Here We are Now, Entertain Us
By: Regina Bellatrix
Rating: NC-17
Beta: shakespearespot
N.B.: Part five of my Moulin Rouge! series. The incubus of this story was the title idea and a few other stories involving Phlox’s desire to watch.
This fic first appeared in the fanzine Gettin’ From There to Here, Issue 2. ~RB
When Malcolm caught his eye from across the room and sent him a pleading glance, Trip was only too happy to detach himself from the small group of alien anthropologists he was attempting to make small talk with and meet his lover at the refreshments table.
“I have never met anybody who asked so many personal questions with such utter disregard for propriety and discretion.”
“They’re aliens, Mal, and anthropologists t’ boot, I don’t think they know the meanings of the words.”
Malcolm made a face, and Trip laughed. He tapped the bridge of his lover’s nose, saying, “Now, my mama would say not to do that ‘cause your face might get stuck that way.”
“And why would you say I shouldn’t to that?”
“’Cause you’ve got such a nice face that you shouldn’t pull it outta shape like that.” Trip darted in to steal a quick kiss, smiling in delight as Malcolm flushed with mingled pleasure and embarrassment. Had he recalled, in that moment before the kiss, that they were standing in a room full of inquisitive aliens, he never would have done it. Within seconds of separating, the pair was surrounded by a horde of happily babbling anthropologists.
“My note pad! My note pad! Where did I put it?”
“Oh Sheeka, did you see that?”
“A krrilkin pair!”
“What did they do? Who saw what??”
“How long have you been bonded?”
They were all talking at once, pointing and waving at the two officers they now had trapped against the refreshments table. They caught snippets of questions that seemed to be directed at them, but never enough to reply to. Their relief was almost palpable when Captain Archer, not knowing what was happening, came storming over.
“What the hell is going on here?! Back off! Let me through!” Archer pushed his way through the crowd to his Chief Engineer and Armoury Officer, who were both beginning to look a little pale.
“Captain,” said Krilkan, the nominal leader of the Shonaran anthropologists, “you never told us that you had a krrilkin pair in your senior staff. This is most exciting.”
“A what?”
“A krrilkin pair. A same-sex couple.”
“Oh. I respect my crew’s privacy. It’s not my place to tell perfect strangers about their relationship.”
“I suppose not. Forgive me, Captain, but this really is very thrilling for us. We’ve been waiting decades for the opportunity to study krrilkin pairs in other species, and to have one dropped in front of us like this is ... indescribable.”
“That’s very nice, I’m sure, but I think you’re overwhelming my officers a bit. Do you think you could chose one or two people to ask them questions, rather than setting the mob on them?”
“Of course, Captain. Jintai and I shall observe your men. We are specialists in other species’ mating rituals.”
“Okay, then, knock yourselves out.”
“Why would we wish to make ourselves unconscious?”
“It’s an old Earth saying. It means ‘have a good time.’”
“Ah... We will, Captain.”
“Jon!”
“Yes, Trip?”
“You ain’t really condonin’ makin’ us lab rats, are you?”
“We’re all ‘lab rats’ while the Shonarans are here, Trip. Besides, if you’d wanted to keep from disclosing your relationship to the anthropologists, you should never have kissed Malcolm in a room full of them.”
“Time to pay the piper?” asked Malcolm.
“Exactly. I’ll see you boys later. Be good little lab rats.” Archer wandered off to a less crowded corner of the reception, chuckling into his drink.
Trip and Malcolm exchanged a dubious glance before turning to the two remaining Shonarans, bracing themselves for the ordeal to come.
“So,” said Trip, “What’d you want to know?”
***
“When I first saw ‘im? Like when I very first set eyes on ‘im?”
“Yes, Commander,” said Jintai.
“Um, well, I guess I thought... I thought that he was kinda handsome. He has these incredible blue eyes... It wasn’t love at first sight or anything, though.”
“When did you fall in love with him?”
“I don’t know. Really I don’t,” he insisted at the Shonaran’s look of disbelief. “J’st one day I looked at ‘im and knew. It w’s like all this stuff I’d been feelin’ clicked into place.”
“And this was how long before you began your relationship?”
“Eh, a few months.”
“Can you be more accurate?”
