As the game got rolling the early winner of the night was Lucas. But as his whiskey comsumption increased his ability to keep track of cards decreased, and he began making bad calls. He seemed determined to prove to Trey that he could keep up with her and the rest.   She figured he would either be bolting for the john before much longer or passing out where he sat as the second bottle was cracked.

     But as the booze hit their systems the conversation headed downward.

       Looking up from her cards, Trey examined the gathered men and considered that they represented a random sampling of male wisdom and experience and she decided to take advantage of the gathered knowledge.

      "OK, listen up guys. Wanna answer a philosophical question for me?"

       "Sure, Trey." Tony smirked. "I'm always answering those philosophical problems. Whatccha got on your mind?" Tony answers. He leaned over and commented to Miguel in what he fondly thought was a whisper, "If she were a guy herself, I'd already know." Trey glared at him before answering.

       "Why do guys, most nice guys, which leaves Lt Boss outta this," Trey turns to her direct CO and smirks, "think that women only want ........" Pausing, she looked over at Lucas and shrugged. "AHH never mind"

    "Its about sex, isn't it?" the surly manchild asked. His mood, not the best to start with, had been getting blacker with each additional drink.

      "Give the boy a cigar," Tony piped up.

       "That's not what he wants," Brody added. "Besides, he'a already got one."

       "Hey you meatheads! Listen, just cause I'm not as experienced as you guys, doesn't mean I'm not knowlegdeable!"

       While Tony hooted derisively at this, Trey leaned across the table and patted the boy's hand. "Luc, darlin', don't ever get as experienced as me. ok? You'll hate yourself if you do."

       For some reason, this didn't go over well with the computer expert and he snatched his hand out from under hers. Trey looked at him with hurt incomprehension until Miguel tapped her shoulder in an attempt to get her attention.

       "Is there trouble between you and Tim?" he asked quietly with a worried look on his face. "I can talk to him, if you want." Trey shook her head.

       "No, not really. It's just ... well, I planned this whole thing and ... " she answered, her voice a little louder than she'd intended. Miguel nodded understandingly.

       "I see. I knew that you had a reason for setting this game up and I didn't think it was just to spend time with us. Did you have something special planned?" As Trey hid her face in her hands, Tony hooted with rough amusement.

          "I know!" he crowed. "She was going to get him drunk and take advantage of his state!" the former street boy guessed. Trey put her head down on the table and covered it.

       Almost groaning, she protested, "Not really......., I mean, not exactly. It's just......" Then a sudden thought occurred to her drunken mind and she sat straight up and looked at Miguel accusingly. "Why is it you know WAY too much about my sex life, but I get next to nothing about yours. Come on, tit for tat, give!"

       Tony and Jim both perked up, looking at Miguel with avid curiousity and saying in unison, "Yeah! What about it? Are you and Ari ......" At that name, Lucas, who'd been about to slide under the table straightened so suddenly his head jerked back.

       "STOP!" he shouted. "I don't want to know!" The two men exchanged a sly glance and, after checking to see if Miguel was listening, leaned inward to start whispering speculations about the relations between the ensign and the chief into the ears of the drunken youth.

       Ignoring them all, Miguel put his head next to hers and gave her a quick squeeze of the shoulders, whispering, "What's wrong?'

       Trey pulled away a bit, sitting back in the chair and pulling her legs up so she could rest her chin on her knees in a position that the Usual Suspects had come to call her 'I can't deal with this pose'. With a heartfelt sigh, she confessed, "It's nothing serious. And, if anything I should feel cherished and flattered, but......" she shrugged unhappily. "Tim's not exactly the most imaginative lover I've ever had." Ashamed to have said that aloud, she put her forehead on her knees to hide from the gaze of the other players, before continuing. "Tony's right, I was hoping that getting him drunk tonight might change that, at least for tonight." Letting out a big sigh, she finished the confession, regretfully saying, "but I guess not."

       Tony caught his name and stopped torturing Lucas long enough for both men to catch the last bit. Jim snorted with amusement and asked "Does that mean you're not...."

          Trey's head shot up so fast her neck cracked as she guessed what he meant. "NO!" she snapped indignantly. "I'm not saying anything of the sort." More pensive, she explained,"Iits just that he's a scientist, very methodical. You know, the 'ok, I know this works so we'll just repeat it' kinda thing." She shrugged, frowning a little with worry. "Yhat's what I wanted to know, do guys think that women... 'nice girls', I mean. Because, God knows that what Tim's determined to believe I am, don't like wild and wooly, animal lust, type sex? I need that badly now. you understand. Sometimes, I really need fucked, and not treated like some delicate piece of porcelain that will break if you handle it too roughly. I WANT ROUGH SEX!" She almost yelled, then looked around guiltily and shrugged again. "You see the problem?"

