This little story, on the other hand, is mine, as is Hanir Alannah.

Final note to any Dukat fanciers who've been directed this way ... do not be misled! This is not a Dukat story. He just gets a nice scene or so. :-)

Hanir Alannah prided herself on doing her job, and doing it well. She never expected to fall in love.

That she was good at her work was obvious from the expression of the man who lay on the table before her, as he writhed and moaned under the alternately firm and delicate ministrations of her strong, slender hands. Each muscle, each pressure point, each carefully nurtured inch of skin was deftly manipulated for one end, and one end only -- the man, a wealthy trader named Tiron, let out a shout as the semen exploded from his throbbing penis, to splatter a good ten feet across the room. Alannah, eyes crinkling ever so slightly in a smile that complemented the delicate ridges in her Bajoran nose, picked up a steaming towel from the bowl at her side, and draped it across the trader's loins. She began to cleanse him gently, dropping a ceremonial kiss somewhere in the center of his chest.

"By the void, Alannah," the man gasped, "what I wouldn't give to take you with me."

"Even you couldn't afford that, Tiron," Alannah observed, amused. "Besides, didn't you once say that seeing me was the only thing you looked forward to when you visited this station? You would hate to have nothing special to enjoy when you have to come here on business, would you not?"

"I suppose you're right." The trader smiled wryly, then reached up a strong hand to twine it in the auburn mass of Alannah's hair. "Void, you're beautiful," he murmured, pulling down her head to give her a kiss on the neck that was almost painful -- a reminder of who was the buyer, and who the seller. "Why do you do this?"

Alannah gave a thin smile. "Because," she said simply, "I'm good at it. And it pays well." Her dark brown eyes grew thoughtful, and a little troubled. Then she shrugged.

"It pays very well," Tiron observed, "if you charge all your patrons the same that you charge me."

Alannah laughed, and dropped her voice to a husky murmur. "I charge whatever the market will allow, Tiron. A wily businessman like you should appreciate that." She ran a fingertip down his chest and belly, causing him to gasp as she continued, undeterred, down his reawakening member. "I assume since you haven't complained that you're a satisfied customer." Dipping her head, she proceeded to guarantee it, engulfing him in her wet, red mouth.

Afterwards, she took the five hundred strips of latinum that the trader handed her and tucked them away in her desk without comment. Alannah prided herself on never asking that her clients pay first, and she had yet to find cause to change her policy.

Repeat business was usually guaranteed.

A moment brought to an abrupt end by a harsh exclamation from another Cardassian who came across them unawares, just as the passion of the soldier who was abusing the girl began to peak. Alannah was shoved roughly to the ground by the hands that only seconds before had been wrapped in her hair, urging her on, and she grappled painfully to her hands and knees, raising her head to look for the first time into the face of the Cardassian prefect of the station, Gul Dukat.

Dukat ... Alannah never knew whether she wanted to cry or spit when she remembered the charming Cardassian with his velvety voice, who reached to take her by the arm and help her to her feet. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Dukat had snapped at his underling, even while he gave the frightened Bajoran girl a reassuring smile. "I think my orders regarding Bajoran natives are quite clear, are they not?"

The soldier, a young and recent recruit, practically stammered. "No rape of any member of the native population is permitted. But I thought that -"

"What did you think, soldier?" Dukat turned dangerously gleaming eyes on his flustered subordinate. "That you wouldn't get caught?"

"No, sir!" the soldier hastened to reply. "It's just that -- what I was doing --"

"You don't think that counts?" Dukat's cold tones were more frightening than if he had shouted. "Allow me to correct you." He lashed out with the back of his hand and knocked the man to the ground. He then turned to Alannah, who watched him with wide eyes and open mouth. "Come with me, young woman," he said gently. "You have a scratch on your face -- it needs tending. I have a medkit in my quarters."

Alannah had followed him, astonished, barely noticing the looks they received from the people they passed on the Promenade, nor registering what they said. She merely accompanied Dukat into his quarters and allowed him to run a dermal regenerator over her fair skin, blossoming unselfconsciously under the seeming genuineness of his warmth and regard. Her parents had been dead since she was four, the rest of her family scattered and lost, and the girl had little notion of what true tenderness was. It was easy for her to accept any substitute offered to her, and to ultimately join the Cardassian gul in his bed, where she learned more about Cardassians than she ever considered necessary to her education.

In many ways, Dukat surprised her -- taught to fear the Cardassian oppressors, Alannah was surprised when she responded to his advances, amazed when he proved both careful and sensuous when he touched her. At any rate, he was thorough, conscientious enough in his lovemaking that the loss of her virtue was an ache barely noticed, the stain of her blood a monument lost against the black silk sheets. Nonetheless, she cried out, a sharp little moan of pain quickly stifled by her well-conditioned fear of doing or saying anything that a Cardassian might take as an affront.

Amazingly, Dukat stopped in his thrusting, and when he spoke his voice was concerned. "What is it, Alannah?" He had made a point of learning her name, another facet of this complex individual that startled her. "Did I hurt you?"

"A little." The confession was a bare whisper.

"Don't you like what I'm doing?" Alannah gasped as Dukat caught one of her nipples gently between his teeth.

"I'm not sure. I've -- I've never done anything like this before."

She could see Dukat's eyes narrow curiously in the dim light. "How old are you, Alannah?"

"Sixteen."

"Gods -- I keep forgetting how fast you Bajoran women mature." Dukat shook his head and started to draw away. Alannah, startled, acted instinctively when she caught his shoulders in her hands and tightened her thighs around him.

"That's all right. I -- I think I like it."

"Oh, you do, do you?" Dukat laughed, with a sudden flashing smile. And began to move within her again, at first slowly, carefully, then with increased abandon. It was like an explosion of heated metal inside her, although it didn't burn -- "Little Alannah, I think you'll do. I think you'll do nicely."

Only afterwards did she decipher the whispers, as a guard escorted her through the winding corridors of the station's habitat ring to the small but private room that had suddenly, magically, been allocated for her use.

Ridgenose fever. That was one of the whispers -- Gul Dukat had ridgenose fever. And a new whisper, one from which she would never fully retreat.

Cardassian whore.

"Miss Hanir, might I have a word with you?"

The Alannah of almost fifteen years later, seated in the Replimat of the station now called Deep Space Nine, looked up warily at the sound of that well-known voice. Although her profession, with certain restrictions, was within the bounds of the law, she was still uncomfortable when the law observed her too closely. The law which was embodied in the man who now approached her, with his usual respectful but no-nonsense tones.

"Security Chief Odo." Alannah nodded gravely at the chair across from hers at her small corner table. "How may I help you?"

"I was wondering if I might have a word with you in private."

Alannah looked at the former changeling, now human security chief more closely, her eyes widening slightly in surprise. "Is there a problem, Mr. Odo?"

"You could say that." The lean, rangy man with those perplexingly soulful blue eyes startled Alannah still further by twisting his thin lips into a wry smile. "I'd rather not discuss it here, if you don't mind."

"Certainly, Constable." While Constable was not Odo's formal title, it was one which Alannah had heard used to address the security chief frequently, and one that came naturally to her lips. She stood and smoothed down the folds of her simple, knee-length green dress, brushing back her thick, shoulder-length hair with her hand. "Would you like me to come to your office? Or you can come to my quarters -- they're not that much further, if you truly want to be alone."

"Your quarters might be best," Odo responded quietly, to Alannah's faint surprise. I suppose that's one of the advantages to living your life beyond reproach, she mused silently. You can walk into a prostitute's quarters and still not have anyone think anything ill of you. The idea of such a lack of notoriety shimmered with brief appeal.

"Of course." Alannah inclined her head graciously, leading the way from the table. She smiled a little, amused, as Odo fell silently into step beside her, matching his stride to hers. "Do you not make small talk, Constable?" she murmured, as they continued silently down the length of the Promenade.

Unexpectedly, Odo gave a wry smile. "Not usually," he confessed. "I'm not very good at it."

"I suppose it is an art form, at that." Alannah considered her words in silence until they reached the point where they could summon the turbolift. "Habitat ring, level three," she quietly instructed as they entered, before turning her full attention to her silent companion. "We're alone now, Constable. Is there anything you can go ahead and tell me?"

Odo glanced up at her, a sudden quiver of -- nervousness? -- briefly surfacing as a tic near the corner of his mouth. "I suppose so," he said briefly. Then, in a few words, he shattered every preconceived notion she might have had about this near-mythic figure, whose authority had spanned the last four years of the Occupation and the first four of the Federation's tenure. "I'd like to engage you in -- your professional capacity."

Alannah's mouth fell open. She wasn't sure she'd heard right, and she was quite sure that even if she had, she had still misunderstood. "For -- for yourself?"

There is was again -- that wry ghost of a smile. "For myself."

Alannah wouldn't have been more surprised if he had announced that the Cardassians were returning to retake the station.

Less surprised, actually.

The man the Cardassians had once called 'odo'ital' had reached the seemingly inexplicable decision to engage a prostitute in the same manner he reached all of his decisions -- carefully, cautiously, and with meticulous attention to the facts. Those facts being, once they were reduced to their essentials, that he was now a humanoid, and that unresolved sexual tension was driving him out of his mind.

Odo had conscientiously read up on the subject, and resolutely embarked on a variety of possible solutions. He had tried meditation. He had tried cold showers. He had tried a variety of meditation techniques, none of which did more than free his mind for an unsolicited and unwelcome barrage of sexual fantasies. He had gone so far as to "take himself in hand", and had achieved what he supposed were the desired results. And he had awakened night after night with soiled sheets and a deep feeling of chagrin.

Desperate for an end to this situation, he had even taken the unprecedented action of going to Dr. Bashir for advice. The young Starfleet physician, to his credit, had listened soberly to Odo's painfully extrapolated questions, and given them his most serious consideration.

"I'm not sure what to think, Constable," Bashir had murmured, fixing his thoughtful gaze on the security chief's tense face. "You're obviously quite overwrought about this, and it sounds like you're taking all of the traditional measures." Bashir gave a self-deprecating smile, nodding in commiseration. "Nothing that we men don't all feel a need for from time to time, but it sounds like it's not affording you any relief at all."

"Exactly," Odo said briefly, relieved that no further explanation on his part seemed to be required. "It's very -- disconcerting."

Bashir's brow furrowed as he began to theorize. "I wonder, Constable, if it doesn't have something to do with your changeling origins."

Odo stared at the doctor, his eyes widening, startled. "What do you mean?"

"Well, your people are very communal by nature -- it is the Great Link, after all." Bashir smiled. "It may just be that you need -- well -- linking."

Linking. Odo had carried this information away to give it his careful consideration. So he now stood in the center of Hanir Alannah's quarters, and looked around with a sense of wondering surprise.

He had for some reason expected surroundings a bit more sumptuous -- more decadent, he admitted wryly to himself. Instead, the room was furnished with a tasteful minimalism, everything of good quality, but nothing done to excess. Every item seemed to be placed in perfect order, with an eye for both practicality and artistry -- startled, Odo realized that these quarters were, in their own way, very much like his own. Even if it were dark, she would be able to lay her hand on anything she wanted, he thought, and then blushed as he realized that for a prostitute this was probably a necessary thing.

"Please have a seat." Hanir Alannah indicated a comfortable chair facing the viewport. She herself took a seat in the curve of the viewport itself -- a good choice, Odo realized, as he noticed the starlight gleaming off his hostess' auburn hair. "Was this meant to be a preliminary consultation, or did you want to --"

"Oh -- a preliminary consultation," Odo interjected hastily. "I thought that perhaps later …"

"All right." Alannah stood and crossed the room to the comdesk, tapping lightly at the surface. "I'm free tonight ... what exactly did you have in mind?" She might have been asking for a meeting agenda, from her light, friendly, but professional tone.

"What did I --" Odo shook his head, confused. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean."

Alannah shrugged. "What do you like? I generally start with a nice dinner, maybe a massage --"

Odo felt hopelessly tongue-tied. "No -- I mean, that's not -- all I --" Wonderful, he thought. I'm trying to hire a prostitute, and all I can do is stammer like a fool.

Alannah's eyebrows were polite circumflexes of surprise. "Something a bit more exotic? I do tend to get asked for that -- oral sex, that's pretty standard -- did you want anal sex? Bondage? Did you want to tie me up, or have me tie you up?"

"No, I don't really think that …" Odo paused helplessly.

Alannah's mouth twisted in a moue of distaste. "I'm sorry if you're into anything more abstract than that, but I've never cared for genuine pain, and I've never been able to manage eliminating on anyone -- it just seems too rude. Of course, if you want to --"

"No!" Odo exclaimed, finally shocked into the words he needed. "I just want to -- have intercourse with you." It sounded stilted, but it was the best compromise he could make between specificity and discretion. Hanir Alannah's eyebrows rose in surprise.

"Just straight sex? Is that all?" She peered into Odo's face, her expression one of honest curiosity.

"Isn't that enough?"

Alannah shrugged, while her eyes crinkled in apparent amusement. "Of course, if it's enough for you. Only -- why me? If you don't mind my saying so, there are more economical options."

"I can afford it," Odo said briefly. "You're noted for your discretion. Besides --" this part came harder "-- I find you very attractive. You -- " You look like the woman I love -- the woman I can never hope to have. "-- I like the color of your hair."

Alannah smiled, her red lips curving delectably over white, even teeth. "Thank you, Odo -- may I call you Odo?"

Odo looked at her, surprised. "Of course. It's my name."

"And mine is Alannah," she said smoothly, surprising Odo yet again with the cultured accent of her soft voice. "I hope you'll feel free to use it." It was an educated voice, he realized, the careful usage actually purer and more refined than --

Odo shoved any further comparisons firmly from his mind. "It would seem -- indicated, under the circumstances," he agreed, in his usual gravel-like tones. He hoped desperately that he could escape this woman's faintly amused, assessing gaze before the faint stirrings of interest in his groin became painfully apparent.

"All right." Alannah stood up and held out her hand. Odo got awkwardly to his feet and took the offered hand in his, not quite sure what she expected him to do with it. The answer was, as it turned out, not much -- Alannah squeezed his hand briefly and said, "My fee for the evening's services will be twenty strips of latinum. That includes dinner, if you'd care to join me -- did you want to come here, or did you want me to come to you?"

"Here will be fine." Odo stared at her as a memory pricked at the back of his mind. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but ... isn't that price rather low for you? I heard you charge considerably more for your services."

Alannah smiled. "Professional courtesy -- from one station service provider to another." She chuckled at Odo's startled expression. "Besides, compared to my usual clients, your requirements are -- quite lacking in complexity. So, shall I expect you for dinner?"

"Why dinner?"

Alannah shrugged. "A little wine, good food, some music ... you look like you might enjoy the experience more if you had a chance to relax. I try to make sure," she continued, no evidence of hypocrisy in her voice, "that all of my clients enjoy themselves."