“Naw.”
***
“Six months, three weeks, and four days.”
“So exact, Lieutenant?”
“Quite. I keep a journal, you see. Everything of any importance to me I note in there. The day I met Trip. The day I knew I was in love with him. The day he said he loved me... All of our arguments ... everything.”
“Would you mind if I read your journals?” asked Krilkan. “Just the parts relevant to your relationship with Commander Tucker, of course.”
“I don’t know. May I think about it overnight?”
“Certainly, Lieutenant.”
***
“She wants to read my journal,” said Malcolm, snuggling closer to Trip.
Trip slipped his arms around his lover, inching the blanket up over his bare shoulders. “Yeah? You gonna let her?”
“Maybe. I haven’t really decided. She said I could just copy the bits I was willing to share, and her UT would do the work translating. No one else would see it, save for Jintai.”
“Oh.”
“I thought I might give her just enough to establish a timeline for our relationship. She seemed very interested in the timing of everything.”
“So was Jintai. He got kinda frustrated with me, I think. Y’ know how vague I c’n be with dates sometimes.”
Trip could feel the man chuckling beside him before he heard his reply of, “I do indeed.”
“So, what’s on the bill for tomorrow?”
“More of them tailing us and another joint interrogation over dinner, I believe.”
“Joy. Best get some sleep then. It’s gonna be a looong day tomorrow.”
***
“You wanna know what??”
“How often do the two of you engage in sexual intercourse?” repeated Krilkan patiently.
“Um, well, that depends,” said Malcolm while Trip tried to pull himself back together. “Sometimes work can be quite pressing, in which case we’re usually too exhausted to bother.”
“And when your work load is light?” Jintai prompted.
“We ... ah, um, we...”
“We make up for lost time,” Trip finished for him.
“So you vary between abstinence and what, several times a week?”
“Um, in an average week, sure.”
“But what about a slow week?”
“Oh, a slow week... Two, three times ... a night.”
“Really,” said Krilkan with a lifting of her thick eyebrows. “Where do you usually do it?”
Malcolm almost choked on his tea. “Excuse me?”
“Is your sexual activity confined to either your or the Commander’s quarters? Do you have a secret spot elsewhere on the ship?”
This time, Trip rescued Malcolm. “Most of the time we rotate between our quarters, though, one time, we got stuck in a turbolift and, well, let’s just say we managed to make the time pass pretty quickly. That was our only experiment with public places.”
“Interesting. What about other types of experimentation? Do you ever role play? Indulge in a little bondage? Sadomasochism?”
“No, no, and no. Make the last a no, not ever. I will not, would not, could not ever deliberately hurt Malcolm. Not for any reason. I’d die first.”
“That is really sweet, Trip love,” said Malcolm, gazing at his lover adoringly.
“I’s the truth, Mal. I love you. You’re the best thing t’ ever happen to me.” Trip reached out to cup Malcolm’s face with one hand, stroking along his jaw with the tips of his fingers. Malcolm smiled and leaned into the contact.
“Excuse me,” said Jintai, “but you touch his face a great deal, Commander; why is that? Is there a cultural significance or is it just something you do?”
“Huh? Oh, um, physical contact is a way of showin’ affection. Touchin’ a person’s face is ... intimate. ‘Sides he’s got good bone structure. I like the feel of it. And, I’ll admit, I get a kick outta bein’ allowed to do it.”
“Being allowed..? I don’t understand, Commander.”
“What the commander is referring to, Jintai, is the fact that I dislike casual physical contact,” said Malcolm. “I don’t let most people touch me. He finds the fact that I allow him to touch me, intimately, and in public, exciting.”
“Why do you allow it?”
“Because I love him, I trust him, and because I really rather like it. Look at it this way,” he said in response to the anthropologists’ slightly befuddled expressions, “he touches me to express his affection for me. I let him touch me to show my affection for him. We both get a great deal of pleasure out of the act. Make sense?”
“I believe so.”
The Shonarans exchanged a long glance, and Krilkan turned to the two Humans, saying, “We were wondering if the two of you would allow us to observe you during sex. Either tonight or tomorrow night would work equally well.”
The men needed no thought to answer that question, responding with a simultaneous, and forceful, “No!” which caused heads to turn throughout the mess hall.
