garak was privately glad that the gauzy curtains didn't really make him feel enclosed - at least, they marked out a little zone for the two of them, a room within a room, without trapping him there.

'Go to sleep,' he said severely, wrapping his arm around Julian's waist and giving him a little shake. 'Sleep, or you'll be good for nothing later.' He smacked a kiss against his temple, inhaling the smell of his hair.

'What do you want me to be good for?' Julian mumbled into his neck. He could feel the curve of his smile against his skin.

'That's a ploy to keep me talking and awake.'

'Rhymes with ducking.'

'Shh.'

'Ducking... bee... yard...' The smile turned into the tickling puffs of a silly, drowsy chuckle.

'Shut up.'

'Bin... tie... um... um... oh, wait, um works!'

'Really, if you don't stop it you can sleep on the floor.'

'No no no. Stopping it now. Stopping it.' Julian kissed him contritely and settled down, head on Garak's shoulder, leg slung over his hip, exactly where he should be.

Julian woke first again, in the overheated depths of late afternoon, furiously thirsty. Even so he spent a little while gloating over Garak before easing away from him and padding out to the kitchen for ice-water, which he drank back in bed, watching Garak sleep and thinking about how sex sometimes seemed to activate a tonne of other feelings and sometimes didn't at all; had he become this besotted in the course of a day, from a standing start, or had he always been up to his ears in love with Garak and just repressed it because it was so far from matching his self-image?

He wanted to say 'I love you' now, and the only thing stopping him was a keen awareness of how stupid and shallow it would sound coming so suddenly. He was just a few years' life experience, he supposed, from wanting to write 'JB & EG' in a heart on the wall. (Actually, he was still thinking, in a sort of undercurrent, about finding a hidden spot to do that, somewhere that whoever rented out these cabins wouldn't find it and charge Garak to have the whole place redecorated.)

Eventually Garak stirred and looked up at him.

'Hallo,' Julian said, sketching a little wave.

'Mmph.' Garak half sat up, leaning on his elbows. 'What time is it?'

'No idea. It's very, very hot. It could be hot o'clock.'

'The best part of the day. Share your water, please.'

'Are you going to take the glass or would you like me to just pour it in your mouth and then peel you a grape?'

'Hmm... no, I'll take the glass. I prefer to have sip control.' He drank and lay back down, resting the glass on his chest, and looked over at Julian again. 'You look overheated but wonderful. I know you're perfectly aware of how attractive you are, but it's nice to be able tell you in no uncertain terms that I'm aware of it too. I think you're beautiful. Especially your eyes.'

'I think your eyes are my favourite thing too - though I see you as handsome rather than beautiful.' Julian lay down beside him, finger-tracing the ridge above and around his right eye.

'Is that an important distinction to you?'

'It just feels like the apt word.' Back across the eyebrow, to the bridge of the nose and up over his forehead. 'Would it really annoy you if I beeped you on the spoon?'

'Are you getting aphasia again?'

'No, I mean if I pressed here... and said "beep".'

'Why?'

'It's... it's stupid, never mind,' Julian faltered, and kissed the spot instead.

'I could try to understand it, I suppose... do you want to be "beeped" anywhere?'

'No.'

'If you like something unusual, it's all right. Just tell me about it. I assure you I'm very open-minded.'

'Forget about it.' Julian attempted to distract him with further kissing, and succeeded. Their tongues felt cool from the ice-water, which was an interesting sensation, though one that soon gave way to deep heat. He thought about trying to do something clever with the remaining ice-cubes, until he heard a small smashing sound and realised the glass had rolled off the bed unnoticed. With a vague resolution to clean that up before either of them stepped on the pieces with bare feet, he let Garak roll on top of him, loving the weight and the warmth of chest against chest, stomach against stomach, thigh against thigh, the nudging, sliding contact between their stiffening cocks.

'I can't believe I want to go again,' Garak murmured against his cheek. 'That I can go again already. This really isn't normal for me.'

'Isn't it? Maybe I'm good for you.'

'You're a tonic.' A long, deep kiss, heavy breathing surging against his face, a low, rumbling 'mmmm' in Garak's throat. Hot hands lifting his arms above his head, sliding up their tender undersides. Garak held his hands, kneading at their palms with his thumbs, working down to his wrists.

'Julian...'

'Mmm?'

'Would it really annoy you if I temporarily tied your hands?'

Julian bit his own lip slightly, because laughing at this would just be hurtful, but it tickled him how Garak had specified 'temporarily,' just so he wouldn't worry that he meant to keep him tied up for the whole week. 'Of course not. Go ahead. Not too tightly, though, all right?'

'Of course. It's no fun if they go numb.'

'Exactly what I say.' He was curious about how this might go, and watched with interest as Garak stripped the case from one of the pillows, twisted it and bound his wrists together, hands palm to palm. It felt like a firm, workmanlike kind of knot, and he wondered how often Garak had tied it. He examined his feelings about this, deciding that he felt pretty safe, just a tiny, enjoyable bit nervous.

'All right?'

'All right,' he agreed. Garak kissed him, more lightly than he'd expected at this stage, and whispered 'Thank you, dear.' Then the deep, heavy kisses were back, wet and hungry and wolfish. He felt pinned and abruptly realised how much he normally used his hands when making love. He supposed the whole point of the binding was to put Garak in charge, but it made him feel oddly as if he wasn't doing his share. Garak's hands were on his again, then moving down his arms, thumbs circling, fingertips tracing, then fingernails lightly dragging from elbow down to underarm, making him shiver and rediscover the odd sensation of goosebumps through sweat. He gave a foolish little whimper and tried to compensate for his hands by wrapping his legs around Garak's hips.

'Shh,' Garak murmured. 'Are you ticklish here?' His thumbs were circling in Julian's underarms now.

'No... just... just the sides of my waist sometimes.'

'Good. You're sweet when you giggle but that isn't what I want to hear now.' To Julian's slight surprise, he pressed a kiss into his armpit, then licked him in long, warm strokes that made his shoulderblades squirm together. The heat of his mouth moved up over his chest, closing on his nipple with sharp suction, tongue spiralling and softly rasping the tender skin. Julian arched his back and bit his lip, then gasped as he felt Garak's teeth.

'Oh, be careful!'

'I am always careful.'

'If you bite it off I'll kill you.'

'Biting it off would be incredibly short-sighted. And really - you couldn't.' He flicked his tongue against the nub of it. 'It's turning purple.'

'That's a bruise.'

'I think it's pretty.'

'Oh God,' Julian said, half-laughing. 'Just try to keep me in one piece, all right?'

'Of course,' Garak said indignantly. 'I want to enjoy you many times, and I want you to enjoy it too.'

'Then keep going.'