"I'm sure I will." Odo finally managed to relinquish the slender hand.

For the first time, it seemed like he might be right.

"Odo was where?" Jadzia Dax, a joined Trill, stared at the station's Ferengi bartender, Quark, in astonishment. "I'm sure he -- it must be part of some kind of investigation."

"I don't know why he was there." Quark solemnly continued to polish glasses. "I just know he was there."

"For how long?" Dax wanted to know.

"From what I've heard -- about twenty minutes."

"Well, there, you see? Hanir Alannah goes by the night."

"Yes, but it was just the right length for one of her pre-lim-i-nar-y con-sul-tations." Quark enunciated each syllable meaningfully. Dax continued to stare for another moment, before she shook her head in utter disbelief.

"Quark, it can't be that."

"Care to place a small wager?"

"How much?" Dax asked cautiously.

"One bar of gold-pressed latinum."

Dax's eyes widened at the amount, and at the calmness with which it was stated. Quark didn't make that kind of bet unless he thought he had a sure thing. "You know something," she accused.

"I don't know anything. I just happened to take a few facts into account -- for one thing, Hanir Alannah's resemblance to a certain Major."

Dax sat back on her barstool, thoughts dashing like wind gusts across her face. "Gods -- you mean that Odo --"

"Yes, and don't tell me I'm imagining things."

"No." Dax shook her head slowly. "I won't."

"So, you know about it, too."

"I don't know anything." Dax's retort was sharp. "I've just -- wondered about it. After Odo was joined with Curzon for my zhian'tara …"

"Well, then, you know."

"I've wondered," Dax repeated strongly. "But that doesn't mean Odo would hire Hanir to have sex with him!"

"So bet on it." Quark's grin was absolutely smug.

Dax grimaced, then held out her hand. "You're on."

Odo took one small precaution against setting tongues to wagging, not because he felt ashamed of what he was doing, but because he deeply resented any intrusion on his privacy. When time came for his appointment, he had the computer beam him directly to Hanir Alannah's quarters, after a call to her verified that such an action would be acceptable.

It was. Odo materialized a few feet inside the door to the main living area, to be greeted by a sight disconcerting in its intimacy. Alannah crossed the room to meet him with a serene smile, her slender body draped in a simple, silken gown, its pale rose folds subtly emphasizing every curve of her naked body beneath it. When she saw how Odo's eyes flew to her breasts, Alannah's smile deepened.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I'm a few minutes behind schedule. Let me go put on my robe."

Odo didn't move as Alannah excused herself and disappeared into the bedroom, to reemerge in sumptuous green robe, heavy with embroidery. To his surprise, she held another robe across one arm, this one a deep midnight blue. She held it out to him and smiled.

"Why don't you go into my bedroom and change into this? You'll be much more comfortable."

"I --" Somewhat at a loss, Odo took the garment from her -- a thick, brushed silk, it gave a new definition to softness as it rested in his hands. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand."

Again that amused smile, painfully reminiscent of other smiles from another, much-loved source. "Let's just say that it will make things ... less awkward for us later. Take my word for it, Odo ... I think I have a little more experience in these things than you do."

What about one hundred percent more? Odo wondered, with a sudden stab of consternation, What am I doing here --?

What I need to do, he told himself sternly. He turned and went into the bedroom, cursing the curiosity that caused a faintly pleasurable tickle along his spine.

Again, nothing was what he expected -- there was nothing gaudy, nothing voluptuous in the room's almost Spartan furnishings. A wide bed, certainly, but one neatly and simply made with a plain cream spread, the headboard of smooth, polished wood ... Odo slowly proceeded to unfasten his uniform tunic, fold it neatly and put it on the seat of a straight-backed chair. The rest of his clothes followed suit -- even, although with some reluctance, his plain black, standard-issue briefs. He shrugged on the robe Alannah had given him, then belted it securely around his waist and arranged it to cover as much as possible of his chest. The fabric was wonderfully soft and warm, gentle as a caress against his bare skin -- Odo started to shove all notions of caresses from his mind, before he suddenly realized, It's all right. It's all right to think about caresses, and touching, and all that goes with it. Tonight -- tonight it's indicated.

Odo paused to consider the strips of latinum he had emptied from his pockets. Twenty of them, just as Alannah had specified -- not sure what the etiquette of the situation required, Odo finally opted to leave them in a neat stack on the dresser. I suppose she'll ask if she doesn't see them, Odo decided, before he finally nerved himself to join the woman in the other room.

"Are you hungry?" Alannah greeted Odo cheerfully as he slowly reemerged from the bedroom, ignoring his self-conscious blush. "I made some pel'kenar -- it's light, but filling -- I thought you might like it. I do enjoy cooking every now and then." She made a few touches to the table settings, and finally lit a pair of candles with a flourish. Alannah then crossed the room to give Odo a considering look, her eyes warm with approval. "That looks good on you," she observed. "I thought it would."

"It's very thoughtful of you." Odo was pleased to hear that his voice sounded almost normal. He then started slightly as Alannah slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him with gentle intimacy.

"Your mouth tastes like breela spice."

Alannah's husky whisper was like a shot of some powerful aphrodisiac. "I -- I stopped to clean up before I came." Even knowing why he was there, Odo was disconcerted by the renewed throbbing in his loins.

"That explains why you smell so good -- very clean and fresh." Alannah kissed him again, and this time ran an unabashed hand down Odo's belly to his groin and fondled him through the soft fabric. "Mmm ... very nice," she murmured. Then she turned away, going back to the table.

"Would you care for a glass of wine? It's something Terran ... very light, but bubbly and a little sweet ... champagne, they call it. It seems to go with everything."

Odo decided that a glass of champagne was a very good idea. "That would be nice." He reached to take the delicately fluted glass that she held out to him. "I'm partial to drinks with bubbles," he confessed, a little startled to hear himself share the confidence.

"So am I." For the umpteenth time, Odo admired the casual confidence of Alannah's soft, sensual voice. "This may sound foolish, but I like to listen to them -- does that seem silly?"

"No, not in the least." Odo was wide-eyed with surprise. "I do, too."

"Well, let's have something to eat." Alannah indicated a place at the table, where Odo seated himself stiffly, careful about where the folds of his robe fell. Alannah ate heartily, but Odo found himself unable to do much more than push the food around his plate with his fork. His companion finally took pity on him and put down her glass. Alannah reached out to gently touch Odo's hand with her fingertips.

"You're too nervous to eat, aren't you?"

Odo managed a wry smile. "I'm afraid that you're right," he conceded. "I'm sorry that it's so -- obvious."

"No." Alannah shook her head. "Most men come in here and act like they own me. Someone like you ... it's really very sweet." She got gracefully to her feet and held out her hand. "Another nice thing about pel'kenar is that it's just as good cold. Let's go to bed -- if you're hungry later you can have some then."

Odo rose slowly from his chair and clutched the folds of his robe to him like a shield, before he realized how apparent such an action made his aroused condition. But Alannah didn't seem to notice, she just reached out to take his hand in hers and led him gently into her bedroom.

"Computer, dim lights to twenty percent." The room was plunged into a faint, warm glow, while the stars outside the bedroom's viewport shone with new fire. Alannah removed her robe and draped it tidily across the back of a chair, before leading Odo to where they could look out together on the glimmering starscape. Finally she turned to face him, and slid her hands, soft but inexorable, under the facings of his robe.

"Your skin is so smooth," she whispered. Alannah pressed her lips into the hollow of Odo's throat, and drew forth a faint but appreciative moan from her profoundly stimulated partner. "May I?" she whispered, letting her hands fall to the belt of his robe.

"Of course." Odo at first attempted to aid her, but finally abandoned his trembling efforts and turned over himself and his clothing to Alannah's far more capable management. Eyes closed, he caught his breath in a tiny hiss as he felt the silk slide down the length of his body to pool on the floor at his feet.

"Shh ... just leave it." Alannah reached out a hand to forestall him as Odo automatically began to lean over to pick up the fallen garment. "I'll get it later." She drew him gently after her until she could, with a little push, make him sit on the edge of the bed. She perched there next to him, and smiled a little as she watched his eyes travel yearningly over her thinly clad body.

"Do you want to look at me?" she asked. Accepting Odo's slight intake of breath as an assent, she removed the thin straps of her gown from her shoulders, causing it to slip gracefully to her waist. Odo took in her delicately full breasts with their pale pink nipples with a look of shy admiration, before he fixed amazed eyes on her face. "You're beautiful," he said simply. "I never knew ... that a woman's body could be so beautiful."

Alannah peered at him curiously as certain suspicions finally gelled in her mind. "Odo ... are you a virgin?" she asked softly. Odo's painful blush was an answer in and of itself, even before he managed an awkward nod.

"I'm afraid so." It was a difficult confession. "I'm sorry, I should have warned you."

"That's nothing to be sorry about." Alannah took Odo's averted face in her hands and compelled him to look at her, her brown eyes warm and caressing as her gaze met his. "I'm -- very flattered that you chose me to share it with." Her smile deepened, and a glimmer of mischief quirked the corners of her lips. "If it doesn't sound too conceited of me -- you could have made a far worse choice."

Odo acknowledged the truth of her words with a wry chuckle. "I'm sure I could have," he conceded, reaching a tentative hand towards her. "Is it all right if I --"

In answer, Alannah took his hand in hers and drew it to her waist, before she coaxed it to slide up and cup one of her breasts. Odo let out a little sigh and began to fondle her gently.

"And I thought that the robe was soft." Odo's soft comment was almost reverent. Alannah gave a light laugh, before she lay back against the bed and drew Odo down with her. She raised her knees so that her gown slipped off her thighs, to become little more than a pool of silk at her waist -- Alannah gathered Odo into her arms and kissed him softly with her warm, open mouth, her tongue seeking delicately after his. Odo responded with desperately growing ardor, moving instinctively until he was positioned between her thighs. He gasped as her hand closed gently on his throbbing penis, and guided it to what for all feelings and appearances was a heartfelt welcome, where moist, warm folds closed around him snugly and drew him to a pleasure the likes of which he had never known.

His initially awkward motions quickly smoothed themselves out as his body took over, ignoring any further mental commands as it seized its rhythm from hers. He finally managed to open his eyes and look down into the exquisite face of the woman beneath him -- then he gasped as an explosion of sheer rapture erupted in his groin. Odo cried out sharply before he collapsed in Alannah's arms, to be met with a pleased, wordless murmur as she slid her hands sensuously over his shoulders and down the length of his back.

"That wasn't so bad, now was it?" The amused whisper tickled his ear. Odo raised himself on his elbows to give Alannah a wide-eyed stare, before he collapsed, laughing, onto the bed at her side.

"No," he conceded at last, still chuckling. "Not bad at all."

"I'm glad," she said simply. She reached out and traced her fingers down Odo's chest, while a smile played at the corners of her mouth. She chuckled a little to see his body's almost immediate response, and Odo's shamefaced blush. "Don't be embarrassed. Your body -- it's lovely. This," she added, her fingers closing around the organ that was re-energizing itself with amazing rapidity, "is especially nice." She caressed him with a look of frank appreciation.

"I'm -- glad that you like it." Odo wondered for a moment how he could still manage to breathe.

"Really ... it's splendid." Alannah sat up briefly, only to rearrange herself so that she could inspect the object of her admiration more closely. "This ... what is it that humans call this?" She gently peeled back loose fold of skin that covered the head of his penis, and blew softly against the sensitive glans underneath.

Odo willed himself not to jump, although his eyes fluttered closed at the fresh sensual assault. "It's the prepuce -- the foreskin."

"Yes, that's it." Alannah began to move the article under discussion up and down enticingly. "A foreskin ... you know, I can't think of any other race of humanoids where the males have these, and even some humans don't ... why is that? Do you know?"

Concentrating on Alannah's question enabled Odo to distance himself a little from the deliciously maddening things she was doing to him. "Oh ... I believe that some of them have it removed ... when they're infants. It's some sort of socio-religious ritual."

"What a pity," Alannah murmured, "you're so sensitive under here." She ran her forefinger lightly over the unseeing 'third eye', and elicited a moan from her already gasping victim. "The humans who've had it taken off ... they aren't nearly so easy to arouse."

Odo harumphed, causing Alannah to give him a startled look. "Thanks for the tip," he said gruffly. "I'll ask Bashir to remove it in the morning."

Alannah laughed, a bell-like peal. "Don't do that!" she exclaimed. "It's lovely ... like unwrapping a present." She moved closer, and Odo gasped as her lips closed around him, and Alannah's whole mouth began to apply itself to a combination of licks and nibbles that culminated in a gentle sucking that made him wonder which would explode first, his testicles or his brain. To his combined relief and chagrin, it was the former, as he poured out his essence into Alannah's seemingly eager mouth -- she continued to work at it until his penis became quite soft, drained for the time being of any sexual need. It was, Odo noted vaguely, a blissful state of affairs.

Alannah finally drew back, her lips letting go of him with a faint slurping sound that nonetheless resonated sensually in Odo's consciousness. He shuddered pleasurably as Alannah dropped a brief kiss on his thigh, before she sat up, resting her hand briefly on his chest.

"I'll be right back," she whispered. "I'm going to get us something to drink."

Pausing long enough to let her nightgown fall to the floor as she stood, Alannah stepped out of the silken ring and left the room, to return a few moments later with the champagne bottle in one hand and a glass in the other. "Do you mind sharing?" she asked. "I couldn't quite manage both glasses in one trip and bring the bottle as well."

"I don't mind." The answer would have been the same if she'd asked to do a Kelvetti kick-dance on his stomach, Odo's gratitude was so profound. For the first time, he had experienced not only orgasm, but satisfaction ... he watched as Alannah seated herself on the edge of the bed, filling the glass she carried with a deft hand. She held it out to him, but Odo shook his head.

"You first," he said softly. "You're probably thirstier."

Alannah smiled an acknowledgment of the truth of his words. "I suspect you're right," she conceded. "You're very tasty as men go ... but it is salty."

Odo let his eyes roam over the slender woman's nude body, until they came to rest on the rich auburn hair that made up the neat triangle that disappeared into the juncture of her thighs. "May I --" he paused, not certain how to proceed, "-- may I look at you -- down there? May I -- taste you?"

Alannah looked a little startled at his request, and, for the first time that evening, uncertain, and almost shy. "Of course, if that's what you want …" A disarming blush flooded her creamy skin. "I'm sorry, I don't often get asked that. I'll have to think about it, what will give you the best angle …" She drained the champagne from her glass, before, unexpectedly, getting on her hands and knees on the bed, with her backside to the startled constable. Odo blinked rapidly, before he realized that Alannah was right ... her lovely, rosy labia were exposed to him in all their rich dampness, framed delectably between the ivory curves of her buttocks. Fascinated, Odo sat up and moved to where he could look at her more closely, could stroke the folds delicately with his fingertips and marvel at Alannah's slight but unmistakable quiver. Sliding still closer, he dipped his head and began to explore her with his mouth, finding her salty and tangy and somehow altogether delicious.

