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The Empress's New Clothes
by Nancy Brown (nancy@rat.org)
Copyright 1995
 
 
     That damned Ferengi!  She cursed his parentage in four
languages under her breath as she examined her dress uniform. 
There were at least twenty holes of various sizes already forming
in the crimson material, with more threatening.  She had been
fortunate to make it back to her quarters before it had become too
indecent, for which she was grateful.  In her regular uniform,
which she regarded as her civvies, she held the outfit in the half-
light, carefully examining the deteriorating cloth.
     The youth had been carrying a tray of drinks for another
table, had brushed past her just as she had risen to leave.  Idly,
she wondered if he had finished cleaning the mess yet.  Another
hole began growing.  What the hell had been in those drinks,
anyway?
     It wouldn't have been so bad if the meeting with Gul Evek
weren't scheduled for the next day.  It wouldn't have been so bad
if the replicators on this excuse for an ex-Cardassian space
station could be trusted for something as simple as coffee.  Hell,
if the _Enterprise_ had still been docked, she could have beamed
back aboard and had her new uniform within minutes.
     A stray smile passed her lips as she imagined the captain's
face when she made the request, could almost hear him thinking "Not
again.  I thought we were rid of her for the time being."
     The thought brought a bitter mix of emotion within her.  She
knew that she was unpopular on the _Enterprise_, on Deep Space
Nine, everywhere she went.  She'd accepted that long ago as part of
the deal; she had to be in control, and if it meant becoming a
hard-nosed bitch in the process, so be it.  There were times that
it hurt a little, though, in the hidden places where she allowed
the small soft part of her that remained to reside.
     Back in the here and now, her dress uniform was slowly but
surely dissolving in her hands and there was nothing she could do
about it.
     Wait.  Hadn't she seen a shop along the Promenade with
clothing?  And wasn't it run by a ...  Yes!  She remembered reading
Sisco's report on the subject.  Of all the invading force that had
raped Bajor, only one Cardassian remained, minding a little
tailor's shop on the station.  At the time, there had been some
concern about station security, especially considering that the
security chief used to work for the Cardassians.  There had been
more than one proposal to ban both of them from DS9.  She had been
responsible for several of them.  Nevertheless, Sisco's report had
clearly stated his trust in Constable Odo, and somehow, the issue
with the Cardassian had been lost amid a new debate over something
mindless.  Such was Starfleet.
     As far as she knew, the tailor had been permitted to stay. 
Now she hoped he could at least sew straight.
 