'I knew you liked it really,' Garak said smugly. He worked his way over Julian's chest and shoulders slowly, gradually, meandering and teasing and sometimes closing in for a nuzzling bite, tender and savage at the same time. Fresh red and purple bruises bloomed on his his skin. By the time he descended to the stomach, Julian was burning with impatience, and he lowered his bound hands to press on the top of Garak's head.

'Down, please,' he breathed. 'I really need your mouth there.'

'That's not how this works,' Garak answered, lifting his head. 'Now, it will take longer.' He pushed Julian's hands back over his head and held them up there with one hand, shaking another pillow out of its case with the other.

'What are you... oh, come on, that's hardly necessary.'

Garak shook his head, passing the pillowcase under the one joining Julian's wrists and tying its ends together around the crossbar of the headboard. Julian tugged against it experimentally, and Garak patted his face, a very measured, firm pat to focus his attention.

'Be good,' he said, with a distinct glint in his eyes.

'What do I get if I am?'

'What you don't get if you're not.' Garak sat back on his heels, lifting his hands, smiling as if to say 'See? Nothing!'

'Oh, come on. How can you just stop when you're...' He jerked his head toward Garak's erection.

'Oh, I'd be punishing us both, I know, but then, I have the use of my hands.' Seeming to relent a little, he bent forward, resting on his forearms, either side of Julian's ribs. 'Shall I continue? Are you ready, my dear?' He had exactly that mocking smile that he had when they were verbally fencing.

'Of course I am... that's the whole point... please...'

'Mind I don't decide to go back to the beginning.'

Julian bit his lower lip, considering. Garak kissed the base of his throat, rocking his tongue in the notch between his collarbones. After a moment, his tongue painted a long warm line down the centre of his chest, warm shifting to cool as the wetness evaporated, down and into his navel, digging in, circling.

'Aah...'

'Nice?'

'Mmm...' It felt as if there was a cord between his navel and the root of his cock and Garak was tugging it. There was some sweet relief in the way that his cock could rub against Garak's neck and shoulders while he was down there. He tentatively moved and felt Garak's hand firm on his hip, pressing him down.

'I'll be kind,' Garak murmured, 'and assume that was an involuntary twitch.' Kinder still, he planted a wet kiss at the base of Julian's cock, flicking his tongue back and forth across the underside.

'Oh, thank you...'

'You have a ridge,' Garak said, sounding amused. A column of sucking kisses, rising up to the tip, flicking, stiff tongue-tip outlining the head.

'Mmmmmm...' Julian tilted his head back, a roll of pleasure travelling up his spine. He was enveloped, sucked deep into liquid warmth, bliss building down low inside him so that he really did feel a few involuntary twitches, back, buttocks, thighs, stifling them as well as he could so Garak wouldn't stop.

'You do this better, better than anyone I've ever,' he breathed. 'Ever... ooh... oh, love, I'm just about there.'

'Mhmm.' Garak lifted his head, released him, leaned back and caught his breath.

'You've stopped,' Julian said, honestly confused. His penis felt cold by contrast.

'Count down from thirty,' Garak suggested, breathing deeply and wiping his chin on the back of his wrist.

'Oh, no, is this an edging thing? I can't - Elim, I can't cope with that, call it frailty if you want. You'll be kind to me, won't you? You'll... you'll bear with my weaknesses? Mm?'

'It'll be good for you. Just try to relax.'

'You're mean and awful.'

'Would you like this to take longer?'

'I'd quite like you to fuck me, please. Wouldn't you like to?' He drew his legs up and lifted his hips, trying inexpertly to offer himself.

'Be good,' Garak reminded him, and he subsided with a gusty, petulant sigh. Garak just laughed at him, quite a soft, affectionate chuckle, but still, definitely laughing at him, and that made him pout more, turning his head away.

'I really loved seeing you try to seduce me,' Garak said fondly, a little patronisingly, and bent over him on his elbows again, pressing his forehead to Julian's, brushing his nose against his, coaxing him to meet his eyes. 'And I do want to fuck you, of course I do, so very very much. I want to push my cock deep inside you and feel how warm and tight you are, how you grip me, I want to feel you moving under me and hear you gasping and grunting and see the way your eyes scrunch closed and your wet lips shine... I want to come inside you and know you're mine.'

'Of course I'm yours...'

'And I know you think I'm cruel but I love seeing you like this, desperate and aching.'

'You're a very bad man.'

'But you're mine.'

'I'm yours.'

'My Julian.'

'My Elim.'

'Do you want me?'

'So, so badly.'

'And have you calmed down a little?'

'A little.'

'Still just about there?'

'Not any more.'

'I'm going to get you there again... and again... and you'll come when I let you.'

'Okay.'

'Very, very good.'

He tried his best just to enjoy it, to enjoy the wicked wet mouth and the strong dry hands as they worked him and worked him, to let himself go into a sweet trance of pleasure and let it ebb and flow, but the need to come was so strong that he couldn't bear it. He could imagine so clearly how it would feel, the unstoppable rush, the spasms of delight, the final deep perfect relief. Garak had taken to gripping him so that he couldn't come, and the tension was bordering on pain - kind of a lovely pain, but not one he thought he could endure much longer.

Finally he bucked his hips upward, dislodging Garak, and rolled himself over with a grunt, humping the bed. For just a fraction of a second he thought he was going to get what he needed, and then Garak seized him and he felt five or six stinging slaps on his backside, knocking the wind out of him with shock. He was flung over onto his back, still gasping and indignant, and pinned, Garak straddling him and clamping his body between his thighs.

'I can't believe you - no-one's ever smacked me in my life!'

'Well, that explains a lot.' Garak was breathing hard and his eyes were burning. 'The lack of self-control, for one thing.' He twisted back and pulled the top sheet free from the foot of the mattress, and while Julian was trying to sort out whether he was furious or more desperately aroused than ever, knotted one end around his ankle, looped the sheet through the headboard and pulled it up. Other leg up, sheet knotted round that ankle, neatly and efficiently trussed. He couldn't turn over and his legs were spread and lifted, almost too far for comfort; his hips were lifted off the bed.

'Now,' Garak said firmly, planting his hands either side of Julian's head. 'Does this help?'

'It's a bit rough, isn't it?'

'No, my dear, it's really not. Still mine?'

'Still yours. A little angry and bewildered, but still yours.'

'Thank you.' A deep, warm kiss, confusingly gentle. 'I think I might give in to your charm at last.'

'My charm, defined as being on my back with my bum in the air?'

'Mostly how much you trust me. If I'm going to be really, uncharacteristically honest.'

'Oh,' Julian said, because there wasn't much he could say, because just for a moment, he knew Garak was being almost painfully honest, and he looked awfully vulnerable for a person who had him tied up.

'May I?'

'Yes. Please.'

'Here?' Wet tip nudging, nosing up and down in the cleft of his buttocks.