As his tongue found a tiny, hard knot, he felt as much as heard Alannah's gasp, her soft, astonished whimper of pleasure. Concentrating on that one spot, Odo caught Alannah's hips in his hands, and held her to him when her body began to buck and shudder uncontrollably. Her moisture poured into his mouth like the juice of some rich, strange fruit, and then she screamed, an paradoxical sound of ecstasy and despair. Odo released her hips and she sagged forward onto her stomach, her narrow shoulders shaking. Odo, suddenly concerned, crawled up the bed to lie beside her, reaching out to lay a tentative hand against her back.

"Alannah ... are you all right?"

"I'm fine." The words came with difficulty, and she still refused to look at him. "There are some things ... some things even a peska doesn't expect -- especially a peska."

Odo blinked at her use of the derogatory Bajoran word for a particularly well-turned-out whore. "I'm sorry," he whispered, as guilt flooded in to consume him. He had always heard that Hanir Alannah genuinely enjoyed her work. He now began to expect that this wasn't true, and had a miserable sense of somehow having exploited her.

Alannah finally looked at him then, her wide brown eyes startled. Odo saw to his dismay that her face was streaked with tears. But a cautious optimism returned when her lips curved in a wry smile.

"You've done nothing to be sorry for, Constable." Odo tried not to wince at her use of the nickname first given to him by Kira Nerys. Alannah reached out her hand to stroke the curve of Odo's shoulder. "You just took me by surprise, that's all." Her voice lowered to the barest whisper. "I'm used to helping others to fly, not flying myself." Her smile was tinged with rue, while the shadow of passion in her eyes hinted at the look he had so longed to see in another woman's face, but never had -- at least not directed at him. It was a sweet, sensual, but ingenuous smile -- strangely at odds with the collected professional who had choreographed their evening's pleasure, and asked him such refreshingly cool and frank questions about his body and its needs.

At a loss to do anything else, Odo drew Alannah into his arms and began to kiss her. There was a new note in her mouth as it opened under his, one that was grasping and hungry -- Odo moved, Alannah still in his arms, so that she straddled his thighs, his freshly revived penis pushing up into her hot depths. Alannah took up the movement, throwing back her head as she rode him, while her breath came in silent gasps -- then he felt her spasm around him as he gratefully exploded inside her once again. Flying. A Bajoran euphemism that finally made sense. Alannah collapsed against his chest, and he felt more than heard her gratified sigh of fulfillment.

He held her until her slim body finally stopped trembling -- then he dared to stretch out one arm and reach for the bottle that stood on the bedside table. He managed to pour some champagne into the waiting glass without spilling it. He then put down the bottle and carefully picked up the glass by its slender stem. "Listen," he said softly, as he balanced the glass on his chest, close to Alannah's ear. "Bubbles."

Alannah drew back and looked at him. Her smile reminded Odo not of Kira, but of the Alannah she had been when he had first met her, when he first came to the station. Wistful, and somehow haunted ... still vulnerable, without the occasionally hard, professional shine that the years had given her. "Are you going to drink that?" she asked finally, nodding at the glass in his hand.

"I thought we'd share." Odo sat up carefully, pulling Alannah close to his side, his left arm wrapped around her torso. "Here." He held the glass to her lips, and felt ridiculously pleased when she sipped a little of the beverage, and then let her head relax against his shoulder. He took a deep draught of the champagne, draining the rest of the glass. He then returned it to the nightstand, his smile slowly fading as reality tapped at him sharply.

It's late. This woman isn't your lover, she's someone you paid for services. The illusion is very well-crafted, but she probably wants you to put on your clothes and go.

"I'm sorry," Odo said abruptly, and winced at the forlorn note he couldn't keep from entering his voice. "I should leave and let you rest."

"Oh -- if you must."

Was that disappointment in her voice? Odo couldn't quite quell the hope in his eyes as he looked at her.

Alannah looked back as a slow smile crossed her face. "I charge by the night, Odo. Anyway, the first time you 'sleep' with someone, it's nice if you can do just that. You're welcome to stay." The smile deepened, causing a dimple to appear in one cheek. "Besides, you never had any dinner. The least I can do is serve you breakfast."

"I would like that," Odo said simply. He lay back down cautiously, and let out a little sigh as Alannah snuggled into his side. Unaccustomed to sleeping with another person, he fully expected to lie awake until dawn. It was a notion he found to have an amazing appeal.

Next thing he knew, the glow of simulated morning sunlight shone in his face, and Alannah was seated on the edge of the bed, balancing a tray across her lap. She smiled when she saw his eyes open -- her usual cool, slightly detached smile.

"Good morning, Odo," she said brightly. "Do you like fruit and rolls for breakfast? I can replicate you something more if you want it."

"Fruit and rolls are fine," Odo replied, as he sat up and pulled the blankets well up over his chest. The return of day brought a return of self-consciousness as well -- he inspected the contents of the tray, and forced out a smile.

"That looks good," he commented. "What kind of berries are those?"

"Revska berries, from Bajor, and strawberries, from Earth. The rolls are from Earth, too -- they're something called croissants."

"It's delicious," Odo complimented the meal after he had taken a few bites. He might as well have been eating sawdust, thanks to the sudden nervous flutter in his stomach.

"I found what you left on the dresser," Alannah added casually, as she reached out to snitch a berry from his plate. "Thank you."

Odo drew a blank for a moment, before a painful blush turned his fair skin a dull red. Alannah reached out and laid her hand against his cheek, meeting his startled gaze with a direct look.

"Odo, I'm a peska. A whore. It's what I do -- and I'm not ashamed of it. But if it makes you feel any better, I really hope that you decide to come see me again." She smiled, a wry, sweet grimace. "I can see where you could easily become my favorite client."

Odo opened his mouth to reply, all the while not sure what was going to come out. What he said somehow surprised him, while in other ways it was no surprise at all.

"Same time next week?"

Alannah smiled. "Monday night it is. I'll look forward to it."

Odo did the only logical thing -- he kissed her. "Believe me, so will I."

Hanir Alannah watched as the door slid closed behind her newest client, and her carefully assumed smile disappeared from her face. It was replaced by a look that was almost fearful, a wary look of suspicion and doubt.

She had never done that before ... lost herself in pleasure with a client. Felt that explosion like fire between her thighs, that sweet, all-consuming inundation of bliss. Never with a client.

Never with anyone, if truth be told. She had found pleasure in sex before, but never ecstasy.

Wrapping the folds of her robe tighter around her, Alannah crossed the room and began to tidy up the remains of last night's dinner, bundling the dishes into the replicator for recycling and putting away the candlesticks. Then she went into the bedroom, where she picked up the robe that Odo had worn the night before and for a brief while that morning from where he had left it draped neatly across the back of a chair.

The soft silk caressed her hands, and Alannah pressed it impulsively to her face, sighing as she inhaled the faint male scent. Then, horrified, she thrust it away, and held it at arm's length as she carried it to the recycler.

I can't let anyone break down the Box ... not now, not after all this time. I'm safe now, my life is well-organized, it's orderly. Why should I care that some man decides that he likes to suck on my clitoris, that he likes to feel me fly? Why should it be anything more than a nice change from the ones who want me to whip them or bite them, or the ones who want to piss all over me in the shower? A 'Kaar is a 'Kaar. She used the term for a prostitute's client that was currently making the rounds, and wondered with a stab of cynical amusement if Major Kira Nerys knew that it was derived from the name of the First Minister, Major Kira's own lover. Hers and a lot of other people's, Alannah mused. The fool. She could have anyone she wants, and she settles for One-Shot Shakaar.

The common people on the station had what were perhaps less weighty matters to occupy their time, and consequently more time to consider the actions and motivations of the station's superiors. It was not only commonly known that Kira was involved with the First Minister, but it was rumored that Security Chief Odo had long loved her from afar. Alannah, busy changing the sheets, stopped in mid-movement as a memory from the day before floated back to her.

"You -- I like the color of your hair."

Alannah walked slowly to the mirror over the dresser, and stared at her auburn locks, twisting a strand around her fingertip. It's because I remind him of her. He came to me because I remind him of her.

Alannah had always told herself that the more she knew about her clients, the better she could service them. There was no reason that this realization should cause a cold stab of anger to pierce her to the heart.

It just did.

Alannah thought about that anger, and shrugged. It was never pleasant to any woman, she supposed, to be chosen primarily for her resemblance to another -- no matter who she was or what she did. It wasn't like she cared what some straitlaced Bajoran security officer thought of her. That would be absurd.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, she found herself remembering the first time she had met Odo -- she had been twenty-one years old, five years on the station, and still more or less limiting her favors to Gul Dukat and the sporadic visiting politician or prefect. Generally safe from unpleasant encounters, she nonetheless had to suffer an occasional attempt to elicit her favors by some lesser member of the local populace. It was just such an occasion that had first brought her to Security Chief Odo's attention -- and him to hers.

It had happened in a section of the Habitat Ring that she normally didn't frequent -- nor would she have, if it hadn't been for her occasional blinding headaches that seemed to only respond to a certain combination of Bajoran herbs. The more respectable chemist's shop she had frequented before was closed, due to the murder of its proprietor a few weeks before, and Alannah's supply of medicinal herbs was almost gone. She had been scurrying along the darkened corridor when a man, a Bajoran, had stepped out of the shadows, only to drag her back with him, one hand clamped over her mouth while the other fumbled at her clothes.

"I've heard about you -- tight-assed little bitch, only giving it to the damned Cardies ... don't you miss those Bajoran ridges? You're not going to miss mine, that's for sure …" He had pressed closer, tearing her shirt to clutch at one of her breasts underneath. Alannah, not a newcomer to this kind of proposition, brought her knee up sharply into his groin, and took advantage of his start of pain to break free and run back into the corridor. The hand of her attacker closed almost immediately on the back of her skirt -- and then there was a fluttering of wings, a flash of liquid light, and a lean man of moderate height suddenly stood where no man had been before, reaching out and pinioning her bulky attacker's arms behind him with startling ease. Two uniformed Cardassians came running into view, and her rescuer handed off his captive to them with a few murmured instructions.

Her rescuer, while he wore a Cardassian uniform, was not a Cardassian himself -- Alannah wasn't sure what he was, other than nothing she had ever seen before. His odd, almost featureless face nonetheless held the most startling pair of blue eyes she had ever seen, deep-set and soulful and piercingly observant as they scanned her face and body -- not from any sexual interest, she realized, faintly surprised, but checking for signs of injuries.

"Are you all right?" His voice was a rumble, gruff and deep in tone.

Alannah shrugged and pulled her torn shirt more closely around her. "I'm fine ... it's nothing I haven't had to deal with before."

"What were you doing on this part of the station?" His queries came like disrupter blasts -- brief, sharp, and to-the-point.

"There's a chemist near here. I was going there."

"You use chemicals?"

"I use herbs," Alannah said sharply. "Herbs, for headaches." She was about to dismiss the strange alien officer as a brute and a boor, when he nodded and gave her a faint smile.

"I'm sorry ... I just need to ask these questions. I suppose you came here because Vaatrik's shop is closed."

"That's right. Only a Bajoran chemist will have what I need -- and all of the Bajoran chemists are here, now."

"Then let me walk you to your destination. After that I'll make sure that you get home safely."

Ah, so he's realized who I am, Alannah thought cynically. Still, she fell in step beside him with a certain sense of relief that she needn't worry about any more unwelcome attentions.

"I appreciate that, Mr. --?"

"Odo," the man said briefly. Then, in an obvious effort to be more civil, he added, "I'm the new head of station security, at least as far as it relates to Bajorans."

"I'm Hanir Alannah." As if he didn't know.

"Ah ... and what do you do here on the station, Miss Hanir?"

Or did he? There didn't seem to be any duplicity about the question, any hidden sneers at her status. "I'm Gul Dukat's mistress," she said coolly, as she watched closely for Odo's reaction.

Odo gave her a startled glance. Something -- consternation? -- flared behind his blue eyes. And something else -- was it compassion?

Alannah felt a stab of indignation at the thought, and shoved her own growing doubts about the turn her life had taken firmly from her mind. "I take it you don't approve, Mr. Odo."

"I have no interest in humanoid mating rituals, Miss Hanir. I assume that you're doing what you want to do."

Odo had seen her the rest of the way to the chemist's in silence, and then back to her quarters, distant but respectful. And that attitude had typified their entire relationship, what there was of it ... at least until the preceding night, when she had seen him with his cool, professional veneer finally stripped away. Just as he had seen her when passion dissolved her carefully maintained boundaries, and made a mockery of the wall of strict rationality she had erected around the activities related to her profession.

Alannah shivered, and resolutely turned back to her task of stripping the sheets from the bed. Bundling the bedding into her arms to carry it to the recycler, she ignored the scent of her own and her partner's secretions that wafted faintly to her nostrils and shoved the linens into the slot, slamming the recycle switch.

The lid was back on the Box.

For possibly the first time in his life, Security Chief Odo was late to a meeting.

Despite his involvement with a peska, his orderly habits hadn't changed -- except for this morning, their fifth morning together, when he had allowed himself to dally in the sonic with Alannah a little bit too long. Too long spent in reveling over the beading of sweat on her skin as they first put the setting on 'steam', the soft, throaty sigh that finally broke from her as he made love to her right there, her back against the sonic-stall wall. Luscious, ripe, rich -- who needed breakfast when there was a Hanir Alannah on whom to feast? But even skipping breakfast, he was still late to his Tuesday morning meeting with Kira Nerys.

He arrived at his office at five minutes after eight, to find Major Kira waiting for him, sprawled comfortably in his "visitor's chair", mug of raktajino in her hand. "Odo!" she exclaimed teasingly, a warm smile lighting her face, "I was about to have the computer do a search for you! I've never known you to be late before!"

"I'm sorry, Major." Odo took his seat behind the desk, and noticed, not for the first time, how nice it was to actually be able to speak to Kira without the divining rod in his trousers coming alive to torture him with every breath. "I -- I had an early breakfast meeting."

"Well, you do have to eat now, so that's one way to get two things out of the way at once." Kira let out her breath in a sudden "huff!", her hand flying to her swollen belly. "Speaking of things I wish I could get out of the way …"

"I imagine you're very tired of it." Odo nodded at Kira's obviously pregnant state. "Still, it won't be that much longer now, will it?"

"Who knows? I don't think even Bashir is sure at this point." Kira sighed, frustrated. Then her eyes focused sharply on Odo's chest, making him look at her wonderingly. Kira smiled. "Just as well I didn't do that computer search."

"What do you mean?"

