textfiles/sex/EROTICA/W/withoutq.txt

Without Missing a Q
     
     Emily Tarrant pulled her horse up and stopped to glance
behind her.  She waited until the white horse and the man on it
halted beside her, before flicking her satin veil back over her
shoulder and grinning. "I beat you honestly that time, Q!"
     The man on the white horse laughed, his dark eyes twinkling. 
He was dressed in tenth-century clothing: a doublet and long-
sleeved shirt, tights and boots, and a sword belted around his
waist.  A satin hat of dark blue perched on top of his dark hair,
the feather dancing in the manufactured breeze.  The entire
scene, had been manufactured by Q.
     "I admit it!"  He bowed mockingly from his horse, managing
somehow not to fall off.  "Omnipotent or not, you've bettered
me."  He grinned, revealing a row of perfect white teeth. "Are
you enjoying it so far?"  He drew one leg up so that his knee
rested across the pommel of his saddle.
     "It's wonderful!"  Tarrant's dark-copper hair was hidden
under the veil, but a few errant strands kept escaping, despite
her ministrations.  "I can't believe how real it all seems!"
     "Seems?"  Q laughed. "It is real--well, as real as your so-
called human existence gets."
     Tarrant's lips tightened. "There you go again.  I wish you
wouldn't act that way!"
     "I can't help it--it's natural for me to condescend to
humans...they're so naturally lowly, so far beneath me...."
     "You can go so long without doing...that, and then you go
all lofty and superior on me!"  She sighed in exasperation.  "I'm
not going to continue to entertain these fantasies of yours if
you insist on acting like a perfect cad!"  She glared at him
across her horse.
     Q reached across the short space separating them and took
her hand in both of his. His long-fingered hands were tightly-
bound in leather riding gloves.  The leg that rested across his
saddle was lean and muscular. His physical charms were not lost
on Tarrant, who secretly thought him handsome and dashing, but
wouldn't risk inflating his already-huge ego with this
information.  "I forget your mortality--you're not like other
humans...sometimes I think you're nearly like me."  He bent and
kissed her hand, a gallant gesture.  
     "Is that supposed to be some sort of backhanded compliment?" 
Tarrant arched an eyebrow at him, a nearly-Vulcan gesture.
     "A compliment," Q acceded.  "Backhanded or not."
     "You're so human when you're like this."
     "Don't insult me!"  Q tossed her hand back at her, his
formidible temper surging just under the surface of his civility.
His mouth was a mocking twist.
     "I'm not insulting you."  Tarrant took his hand, held it as
he had done hers. "You just seem so real."  She squeezed his
hand.  "I can feel your fingers in mine--" Her hand lingered
gently on his knee, felt the warmth of his skin underneath the
medieval tights,  "--your skin and bones--" She looked up, into
his dark eyes, "--I can talk to you, hear you talk to me--" One
of her hands went to the centre of his chest, her palm resting
there, against his satin doublet, "--I can even feel your
heartbeat--"  Her hand dropped to her side, a little frustrated.
"Yet I know you aren't anything even approaching humanoid--truth
be told, I don't know what you are."
     "An omnipotent being with the powers of a god," Q said.
     "You fool me into nearly believing...." Tarrant broke off,
suddenly became absorbed with her veil.
     "I make you believe what?"  He bent to look into her face. 
Like Q, Tarrant was clad in tenth-century garb, to move about in
the medieval, Robin Hood scenario that Q had created.  She sat
side-saddle on a palomino, her silken skirts falling demurely
around her ankles.  She looked lovely, and Q, although not human,
was very aware of her beauty.
     "That you could be capable of...affection."  Tarrant raised
her head and looked at him, one small hand touching his cheek. 
It felt smooth, slightly scratchy at the beard-line, as a human
male's might.
     "You keep touching me," Q said, quietly.  His dark eyes were
intense, dangerous.  "You find me...provocative...."  His face
registered something very like surprise.
     Tarrant nodded. "I do."  She gave her horse's reins a quick
yank, rode on ahead of him.