'Oh, yes...'

'Aah...' Garak sank into him and onto him, lowering his weight gradually, making Julian whimper from both the sharp pleasure and the frustration of being unable to put his arms around him. 'You... feel... perfect. I don't think I'm going to last long.'

'Nor am I.'

'Did - did you just learn to squeeze me like that?'

'At the last minute, last time. Is it good?'

'Julian...'

'Good?'

'Yes.'

'Oh!'

Deeper and harder, the two of them rolling and plunging, mouths and hips locked together, frantic grunts and smothered cries rising higher. Garak's knees were sliding from under him; he hitched forward and grabbed the top of the headboard, pulling Julian's hips higher and pumping down into the core of him. He gave up on control and lost himself in a final great shudder of joy.

He caught his breath a little at a time, leaning heavily on the headboard, head pounding.

'Ohhh...' Julian sighed, flexing under him.

'All right, my dear?'

'Mostly. Just... oh, this is embarrassing.'

'Can you still feel embarrassed with me?'

'Can you wipe my face?'

'Oh, dear. I'm sorry.'

'It's self-inflicted, but if I open my eye it's going to go in and it's going to burn.'

'Here.' He bent and gently licked Julian's tightly-screwed eyelid clean. 'Relax it... good. Open.'

Julian blinked and winked experimentally. 'Thank you.'

'Feel better?'

'I feel lovely.'

'You are lovely.'

'May I have my legs back, please?'

'I think you've earned it, yes.' Garak unravelled the knot at Julian's ankle one-handed and eased the sheet out, shuffling back so he wouldn't just drop to the mattress, sinking down to rest on top of him. 'Is this comfortable?'

'How can you ask me that?' Julian asked, smiling.

'This is the post-coital tenderness phase belying my earlier aggression.' He kissed the corner of Julian's mouth, where it curled upward, and nuzzled at his jaw, enjoying the bristle there.

'May I have my hands?'

'Do you really want them?'

'I really, really do.' When he had them, he wrapped his arms tight around Garak's shoulders, pushing one hand into his hair, kissing him until he ran out of air. After a deep breath, he asked 'Would you say the first time, or this second time, is more typical of your approach?'

'Neither is, really. I think I need to develop an approach just for you.'

'Find a sort of happy medium between being very very tender and gentle and fucking me senseless?'

'What a happy way with words you have. Well, doing it this way too often would become exhausting.'

'For me too. It felt like my balls were going to burst... and even while knowing in detail why that's not possible, it's still not a relaxing sensation.'

'It does feel better when you've had to wait for it.'

Julian sighed and admitted 'It was wonderful, but too intense for every day.'

'I might manage once a week if I'm well fed and rested... otherwise, I'm afraid I'll be much milder.'

'I think I'll cope.'

'Then again, we have established that you have an invigorating effect on me.' He moved gently to get more comfortable, taking care not to slip out of Julian's warmth. 'Tell me if I'm too heavy.'

'Not at all.' Julian's eyes were beginning to slip closed. 'Let's... let's just rest a little bit, and then get up and have dinner... all I've had since breakfast is... probably not nutritionally balanced.'

They slept soundly until the middle of the night, when they woke and had a pieced-together meal that probably wasn't very nutritionally balanced either, but at least included fruit.

The third day

Garak had been hoping to coax Julian into bed by sometime today; the fact that it had been so much quicker and easier made him feel as if a whole extra day had been added to his vacation. He lay watching Julian doze through the morning, feeling tender and indulgent and pleasantly tired. Julian looked very boyish asleep. Of course, Julian looked very boyish, full stop, but his face was particularly soft and relaxed, and he had an absurdly endearing way of occasionally smiling a little in his sleep, as if his dreams pleased him.

When he woke, he smiled again and rolled into Garak's side, sighing a long drowsy exhalation. Then he winced and mumbled 'God, my bum hurts.'

'I'd apologise, but it would be massively insincere.'

'I suppose I'll have to do some physician-heal-thyself in the bathroom.' He pushed himself up on his elbows. 'No regrets, though.'

'I dare say I'll make it up to you in some way. At some stage.'

'You look so utterly, utterly smug.'

'Is it any wonder, when I've had my way with the most delightful young man I know?'

'I suppose not.' Julian cast one of those meltingly fond looks of his at Garak. 'Now excuse me, please, while I make myself presentable again.'

'What do you feel like doing today?' Julian asked. He was sitting on one of the cushions in the living room, picking through a bowl of local fruit. Garak was interested to note that he seemed to feel it was proper to put some clothes on again, but not too much, so he had compromised on shorts only. He had been wondering if he would be privileged to just see Julian wander around nude for the next few days. The shorts should go soon, anyway, because they were three shades of green, and horrible. He, himself, was still in the towel from his shower and debating whether he needed to wear anything else today. What, after all, was the point of going to a lonely little island together and beginning a sordid affair if you were going to observe proprieties?

'I'd like to spend a little more time basking. Will you keep me company?'

'The correct answer was "you, dear".'

'I think it goes without saying at this point.' He sat down beside Julian and stole some of his berries. 'But first, let's lie in the sun and talk about anything that comes to mind. It will be just like our lunches, except we'll touch each other whenever and however we feel like it, and we'll have to clear our own dishes.'

'You do have wonderful ideas.'

'Why don't you take them off?' Garak hooked his forefinger in the waistband of Julian's shorts and tugged. They were at the tail end of a long, rambling discussion of desert-island literature, and he had begun to lose his concentration. He didn't really give a damn about the Lord of the Flies at this point.

'Really?' Julian shaded his eyes against the sun, lying on his back on the mat in the sand. 'Well, firstly, aren't I supposed to leave something to the imagination so you won't get bored with me? Secondly... perhaps more importantly... I don't want a sunburned penis.'

'I thought you toasted, rather than burning.' He stretched out the elastic and tilted his head, looking inside with a slight smile.

'I don't care to test that notion in quite that way. So I think I'll keep something on while I'm outdoors.'

'May I offer a suggestion? In line with the setting? You could wear a sarong.' He let the elastic ease back, but slid his hand inside the waistband, resting his palm on the flat of Julian's stomach.

'Oh yes. I could stick a flower behind my ear, too, I suppose?'

'If you'd really like to. I only care about the sarong.' He swept his fingers gently from side to side, trailing through the thin line of hair that tapered down to Julian's groin.

'Mmph. And what's under it. But dear, I don't have a sarong.'

'It's a large, flat rectangle of cotton. It could hardly be easier to make.'

'Well, if you make it, I'll try it.' Julian placed his hand over Garak's, stroking his wrist, tracing around the little knob of bone at one side. 'I may feel a bit girly, but I'll try it.'

'That's the spirit.' He inched his fingertips lower, combing through thick dark-brown curls.