“Absolutely not!”
“Over my dead body!”
“Gentlemen, please calm down,” said Jintai. “Krilkan was only making a request to further our study. A simple ‘no’ suffices.”
“Well, then,” said Trip, “no.”
“Very well. We shall retire for the evening. Tomorrow is, as you know our last full day aboard your ship. We will wrap up our interviews then. Good night, gentlemen.”
***
“I am going to be so grateful when Krilkan and Jintai leave the ship in the morning. I don’t feel like I’ve been able to properly relax the entire time they’ve been here,” said Malcolm as the door to his quarters slid shut behind him and his lover.
“I know what y’ mean, Mal. C’mere, babe.” Trip pulled Malcolm to him. He let his hands wander freely about the Englishman’s back, tracing abstract patterns in firm strokes. Malcolm’s upturned face was a grave temptation, and he rained gentle kisses down upon it. “Feelin’ more relaxed yet?”
“Mmm... A bit. I think I’d be more relaxed, though, without my uniform on. Do you think you could do something about that?”
“Your breathy hint is my command,” said Trip, redirecting the efforts of his hands to removing his lover’s clothing.
“Yes, that’s better,” said Malcolm as his last article of clothing hit the floor. “Now, I should think that you’d want to get rid of your uniform as well.”
Trip kissed him deeply before releasing him to work at his own uniform with a silly grin. He stripped slowly, keeping his eyes on Malcolm, drinking in the sight of the man becoming increasingly aroused while watching him undress. Once he was nude, Trip returned to his place pressed up against his lover’s body. Kissing down one collar bone and up the other he worked himself around to Malcolm’s back.
Malcolm sighed in contentment, leaning back into Trip’s embrace. His lover’s lips were working magic on his shoulders, and he was beginning to relax despite his arousal. He arched backward when Trip’s wandering hands found his nipples, tweaking them lightly.
Soon enough, Trip was pressed solidly up to his backside and was pulling him backwards toward the bed. Trip sat heavily on the edge of the bed, bringing Malcolm down with him into his lap. Nuzzling at the Armoury Officer’s pale skin became his main focus. He coaxed Malcolm into a position straddling his right thigh so that he could raise and lower the man with the one leg to better reach various spots needing to be kissed.
With Trip’s hands on his hips, and Trip’s mouth roaming his back, Malcolm found the ride in Trip’s lap highly stimulating. He throbbed in anticipation, gasping and moaning softly. A shiver ran through him when Trip whispered in his ear, “Like that, darlin’?” and gave a long, sucking pull at his earlobe. It was all he could do to say, “More please.”
Trip obliged. One hand left Malcolm’s hip to tickle first at the inside of his thigh and then at his balls. Craving a different kind of contact, Malcolm took the teasing hand into his own and wrapped it around his hard shaft.
“More.”
“Love it when you beg.”
“Not begging ... telling you... Oh, Trip...”
“W’ll, hold on a sec. I gotta better idea ‘n j’st givin’ y’ a hand job. Git up for a min’t.”
Malcolm complied, standing on none too steady legs, while Trip dove into the bedstand drawer and fished for the tube of lubricant. When he found it, he re-seated himself on the bed, scooting up higher than he had been before to ensure a firm seat.
“C’mere an’ sit yerself down, lover. Straddle both legs this time. That’s it.” Trip placed a kiss on Malcolm’s shoulder once the man had settled into his lap, moaning as Malcolm squirmed a bit, rubbing up against his cock. “Mal, you’re gonna hafta git on your knees.”
He helped the smaller man settle his folded legs in a comfortable position on either side of his own and encouraged him to raise himself up slightly. Fingers slick with lubricant, Trip slicked up and stretched out his lover. He squeezed another generous dollop of lubricant out onto his right hand and tossed the tube in the general direction of the bedstand. Wrapping his left arm around Malcolm, he applied the slick substance to his erect phallus.
Trip drew Malcolm back down toward him, guiding himself into his lover’s body until the man was once again seated in his lap. The pressure of Malcolm’s body around him was exquisite, and he could feel the man trembling as he fought for some semblance of control. It was a losing battle, though, and Malcolm gave in, leaning back against Trip with a low moan.