"Your combadge is missing."

Odo's hand flew to the spot on his uniform where the metallic emblem that doubled as a communication device usually resided. For once he felt at an absolute loss for words.

"I -- I'm sure I --"

"You probably just dropped it somewhere. Don't worry, we'll just ask the computer to find you, and it will find the badge."

Odo could feel the blood drain from his face, while Kira stared at him, concerned. "Odo, what is it? Are you all right? Don't tell me that the Telvessian flu has already made it to the station -- Bashir is just getting in the vaccine for all essential personnel today."

Odo opened his mouth without the remotest idea of what he was going to say -- and was saved from having to say anything when the doors to Security slid open. Hanir Alannah stood there quietly, a small, slender figure in a simple gray dress.

"Security Chief Odo -- Major Kira." Alannah nodded formally to both of them, and got a rather chilly nod from Kira in return. Odo barely managed to respond at all for wondering why she was there, and if the twin compartments of his public and private lives were about to collide with a messy explosion. Alannah went on, "I found this -- on the Promenade. The computer said it was yours." She stepped up to the desk and extended her hand. Odo stretched out his palm and his combadge dropped into it, still warm from Alannah's careful grasp.

"Thank you, Miss Hanir," Odo said gravely, reaffixing the badge to his uniform tunic. "I just realized it was gone."

"No trouble, Constable." With the barest flicker of a smile, Alannah turned and was gone.

Odo sat back down with an inaudible sigh of relief. Kira looked at him and smiled. "Good thing she brought it back instead of just taking it along with her. Can you imagine what people would think if they tried to locate you on the station and the computer said that you were in Hanir Alannah's quarters?"

Odo managed a smile. "Oh, probably something like 'I had no idea Security jobs paid so well'. Might get me some new recruits."

Kira stared at him for a moment, then broke into delighted laughter. "Constable, you never cease to amaze me."

"So, what were you saying about the vaccine? For the Telvessian flu?"

"Oh!" Kira nodded, and got back down to business as she picked up a data pad from where she had left it on the edge of Odo's desk. "Bashir will have enough vaccine to immunize all essential and high-risk personnel on the station sometime today. Unfortunately, the vaccine can't be replicated, so that's all he will have for a while. But the flu's not dangerous, apparently, unless you're in one of the high-risk groups -- just damned uncomfortable."

"I imagine he'll have you first in line," Odo commented, amused.

"Right after you, Constable," Kira shot back. "Apparently he's concerned about that immune system of yours still being too new to handle this thing. I expect he'll call you as soon as the first container of ampoules comes through his door."

"I suppose it's too much to hope that the flu won't make it to the station at all," Odo said wistfully.

"The sad thing is that we'll probably do the initial infecting ourselves, once we've gotten the vaccine. But the odds that the station would escape it otherwise are pretty nil, considering how much traffic comes through here."

Odo snorted. "Imagine -- I thought that I'd actually get through an entire week without Dr. Bashir wanting to jam a hypospray in my arm."

"Be grateful! At least you don't have to eat any obnoxious herbs. Plus you can lie on your stomach at night."

"Well, yes, and I can see my feet," Odo agreed. Kira gave him a mock glare, before she proceeded to the next item on the pad. Knowing the items it contained by heart, Odo dared to let his mind wander a bit.

It's good that we can have these meetings again without my wanting to cut my wrists by the time they're over. That was a bad moment, when I realized my combadge was missing -- but why do I care if someone knows that I'm seeing Alannah -- it's not illegal, after all. Besides, the longer I see her, the more likely it is that everyone will find out. I guess anything so private -- so intimate -- is going to have an instinct to keep things secret to go with it. Kira certainly didn't greet Alannah with any warmth -- but then, she probably sees her as a collaborator, because of Dukat. Too bad Kira wasn't here to see it, the time that Alannah sent Dukat to the Infirmary with abrasions and a very severe bruise -- to a very tender portion of his anatomy.

"Arrest her!" Dukat had screamed, that far-off day when Deep Space Nine was still Terok Nor, and his word law. "The bitch nearly bit my kriskil off! Arrest her!"

Odo waited quietly for the Gul to calm down, while the Cardassian physician who ran the Infirmary examined the extent of the gul's injuries. "She didn't break the skin," the doctor commented, "it's just a bad bruise ... a little work with a dermal regenerator and you'll be fine."

"That's more than she'll be! Odo, why are you just standing there?! I told you to arrest her!!"

"Do you really want this to be all over the station, Gul Dukat? That a Bajoran woman, half your weight and maybe three quarters of your height nearly -- how did you put it? -- 'bit your kriskil off'? That might not be the best thing for discipline."

Dukat gave Odo an indignant stare -- and then chuckled irritably. "Someone told her about Naprim -- I can't believe she never heard about her before, but apparently not. She -- was less than receptive to the idea of 'sharing' me."

"It sounds like she was less than receptive to you altogether," Odo observed dryly. Dukat glared at him, before bursting into laughter.

"Odo, you can be maddening, but you're never boring ... I think that's why I keep you in that job. I can always count on you to do or say something to make me laugh."

And so Dukat had left Alannah alone ... well alone, after that. Seemingly unperturbed, Alannah had gone about her business, and turned it into exactly that ... broadening her client base as she quickly established a reputation as the most talented and discreet peska in the station's history, if not on all Bajor. Odo, observing her from afar, had used to wonder how she managed it. Now, after five nights spent in her company, the answer was all too clear.

She makes you forget, he mused. You forget she's a prostitute ... she's just a beautiful woman, there in your arms, who guesses your every want and makes you feel like you're the only man in the universe. Prophets, it's a wonder she can't retire on her earnings by now. I imagine that some men would consider her worth her weight in latinum.

"Odo? Odo, are you in there?"

Startled, Odo realized that Kira had asked him a question. "I'm sorry, Major -- what were you saying?"

"Aren't you going to get that?"

On cue, his combadge beeped. In response to Odo's murmur of acknowledgment, Dr. Bashir's voice came through it cheerily, "The vaccine is in. I expect to see both you and Major Kira in here at your earliest convenience."

Odo stepped back into the real world, with only the faintest sigh of regret.

From her place sitting on the edge of the biobed, Hanir Alannah watched quietly as Bashir instructed his staff in the placement of the newly arrived cartons of vaccine, and placed his call to Odo's office. She herself was only there for her routine monthly physical -- an appointment she was scrupulous about keeping. In her line of work she couldn't afford not to be -- there were still a few nasty illnesses in remote parts of the quadrant that had to be guarded against. Fortunately, a monthly injection could safeguard her against all of the known infections, along with the one that guarded her from other 'complications', but she was still wary lest something unknown turn up.

Today, however, all seemed to be well. She had gotten to see Bashir himself, a fact that she deeply appreciated -- his Bajoran nurses in particular were never subtle and occasionally rude in the way they put certain questions. Bashir, on the other hand, met her as one professional meets another, and seemed to genuinely appreciate her meticulous approach to maintaining good health. She supposed he was appreciative -- no one knew better than a medical officer what a careless peska might do. She always guessed, with a true seller's instinct, that he found her attractive and was tempted to try her himself, but that he was unlikely to ever get up the nerve. Very few among her regular clientele came from the station's Starfleet or Bajoran military ranks, and none from among the officers. At least, not before. Now there was Odo.

Suddenly, without warning, she was lost in remembrance, straddling those lean thighs and feeling the upright member of her newest client pierce her sweetly, so deeply that she could swear he brushed the mouth of her womb. Doesn't hurt, I suppose, that he's hung like a kivik-stud -- suddenly, Alannah realized that Bashir had returned to running his medscanner over her, and that he wore an amused little smile.

"I'd say you're in perfect health," the doctor observed. "Respiration and heart-rate a little bit elevated, but I suspect you're just having some -- fond reminiscences."

Alannah blushed. One of the things she liked about Bashir was that he had no trouble discussing what she did for a living, not in an uncomfortable, awkwardly formal way, but more the way she imagined a younger brother might tease his sister about a boyfriend, or being out too late at night. It was certainly more comfortable than Nurse Nabala's monthly repetition of the question, presumably from some Starfleet Medical standard form, "Have you had sexual intercourse with more than one partner during the preceding month?" Alannah was hard-put not to respond with an acerbic, "Guess!" What does the woman think a peska does with her 'kaars, play kistrel all night?

Bashir, that pleasant contradiction, always teased her without ever saying anything that might be suggestive of personal interest and thereby unethical. Instead, they had a running bet, more a joke than anything else -- that one day she would come in for her checkup and he would be able to tell her exactly who she had been with the night before, and in return she would have to join him and Garak for lunch to aid Bashir in his defense of the works of William Shakespeare. Alannah was the only person on the station to access the works of the Bard more than Bashir himself, and her ability to cap his quotes made something of a bond between them. Now he ran his scanner over her abdomen with a look of mock concentration, while he murmured so that only she could hear.

"Let's see ... human this time ... blood type O-negative ... DNA strands are consistent with …"

Bashir suddenly faltered and blushed, color flooding his face to the roots of his hairline. Then he attempted jovially, "Ah, well, no idea. Better luck next time -- too bad, though. You should hear the nasty things that Garak is saying about King Lear."

"Dr. Bashir -- is something wrong?"

"No, not at all! You're as fit as a fiddle, as we humans like to say."

"Then why did you start like that. My last client -- is there some problem I should know about?"

"No, none at all. It's just --" Bashir sighed and bit the bullet. "It's just that I've done a lot of testing on those particular strands of DNA in the past several months," he said in a low voice. "They're human, but -- they're quite unique."

"Oh." Alannah considered the implications of Bashir's words thoughtfully. "So, you're saying you could win our bet."

"Well ... yes. This time I could."

"I see." Alannah took his word for it ... no need to have him say the name where it might be overheard. "Could you not put that part of it into my medical records, please?"

"Of course not -- I don't save that information, anyway, at least not on purpose. I'll make sure it's purged."

"All right." Alannah smiled. "When would you like me to join you and Mr. Garak for lunch? We can't have him saying -- unkind things -- about King Lear."

"What? Oh ... today at thirteen hundred, if you're free. We -- we don't have to share with him what actually led to your being there."

"I'll be pleased to join you." Alannah slipped off of the biobed, and reached out to touch the young doctor's arm. "I suppose ... it seems a bit different when it's a friend ... someone you know well."

Bashir smiled, that gallant, chivalrous smile with the potential to melt hearts. "I think that the party in question has ... impeccable taste."

"Thank you, Doctor." Alannah's smile grew a dimple on one side. "I think I'll go home now and study my Lear."

Nurse Nabala, coming up at Bashir's side, looked startled as she overheard Alannah's last comment, and forgot to be distant. "Your leer? Why?"

Alannah looked from the nurse to Bashir, and was relieved to see the glimmer of mischief in Bashir's eyes. "She just wants to look soulfully into my eyes while we're having lunch together. The Replimat, Miss Hanir? At thirteen hundred?"

"Certainly, Doctor. That will be wonderful."

Smiling, Alannah turned and left. She blissfully imagined that she could hear the thud of Nurse Nabala's jaw hitting the floor behind her.

Forced to a high level of flexibility in her professional life, Alannah was careful to maintain an orderly routine during her time "off-duty". One article of faith was that once a week, on Thursdays, she stopped by Quark's for an after-luncheon drink and some friendly banter with the Ferengi bartender. Quark was Alannah's unstinting admirer, finding nothing at all amiss with her occupation, and lamenting only the extent of her prices. Alannah felt quite sure that, should she offer a two-for one sale on her services, Quark would be the first in line to take advantage of it -- and that he would nonetheless attempt to talk her down by a few strips. Still, she enjoyed his double admiration for her beauty and her business savvy, and she could occasionally be coaxed into taking a few free passes at his ears.

Ordering her usual glass of Bajoran spring wine, Alannah looked around the unusually busy establishment. "Isn't it early for such a crowd, Quark?"

"Big Andorian freighter just docked." Sure enough, Alannah noted, a disproportionate number of the bar's patrons were Andorians. "If you like, I can make some referrals ..."

"And charge me a referral fee?" Alannah laughed. "I don't think so! Besides, I'm taking the night off." Contrary to public belief, Alannah rarely worked more than three nights a week, and usually no more than two. She made enough to take care of all of her needs and enough of her wants, and have some savings besides, which was more than sufficient to satisfy her.

"Not like Monday nights, I take it," Quark ventured slyly, assiduously polishing glasses. Alannah looked at him, eyebrows raised.

"Quark, I hope you're not trying to find out who one of my clients is. Because you know I won't tell you."

"I have no idea if he's your client or not. I just know he's been spending every Monday night in your quarters for at least a month." Quark shrugged. "Some people might assume he's your client because of that, but not me."

It's been five weeks, Alannah thought silently, five weeks and four days since Odo first came to me, just another 'kaar, albeit a virgin one -- naοve and a little shy. Five weeks and four days since Odo had gently reached past her defenses and lifted the lid off the Box, leaving her to desperately endeavor to put it back on in the wake of every meeting. Five weeks and four days of finding it harder and harder to make the lid fit.

Now she shrugged. Not bothering to deny anything, she instead swirled the wine in her glass and leveled the question, "What is the penalty for using the station's computer system to deliberately invade someone's privacy?"

"Nothing deliberate about it," Quark asserted self-righteously, dodging the veiled accusation with his usual transparent alacrity. "I just happened to need him for something, and I couldn't find him. A business like mine, you need to be able to count on law enforcement being there -- you can imagine my surprise when --"

"No deputy would do, I take it," Alannah interrupted wryly. "Especially not someone who was actually on duty."

Quark gave his most innocent shrug, before he leaned closer, his eyes bright with prurient interest. "So," he murmured, "how is it? Does he -- does he know what he's doing?"

Alannah stared at the little Ferengi, torn between indignation and a stab of amused respect for such bald-faced audacity. Before she could come up with any reasonable response, they were both distracted as a tumult broke out at one of the tables, and several Andorians faced off with an assorted crew of the stations more motley residents, fists and fangs and furniture all flying.

It was only a matter of seconds before Station Security came through the door, with Odo snapping instructions to three of his deputies. He then charged into the fray himself -- to be sideswiped with a chair and popped squarely in the jaw for his pains. Undeterred, he made sure that order was restored as more Security personnel poured through the door, and had all of the offending parties hauled away with quick precision. Odo then sat down rather hard in a chair that was still on its feet, holding his hand to his mouth. A cut on his lower lip poured out a steady small stream of blood.

Just then, his blue eyes happened to meet Alannah's as he ruefully surveyed the room. Alannah thrust out her hand, palm up, towards Quark. "May I have a clean napkin with some ice in it, please?"

"What? -- Oh, sure." Quark, who had stayed safely behind the bar and was now doing a visual check for damages, put the requested items into Alannah's hand with barely a glance. Alannah slipped down from her barstool, knotting the napkin around the ice as she went. Bending over the injured security chief, she pressed the makeshift ice-pack to his split lip.