'Are you going to wear one? To match?'

'Perhaps I will. It seems like a convenient garment for this climate... light, comfortable, easy to lift out of the way. Whereas with these terrible things, I'm going to have to get you out of them one leg at a time.'

'You may be surprised how quickly I can wriggle out of them.'

'When properly motivated?'

'Hold on - whoops - there!' With a squirm, a flick and a flourish, they were off, thrown to one side, and Julian was rolling towards him all smiles and eyelashes and kisses; they rolled together in the hot sand, arms wrapping and legs twining and Julian joyously sucking his tongue into his mouth.

In the fullest heat of the day, Julian insisted on withdrawing indoors, and after lunch, took it into his head that he was going to repay Garak for bringing him on such a lovely holiday by providing a massage.

'Most people,' he said earnestly, 'say they're going to give you a massage and it's actually pretty awful, because they don't know anything about anatomy and they just sort of dig their thumbs in anywhere, whereas I know an astonishing lot about anatomy and can therefore do a really good job. It'll be tremendously therapeutic.'

Garak was skeptical about that claim. He wouldn't claim to be an expert on human courtship behaviour but he was fairly sure that almost never in the history of it had a massage been given with any intent other than feeling the recipient up. It amused him that Julian should think he needed a pretext to do that.

However, there actually seemed to be some sincerity about it. After spending some time fiddling about with the replicator to produce what he considered an acceptable pretty-smelling oil, Julian set to work quite seriously, beginning at his feet.

'You are actually quite good at that,' Garak said in surprise. He looked back over his shoulder; Julian had insisted that he lie flat on the mat that he was always dragging out onto the beach, and which was now loaded with sand in every stitch.

'I find your tone very mildly insulting.' Julian pinched the sole of his foot, under the arch. 'I used to have a lady friend whose feet gave her hell. She was a dancer, very elegant, very graceful - have you ever seen ballet? It looks beautiful, but it puts incredible strain on the feet, deforms the toes. So I'd take care of her. I was good that way.'

'My feet are not deformed, I am glad to say.'

'No, they look very healthy.'

'Julian?' Garak laid his head down on his folded arms.

'Yes?'

'Let's not discuss your lady friends on this trip.'

'Oh? Why not?'

'They're hardly relevant.'

'Hmm. I suppose not.' Clever, kind hands worked one foot, then the other, then kneaded their way up his calves, their way smoothed by the soft oil. 'Relax.'

'I am relaxing.'

'You're not.' His voice was warm. 'You very seldom relax totally. For a little while after you come, yes... but otherwise there's always a little bit of tension, a little bit of caution.'

'That's just how my body is.'

'I'm growing very fond of your body.' His hands moved smoothly, firmly and insistently up along Garak's thighs. When they reached his buttocks, Garak was vaguely surprised that they just skimmed up and over to work on the small of his back - although they quickly found and kneaded out a crick that he often felt there. He felt a not unpleasant little pop in his spine and grunted comfortably.

Up, along his spine, to his shoulders and neck. He grunted again and groaned faintly as the pressure increased and his taut muscles surrendered.

'There,' Julian said, his voice caressing and teasing at the same time. 'That's good, isn't it?'

'Umph,' he said non-committally, his cheek squashed against the back of his wrist.

'I know it's good, because I can feel you relaxing. All this hard muscle across here is getting nice and loose and goosey.'

'Hrmm.' Julian was sitting astride his back, his thighs gripping his body. Where skin pressed against skin he could feel him gently sweating, and he wanted to turn and tip him over and lick the sweat off him. He had a thrumming erection pressed flat between the mat and his belly, just aching to be squeezed into Julian's warm body. Even if his shoulder muscles were loosening, he was not at all relaxed.

'My gorgeous strong Garak, my Elim,' Julian was breathing against his neck, against his ears, gradually giving up now on any sort of therapeutic pretence and kissing, licking, sucking avidly. His hands frankly groped, down Garak's sides, sliding in under his stomach and hips, then, as he shuffled back on his knees, finally round to squeeze and rub his buttocks. 'Oh, my darling.'

'That's good...'

'Good?' Fingers reaching and stroking in between, rubbing eagerly up and down the cleft. 'Do you like it here too?'

'Mmm... yes.'

'Even in here?'

'Especially in there.' A luxurious sigh as the long slim fingers slipped deeper.

'I wasn't sure...'

'Well, it's... it's been a long time since I accorded anyone the privilege. But I still like it very, very much.'

'So I can...'

'I wish you would.'

Julian was fumbling around eagerly, oiling himself, shifting on his knees, then finally, joyfully, pushing his stiff heat deep into him.

'Oh my God,' Julian breathed. 'Oh, God, inside, you're - it's all ribbly.'

'Ribbly?'

'Shut up. Oh...' He drew back and plunged in, and Garak smothered a sharp cry against his forearm. He felt a little sorry for Julian, who seemed to have only one sweet spot inside him; all of his were blazing with pleasure, a constellation of fires deep down in his belly. He was bracing his feet, digging his toes into the mat, every muscle in his legs and buttocks taut now, straining against Julian's thrusts, arching and humping his back in time, his breath hissing through his teeth. Each stroke took him deeper, his heart was drumming faster and harder, everything building and massing together and a constant escalating feeling of 'almost there, almost there, almost there' that finally burst through into a fierce, blissful climax.

Julian needed just a little longer, coming at last with a sweet, wavering moan and slumping onto his back, slick with sweat and gasping loudly in his ear.

Getting his breath back took a nice long time, and all that time he had Julian draped over him, inside him, murmuring affectionate rubbish against the nape of his neck. At last Julian peeled himself away a little and said 'I want to stay here forever but I have to pee.'

'Ah, well, I can forgive you.'

'I'll be right back. And I'll bring you a drink. You definitely deserve a drink after all that.'

They lay side by side, cooling off, both drowsy but not quite ready to sleep.

'You know something odd?' Julian asked vaguely.

'Yes. Many things.'

'Well, my something odd is, I don't think of you as having a first and last name. Or a given name and family name. It's more like... Garak is your public name and Elim is your private name. So it feels just right here and now.' He twined his hand into Garak's and squeezed it. 'And I want to tell you now, Elim, that I love you.'

'I know.'

'I mean I'm in love with you.'

'I know. Dear, you've been in love with me for months.'

'I have not!'

'You have, though. I suspected you were from all the sweet, moony-eyed gazing. I knew you were when you went off to Cardassia to see Enabran Tain for my sake. That wasn't just being a wonderful, dedicated doctor - though you're that as well.'

'Well... what about you? Is it the same for you?' Julian rolled towards him, great big limpid eyes full of anxiety. 'Please tell me it is...'

'I'd be much better off if I could say it isn't.'

'Why?'

'Stronger position. Much.'