       Lucas leaned closer across the table and looked at her blearily. "I don't get it? You want to be raped?"

       Tony smirked and chirped brightly, "Ya know, thats what I heard. You didn't get any."

       "Tony hush your face," Trey snapped. "Luc, honey, no, I don't want to be raped. No way. There's a world of difference between that and what I'm talking about. It may seem the same but it's not. Iits all in the feeling. Sometimes you want to feel cherished and loved. And sometimes you want to be sexy & wild. To drive a man over the edge with desire for you."

       With an uncontrollable laugh, Brody hooted, "O'Neill sexy & wild? I think you're shit outta luck, girl."

       "Jimbo, its all in the eye of the beholder. look at Ortiz, here. He's a hot blooded, animal Latin lover and who is he with? Come on. Ari's cute as a button and all that, but sexy?"

       "Wait a minute, Trey ..." Miguel protested while Jim nodded and replied, "Now, Trey, that's not true. Sometimes, when we've been going at it in the gym, I wouldn't mind ..." Lucas stood up, bumping the table and knocking the bottle over. Tony grabbed for it and kept the whiskey from spilling out.

       At the top of his voice, he yelled, "HEY! HEY! No talking about Ari's sex life! I told you, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT!" Tony gave Trey a crooked grin.

       "Well, I guess that answers that question for you, Trey. Sit down, Lucas, we ain't gonna talk about her. Miguel won't give up any details anyway." He replaced the bottle on the table and Lucas plopped back into his chair and then the seaman picked up the cards and started shuffling them again. "Hey guys, you wanna deal the cards while we're grousing about Barlows terrible fate," he said, squaring the deck and slamming them down in front of JIm. The game rolled on as before with the conversation returning to a comparison of bad dates and other embarassing incidents.

       MIguel kept one eye on his friend, seeing how bothered she was by the problem. With a sigh, he threw in his hand and leaned over her shoulder to peek at her cards and give her an opportunity to open up to him. He liked both Trey and Tim too much to sit idly by and see their relationship falter, and besides, as much as he knew Ari cared for him and assured him that she thought of Tim as only a brother, it was clear to see that the two of them had a lot more in common that he and she did.

       Trey leaned up against his broad chest and fanned her cards out toward him. "Hey! you two!" Tony yelled. "No cheating, no ganging up. Miguel, you know better than that." Trey gave him a dignified look.

       "When we start cheating, Mr. Piccolo, you won't know what is happening." But before Tony could think of a suitable response, Lucas's arm, on which he'd been resting his head, gave way, and he fell face forward onto the table top. Jim and Tony started laughing, pushing him back into his chair so his head leaned uncomfortably over the back of it, and taking his cards. Snoring slightly, a foolish grin on his face, Lucas sat there while the game continued around him.

When the next hand was dealt, Trey digustedly threw it in waited to see what Ortiz was going to do. As he met and raised Jim's ante, she scooted her chair over and flopped her arm around his shoulder, leaning in to see what kind of deal he had, and inadverantly putting her cleavage directly in his line of sight. Miguel considered raising his hands, but he firmly believed in taking advantage of viewing the wonders of nature when opportunity offered, and these were magnificent.

       Trey's eyes were bleary from the drink so she found herself having to concentrate hard, peering at the cards he held and so missed the look of welcome and recognition on Piccolo's face when the door behind her opened quietly. As Tim snuck up behind his girl, he placed one finger on his lips in a plea for silence. Jim and Tony exchanged a glance, and returned to examining their hands.

       Trey's face wrinkled up with disgust and she pursed her lips as she craned her head up to confront Miguel on the idiotcy of his strategy. Since he was still admiring her assets, this brought their faces into close proximity. Tim leaned over their shoulders, placing the tacky green cardboard top hat he'd picked up while on the float at Tir na Nog on Trey's head and whispering a warning to Miguel.

       "I very much hope that you two have an explanation for this position?" he hissed, then looked down and realized just much of his love was on display in that position. "And I hope that you're not looking down the shirt of my woman, now are you?"

       The sudden surprise caused them both to jump up, Trey bumping her forehead into Miguel's chin and Miguel bashing into Ari, not realizing she was on the other side of him. For her part, she wasn't paying attention, frowning across the table.

          Unabashed, Trey jumped to her feet and turned around,leaning over the back of the chair, her knees on the seat. She hugged Tim around his waist and squealed with the exuberance of the tipsy, "You're back."

       He patted her shoulder with embarassment, giving her his slightly lopside grin. "Gee, nothing gets past you, does it?" he asked, trying for a dry tone of voice.

       "At least your sure of your welcome, Tim," Ari reminded him absently, evading Miguel's slightly shamefaced effort to round the table and look down on Lucas.

       Still holding on to Tim, Trey looked around Miguel to Ari, only now noticing that she was there. "Hey! What are you doing here? Why aren't you working on your books?