"Hold this on it," she ordered gently.

Odo looked up at her, surprised -- still unused to such injuries, he was also unused to anyone going out of their way to help care for them when they happened. "Thank you," he mumbled past the old-fashioned remedy, as he noted that it was making his lip feel better, or at least hurt less.

"Did they hit you anyplace else?"

"Odo grimaced. "I think I got a chair in the side. I don't think anything's cracked or broken, though." He gave Alannah a puzzled stare. Alannah could read the unspoken question easily. Do you really care?

She was startled by her own atypical, silent response. Yes, Odo, I do. Prophets help me, I do. Even if we never spend one night together that doesn't begin with latinum on the table, I care what happens to you.

"Come on." She helped him to his feet, and winced a little at his involuntary gasp of pain. "Let's get you to Dr. Bashir." Like many of those who lived a bit beyond the edge of the station's "polite society", Alannah would never have dreamed of asking Bashir to come to her.

"The doctor is still up to his neck in vaccinations -- when I came by there the Infirmary was filled with screaming children." Odo shook his head and growled, "Besides, it serves me right -- I should get it through my head that I'm not invulnerable anymore."

"Prophets -- you mean you were once?"

Glancing down at Alannah indignantly, Odo was somehow warmed and touched by the teasing glint in her eyes. "Compared to now, it certainly felt like it." Still, he made concession to the spirit of her words with a smile. "I'll be fine -- just a little stiff for a few days."

"Odo! What happened? I heard there was something wrong."

Odo and Alannah both looked up at the voice of Major Kira, who hurried toward them as fast as her hugely pregnant body would allow. She looked at Alannah curiously, before she fastened her attention on Odo and waited for him to report.

"Just your typical barroom brawl, Major," Odo said easily, shifting the ice pack away from his lip so that his words wouldn't be muffled. "I keep forgetting how fragile this body is."

"You have to learn to take care of yourself, Constable." Kira eyed him critically, noting the way he allowed Alannah to provide him a supportive clasp at his elbow. "Have you seen Bashir?"

"Have you seen the Infirmary?"

Kira, who had also passed the Infirmary on her way to Quark's, winced. "You have a point. Still, you should get someone to run a dermal regenerator over that lip, as well as any bruises you might have. I think Miles and Keiko have one in their quarters--"

"I have one in the Security Office," Odo interjected. "Miss Hanir was about to help me get there."

The lie -- or at least the presumption -- was so smooth that Alannah almost failed to catch it. She smiled a little, and met Kira's suddenly piercing glance without a tremor. "It's on my way," she said simply. "Besides, it looks like you have enough to keep balanced there." Alannah nodded compassionately in the direction of Kira's belly.

Kira smiled reluctantly. "All right ... just see Bashir if the regenerator doesn't take care of it. We need you fit, Constable -- a lot of people around here count on you." The major nodded with her usual military precision, before she turned and left. Odo's blue eyes followed her wistfully, before, forcing a smile, he looked down at the woman who stood attentively at his side.

"Come on. Let's get you to that regenerator."

"Actually," Odo murmured, grateful for the supporting hand that Alannah maintained on his arm as they made their way slowly out onto the Promenade, "I don't have a dermal regenerator in Security."

Alannah smiled a little, keeping her eyes pointed ahead as she said, "Prevarication, Constable?"

"Lying, Miss Hanir." Then Alannah did let her eyes meet Odo's, their gazes uniting in a wicked chuckle.

"I heard you never lied -- and to your superior officer, at that. What happened?"

"I fell in love with her. It's a great deterrent to veracity."

Alannah looked at Odo, startled at the confidence, and realized that she wasn't nearly as shocked as the person who had just made it. Odo flushed and murmured, "I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me."

Alannah shrugged, forcing a smile. "It's an unfortunate side-effect of pillow-talk. Don't worry, you'll get over it, or at least learn to control it. So, if you don't have a dermal regenerator in Security, where would you like to go?"

"Somewhere I can get a dermal regenerator -- doesn't anyone sell them?"

"Don't worry, I have one. I'll even give you a glass of champagne to kill the pain."

Odo gave Alannah a surprised glance, but silently acquiesced. He commented, "We might want to beam there from Security -- just so Kira doesn't catch me 'prevaricating'."

"All right." Alannah got Odo safely through the clear-paneled doors of the Security Office, and Odo tapped his combadge in relief. "Computer. Activate Program Odo-Three."

Seconds later, they were standing just inside the door to Alannah's quarters. Alannah gave Odo a slight smile. "Tell me," she asked, "where do Odo-One and Odo-Two take you?"

Odo looked startled, and then sheepish. "Odo-One is Ops. Odo-Two is Quark's."

"So, I'm number three on your hot-list? I suppose that's rather flattering."

"It's just -- when I realized I would be coming here -- on a regular basis --"

"Stop apologizing, I told you I was flattered." Alannah guided Odo to the chair that stood before her desk -- a beautiful anachronism of inlaid wood and countless cubbyholes. "Have a seat and let me see to that lip."

Disappearing into the bedroom for a moment, Alannah returned with a dermal regenerator in her hand -- one not quite up to Federation Medical standards, but definitely more than what was usually to be found in a home medkit. Catching Odo's surprised look, Alannah smiled -- a thin smile with little humor.

"I've had a few encounters where the individuals involved weren't happy until they drew blood, or made me draw blood. I finally got Dr. Bashir to order me this. It has limited diagnostic capacity and can also handle deep-muscle bruises, which should take care of your ribs as well." Alannah ran the regenerator briefly over Odo's swollen lip, carefully adjusted the settings as indicated, and proceeded to apply the healing rays until the regenerator let out an affirming . "It's also a no-brainer -- it tells you how high to set it, and how long to run it. And if it's something you shouldn't try to handle yourself, it sets off an alarm and locks up."

"I hope that's never happened to you." Odo reached up instinctively to cover Alannah's hand with his.

"Not for a while," Alannah hedged, "and then only once. Most of the serious injuries happened while the Cardassians were still here. Bajoran females may be able to have sex with Cardassian males, but unless it's an exceptional case, it's not going to be a comfortable experience."

"What about Dukat?" the investigator in Odo asked before good manners could intervene.

"Ehl'moh? I don't know if you've ever had occasion to take a look, but the former commander of the station was pretty meager as Cardassians go." Alannah laughed wryly. "No wonder he had 'ridgenose fever' -- Cardassian females were likely to laugh him out of bed, while the Bajorans who could overlook him being a Cardassian thought he had something exceptional to offer." Laying the regenerator temporarily on the desk, Alannah began to unfasten the collar of Odo's uniform tunic, ignoring his startled movement. "Come on, Constable, we need to take a look at that side of yours. You should be pleased ... this is the first time I've undressed you that hasn't had latinum involved." Finally putting aside the tunic, she took hold of his black, v-necked undershirt and pulled it off gingerly over his head.

"Damn!" Odo hissed briefly, wincing at the pain. Alannah surveyed the livid bruising that had spread to cover most of the security chief's left side.

"I'm sorry. That must hurt a lot." Alannah picked up the regenerator once again, and relaxed when no alarm went off as she ran it quickly over the affected area. Looking at the setting indicated, she commented, "Too notches up and you'd be going to the Infirmary. But this should do it." She began to apply the regenerator carefully, until all signs of bruising were gone, and she heard Odo give a deep sigh of relief.

"Thank you. I can't even tell I was hit." Odo smiled at Alannah briefly, before a look of nervous unease came to settle in his eyes. Glancing down into Odo's lap, Alannah realized that the discomfort of pain had been replaced by a discomfort of an entirely different kind. And was appalled to feel her nipples hardening through the thin fabric of her dress.

I'm going to have to see Dr. Bashir about some kind of hormonal suppressant, Alannah thought, anguished, this isn't normal! Not for me! She turned away abruptly and headed for the replicator.

"I'm sorry ... I said I'd give you something to drink, didn't I?" She fumbled at the replicator, came up with Tarkelian tea, and then remembered that she had originally offered him champagne. While she stood there helplessly, at a loss for what to do next, there was a gentle clinking sound on the table behind her.

Whirling, she stared as Odo gently finished depositing twenty thin strips of latinum. His questioning blue eyes were fixed on her face -- not demandingly, not as though he owned her, but with something that it took her a moment to put a name on, something deeply akin to a trait that was part of Alannah's own core.

He's just following the rules, she thought, amazed, he's like me that way -- he has to follow the rules if he wants to play, or he won't play at all. And since it looks like we're about to fall on each other like a couple of crazed vole, at least this way all the forms will be observed.

She cried out when Odo's hands closed on her shoulders, whimpered as his mouth found the smooth curve of her neck. Desperate, Alannah yanked open Odo's trousers with one strong pull, taking his erect penis into one fumbling hand while her other hand dragged up her skirt and tore away the wisp of silk that passed for her underwear.

"On the table --" She almost screamed in relief when Odo caught her meaning at once, when he lifted her by her waist and perched her on the table's edge, shoving up her dress to slide into her in one sweet, smooth thrust. Soon Alannah became dimly aware of someone shrieking, a pure soprano rush of sound -- she finally realized it was herself, fulfilling all of her potential as a Bajoran female as she kept flying and flying and flying ... as every flight she had ever failed to make tried to take wing in a single encounter.

Next thing she knew, she was lying on the bed, and an extremely anxious-looking Odo, was trying to give her a drink with one hand while he fumbled ineffectually at the tunic he held in the other. Dazed, Alannah finally realized that Odo was groping for his combadge, and put out her hand to forestall him.

"No, don't do that," she whispered. "I'm fine."

"You passed out." Odo stared at her with wide eyes.

"I'm Bajoran. Bajoran women do that sometimes." Alannah made a wry grimace and decided to brave it out.

"I thought that was a myth."

"So did I." Alannah shrugged and forced a smile. "I'm glad I was wrong, though." She looked Odo over, while her smile became more genuine with compassion for his discomfiture. "What happened to your pants?"

Odo blushed, the warm rose that suffused his face and chest causing Alannah's fingers to itch to touch him. "In the other room. When you passed out, they were around my ankles -- I didn't want to put you down, and I would have had to if I'd wanted to pull them back up and fasten them. So I just stepped out of them and left them there." His blush deepened. "I should go pick them up before they wrinkle."

"We can steam them later. Unless you need to get back to work."

"Prophets ... it's the middle of the afternoon, isn't it?" Odo shoved his hand distractedly through his hair. "I'm sorry ... I do have to get back to work."

"That's all right. I didn't have anyone scheduled for tonight. Just come back later. After all, I have a reputation for excellence to uphold -- I can hardly accept payment for one quick encounter, now can I?"

"I suppose not." Odo gave a rueful smile. His blue eyes were shadowed, and his next words came out as a near-whisper. "I was wondering …"

"Wondering what?"

"If I might ... take you out to dinner."

Alannah stared at him, her mouth slightly agape. "Dinner? Out?"

"That is part of what you do sometimes, isn't it? I mean, I've seen you occasionally, with men like Tiron --"

"Yes, but Odo --" Alannah took his hands in hers and squeezed them gently. "It's sweet of you to offer, but those men -- they're men who like it that people think they can afford to buy a woman's favors. For them, it's almost like a status symbol -- being seen in public with a really expensive whore."

Odo considered her words thoughtfully. Finally he said, "Alannah, I've lived with prejudice all of my life. I don't care if you're a prostitute, and I don't care what people think about it. I just want to take you out to dinner."

Alannah smiled, and wondered if Odo could really comprehend the consequences of what he was saying. "Tell you what ... it's a bit late to get reservations at anywhere really nice. Why don't we do it on Monday? Tonight I'll fix us something here."

"All right," Odo conceded, with a trace of unwillingness that stabbed Alannah to the heart. She reached out and clutched his hand briefly in hers, before she released him with a sigh.

"I'll see you back here later tonight," she said softly. Then, to lighten the moment, she added brightly, "If you want to do something useful, you can bring dessert." Odo brightened and nodded. Watching him leave the room, Alannah made the silent addendum, Whatever it is, it won't be sweet as you.

Tears flooded down her face as Hanir Alannah berated herself for being an utter fool.

Alannah decided later that it must have been a hormonal imbalance, something for which 'a good fly and a good cry', as the saying went, had provided the perfect cure. She was quite calm and level as she dressed for the evening ... with a certain cool calculation, she donned the classic garments of planned seduction, a black, sheer nightgown that barely fell past her pubis, an equally transparent black robe only a few inches longer, and incredibly high-heeled black slippers that only a peska could walk in. She also made sure that her black lace underwear featured nothing so extraneous as a crotch -- in short, she dressed like a whore. As final touches, she layered her eyes with blue shadow, rouged her mouth a deep, shiny red, sprinkled her hair with gold glitter, and pasted a tiny brilliant on her cheek near the corner of her right eye.

For dinner, she was equally precise -- oysters, and vole liver, Austenalian blowfish, and lobster, all of which were famed, justifiably or not, as aphrodisiacs. She wondered what Odo might bring to complement such a repast, and her mouth curved in a complacent smile. Then she arrayed herself facing the door, leaning back against one arm of her overstuffed chair, while her legs draped over the other in seductive abandon.

When Odo beamed into Alannah's quarters, his eyes were bright with excitement. Disappointingly oblivious to Alannah's carefully orchestrated appearance, he put the metal box he carried into her hands, the surface chilly against her skin.

"It's a thermal container," Odo explained. "Chief O'Brien promised me that it would stay frozen until we were ready to eat it."

"Are you sure you want something cold?" Alannah murmured, determined to vamp him.

"Oh, it's supposed to be cold," Odo assured her. "I don't think it would be any good if it wasn't."

"Well, if you're sure …" Alannah made one last attempt at a sleazy seduction before she sighed and gave up. "Odo, what is it?" There was something infectious in the security chief's tone that sparked Alannah with genuine curiosity. "You say it's something frozen?"

"It's an Earth dessert -- it's called ice cream. Fudge ripple, the chief said it was. Anyway, I tasted it -- it's very good."

Like most of the known quadrant, Alannah was quite familiar with ice cream. What she wasn't familiar with was Odo's unaffected delight over a dish most often associated with children. As if echoing her thoughts, he added, "O'Brien said that Molly liked something called peanut butter with hers, but he didn't recommend it."

Faced with such simple, transparent happiness, Alannah felt a sudden stab of shame as she contemplated her painted face, her pretentious menu, and her tawdry costume. Oh, no, it's the damned hormones again, she thought despairingly, and fled the room with tears starting to stream down her cheeks.