'Say it properly.' A deep, searching kiss. 'Say you love me.'

He didn't say it 'properly,' but he mouthed the words against Julian's lips, and that seemed to be all he needed for now.

In the afternoon Julian discovered an oversized hammock stored rolled up in a corner of the living room, hung it up between the posts of the verandah, and insisted on Garak lying in it with him.

'There's plenty of room,' he pointed out inarguably.

'It's in the shade,' Garak grumbled, 'and it sways.'

'That's exactly the point. Hold onto me if you feel like you might tumble out, won't you?' This was said with a lavish flutter of eyelashes.

'You do realise you don't actually have to flirt with me any more, don't you? You've got me.'

'Which just makes it more fun. You weren't going to stop flirting with me, were you?'

'A grown man shouldn't pout like that.' He pinched Julian's lower lip between finger and thumb and gently shook it from side to side, released it and patted his cheek, a light but firm double-tap.

'A lover shouldn't scold like that.'

'If I don't tell you you're ridiculous, who will?'

'We've been through this - Chief O'Brien. All the time.'

'Oh yes. And you flutter your eyelashes at him, do you? You probably do.'

'He would not be susceptible to that,' Julian said, laughing. 'And you're not really either, are you?'

'Julian. Do you have any idea how far I've compromised my standards of personal security and plain common sense because of my susceptibility to you? How far I've unbent? My dear, it may not look like it by your standards, but I am love's fool by my own.'

'I love hearing you say "love",' Julian breathed, and kissed him ardently, rolling into his arms.

'Ridiculous.'

'Yes. More, please.'

'Love-love-love. There. No more for at least half an hour.'

'You're putting me on rations?'

'We've discussed your greed, dear.'

'It's not as if I can overdose. Anyway, that didn't count because you didn't use it in a sentence.'

'All right. Dear Julian, I love your scruffy, scratchy beard.'

'Interesting. It's been called scratchy before, but usually in the context of "go and shave before you think about kissing me, you animal".'

'Clearly you need to stop kissing people with such feeble and sensitive skin.'

'And just kiss sturdy, durable people like you? I think that's a great idea. Like this?'

'Mm. Yes, that will do.' He pulled Julian's leg across his body, just to make things perfect. That got him a head on his shoulder and one of those adoring gazes that made him have to bite back laughter - they were just so abject.

'You know, I'm glad we've tried both ways now.'

'There are many, many more ways than that.'

'I know - no, I mean me in you or you in me. I was feeling a bit anxious about that, if I could even ask you to swap, because what if it was really important to you to be on top, or you just hated the other way round... but given that this is all new to me, I needed to work out whether I had a distinct preference. I mean don't misunderstand - I loved having you inside me but what if vice versa was even better? I just needed to check.'

'And?'

'It is wonderful, but not better. And while I still feel oddly embarrassed to talk about it, the, um' - he lowered his voice confidentially - 'the anal stuff? That feels so astonishingly good - astonishing because I had no idea that bit of my body could feel like that, obviously I knew plenty of people love it but for some reason I'd never really considered that it might be really good for me, but I can have orgasms through there, for goodness' sake! I had no idea! I would have thought that took some sort of special conditioning, not just happening naturally. There's this whole enormous erogenous zone that I've been completely overlooking for years, so I definitely, definitely want to give it lots of attention now.'

'You're whispering. Who do you think might overhear you?'

'I don't know. The How Dare You Discover A New Aspect Of Your Sexual Identity At Such An Advanced Age Police.'

'Do you really think they'd mind?'

'Oh yes. They're very rigid. They want everyone to figure out exactly who and what they like before they finish secondary school, and never change in case it confuses anyone.'

'They'd hate me, then. My tastes are absurdly broad and fluid.'

'Then... would that mean you couldn't be satisfied with just me?'

'Well, given that I'd be surprised to hear you've completely stopped liking women, would you say you can't be satisfied with just me?'

'Oh, I see. Well, that's a reassuring way to put it.'

'There you are, then, duly reassured.'

'Good to have these things settled early on,' Julian said, nodding, and then grinned at his own seriousness. 'Sorry if I'm being a bit of an idiot. At least I'm enthusiastic.'

'You are. It's really quite charming - and flattering.'

'May I ask you something?'

'Within reason.'

'Earlier you said it had been a while since you'd "accorded anyone the privilege".'

'When did I say that and what about?'

'You ought to remember. I had two fingers in you and was asking if I could put my cock there too. I'd like to think that was memorable.'

'Dear, I would have said anything.'

'I only wondered if you meant it's been a while since you've had sex at all, or just if it's been a while since you've had it that particular way.'

'Does it matter greatly?'

'I'm only curious. You don't have to tell me if you're embarrassed.'

'I'm not embarrassed, only habitually secretive. Well, there's a certain expectation among my people that the junior partner in these relationships will be the receptive one, and as I am no longer young but tend to be attracted to youngish people, draw your own conclusions.'

'Oh, I see. Well, you know, that's rather like the ancient Greeks. They had this very curious double standard, or maybe even a triple standard - that it was quite all right for a man to have homosexual affairs, as long as he married a woman and they had children. And furthermore, his male lovers had to be younger - each pair had to be a grown man and a young boy, and once the boy got old enough to grow a beard they had to separate and find other partners. Two grown men having sex, that was deviant - or a man enjoying being penetrated, by whoever.'

'Whatever led you to learn that?'

'Military history, actually. The Spartans, and the Athenians, famous warriors - there was this elite unit, the Athenian Guard, made up entirely of pairs of lovers, the reasoning being that each man would fight harder to protect his partner than to defend his own life.'

'Your people are absolutely weird.'

'They're not my people - I'm not Greek, and anyway I'm talking about people from thousands of years ago. Nowadays we consider any sort of sexual involvement with minors profoundly immoral. Greeks too. I mean they think so too, not it's immoral to have sex with them. You can have sex with a Greek if you want. Except I hope you don't.'

'Most Cardassians can't grow beards, anyway.'

'That is, of course, the heart of the matter, and I'm glad you cut straight to it.'

'Of course.'

'We're talking such rubbish,' Julian said, trying and failing not to giggle.

'I know. I think it's rather fun; don't you?' Garak managed to keep a straight face, although his eyes were laughing.

'I usually have to be a little bit drunk to talk so foolishly so fluently.'

'I think I'd like to see you a little bit drunk.'

'I've only seen you angry drunk; do you also do happy drunk?'

'Well, I am happy, so bring me a drink and we'll see.'

'All right. What do you want?'

'Kanar, please. Bring a bottle and two glasses.'

'I don't suppose I can get that replicator to make much else.' Julian rolled out of the hammock and strolled into the house. Garak watched him go with a deep aesthetic appreciation. He returned with a tray, having hung a small towel over his arm in a hammy effort to look like a waiter, albeit an underdressed one.