 
     It wasn't difficult to locate the shop; it was the only one
where there were no customers.  She felt oddly relieved.  She
didn't like having to deal with people on a personal level.  It was
much easier to tell them what to do.
     The shop was open, but she did not see the tailor anywhere. 
Feeling like an idiot, she examined a swatch of cloth in the window
while passersby stared in with curiosity.  Obviously, patrons were
scarce.  Let them stare.  She didn't care much.
     "Might I interest you in this paisley pattern, madam?"  She
tried not to appear startled at the voice suddenly in her ear.  How
had he managed to creep up on her like that?
     "No," she said, putting her usual firmness into her voice.  "I
need you to make me a new dress uniform before tomorrow afternoon."
     "That's a very tall order.  I don't know if I can squeeze you
into my tight schedule of clients."  He indicated the empty room
with a grand gesture, as though there were two hundred people in
the shop rather than two.
     She sighed.  This one was just like the Ferengi barkeeper. 
Always out for the money.  "I can pay well.  I need that uniform."
     The tailor inclined his head.  "Then, madam, I will make sure
you have it."  She neither smiled nor nodded.  Things were simply
as they should be.  "If you'll follow me for your fitting."
     He led her back into a small room.  There was a small raised
platform in the center.  At his gesture, she stepped up onto it. 
He picked up an old-fashioned tape measure, a pad of paper, and a
pencil from a table cluttered with cloth patches and buttons.
     As he wound the tape gently around her shoulders, he made
small talk, an easy banter that she realized immediately was as
false as his smile.  "I have the pattern on file, of course.  It
was always my understanding that Starfleet officers brought their
own dress uniforms with them."
     "I did bring it with me.  That Ferengi boy in the bar spilled
something on it.  It was more hole than uniform when I reached my
quarters."
     He clucked his tongue.  "I imagine that would have been a
sight well worth viewing."  He indicated that she should raise her
arms.  When she complied, he wrapped the tape around her biceps,
then traced a feathery light path to her wrist with the measure,
pausing only to make notes on his paper.  She shivered slightly.
     "Are you cold?"
     "Yes," she lied.
     Suddenly, she heard something out in the main shop.  The
tailor dropped the tape and ran out front.  She followed him, only
to see the window display torn down and the sounds of running
footsteps.
     She stepped beside him.  "What was that all about?"
     For a moment, the facade vanished.  "They want me gone, so
they tear down my displays and ruin my cloth."  He kicked at a
multicolored pile.
     "Who?"
     "The Bajorans.  The humans.  It doesn't matter who does it;
the ones who don't protect the ones who do."  Then, like a shutter,
his feelings flew closed, and he was once again the smiling
businessman with his first customer in some time.  "Shall we return
to your fitting, madam?"
     There was really nothing else to be done.  They went back into
the little room.
     Again, she held out her arms.  He brought the tape around her
breasts, touching them just lightly enough to send a ripple of
electricity through her body.  She hoped he did not notice the way
her cheeks suddenly burned for no reason, while the best biocontrol
she could muster only barely kept her two best friends from
standing at attention through her uniform.
     She chastised herself for a fool as he moved the tape down her
torso towards her waist.  Had it been that long since she'd last
been with anyone that even a Cardassian touching her made her want
to howl?  He wasn't even that attractive.  He looked like every
other member of his species: a sickening grey all over, with a
disturbing neck stretched too far and a face that seemed outlined
with a crude pencil and colored by a disturbed child.  The first
Cardassian she had seen had turned her stomach.  The second had
looked just like the first.  Still, here she was standing with arms
outstretched as some Cardassian whose name she could not even
remember knelt before her while he ran a slender tape around her
ankle, her knee, and reached between her legs to draw it against
her thigh.
     It was all she could do to not tremble as he pulled the tape
through, touching it oh! so briefly against her crotch.  The stroke
was enough for her.  She felt a familiar dampness and she could not
bite back a gasp.
     "Are you well, madam?" he asked, looking concerned.  She
looked down at him, still kneeling.
     Their eyes locked, and for a moment, she knew him completely. 
Utterly alone, hated by all who saw him, abandoned by those who had
once called him friend, suspected of everything, loved by none. 
She willed him to read the same things in her own glance, the
emptiness echoed back upon itself, the loneliness of becoming real.
     Without words, he nodded very slightly.  Without words, she
touched his cheeks lightly, just brushing against his skin as the
boy had brushed against her.  She traced the curl of his ridges,
stroking in a symmetrical pattern that brought her fingertips down
his neck and to his broad shoulders.
     He lifted her hands and brought them to his lips.  With an
aching slowness, he placed her index finger into his warm, wet
mouth and lathered it with his tongue, suckling gently as a baby. 
She gasped again as she felt an answering pull from her groin.  He
slowly transferred his attentions to each finger in turn, tasting
and licking and sucking at them until she was as wet on her hands
as she was somewhere else.
     He reached his arms around her, and she felt the catch to her
trousers come loose.  She was aware of coolness as the fabric slid
from her legs and down to her ankles.  Her fingers played at the
back of his neck, searching for and discovering the zipper to his
shirt.  With a slow motion of her own, she drew it down, stroking
his rough back as she went.
     She felt him spread open her legs, and awaited the sensation
of his warm tongue inside her.  Instead, he reached between her
legs and placed his hand against the cleft of her buttocks.  A
single finger traced its line downward, stroking her wet labia,
pulling away too fast.  He repeated the motion, going slower this
time.  A third time, he put his hand through, pulled his finger
down, this time tickling her clitoris before pulling free.
     She barely held back a cry as he did it again.  Her breathing
came in silent pants.  He paused just long enough to remove his
shirt the rest of the way, then stroked her again and with a sudden
motion, pushed his finger inside her.  She bit her lip hard, as he
swiveled his finger around her vaginal wall, looking for the one
place that would drive her mad.
     She slipped one hand down to join his, knowing well what
pleasured her most, while her other hand crept up inside her shirt
to stroke her aching breasts.
     He pulled out of her swiftly, and she moaned almost inaudibly
with it.  With a single glance, she knew that it was her turn to
bring him to the limit.
     She grasped the edge of his pants, and with a firm tug, pulled
them down his slim waist, down his legs, down to where he stepped
free of them.  With the same hand she'd used to pleasure herself,
she took hold of his thick, knobbed penis.  Using her palm and
nails, she massaged it, moving up and down the shaft with almost
professional timing.
     She felt something new in her hand.  Some of the bumps
excreted a clear, slimy fluid that quickly covered her hand and the
hard organ she stroked.  So Cardassian males were lubricated, too. 
Interesting.
     His eyelids fluttered, and she knew he was near the edge.  He
seized her shoulders, and in one movement, entered her.
     She almost came from the first thrust.  The bumps on his penis
stimulated her clit with every movement, and brought an unspeakable
pleasure inside as he began to thrust again and again.  His natural
lubricant reacted with her own, heating her whole vagina with
friction and fiery juices.
     She put her hand between them, in order to stroke the base of
his shaft.  He grabbed the hand, brought it to his lips, licked the
palm delicately before he turned it, and pushed her fingers into
her own mouth.  The taste of his juice and her own mingled on her
tongue.
     She felt his thrusts grow faster, and thought of the people on
the Promenade, wondering what she was doing in the tailor's shop. 
She came silently, her throat constricted to cry out a name she did
not know, glasses breaking in her mind's ear.  A split second
later, she felt his discharge into her, whispering in his silky
voice something sounding like "Julia."
     They held each other, still standing, still trembling, for
several minutes, merely being alone together.
 
 
     It had only taken her a moment to get dressed, and she stood
with him in the main shop.  They had not kissed, nor said another
word on the matter.
     "I'll have your uniform ready by tomorrow morning."
     "Thank you, Mr. ... "
     "Garak."
     "Mr. Garak."  She opened her mouth to say something else,
something deep and meaningful.  She wanted to say that she
understood what he was going through, that she knew what he felt
when he returned to his quarters alone every night, with only a
face in a fantasy to cuddle and love.  She wanted to tell him that
she cared whether he lived or died.
     Before she could say anything, a Bajoran man walked in with a
little boy in tow and looked around uncomfortably.
     Garak gave them a polite nod, then turned back to her.  "If
you would like, I can arrange another fitting.  To make sure
everything is as it should be."  There were layers to his voice. 
For an instant, she longed for an hour of freedom from Starfleet
and responsibility, freedom to go back into his fitting room and
show him what joy meant.  He watched her, and his eyes were
beautiful and lonely.  Exile had a price to pay.  They could not
pay it together, even for an hour.
     "No thank you.  I have faith in your abilities.  I'll send my
aide to pick it up.  Thank you again."  Before either of them could
do or say anything that they would later regret, she walked out of
the shop.
     From the corridor, she listened as he helped his first Bajoran
customers in a very long time amid the latest wreckage of his only
remaining home.
 
 
     All her colleagues agreed that it was the best-fitting uniform the
Admiral had ever owned.
 
 
The End