When she finally returned, a good twenty minutes later, she found Odo waiting almost exactly where she had left him, all joy fled from his face as he stared hesitantly at the bedroom door. Alannah gave him a tiny smile, shoving her hands deeply into the pockets of her pink terry-cloth robe. She had stripped off the lingerie, washed all of the makeup off her face, and brushed the glitter-powder out of her hair, looking, she knew, more 'natural' than anyone had seen her for the past fifteen years.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I just felt like I should start over." She walked over to the still hesitant constable and took his face in her hands, kissing him deeply on the mouth. She sighed when his arms closed around her and wrapped her own arms around him in turn, snuggling her head into his shoulder as she held him tight.

"That's a relief." The breath from Odo's softly spoken words brushed against Alannah's hair. "I was afraid you didn't like ice cream."

Alannah drew back to look up into Odo's face. "Constable," she said fervently, "I love ice cream."

The idea that she might love something else -- or someone -- didn't even bear thinking about.

"I'll never be able to eat a bowl of ice cream and keep a straight face again," Odo observed as he shifted a little and let his head rest more squarely on the air-filled cushion behind him. Alannah shifted as well, snuggling her head more closely under Odo's chin. Even wet, her hair glowed a deep, rich auburn in the flickering light of the candles that lined the ledge that ran along the wall beside their resting place. Odo noted that glow with a dreamy pleasure, while he almost dozed in the wet and steamy warmth that surrounded them.

They were in the bathtub.

Odo had noticed the thing the first time he had spent the night, but cut it a respectful berth -- an enormous, shining white basin, set in its own platform, overhung with potted plants, and decorated with candles, giant sponges, and crystal bottles of scented oil and bath foam. Alannah had dismissed his wary appraisal with a smile, commenting that it was nothing more than another tool of her trade.

"It looks much more lavish than it is, actually," Alannah said lightly. "The water is stored in tanks in the platform, and it perpetually recycles. I may loose a little to evaporation, but no more than I might in a single steam-sonic ... and the filter system keeps it absolutely clean -- I could drink it if I wanted to." She smiled as she confessed, "I use it for work, but I enjoy it most when I'm alone -- I put on some music, light all the candles, pour in my favorite bath oil, fix myself a glass of wine, and just soak. It's very relaxing."

Odo had murmured an agreement, but settled for joining her in the shower. That they had ended up in the tub now centered around a meal that went nothing like it was originally planned, and a series of ice-cream related accidents that mostly stemmed from laughing too hard.

The raw oysters and vole liver had been quick to make their way into the disposal tray of the replicator, although the blowfish and lobster had enjoyed mammoth if brief popularity. An assortment of bread, cheese, and fruit had filled in the gaps, along with a large quantity of champagne, which caused Alannah's giddy puppet show that featured the skeletal remains of her lobster singing Klingon opera, to reduce both of them nearly to tears with laughter. Then came the ice cream. The ice cream had been the finishing touch in more ways than one.

O'Brien must have assumed that the confection was going to be eaten rather quickly -- either that or the cooling unit malfunctioned. When the thermal container was finally opened, the ice cream was making a slow transition from solid to liquid, causing Odo to observe solemnly, "Look. It's changing its shape."

That had brought fresh giggles from Alannah, and renewed chuckles from Odo. Still, they had done their best to consume the liquefying sweet, only to meet with a series of messy disasters that culminated with the one that sent a large, cold dollop of softened ice cream into Odo's lap only seconds after he had removed his robe in an effort to save it from utter ruin.

Odo gasped. So did Alannah -- with laughter at the shocked look on Odo's face. Helpless, she proceeded to howl until she slid right out of sight under the table. She resurfaced where she might better take care of the problem -- while his thoughts about their sexual relationship frequently waxed poetic, Odo was as capable of prose as the next man.

"Prophets, you're good." He twined his hands gently in Alannah's hair as she proceeded to finish her 'dessert' -- then lowered himself to the floor beside her so he could do the same. Taking what remained of his ice cream -- now more cream than ice -- he applied it liberally to Alannah's taut nipples and the sweet slit between her thighs, and hen applied himself. He soon reached the point that Alannah was screaming for him to stop, even while she clutched his head tightly against her, fingers wrapped unromantically but securely around his ears.

"You're not so bad yourself," she finally gasped, when she freed him to collapse with his head pillowed on one of her thighs. "I can't believe you never did this until five weeks ago."

"Five weeks and four days," Odo said automatically. Then, looking up to catch a glimpse of Alannah's suddenly shocked face, he added quickly, "Not a flavor combination that would work under most circumstances ... but here it works very well." He ran a light fingertip along Alannah's labia, causing her to shudder and then relax with a throaty sigh.

Then Odo slowly became aware of the less entertaining aspect of this particular form of erotic play. "I feel disgusting," he murmured finally. "I'm so sticky -- I can't imagine how you can stand to touch me. I can barely stand to touch myself."

"That, Odo, is why I have a bathtub."

And so Odo had allowed himself to be coaxed into the 'Sea of Risa', and there found an unexpected measure of bliss. Bathing with, lying with ... joining with ... and then lying with Alannah once again, he thought with faint astonishment how much like linking it was, these silent, peaceful moments with this lithe and witty woman who rested in his arms. That was one of the things he liked best about Alannah, her lack of any need to speak when she had nothing to say, even more than the clever comments that came out her mouth when she did. Odo thought that, in another place and time, Alannah would have made a wonderful courtesan, or perhaps the keeper of a literary salon. She was like the Mesdames de Stael and Recamier, or, closer in distance but further in time, the Bajoran Lian Pilor, whose beauty, wit, and grace had helped her transcend Bajor's then rigid caste system to become the lover of three successive Kais -- the first old enough to be her grandfather, the last young enough to be her son.

Suddenly curious, Odo looked down at the top of Alannah's head and asked, "What was your family's d'jarra, Alannah? Before the Occupation?"

Alannah looked up at him with a little smile, stretching to kiss the tip of his chin. "My father -- he was a member of the fra'nahala."

"The actor's d'jarra," Odo observed thoughtfully.

"Well, actors and peskas," Alannah said, amused. "I like to think that I'm just being true to my heritage."

"What about your mother?"

"My mother was a teacher -- a member of the priests d'jarra, actually, although she never was so much as a prylar ... certainly not after marrying my father."

"They must have married when the caste system was just beginning to dissolve," Odo observed. "How did people react?"

"Badly." Alannah smiled. "My aunt said that my mother would never take a single step in the Celestial Temple if she married my father -- she probably says the same thing about me. Just as well -- I doubt if I'd meet very many people I'd like there, anyway."

"Your aunt?" Odo peered down at her curiously. "I thought your family all died during the Occupation."

"She might as well have, as far as I'm concerned." Alannah made the statement with a determined finality, and then, clearly changing the subject, snuggled closer into Odo's arms and dropped a kiss on his chest. "Did you know this tub could make bubbles?" she murmured, sliding her hand enticingly up one of his thighs. The other hand she stretched out to flip a discreet switch behind one of the potted plants. The water surrounding them came to life in a whirlpool that foamed and danced -- Alannah slid up to where she could press her mouth to Odo's ear and nibble delicately at the lobe. "Hear?" she whispered. "Bubbles!"

"It's wonderful." Odo sighed, relaxing still further in the caressing warmth of the swirling water. It was so soothing that he was barely aware of Alannah's hand working gently at his flesh, cuddling his scrotum in the curve of her fingers and stroking his penis -- his growing erection seemed nothing more than a natural result of his overall sense of well-being. He let out a little moan of contentment as she straddled him with her thighs, guiding him deep inside her and letting out a soft cry of pleasure as he responded by taking her waist in his hands and sitting up so he could nuzzle her breasts and shoulders.

One of the first thing Odo had done after he decided that he was in love with Major Kira, and that he someday might want to do something about it, was to study the anatomy and responses of Bajoran females. So now he knew what to look for -- the deep blush that soon spread from Alannah's shoulders and coalesced in a blunt point between her breasts. It clarified his understanding of a mysterious remark that had once passed between O'Brien and Bashir about the dabo girl, Leeta, whom Bashir was dating at the time -- 'V for victory, ey, Julian?' Odo sighed as his own satisfaction washed over him, even while Alannah let out a soft purr of bliss and collapsed happily in his arms.

"What do you think of my bathtub now, sir?" she murmured, teasing. Odo glanced down at her, and kissed the top of her head.

"I think it's a marvelous invention. I can't imagine why I've been avoiding it."

"Well, that's nice. I would hate to think of you missing any of the benefits."

Odo felt a slight frisson of tension at this casual reminder that this was, after all, a business arrangement. "Alannah," he said hesitantly, "do you like me?"

He could feel her growing rigid in his arms. "Of course I like you," she murmured, her voice muffled against his shoulder. "I like you very much."

Somewhat encouraged by the admission, Odo went on, "Sometimes ... sometimes I almost forget ... that this isn't real." His voice was little more than a whisper.

Alannah's head shot up, and she looked at him, wide brown eyes fixed fearfully on his face. "Don't forget," she said, her tone sharp, "don't ever forget. We can't afford to forget -- at least I can't." Slipping from Odo's arms, Alannah held on to the sides of the tub and pushed her way up, to stand with water streaming down her body as she stared moodily at the wall behind Odo's head. She then stepped out of the tub, switching on the heated drier that rapidly evaporated the droplets that stood out on her skin.

"I'm sorry," Odo ventured, with an attempt to return to lightness, "I meant it as a compliment."

It was a moment before Alannah managed to reply. "I know," she said finally, "and I'm very flattered. I just -- this isn't the kind of job I can let spill over into my personal life. Do you understand what I mean?"

"I'm not sure," Odo admitted. "It's hard to imagine how it couldn't."

"That's because I keep it in the Box," Alannah said tightly. "I keep it in the Box, and I never take the lid off. Well, hardly ever," she amended. "But when I do, I put it right back on. It's the only way ... it's the only way I can survive."

She reached for a robe, hanging on the back of the door. "What time is your first meeting tomorrow?" she asked quietly, as she wrapped the garment around herself and tied the belt in a firm, no-nonsense knot.

"Early," Odo admitted, before he stood to allow the water to drain off his body back into the tub. "I'm having breakfast with Major Kira and Dr. Bashir at seven-thirty, to go over the proposed implementation of the overall station vaccination program."

"Did they finally come up with enough vaccine for the rest of us?" Alannah asked dryly, still not looking at him. She pulled another clean robe out of a drawer and handed it to Odo as he stepped out of the tub. She then opened the door and disappeared into the bedroom beyond.

"It's arriving on Tuesday," Odo commented, as he shrugged on the robe and followed in Alannah's wake. He found her sitting in the delicate chair that fronted her desk, an unfathomable expression on her face. He came up behind her hesitantly, bringing his hands to rest against her shoulders.

"Do you need to sleep late tomorrow morning? Would you like me to go?"

It was a question he always asked, and one to which he always got the same answer -- an immediate, gentle 'no'. Tonight, however, Alannah was silent for a moment, before she gave a slow nod.

"Actually, if you don't mind ... I have Tiron tomorrow night, and I won't get much sleep -- that's probably what makes him such a good businessman. He always makes sure he gets his money's worth."

Odo was unprepared for the dual stab of jealousy and rage that ripped through him, sharp and visceral as the fangs of a vermokk. His mind filled with a sudden image of the trader's arrogant face, of Tiron's coarse hands on Alannah's thighs, pushing them apart -- looking down, Odo was appalled to see his own hands had begun to shake. He drew them back gently, and leaned over to kiss Alannah's cheek.

"Of course I don't mind," he said quietly. "I know you work nights."

Alannah looked at him, startled, her eyes filled with -- pain? Confusion? Hurt? Then she managed to smile, a thin, professional smile, one that he hadn't seen in weeks. "It is one of the drawbacks to my occupation," she agreed. "But at least it leaves me plenty of time for reading -- shopping -- long, argumentative lunches with Garak and Bashir. Besides, there are harder things than working on your back." There was a sudden, overwhelming resemblance to Kira in the hard, set lines of her face, one that doubled the knife-edge twisting in Odo's heart. Later he could only assume it was that resemblance which caused him to make his next, incalculable error.

"I'm sorry, Nerys, I didn't --"

Odo froze in horror. A slow, bitter smile crept across Alannah's face.

"I'll have to give it to you, Constable. That's the first time you've ever slipped and called me by her name."

"Alannah, I --" Odo felt something very akin to nausea as he contemplated the cool, distant -- relieved? -- look in Alannah's eyes. "I don't think of her when I'm with you, not when we're --"

"It's all right, Odo. My business is to fulfill men's fantasies. She's yours. Why should I care?"

"Because," Odo whispered, not sure what he was going to say, "because I care."

Was that a glimmer of tears he saw in Alannah's eyes? He couldn't be certain, as she turned away too fast for him to tell. However, the voice that came back to him was perfectly light and level. "Ah, well ... that's sweet of you, Odo. Will I see you on Monday night?"

"Of course," Odo said automatically. After that, there seemed nothing left to say, other than --

"Good night, Alannah." Odo leaned over from behind her to brush his lips against her cheek. It was only after he beamed back to his own quarters that he automatically licked his lips --

And found that they tasted of salt.

Fortunately for Alannah, the next night Tiron wanted to play rough. She didn't know what she would have done if he'd been in one of those rare moods where he wanted sensuality and some semblance of tenderness -- but rough she could handle. Finally, Tiron was impressed enough to compare her to a Klingon -- to which he got a most satisfactory growl in response, and some bite marks besides.

Afterwards, Alannah treated his cuts and bruises with her usual gentle efficiency, and sent him on his way lamenting her refusal to become his shipboard mistress. Then she fell into bed and slept for twelve hours.

By Saturday night, she suspected she might be getting sick, and welcomed it with masochistic pleasure. The vague, feverish lack of well-being fit precisely with her present mood. She felt somewhat better on Sunday, although she was glad not to have to deal with another client before Monday night -- Monday night, with Odo.

The headache started early Monday morning, and continued to build with stealthy ferocity behind her eyes. Alannah finally collapsed on the bed after fixing herself a lunch that she wasn't able to eat, saying to herself, I'll just rest a few minutes. I have to get up, get cleaned up, dressed up, ready for Odo -- her thoughts wandering wildly, she had a sudden amusing image of donning a dark red Bajoran militia uniform. Call me Nerys, will he? I'll show him Nerys …

She came slowly awake to a gentle shaking. Odo sat on the bed beside her, while he looked down, concerned, into her face.

"Alannah? Alannah, are you all right?"

"All right?" Alannah looked vaguely from side to side, and wondered who had set off the photon torpedo in her head. "I'm fine ... I'm sorry, I must have fallen asleep."

Struggling into a seated position, she noted fuzzily that the room seemed to keep moving long after she did. Still, Hanir Alannah was nothing if not a determined woman ... she staggered to her feet and went into the outer room, a worried Odo following closely behind her.