'Take that, will you? I don't think I can climb into a hammock and balance a tray of drinks at the same time.'

'Very well. There. Comfortable? Be careful.' Julian was trying to sit cross-legged and kept sliding down the slope of the hammock into his legs. 'Look, don't be ambitious. Just come over here and lie beside me. Good. May I pour you a drink?'

'You may.' Julian accepted the glass and sniffed at it doubtfully.

'Have you not tried kanar before?'

'Oddly, no. Is it the sort of thing you sip and savour, or is it a down-the-hatch drink?'

'Well, I like to sip it, but see what you think.' He watched as Julian sniffed again, then sipped.

'Good God.'

'What do you think?'

'It tastes like liquorice and fish sauce.'

'Oh?'

'The really fermented Vietnamese kind.'

'Good, isn't it?'

'It's... it's a real experience.' Julian sipped again, then threw caution to the wind and swigged. 'Guh.'

'Another?'

'Please.'

'A toast, then.' Garak refilled Julian's glass and held up his own. 'To holidays.'

'Not "to us"?'

'Well, we are on holiday.'

'True. To holidays!' Julian clinked his glass against Garak's and drank, then sneezed. 'Excuse me.'

'All right?' Garak cupped his hand behind Julian's head, smoothing down his hair.

'All right, thank you.' Julian leaned in and rested his forehead against Garak's. 'You haven't touched your drink yet. You're trying to get me drunk, aren't you? And take advantage of me?'

'You've seen through my plan.'

'You are a very bad man.'

'What do you think would constitute taking advantage of you? At this stage?' He took a sip of kanar, enjoying the way it burned down his throat.

'I don't know. I just know that you are clearly up to no good.' Julian leaned back and swallowed the rest of the glassful.

'You take all the challenge out of getting you drunk.' Garak poured a little more, though not a full measure.

'Well, I'm trying to drink it without necessarily tasting it - a technique which served me well in my misspent youth.'

'I thought you spent your youth studying assiduously and playing tennis in the wholesome fresh air.'

'I had a short-lived rebellious phase which involved a lot of sneering and cooking sherry.'

'Isn't Sherry a girl's name?'

'Sometimes girls are named after drinks. Or drinks are named after girls; Margarita and Vesper and things like that.'

'Vesper's a pretty name.'

'Ah, but you can't trust a girl called Vesper.'

'Can't you?'

'Never. You know, the third glass tastes much nicer.' He leaned back, propping his head up on his hand, and sipped thoughtfully. 'Definitely nicer. Maybe just because it's killing my tastebuds as I drink it.'

'Come here, and stop insulting the liquor of my forefathers.' Garak kissed him firmly and bit his lower lip.

'Do I taste boozy?' Julian didn't quite bite back, but he caught Garak's lip between his and sucked at it before letting go.

'Very.'

'I'm starting to feel a bit boozy. It hits you quickly!'

'Your face is going rosy.'

'I feel rosy too. Rosy boozy. Bozy roosy... bruisy? I do have quite a lot of bruises - from you I might add. Brute.'

'Well, why didn't you just doctor them all away?'

'I did do the one on my nipple because that made me feel lopsided and weird, but the rest of them, well, I quite like them. They're my campaign medals. Behold, they say, I slept with Elim Garak and lived.'

'But that one was my favourite.'

'Don't pinch. You really are - please leave it alone, that poor nipple is traumatised.'

'All right. I don't want to subject you to trauma.'

'Kiss it better.'

'All better.'

'And the other one.'

'I didn't pinch the other one.'

'I know, but I feel lopsided again.'

'Very well.'

'Thank you, dear.'

'I must be drunk to tolerate this nonsense.'

'Or in love. And you haven't finished your first glass.' Julian smiled smugly and finished his third.

'Curse you for keeping track. There. All gone.'

'Good! Have another. You need to catch up.'

'Then it would seem unwise for you to pour yourself your fourth.'

'I'm just going to have it in readiness.' Julian lay back, cradling his glass, and looked out at the sea. 'Oh, look, there's a sailboat. I was starting to wonder if there was anyone else around here.'

'Don't wave.' Garak trapped his hand before it could get too high and tucked it under his arm.

'Oh, why not?'

'You are lying in a hammock with no clothes on, drinking. Would you want to be waved at by someone like that?'

'It might be the highlight of my day.'

'Just be the highlight of mine. I don't want to share you with passing sailors.'

Julian snorted with laughter. 'That is a terrible mental picture. All right, I'll keep my waving to myself.' He rolled towards Garak and gave him a one-armed, non-drink-spilling hug. 'Mm. Better?'

'Mildly.'

Julian kissed the side of his neck. 'Better still?'

'It hasn't made a difference yet.'

'Right.' Julian put his glass on the verandah railing and devoted his full attention to Garak's neck and shoulders. His technique was a little sloppy due to immoderate consumption of kanar, but he made up for that with enthusiasm and little breathy sighing sounds as he kissed and nibbled the ridges.

'Improving now,' Garak told him, and sipped his drink, closing his eyes contentedly as the kisses spread down over his chest. Julian moved over to straddle him, making the hammock creak and swing crookedly before it balanced out, reaching down to stroke his penis, coaxing it into hardness again.

'You shouldn't be able to do that.'

'I don't think I believe you. I think you just keep saying things like that so I'll be impressed and feel special when you keep getting it up, but it's actually easy for you.'

'Nothing I can say to convince you?'

'Nothing.' Julian moved up to kiss his mouth again, heavily and wetly, his tongue slipping out and brushing across his chin. 'You just have... infinite erections or something. Magic cock. Why is it all gooey?'

'Those are normal healthy secretions which I might add protect you from a lot of friction.'

'You see, with us, it's the women who get wet.'

'We all do. It's messy but we cope.'

'Can I put it inside me?' Julian asked, stroking hand over hand. 'Sit on top of you and ride on it?'

'Feel absolutely free.'

'I hope it fits.'

'You know it fits. You're one of the best fits I've ever had.'

'I haven't put it in for myself before.' He edged back and forth on his knees, trying to line himself up. 'Oh! Thank you.' A sheepish smile.

'Here... I'll hold it, you just lower yourself down... there... that's good, isn't it? You just have to push down now.'

Julian's face had flushed a deep red and his breathing had turned rapid and fluttery. 'It always feels too big at first.'

'Push down, dear.' He steadied Julian's hips with one hand, using the other to guide his hands to his chest. 'I've got you.'

'Oh... ohh...' Julian sank down gradually, enveloping Garak in twitching heat until he could go no further. 'God, that's deep.'

'Do you know how beautiful you look?' He snaked his hand around Julian's cock, feeling it pulse in his grip.

'I don't care how I look... it's how I feel... oh fuck.' He ground his hips down and around, caught his breath and began to rock himself up and down.