       "I finished my assignments up before Tuesday, this week," Ari told her, kneeling down and pulling up one of Lucas's lids to check his eyes. "Today is St. Patrick's Day, after all. My ethnic holiday. I took the day off."

      "Why didn't you tell me?" Trey demanded indignantly.

       "You didn't ask," the small ensign replied. Some note of dry vexation cut through Trey's drunken haze.

       "Ummm, are we OK? I mean, I wasn't trying to slight you, you know. I woulda, shoulda invited you, maybe but I thought that you were busy. It was rude, I guess. but..."

      "But?" Ari drawled, looking up at her. This should be good.

       "Well......." Trey stopped with this abashed expression on her face. Looking down and the table, as if seeking the words there, she shrugged, "Everyone always wants to act nice around you & I needed something a little lower on the class scale." Ari raised her eyebrows in disbelief while Trey's eyes grew round and her hand covered her mouth. "OHH that didn't come out right."

       Getting up from the floor, brushing the dust off her knees, Ari observed, "I think it did. My date tonight said something similar. Anyway, from the looks of poor Lucas, you suceeded in your aims. "

       While Miguel pushed himself unsteadily upright, repeating the word, "Date?", Tony piped up defensively, "Listen, we tried ta get him ta slow down, but know Lucas. Don't get me wrong, he's a nice kid and all that but he's stubborn as all hell.....OPPs.... heck. Cap'n gives him almost as much leeway as he gives you." Ari glared at him before putting her hand on Lucas's shoulder and giving him a shake.

       "Date?" Miguel repeated. But Tim had reached around Trey and picked up her glass, commenting as he sniffed the golden liquid within, "No wonder he's out. thats good stuff but for a beginner...? I bet he never knew what hit him." He grinned down at the bemused expression of the woman still clinging limpet like around his middle and then finished the glass. "I think you've had enough, yourself, woman."

       Ari gave Lucas's shoulder a hard shake "Lucas. Come on. I'm going to take you to bed, now."

       Lucas jerked his shoulder out from under her hand, muttering something to himself. Ari bent lower. "What?"

       "I told you, Trey. I don' wanna talk about Ari's sex life," he replied with excruciating clarity. Ari snapped upright, regarding him with wide-open eyes and a horrified expression, which sent two of the players into gales of hysterical giggles, and left Tim chuckling. Ari looked at Trey with accusation, while that woman looked over her shoulder with a failed attempt to look innocent. Miguel reached across the table and grabbed for Ari's shoulder.

      "What date?" he growled.

       "When I found out that you were to be otherwise occupied, I asked a very charming man to accompany me to the colony," she replied before looking around at the others. Jim and Tony were helplessly laughing at the situation, one leaning forward as if he couldn't support his upper body anymore. With a dignified expression and repressive tone of voice, Ari prompted them, saying, "I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for that particular subject coming up?" Her gaze rested on Miguel, with calm consideration, and he flushed darkly, sitting back down into his seat with a hard thump.

       Tony looked up quickly. He and Jim exchanged a quick glance before both of them put their hands up in surrender, claiming, in close unison, "We're innocent." Ari snorted derisively at that thought.

       "Miguel, can you explain this?" she asked. He looked at the petite ensign who'd stolen his heart and swallowed heavily. When she went cool, collected and dignified, that was the time to get worried.

       "Really Ari..... it's not what it sounds like. We weren't talking about you, specifically. We were talking about sex in general and...." His inquisitor's eyebrows raised dubiously. "Well kinda." he turned to one side in desperation, "Hey, TREY! You want to help out here? You started it."

      Securely holding on to what she wanted, Trey sniggered unsympathetically. "Why? Thats a lovely hole you've dug all by yourself." Tim opened his mouth to reprove her, but he was interrupted by Lucas's eyes snapping open, and a green tinge appearing on his face. Clamping his lips closed and holding a hand to his mouth, retching and fighting the gag reflex, he jumped out of the chair and bolted for the door. Ari gave the assembled players one last glare before galloping after him, pushing past Dagwood, a ridiculous green bowler riding the top of his bald head. He stared after the two of them for a moment, perplexed, then shrugged and took off in pursuit.

       Miguel stood up and glared at the obliviously happy Trey. "You're a big help, Barlow!" he snarled and followed the parade down the corridor. Her only answer was a gentle burp and a small snore. Looking down at the limpet like lady, Tim realized that she was quietly, blissfully unconscious. Sparing a glance at the two hysterically laughing men, he shrugged and pulled her hands apart, getting his shoulder under one arm and lifting her to her feet. Wishing that he was as muscled as Miguel, he began to help her out of the room and toward her own quarters, leaving the last two player behind in the finale of the poker game.

Go to 'After Bash'

---