"Do you mind replicated tonight, Odo? I'm afraid I don't feel quite up to cooking …"

"That's all right, I made us reservations ... remember? We talked about it on Thursday ..." Odo stared at Alannah, his eyes wide with anxiety. "Alannah, you're sick."

"No ... no, just a little tired. I'll be fine." Alannah went to put her hands on Odo's chest, and fixed her eyes longingly on his face. "Why are you so sweet to me? Couldn't you just hit me, every once in a while, to help me keep things in perspective?" Suddenly, she staggered. Odo caught her up in his arms, lifting her off the floor to cradle her against his chest.

"I'm calling Dr. Bashir."

"No! No, don't." Alannah shook her head vehemently, and put up a weak but determined struggle to get down. "He's up to his ass in sick people. He doesn't have time to see me. Besides, it's nothing."

"I think you are a sick person. How long have you been ill?"

"Oh ... not long ... maybe since Saturday?" Something unfortunate began to make itself felt in Alannah's stomach, as though the lunch she had only picked at was voicing its disapproval. "Odo!" she managed to gasp, "the bathroom ... please, I think I'm going to be --"

She was -- all over the front of her own dress and Odo's uniform tunic. Odo gave her a compassionate smile as she began to sputter with remorse.

"Shh ... it's all right. Here, let me get you cleaned up."

Alannah wrinkled her nose, wincing at the rank stench that filled her nostrils. "Odo, is that smell me?"

"I think it's you and me, actually." Smiling a little, Odo kissed her forehead. Then he exclaimed, alarmed, "Prophets, you're burning up!"

"No ... I'm freezing."

"Come on. I need to get out of this tunic and take care of you. Can you sit up for a minute?"

Alannah nodded solemnly. Reluctantly taking her at her word, Odo propped her in the easy chair that she kept for reading, and whipped off his uniform tunic. He shoved it into the recycler and returned just in time to catch Alannah as she began to sag off her seat.

"Come on, we need to get this off of you." Odo gingerly removed Alannah's dress, opting to bundle it up and leave it on the floor beside the chair. "Now, come on -- you're going into the bathtub."

Alannah smiled faintly. "Are you coming with me?"

"Well, sort of." Odo swept her back up into his arms and carried her into the bathroom, where he kicked the petcock that caused the tub to begin filling. "How do you set the temperature on this thing?"

"Just tell the computer," Alannah said faintly. Odo ordered the setting lowered to a cool ambiance, before he peeled off Alannah's underwear and slid her into the water, kneeling beside the tub and putting his arm behind her shoulders to support her. Then he tapped the combadge that he had palmed from his uniform and fixed haphazardly on to his T-shirt.

"Odo to Infirmary."

"Yes, Odo?" Bashir's voice was rough with exhaustion. "What can I do for you? It looks like we're getting that new shipment of vaccine just a little too late."

"You're right about that," Odo growled. "I have a patient for you, too."

"Oh?" An alert note replaced the tiredness in Bashir's voice. "How bad? Who is it?"

Odo didn't pause as he gave his reply. "It's Hanir Alannah. You know her, don't you?"

"Yes." Bashir's voice came through the combadge with no note of surprise. "Are you with her now?"

"Yes, in her quarters."

"All right, this is important. Does she have a high fever? Any nausea?"

"Yes, to both. Is that a particular concern?"

"Only according to Starfleet regulations," Bashir said dryly. "If someone has severe physical symptoms that aren't life-threatening, and they can be gotten to medical assistance without the use of the transporter, that's how you're supposed to move them. They don't like for a person's last stored image from the pattern buffer to be when the person is in a debilitated condition, in case that image has to be used to recover the person at some later date. And I'm up to my neck in sick people here ... I can't spare anyone to send."

"That's all right." Once again, to his credit, Odo didn't hesitate. "I'll bring her to you."

"Just wrap her up well ... I'll see you shortly. Bashir out."

"Alannah …" Odo lifted the dazed woman out of the tub, and ordered on the drier. "I'm taking you to the Infirmary."

"No." Alannah shook her head adamantly. "You mustn't."

"I must." Odo corrected her firmly. "You're sick."

"They'll think you ... that you're seeing me. That you're involved with a peska."

"So what?" Odo dismissed her concern. "I am, aren't I?"

Alannah put up something of a struggle as Odo carried her into the bedroom. Putting her down on the bed and throwing a blanket over her, Odo went to the dresser and rummaged until he found a nightgown that felt both soft and warm. While Alannah murmured a protest, he pulled it on over her head, fastening the high collar and making sure that the gathered sleeves covered her arms completely. Then he glanced down at himself, and shrugged. His tunic was stuffed in the recycler, which he had forgotten to start, and unwearable besides. His T-shirt would have to do. He wrapped Alannah in the blanket and once again lifted her in his arms.

As luck would have it, it was early evening ... a time of prime activity on the Promenade, with half the station's population either on their way home or on their way out. Odo fixed his eyes ahead of him and moved with quiet determination, oblivious to any startled expressions on the faces he passed. Two of them belonged to Kira and Miles O'Brien as they returned to the O'Briens' quarters after a long day in Ops.

Odo resolutely ignored Kira's open-mouthed astonishment, and even, as best he could without seeming surly, the chief's more outspoken, "Odo! What on earth are you doing?"

"I'm taking Miss Hanir to the Infirmary. She has this illness that's been going around." Odo hurried on toward his destination, forestalling any further questions. In another moment, he came through the Infirmary door, to be greeted by a somewhat distracted but attentive Dr. Bashir.

"I could kick myself," said Bashir angrily, as he helped array Alannah on a biobed, "of all the people on the station most likely to come into contact with something like this, she's one of the first who should have been on the at-risk list. She just didn't fall into either of the age groups, and she didn't have any health problems, so the computer didn't pick her up."

"Well, then …" Odo began hesitantly.

"I should have thought of her." Bashir rested his hand on Alannah's forehead, studying the scanner readouts overhead intently as he did so. Finally he let out a sigh of relief, before he began to administer a series of hyposprays. "She should have come in here two days ago, but she's fundamentally healthy. She should be feeling fine in a day or so, and meanwhile I can treat the symptoms. There's no real need for me to keep her here overnight, and there's not any room, anyway -- can you stay with her, just for tonight? Or find someone else to? I just don't have the personnel --"

"I'll stay with her," Odo interjected. "Is there anything special I should do?"

"Only to make sure that she rests, stays warms, and drinks plenty of water and juice, or perhaps some broth. Some remedies are eternal, it seems." Bashir smiled. "What I just gave her should have her fever down to where she can be transported in just a few minutes -- wait till it gets below one-hundred and one, that's close enough to normal for a Bajoran. And now, on to my next patient." Giving Odo a commending smile, Bashir moved to the next biobed.

Odo watched the temperature reading overhead until it reached the designated reading. He then looked down to find Alannah, no longer so dazed, peering up at him.

"You don't have to stay with me," she said quietly, "just get me home. All I want to do is sleep -- I'm sure I'll be all right now."

"I'm not going to stay with you, you're coming to stay with me," Odo said crisply, as he picked her up and tapped his combadge. His crisp, "Computer, execute program Odo-Four," was out before Alannah could open her mouth to protest, and they were caught up in the momentary displacement of the transporter effect.

"Odo?" Alannah almost squeaked as she said his name, looking around his living area with wide eyes once they materialized. "Are you sure you want me here?"

"Of course I am," Odo said gruffly. "You can't stay in your quarters -- what if one of your clients comes around looking to do business? You're not up to it right now, so why waste energy having to be diplomatic about it? Especially if it turns out to be someone who has a hard time with the word 'no'."

"But Odo ... people will think ..."

"What will they think? The truth? Well, let them." Carrying her through the door into the bedroom, Odo deposited Alannah on the bed, one of the few pieces of furniture that his quarters contained. "The important thing is that you get some rest and get well."

"Odo …" Alannah caught Odo's arm as he began to straighten. In response to his questioning look, she said, "Thank you. Thank you for taking care of me. I don't know when someone last did that ... without some ulterior motive."

Odo managed a little smile. "What makes you think I don't have one?"

Alannah raised her hand to his cheek. "Just a hunch. A feeling I have about you."

"Maybe I'm just trying to make sure you don't raise your prices." Odo meant it as a joke, but his smile vanished when he saw the look in Alannah's eyes. "Alannah, I'm sorry. I just -- there are so many things I want to say to you." That frightening statement was out of Odo's mouth before he had fully recognized it in his brain. He stopped abruptly, feeling stunned.

"Better not," Alannah whispered. "You might regret them." She took his hand in hers and pressed it to her lips. "But thank you."

In an effort to change the subject to something a little more remote, Odo asked gruffly, "Is that gown all right? I picked it because it looked warm, but if you want another --"

"This is my absolute favorite nightgown for when I'm cold or sick," Alannah assured him, smoothing the cream-colored folds over her body. Odo reached out and caught a strand of her hair in his fingertips.

"I think it's the prettiest thing I've ever seen you in. It makes you look very ... very ..."

"Virginal?" Alannah suggested, with a little smile.

"No, no ... just ... natural." Odo fixed his eyes intently on Alannah's, causing her lips to part as she licked them nervously. "I'm afraid I'm ... too familiar with your body to see you as virginal."

Alannah relaxed at that, smiling. "Thank the Prophets," she whispered. She lay quietly while Odo rearranged her limbs, pulling back the blankets and top sheet to array them over her carefully.

"Are you going to be warm enough?" he asked. "I could replicate another blanket …"

"We'll be fine," Alannah said gently. "The bed's a bit small, but we'll manage."

"Oh!' Odo looked at her, startled. "I thought I should --"

"-- sleep on the floor?" Alannah finished questioningly. "Don't be silly -- if nothing else, I need you to help keep me warm." She edged over so she was tucked up against the wall. Odo hesitated, before he peeled off his trousers and draped them neatly over the room's only chair. Opting to keep on his undershirt and briefs, he slipped into bed beside Alannah, to be welcomed into her arms.

"How do you feel?" he asked as he pressed his forehead against hers.

"Pretty rocky," Alannah confessed. "I'm sorry to have been such a disappointment tonight ... I'm sure this isn't what you had planned."

"I didn't have anything in particular 'planned'," Odo murmured, giving her a brief kiss. "Truth is, I enjoy your company. Outside the sex." He raised his hand to her face, his eyes suddenly intense. "Alannah, I --"

"Good night, Constable," Alannah pressed her lips to his, forestalling any ill-thought confessions. She then rolled over and snuggled her back into his chest, her buttocks into his belly and groin. Odo groaned a little, with a wry chuckle at his body's sudden surge of interest.

"Don't worry, Odo," Alannah murmured, pulling his arm across her waist as they finished settling in. "I'll take care of that tomorrow -- or Wednesday night at the latest ... I should be up for it by then."

"Well, I know I will be." Odo chuckled against Alannah's ear, feeling his arousal subside as she grew still in his arms, and her breathing settled into the soft, rhythmic soughing of sleep. He held her, felt her occasional whimper, the sweat that broke from her pores from time to time as she fought off the fever -- and wondered at the tenderness that had crept up on him unawares in the weeks gone past, all centered on this woman with whom he supposedly had a 'business arrangement'.

Only it was more than that -- he knew that now. Knew it and was terrified.

Terrified in case, for all his careful and orderly planning, he was falling in love after all.

Alannah was still asleep, her cheek pillowed on her hand, when Odo got up and dressed the next morning, grateful that he had finally unbent and gotten a second uniform tunic to alternate with the one still awaiting his attention in Alannah's quarters. He made a mental note to go by and care for it that afternoon, along with Alannah's dress. He could imagine that both articles were even less pleasant to be near after a night in their current condition.

Odo then replicated another blanket, and, when asked for a color, impulsively specified pale pink. He tucked it over the sleeping Alannah and kissed her cheek before he slipped out of his quarters. It was early, things still largely deserted as he made his way to his office ... he had a good hour's work out of the way before the first of the morning's visitors came to call.

Julian Bashir poked his head through the door, looking tired and rumpled, as though he hadn't slept all night. Odo smiled gravely, and nodded at the chair across the desk from him.

"Come in, Doctor," he invited. "May I offer you a raktajino?"

"That would be splendid." Bashir collapsed in the chair with a sigh, and gratefully accepted the mug that Odo extracted from the replicator. "So, how is Alannah this morning? Better, I assume, since I haven't heard anything from you."

"Whatever you gave her last night seems to have helped her enormously," Odo offered the affirmation. "She kept breaking out into a sweat, and I think she was aching a bit, but she was sound asleep when I left her this morning."

"That's the best thing for her," Bashir said reassuringly, and took a deep draught of his raktajino. "I'm glad you were able to stay with her."

Odo gave the physician a look of assessment. "It wasn't any trouble. I planned to stay with her anyway." There, Odo said, let's get the real story out there before too many people make up one of their own.

"Well, I thought as much," Bashir said evenly. Far from offering condemnation, his hazel eyes shone their approval.

"How did you know?" Odo asked curiously, as he commenced on his second cup of raktajino. "You don't seem at all surprised."

"I'm the one who gives Alannah her monthly physical. Her last one happened to fall within a few hours of her having been ... umm ..."

"Exposed to familiar DNA?" Odo asked dryly. To Bashir's surprised look, Odo added, "You once moaned something about seeing my DNA in your sleep, you'd been studying it so much."

"Well, yes, something like that."

"At any rate," Odo said levelly, "thank you for the 'prescription'. It's worked out far better than I expected."

Bashir smiled complacently into his raktajino, before he drained the mug and set it down with a sigh. "Well, back to work ... thank you for the coffee, Odo. And the company." Bashir sprang to his feet with that annoying resilience of the young, and nearly collided with Major Kira as she came through the doors to the Security Office.

"Oh! Sorry about that!" Bashir skirted around Kira's pregnant belly and made his escape. Odo nodded at Kira gravely, even while he felt a tremor of tension shoot up his spine.

"Major…" Odo nodded at the chair Bashir had just vacated. Kira lowered herself stiffly, to remain on the edge of the seat rather than sink back into it. Ah, Odo thought, a formal call. "Raktajino, Major?"

"I shouldn't …" Kira rubbed her swollen abdomen absent-mindedly "but sure. Extra --"

"-- extra hot, double kava?" Odo finished smoothly. "I haven't forgotten, Major."

Kira gave a wry smile. "I'm sorry. Thanks, that smells wonderful." She accepted the mug Odo held out to her, breathing in the steam like perfume. She sipped at it briefly before putting it down on the edge of the desk. Her brow was furrowed in concern.

Odo waited quietly for her to begin. He knew that, this being Kira, it wouldn't take long.

"Odo, about last night …"

"What about it, Major?" Odo asked quietly. "You mean when you met me on the Promenade?"

"Well -- yes."

"Thank you for your concern, Major, but Alannah will be fine in a day or two." There, Odo threw out the challenge silently. What do you have to say about that?