'Good?'

'So, so good... ohhh...'

'It's wonderful to see you learning to pleasure yourself this way. I can see you're concentrating so hard.' He drew his legs up a little, bracing against the sway of the hammock, keeping himself in check, both because he wanted Julian to do the work and have the credit for his own orgasm, and because thrusting now might dump them both out onto the verandah.

He had balanced his glass precariously, wedged between the canvas of the hammock and his ribs, where it was threatening to spill; he picked it up and knocked back the last of it, dropped the glass and gave himself up to admiration and adoration of the view. Julian's blush extended from his face right down his neck before fanning and fading out over his upper chest. His eyes were closed, his dark brows creased together almost plaintively, his lips parted breathlessly, his golden-brown skin shining with sweat as he pumped.

'Oh... oh God! Oh, Elim...' His nails dug into Garak's chest, making him wince joyfully, and his thighs tensed and quivered with the frantic effort of pushing himself up and jamming himself down, faster and harder. He bit his lip, whimpering hoarsely, feeling utter delight build up in him like a swelling wave. It broke and he came and he was lost in bliss, slumping over into Garak's arms.

He let out a long low sigh of utter contentment, and felt Garak drawing circles on his back with his fingertips.

'I love you,' he mumbled. 'D'jou come?'

'Mm. Just about when you did. You squeezed me so tight... it was the last straw.'

'Tha's so nice... together.' He rubbed his cheek against Garak's rough shoulder, cat-fashion.

'Look at what you've done to my chest, dear.'

Julian lifted his head and looked at the scratches. 'Oh, my darling... I'm sorry... I didn't know what I was doing.'

'I'm proud of you, really.'

'I've wounded you,' Julian said, and began to giggle helplessly. 'In my drunken lust.' He put his forehead down on Garak's, shaking. 'I am terrible.'

'But I love you.'

Julian opened his eyes, saw Garak's expression, closed them again and rubbed their noses, feeling drops of sweat leak from his sideburns down his jaw, from his forehead down to the tip of his nose. 'Love you.'

They slept curled up together, nested like spoons, warm even in the shade, waking in time to see the sun go down in streamers of red and gold cloud.

'My body's completely forgotten what's a normal time to wake and sleep,' Julian murmured. 'Oh, look! My drink's still there all ready for me.' He felt Garak laugh softly against the back of his neck.

'You haven't had enough?'

'We haven't killed the bottle yet, and you, sir, were never properly drunk. Shall we sleep out here?'

'Better not. Insects, remember? I'd like to be the only one who bites you.' A very soft, gentle bite where his neck joined his shoulder, soothed by a wet kiss.

'Good point,' Julian said. He took his glass from the railing and sipped, making a face. 'Oh, it doesn't get any nicer.'

'I thought you didn't mind it so much now.'

'Here, you have some.' Julian rolled over and held the glass for him to sip. 'Good. And some more. Tell me, does it actually have fish in it?'

'The ingredients are a closely guarded secret.'

'Then I bet you know exactly what they are.' Julian kissed his chin.

'I wouldn't tell you.'

'Go on.'

'Despite your finely tuned persuasive rhetoric... no.'

'I could seduce it out of you.'

'You really couldn't.'

'Pooh. That's the only reason I came here, you know. To try and get the recipe out of you with my, um, my sultry wiles.'

'Then you're doing a very poor job, dear, giving me everything I want for so little return.'

'I wouldn't call it little.' Julian finished the glass and hung perilously over the side of the hammock to pick up the bottle. He looked at the glass, shook his head and swigged directly from the neck. 'Your turn. Drink up.' As Garak took a pull he looked at him oddly. 'So... when are you going to tell me the real reason for bringing me here? Or do I actually have to seduce it out of you somehow?'

'Pardon?' Garak said, lowering the bottle in mild surprise.

'The real reason. You know.'

'I'm really not sure I do.'

'Garak,' Julian said, and raised his eyebrows at him, smiling knowingly.

'Are you suggesting I had an ulterior... an ulterior ulterior motive?' Julian nodded eagerly, expectantly, and he shook his head. 'I'm sorry, my dear, but you appear to have overestimated me. I wanted two things, and I've got them both: a pleasant holiday, and you.'

'So... there's nothing going on here?' Julian's face fell. 'No... no visiting dignitaries, no conspiracy, no plot?'

'Whatever made you think there would be?'

'You! The things you said! About the tsunami, the Guls' holiday residences, the independence - no?'

'No, dearest boy, nothing of the kind. They're going to let this poor place have its independence, because nobody wants it any more. There's an austerity drive going on. Guls are setting a good example by giving up their luxuries, and in any case, Amaya has been unfashionable for years. The tsunami set the lid on that. That's why I can afford it. That's why I feel safe coming here.' He stroked Julian's shoulder. 'You look terribly disappointed.'

'Well, I feel terribly stupid.'

'You weren't stupid... just a little too clever.'

'I just thought...'

'You thought, sneaky old Garak must have something up his sleeve? I must be quite an impressive figure to you.' He took another nip from the bottle. 'Well, now I have to ask if all this sex, all this "I love you" has been you playing along with whatever you thought was my plan? Doing what I wanted, so I would lead you to... whatever?'

'What? No! No, I couldn't do that, believe me. I would never say that without meaning it.' Julian grabbed Garak's hand. 'Don't even consider it, all right?'

'You gave me a rather nasty moment there, doctor.'

'Don't let's go back to that. I'm Julian, your Julian. Remember? With the face you can always read?' He smiled hopefully. 'So look me in the eye now, and see how I feel about you.'

Garak gave him a long appraising look, cool bordering on cold. After a moment, he relaxed a little and nodded.

'I believe you.'

'You knew I loved you, anyway. Remember? Enabran Tain, and everything?'

'It's possible for me to be wrong.'

'Not about that, and not about me.' Julian wrapped his arm around Garak's shoulders, feeling how tense his body had gone. 'It's... it's good that we've cleared this up, isn't it?'

Garak laughed ruefully. 'Really, I should be pleased. I don't know why I'm having such a silly reaction. It must be the drink.'

'Have some more, then. We'll drink to your wonderfully cunning and duplicitous mind.'

'And if you were capable of feigning all that - well, I would have been sad, but proud of you too. I hope you know that.' He drank deeply.

'I do, and I appreciate it.' Julian took the bottle and helped himself.

'I'm a fool, Julian, and I just have to ask you to keep it to yourself.'

'I'll never mention it to a soul.'

'Give me that. I still have to catch you up.'

'That's the spirit.'

'Yes, it is.'

'Good one!'

'I thought so.'

'May I have just a sip more?'

'No! I'm trying to get drunk here, and my tolerance is far higher than yours. And you don't even like it.'