Ghosting his fingers across the length of the Englishman’s penis, Trip whispered in his ear, “This’s better, ain’t it, darlin’?”
Malcolm swallowed, nodding vigorously in reply.
“Thought you’d like it.”
Trip grasped Malcolm’s cock, thrusting up into him and sucking on his neck simultaneously, drawing a startled exclamation from the man.
“Oh Trip!”
Malcolm’s hand joined his, and they settled into a rhythm, rocking and pumping together. Malcolm turned his head toward Trip, nuzzling at the face buried in his neck until Trip got the hint and lifted his lips to meet Malcolm’s.
The kiss was intense, binding. They drew it out, holding it as long as they could, breaking it only for quick gasps of air and diving back in. It broke for good when they both climaxed, Malcolm hitting his peak first, and Trip following along behind him.
Spent, they lay back on the bed. Malcolm shifted enough to stretch his cramping legs out, but remained on top of Trip. They fell asleep that way, Malcolm a reassuring weight on top of Trip, and Trip a warm presence cradling Malcolm.
***
“Jintai! Jintai! Wake up. They’re at it again.”
The Shonaran anthropologist blinked sleepily at his colleague. “Again? That makes three times in one night. Don’t they ever sleep?”
“Not much,” said Krilkan. “That bug camera was an excellent investment. I love the way we can fly it around for better angles. This recording is going to be worth years of study.”
“What are they doing now?”
“Reed seems to be teasing Tucker.”
“Turn up the volume. I want to hear what they’re saying.”
“Malcolm! Malcolm, stop it! That tickles. Oooohh! No, pleeease.”
“I love it when you beg.”
“Damn you, Malcooo...”
The name turned into a high-pitched shriek as Reed found a particularly sensitive spot, and the anthropologists cringed, lowering the volume again.
“If those two aren’t dead tired in the morning, I won’t know what to think,” said Krilkan.
***
Jintai tried not to stare at the two Humans, he really did. Still, knowing what they’d been doing just a few hours ago, and how many times they’d done it, made it difficult. That the pair was so obviously alert and cheerful did not help any either.
Tucker started slightly, suppressing a grin, and Jintai realised that Reed had just pinched one of his partner’s buttocks. The Armoury Officer’s face was as blank as ever, but his blue eyes seemed to dance with merriment.
What stamina, he thought admiringly and with a tinge of envy. He shook himself and attempted to focus on that Krilkan was saying to the men.
“We are most appreciative of your consenting to participate in our study, gentlemen. Although, I wish time would have allowed for a longer visit.”
“Our pleasure, Ma’am. Glad we could be of service to y’all.”
“The pleasure was all ours. You and Lieutenant Reed were most informative and entertaining. You made field research a real delight, and we thank you for it.
“Now, I’m afraid, we must be returning to our ship. So many more people to meet out there, you know. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Commander, Lieutenant,” said Jintai. “Be well, and be happy in one another.”
“’Bye.”
“Farewell.”
The Shonarans turned and walked through the airlock to their waiting ship. When the doors clicked shut behind them, Krilkan stopped and turned to face her colleague.
“’Be happy in one another?’ That was a double entendre if I ever heard one. Can’t keep your mind from the sewage drifts, Jintai?”
“Oh, shut up, Krilkan. That you even thought it means you’re just as bad.”
“True.”
“’Be happy in one another,’ eh?” Malcolm grinned lasciviously at his lover. “I think we usually manage that pretty well. Especially last night.”
“We did, didn’t we? You up for a little tango tonight?” Trip wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“No, I don’t think I shall ever be up for a tango ever again.”
“What?!”
Malcolm grinned at Trip’s obvious misunderstanding. “No, you see, the tango is a dance of one-sided desire. It doesn’t appeal to me anymore. The rumba, now there’s a dance. The rumba is the dance of love. Much more to my liking these days. Much more suitable, given my partner.”
“Dance of love, huh? Does sound more appropriate. Rumba it is, then.”
“Glad you approve of my choice.”
“Well, I’m glad you made it. Real glad.” They gazed at each other for a few moments before Trip finally spoke again.
“Now, how about that dance date tonight. Nineteen-hundred? My quarters?”
“I shall be there, prepared to be entertained.”
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