"If you don't mind my asking ... how long have you been …" Kira waved her hand in a vague gesture.

"Seeing Alannah in her professional capacity? Six weeks," Odo said crisply, as he finished his own raktajino and deposited the empty mug in the replicator. "Why do you ask, Major?" Serve to you, Kira, he thought, with a stab of resentment.

"I just ... I wanted to talk to you about it. I'm ... worried about you, Odo."

"Then let me assure you, there's no need. I know exactly what I'm doing." Prophets, if only that weren't true, Odo thought with a sudden tremor of despair. I've fallen in love with yet another woman who, for all I know, has nothing more than a professional interest in me.

Fallen in love ... the words had been spoken in his mind, no longer to be ignored or denied. Odo stared moodily at the top of his desk, eyes tracing the patterns of the various data displays. Then he glanced up, startled, as Kira leaned earnestly toward him.

"Odo, the last thing I want to do is interfere with your personal life, but --"

"Then don't," Odo said shortly. His blue eyes blazed a warning, one that Kira, never a coward, chose to ignore.

"It's just that, as Chief of Security on this station, some people might consider it -- advantageous -- to have a closer relationship with you. Or to know someone who does."

"Prostitution is legal, Kira." Kira blinked as Odo tossed the bald term out, seemingly in her face.

"Yes," Kira agreed, "regrettable, but legal ... still, prostitutes don't always attract the best clientele."

"Thank you, Major."

"I don't mean you!" Kira flushed irritably. "I mean the others -- the criminal element who might very well see her as a way to get an inside line on you."

"For that to happen, Alannah would have to be willing to share the information." Odo's voice was strong and confident. "I can't imagine she could have been a very successful peska if she wasn't discreet."

"Odo …" Kira took a deep breath and went on. "Odo, she sells her body for latinum. Why would she mind selling a little information about you?"

"What information do you suppose she has to sell?" It occurred to Kira that she had never seen Odo really angry, at least not when it was directly solely at her, but now the force of his rage burst on her like a hurricane. "That I like champagne but I detest vole liver? That I prefer the feel of cotton to silk, at least when it's over a woman's breast? That I love ice cream? That I hate Klingon opera, except when it's being sung by a lobster? That the Founders may have left me human, but it seems that they were generous with the extent of the 'equipment'?!"

Odo's eyes blazed blue fire with outrage. Kira enunciated through tight lips, "I'm not saying you aren't cautious. It's just that, sometimes, when -- when physical passions are involved, people say things that they don't mean to, especially if they're asked the right questions."

"Alannah doesn't ask me questions! Unless you count things like, 'Would you like something to drink?' 'You look tired, was it a hard day?' Actually, there is one question that she asks quite a bit -- 'Do you like this, Odo?'" Odo lowered his voice to a startlingly sensuous purr. "'Do you like this, Odo?', she'll ask -- and she'll demonstrate what she's asking about. So far the answers have all been affirmative on my part, although I assume you'd prefer that I not go into details." His voice rose again to a razorcat's roar. "Unless that's a part of your 'official inquiry', too!"

Kira shot to her feet with remarkable speed considering her condition. "Odo, this isn't an 'official inquiry'! I'm here because I'm worried about you!"

"Then I thank you for your concern. But it's unjustified -- completely."

Kira fixed her gaze somewhere in the vicinity of Odo's chest, and he winced to see the glimmer of tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry. I just thought that ... I'm sorry. You obviously don't need any advice from me." She turned as if to go.

"Kira, wait!" When she looked back, Odo said tiredly, "I can't explain it, but -- she's honorable. She's -- become very important to me. And I trust her."

If anything, the worry in Kira's eyes deepened, but she nodded slowly as her eyes searched Odo's face. "Sure, Odo -- I understand." Giving him one last, anxious look, Kira took her leave.

Odo stared after her, a thousand doubts finally free to dance like wildfire through his eyes and his muddled brain. What in the name of the Prophets do I think I'm doing?

He trusted Alannah not to betray him. He didn't trust her to fall in love with him.

Coming into his quarters that evening, Odo was met by a startling spectacle -- the heat was turned up to a level best described as toasty, and Alannah greeted him clad in what looked suspiciously like one of his own black v-necked undershirts, lying on a sofa that he knew hadn't been there when he went to work that morning. The pink blanket he had replicated was draped over her, and she was watching the image being emitted by a holo-projector, also unfamiliar. But what riveted his attention most was her smile, as she glowed with seeming happiness at the sight of him.

"What's all this?" Odo asked with a little smile, as he walked over to join her.

"I was feeling better enough to start getting bored." Alannah sat up and patted the place beside her. "I couldn't very well go wandering out of here in my nightgown, and besides, I sweat all over it. After I took a sonic this afternoon, I borrowed this --" she tugged at the T-shirt, smiling "-- and ordered a couple of things in." She dimpled. "Consider them gifts -- for taking such good care of me last night."

"I don't need you to give me gifts for that," Odo grumbled softly, before modifying his tone to ask, "What are you watching?" He sat down carefully on the sofa's edge, only to be gathered in Alannah's arms and thoroughly kissed. He noticed with some surprise that the images on the holoscreen were flat rather than three-dimensional.

"Re-creations of old twentieth and twenty-first century flat image capture films from Earth ... 'movies', they called them. Dr. Bashir has an enormous collection of them that he loans to me, a few at a time. They're wonderful ... strange notions about science, of course, but wonderful romances. Not always realistic, but wonderful."

"What's this one?" Odo asked, studying the image of an ornately dressed woman who looked a little like Keiko O'Brien, but with a fantastical hair style and heavy white make-up. She was singing in a language that his universal translator didn't want to render into anything comprehensible. Odo wasn't particularly interested in the answer to his question ... all he knew was that Alannah had snuggled contentedly against him, her head against his shoulder, while she acted more relaxed than he had ever seen her.

"This was a twenty-first century stage production of Madame Butterfly. I know the music, but this is the first performance I've seen where the language wasn't translated into Federation standard." Alannah's nose wrinkled in distaste as she remembered that blasphemy. Then, to Odo's astonishment and delight, Alannah began to sing softly along with the projection, her voice lighter and not so polished, but sweet and clear and on key. In a fit of sudden daring, Odo kissed the top of her head, and then watched, bemused, as Alannah followed the character -- apparently a courtesan of some kind -- to her inevitable doom. He would have been concerned at her tears when the program was over, if she hadn't so clearly been in bliss.

"That was wonderful," she sighed happily, before she ordered the thing off and turned her attention to Odo, getting up on her knees on the sofa to face him squarely. "So are you, Constable."

"Oh?" Odo smiled a little at her sudden regard. "What did I do?"

"You took care of me last night ... you left me here today where no one could bother me ... and you don't expect a thing for it. Odo, I --" Apparently at a loss for words, Alannah pressed her mouth passionately to Odo's, her hands running back through his hair. He started as her hands trailed down the sides of his face to his uniform tunic below, and began to unfasten it purposefully.

"Alannah ... I thought you were sick." Nonetheless, Odo helped her by shrugging the garment off his shoulders, sighing as Alannah caressed him through his T-shirt, her fingertips catching the tiny points of his nipples and pulling at them enticingly.

"Do you have any idea how aroused a person can get when they lie around in bed all day listening to Pucini?"

Odo stared at Alannah's laughing eyes and radiant smile. She's doing this for herself, he thought wonderingly. She's doing it because she wants to.

"No idea ... tell me all about it." Odo for once said to hell with order, as he flung his jacket across the room and pulled off his T-shirt to let it fall to the floor. Sliding his hands under Alannah's matching garment, he was pleased to note that it was the only thing she had on -- he slipped his fingers through the soft hair covering her pubis and made his unerring way to her clitoris and the warm depths beyond it. Alannah thrust against his hand shamelessly, until she let out a little cry and he watched her lovely flush as it filled her neckline. Then she lay back against the sofa, spreading her legs as she arrayed her fingertips on the smooth skin of her inner thighs.

"Here," Alannah whispered, and smiled at Odo through narrowed eyes. "I want you here -- right now." She let the tip of her tongue brush sensuously over her upper lip while Odo unfastened his trousers with hands that suddenly shook. A slight struggle, and all impeding garments, if not removed, were at least sufficiently out of the way -- Alannah let out a moan that mirrored Odo's own as he sank his swollen penis into her as deep as it would go. He pushed up the undershirt she wore until her breasts were also exposed -- beautiful, to watch the pink tips harden into impossibly tight buds, rising and falling with her increasingly ragged breathing. Beautiful, to feel himself erupt inside her, even while she let out an ecstatic scream ... beautiful, to see her blush, along with that other, unmistakable sign that her passion had been fulfilled -- the tiny drops of clear "prophet's milk" that oozed almost imperceptibly from her nipples. Of all the lovely things he might have seen in his life, Odo decided, none of them were lovelier than watching Alannah fly.

"Alannah," he whispered, raising his hand to her face, "I --"

There might have been more inconvenient times for the doorcom to sound, but certainly none more unwelcome. Odo gave Alannah a despairing glance as she pulled down her shirt, and leaned up to give him a brief kiss. After he helped her to sit up next to him and made sure that the blanket was covering both of them securely, Odo looked toward the door and decided to brazen it out.

"Come!" he called.

His first thought had been that the last person he would want to see at his door right now was Major Kira, but he quickly amended that opinion. Kira would have simply blushed, mumbled something and left. Chief Miles O'Brien, after one shocked stare, proved true to his nature, and tried to "fix" things.

"I -- I'm sorry to bother you, but Julian was still up to his as -- eyeballs in the Infirmary, and asked me to drop this by --" O'Brien waved a holo-chip that he held in his hand and looked around for a table or chair to put it on, but found neither. At a loss, he stared at the pair on the sofa helplessly.

Alannah, who had been caught in far worse situations, was perfectly calm as she held out her hand. "It must be the copy of La Traviata he promised me," she observed sweetly. "Thank you, Chief O'Brien."

O'Brien continued to stare at her, apparently unable to take the hint offered by her outstretched palm if it meant coming too near. Sighing, Alannah slipped out from under the blanket and got to her feet -- the T-shirt came halfway down her thighs, although it was fairly easy to guess that there was nothing under it. Crossing the room, Alannah took the chip out of O'Brien's hand while he gaped at her. She then circled back to stand behind the sofa, then leaned over to press her lips briefly to Odo's when he turned his head to look at her questioningly.

"I'll wait for you in the bedroom," she whispered -- but audibly. Odo watched her until she disappeared through the bedroom door, and then turned to find O'Brien with a face as red as a commander's collar.

"Is there anything else I can do for you, Chief?" Odo asked in a growling voice.

Apparently O'Brien decided that Alannah's retreat into the adjoining room gave him a license to be blunt. "Good God, man! Even after what I saw last night, and even after what Nerys told me this afternoon, I couldn't believe it! What in the galaxy do you think you're doing, dallying with some hooker?"

"Hooker?" Odo frowned at the unfamiliar term.

"A peska, that's what the Bajorans call it. A whore!"

Odo gave his friend and co-worker a long, hard stare. He then pushed aside the blanket, unconcerned at exposing himself as he stood and pulled up his pants and underwear from where they were tangled around his ankles. He secured his trousers firmly around his waist and crossed to stand by the bedroom door, while O'Brien watched him with wide eyes.

"Chief, I'd like you to do me a favor."

"What's that?" O'Brien asked, startled at the seeming change of subject.

"I'd like you to go back and tell Major Kira ... and Keiko ... and Sisko, and Worf, and Dax, and Quark, and Bashir, and Morn, and anyone else who may be interested, that I happen to be in love with that 'whore'. And that I'd appreciate if all of you would just leave us alone."

Odo turned his back on the chief, then waited until he heard the soft opening and closing of the door to his quarters. Then, his palms suddenly icy and a beading of sweat chill his brow, he stepped into the bedroom, where the lights were dimmed to a gentle glow.

Alannah stood as though she were frozen beside the bed, eyes fixed on Odo's face. "I'm sorry," Odo whispered. "I had to say it ... because it's true. I'm sorry, I --"

Whatever he meant to say by way of apology was lost forever. Alannah stumbled in her haste to reach him, so that he had to catch her in his arms. Her strong, slender hands affixed themselves to either side of his face, and she pressed her mouth repeatedly to his. Her words were just as stumbling, as they fell over each other with the eagerness of a litter of puppies scrambling from a basket, her voice a tangled web of laughter and tears.

"I can't believe it," Alannah whispered, "I love you so much ... I love you ... Prophets, I love you ..."

Alannah finally stepped back, shaking, and raised a trembling hand to brush back the hair from her forehead. Her gaze suddenly shy, she reached out and caught Odo's hands in hers, and glanced timidly at the bed behind them.

"Oh, yes," Odo breathed, as he lifted her against him and took the few steps that remained between them and their objective with Alannah's arms fastened around his neck, her mouth affixed hungrily to his. He gently removed her T-shirt, even while he felt her fumble at his trousers -- it was the fumbling that reassured him more than anything that he wasn't going to wake up and discover that this was all a dream, it was such a contrast with her usual expertise. Then he was on her, in her, her soft cries an aphrodisiac administered in his ear.

"I love you," she whispered, over and over. "I love you, Ital. I love you."

It was only afterwards, as he lay dazed and content in her arms, that Odo thought to ask, "How did you know that they used to call me 'odo'ital'?"

"Dukat used to call you that." Odo could feel Alannah shift slightly beneath him, hear the question in her voice. "Isn't that your name?"

"Not really. It's just something the scientists used to call me -- from the label on my specimen container," Odo said quietly. "'Odo'ital' is Cardassian for 'nothing'."

"Oh ... no wonder he laughed when he said it." Alannah spoke with a tight voice. "Since you were 'raised' on Bajor, I just assumed that it was your name."

"Ital is a Bajoran name?" Odo propped himself up on his forearms to stare down into Alannah's face. "I've never heard it before."

"Well, they're Bajoran words ... in Takeer dialect, from my home province. Odo means strong. Ital means ... bitter, but sweet."

"Bittersweet."

"Yes ... but with the sweetness pervading. More sweet than bitter." Alannah linked her arms around Odo's neck, her dark eyes solemn as they studied his face. "I thought that it suited you. I didn't realize that -- I won't use it anymore."

"I like it the way you say it. I just wasn't raised anywhere near Takeer." Odo spoke with gentle sadness. "A lot of things might have been different if I had."

"Then I'm glad you weren't," Alannah said strongly.

"Why?" Odo gave her quizzical smile.

Alannah smiled as well, and drew his head down to hers. "I wouldn't have anything different than it is right now."

Nor, Odo realized, would he.

Like it? The author would love to hear from you at crfulton@renefiles.com.

Return to the mature fanfic page.

(Renι's Page is maintained by Marguerite Krause)