'A sip,' Julian repeated, and made beseeching eyes at him.

'A sip.'

They were both rather ill in the morning.

'I need tea,' Julian said faintly. 'Will you get me some tea?'

'I can't. I'm dying.'

'If you die getting the tea, I'll drink it and then regurge- resuscitate you.'

'What kind of fool do you take me for?'

'The kind who gets drunk and dances with me and sings me a surprisingly maudlin little song before falling asleep with his head in my lap. Ow. I shouldn't have said so many... words.'

'You made me listen to them. It hurts. I don't love you any more.'

'It was nice while it lasted.' He lay still for about five minutes before saying 'All right. I think I've mustered some strength. I'm going to try to make it to the toilet and throw up everything I've ever eaten.'

'Do one for me too.'

'All right.'

'Wake up, love. I've brought you some tea.'

'Can you just pour it into my mouth? I'll leave it open.'

'Don't be a big baby. I had some and I feel better. I don't feel anywhere near normal yet, but I feel better.'

'All right. Ugh.' Garak struggled into, if not a sitting position, a faintly diagonal lean and took the cup Julian offered him. It was too hot and too sweet but it was wet and non-toxic and those were the main things.

'Do you love me again?'

'Not yet.'

'All right.' Julian settled down beside him. 'Anyway, I'd rather be hungover with you than clean and sober with almost anyone else.'

The days seemed to melt away like mouthfuls of ice-cream. They read and slept and swam and made love more than they did any of the other things. A few minor things had to be settled between them. If Julian's hands were tied, as they often were, he wanted them untied before Garak went to sleep. The sun shone every day, and a couple of times a gentle rain fell during the night. The last night, the night before the day at the end of which they would have to go back, the rain was a heavy fall, swishing endlessly against the roof and the windows, and they lay under the mosquito net in Garak's room listening to it.

'I don't want to go back,' Julian said. 'And yet I do. I want this to be our life forever, but I want to be with you on the station too.'

Garak took Julian's hand, interlacing their fingers. This was the part he had been putting off the whole time, and very successfully not thinking about. 'We can't be together on the station the way we have here,' he said carefully.

'I do plan to be a little more discreet,' Julian said, laughing. 'Clothes on in public places. No just walking up and groping you.'

'I'm afraid I mean more than that. It was... safe for us to be close here. The station is not the same. I still have old enemies, Julian, people with plenty of reason to hate me. For the most part, I feel relatively safe because harming me would be more trouble for them than it's worth. But if an easy way presents itself, well... if they should see how dear you are to me, you would seem like that way.'

'You mean they'd try to strike at you by hurting me?' Julian asked.

'Well. I was thinking more that they'd slip an undetectable chemical into your food that would render your bodily fluids fatally toxic to me. It's been done.'

'By you?' Julian asked, shooting him an alarmed glance.

'I'm just saying it's been done.'

'You seem to know a lot about it!'

'I know what I would do in their place, certainly. I don't think you'd be harmed. There would be no benefit for them in antagonising the Federation by causing a Starfleet officer's death.'

'That isn't very reassuring, you know.'

'I know. But it's important for you to understand why I'm saying this.'

'So... after all this, after making me love you, you're just going to cut me off completely? How can you?'

'I don't mean that either. How I feel about you won't change at all. However, we have to be very, very discreet. There will be times, and I will tell you without a second's delay when they are, when it's safe for us to be together. But for the most part, it is safer by far if we appear to be the friends we were when we left the station a week ago.'

'I don't know if I can do that.'

'If it could save my life?'

'But - I mean - just to stop cold like that!'

'Well, I understand that that will be difficult for you, and I want you to know that I won't mind if you see other people. I've never minded your lady friends, because I knew that I didn't actually have to share you with them. What you gave to them was not what you gave to me. I still feel that's true. And indeed, it helps our cover.'

'I don't want to see other people now,' Julian said forlornly. 'I just want to be with you.'

'I'll miss you too.'

'This is awful. I understand what you're saying, but - are you sure there's no other way?'

'Well, perhaps if we eloped to some very obscure place together and were never heard from again. But I can't see you doing that - you care too much about your work, and your friends, and if you were willing to abandon those you wouldn't be my Julian. And I have my business.'

'But - look, I'm not going to use women as a cover. That's not fair to them. And incredibly archaic.'

'I don't mean you should. I'm sure you would only act on a genuine attraction. And you needn't lie to them. There will just be something you don't mention, because you've promised me.'

'I can't understand how you are about this at all. I mean - what if I started seeing some woman, and I fell in love with her? What then?'

'And out of love with me? I would be very sad about that, but I'd have to accept that it happened because I couldn't give you the relationship you needed. I did think all this through in advance. I decided you were worth the risk.'

'If you fell in love with someone else, it would break my heart,' Julian said.

'Do you think it's likely?'

'I have no idea now. I thought I was starting to know you.'

'Dear Julian, I am not going to be easy to love, much less to know. If you want to end this when we end our holiday, I will understand. Again - you were worth it.'

'I don't want that at all,' Julian muttered. 'I just don't know. It doesn't feel honest. Don't make that face at me!'

'Well, it is a little funny.'

'Not to me,' Julian said. He rubbed his forehead. 'I was imagining us living together. I was thinking about whether you'd move into my quarters, or I'd move into yours, or if we should apply for a bigger place together.'

'Maybe one day, things will be so different that we actually can consider such a step. But we'd be fools to set our hearts on it.'

'I wanted to walk along the promenade holding your hand. Yes, I know you'd hate that. I just liked imagining it.'

'Look on the bright side. Imagine trying to explain it to Chief O'Brien. Or to your parents. I assume you do have parents.'

'I assume no such thing about you.'

'That's very sensible of you.'

'You probably just grew.'

'I shall have to start telling people that. Julian? Can I count on you?'

'You can. Of course you can. But I can't pretend I don't feel very strange about it. And honestly, a little angry with you. I wish you had told me all this sooner. I wouldn't have got my hopes up.'

'You might not have wanted to be with me at all. I didn't want to risk that.'

'You are a profoundly weird person, Elim Garak.'

'I could smile wryly and tell you that you have no idea - but you know that already, don't you?'

O'Brien emphatically did not come to meet Julian's shuttle back to the station, but he did happen to be checking the docking clamps of the next airlock along the corridor, and to come out just as Julian was walking by.

'Oh, there you are. Good holiday? I see you caught the sun; you're brown as a nut.'

'Yes. Pretty good. Awfully hot.'

'You all right? You don't look too chirpy.'

'Yes. You know how it is. You go on a trip, you do too much, you come back feeling you need a vacation from your vacation.'

In the small wavelets at the edge of the island, a blue-green shell tumbled and was drawn out to the deeper water, where it was gradually buried in the sand. Scratched into its surface were the letters 'JB & EG.'