     Tarrant's quarters were quiet when she got back from her
outing with Q.  He had disappeared back into the confines of his
Continuum.  Tarrant slipped out of her medieval outfit and into
an old, comfortable robe.  She was tired, and something else--she
wasn't sure what, but it was making her uneasy.  
     Q was correct, she realised; she did find him provocative--
extremely provocative, on many levels.  She was attracted to him
physically, but that could just be because of his inherent
otherness, his alienness.  She was also afraid of him, of his
vast intellect, his unknown powers, his unique cosmic view.  But
there was more:  she knew could be a capricious and dangerous
being, and could literally snuff her out with no more than a
passing thought.  He was such a paradox!  He could be so
intensely dangerous, so shockingly amoral, then turn completely
and be charming and funny and kind...!  He excited her, she
realised...that was what was making her so uncomfortable.
     She sighed, remembering the feel of his cheek under her
hand.  He'd looked so damn good, too, in that medieval outfit. 
Too bad that he was so far out of her realm, out of her reach....
     "I heard that thought." Q flashed in through the wall
without a sound.  He produced by some mysterious means a white
rose, passed it to Tarrant. "I know you're afraid of me, Emily."
     Tarrant grinned in spite of herself.  "Are you eavesdropping
on me?"  She accepted the rose, gazing at him for a long moment,
taking in his height, the lines of his face, his posture.  He
merely watched as she scrutinized him, and then his face broke
into a spontaneous smile.
     "You are afraid of me, aren't you?"  He came towards her,
feet soundless on the rug.  "Do you believe that I would harm
you?" At her silent nod, he continued. "Why?  Do you remember on
Dronogar Seven, at the New Moon Ball?  We danced and drank
neisroi and you kissed me at moonset under the double arches of
the dance floor..."
     "Yes."  Tarrant found it hard to speak, remembering that
night on Dronogar Seven, dancing with Q until all hours, at the
glorious New Moon Ball when the gentle, intelligent Dronogans
called in their new moon cycle with an evening of dancing,
feasting, and romance.  And she did remember kissing him,
standing under the ballroom arches, tipsy on neisroi at moonset. 
She remembered standing on tiptoe and brazenly pulling him close
to her, tasting the intoxicating wine of his lips against hers. 
It had gone no further than a kiss, because some other Qs from
the Continuum had arrived, and the party got a little out of
hand, but still.... She vividly remembered his surprise when
she'd seized him and pressed her mouth to his, and then how he
responded to it, embracing her and holding her tightly to him as
the kiss deepened, washing them both with exquisite ripples of
unexplored desire.  She had pulled away from him for a moment,
staring into his dark eyes, before going again into his arms,
wrapping their bodies together as the festivities went on around
them.  She remembered that she would have willingly climbed into
Q's soul that night....
     "I would never hurt you."  Q tilted her face up to look at
him.
     "You could so easily destroy me--I'm scared that you could
hurt me--you're so powerful!"  She stopped talking as Q kissed
her gently on the mouth, his fingertips barely touching her skin. 
Her eyelids slid shut as he deepened the kiss, and Tarrant's
arms, remembering the feel of his body, went around him.  His
warm mouth slid caressingly over hers, his fingertips catching
her gleaming hair.
     "Please don't be afraid of me," Q whispered.  For once, his
silky voice wasn't mocking or tormenting.  His dark eyes drew a
soft gaze over her as his hand stroked her hair.  He was wearing
a Starfleet uniform, the same wine-and-black captain's uniform
that he habitually affected for his appearences on board the
Enterprise, and Tarrant reached up to unseal it. "I could vanish
that for you," Q offered.
     "No," Tarrant shook her head.  "Let me undress you myself." 
She wanted to see his warm, naked skin revealed to her a little
at a time, and she wanted to savour the significance of doing it
herself.  She slid his uniform jacket off his shoulders and
rubbed her palms along his skin, breathing in his subtle,
pleasant fragrance.  Her hands slipped easily over the bare skin
of his back and shoulders as she lifted her face for his kiss. 
She sighed as Q eased the robe off her shoulders, clutched him
closer as he bent and put burning lips to the side of her neck,
his tongue tracing a pattern there.  Tarrant slid her fingers
through his thick, dark hair as his lips closed around one of her
nipples, and the slow, hot fire began between her thighs.
     This was what she had felt that night on Dronogar Seven,
standing oblivious to the rest of the dance hall, kissing Q under
the double arched doorway.  She felt her knees buckling now as
they had then, and her limbs turn nearly liquid as the desire for
him raced madly through her veins.  She was gently lowered to the
bed as Q, suddenly nude by some mysterious means, lay next to
her, turning her face gently to his, kissing her again.  "I want
you to trust me,"  he whispered, holding her face in his hands as
if she were very dear to him.  "Do you trust me?"
     "What are you going to do?"  Tarrant ran her hands over his
shoulders, down his body to his flat belly.  He was gorgeous:
sleek and muscular, with impossibly silky skin and an elusive
scent that teased and tickled her.
     "I am going to take you where no human has ever gone."  He
traced her cheek with his fingers. "You must trust me completely. 
Allow me to pleasure you--I give you my solemn word that I won't
hurt you."
     She didn't remember giving her consent, but she must have,
for suddenly they were as close as two people could ever be, his
hot, aroused body buried deeply in hers, and she was flooded with
an intense pleasure, a wave of heat encasing her.  Q's long legs
were entwined with hers, and she felt him moving within her, but
it was much more than that.  Disbelieving, she was slipping
between dimensions, floating and falling on waves of pure
delight, unsullied ecstasy, as Q took her to places of unknown
pleasure.  She held him tightly, fearing that if she lost her
hold on him, all that she experienced would vanish, and none of
it would ever be as real as this again....
     There was a sharp, intense spike of heady pleasure, her
fingers tracing his spine, his mouth again on hers.  She caught a
glimpse of him at that moment, his features transformed by
absolute pleasure, as satisfied as she had ever seen him.
     Then he was leading her into it, as the experience reached
full height and she exploded in a series of shudders, caught
safely in Q's arms.
     "I can't believe--"  She was cut off in midsentence, kissed
tenderly.  "How did you do that?"  She stretched lazily beneath
him, amused to discover that his weight didn't squash her as a
normal mortal's might.
     "There are certain benefits to being omnipotent," he offered
as way of explanation.
     "You enjoyed that."  She watched his face, waiting for his
grin to betray him.  She loved the way his face, sometimes almost
bordering on sinister, was so transformed by his smile.
     "Yes, as a matter of fact, I did."  He changed position so
that she was lying against him, her head on his chest. "So tell
me--have you ever had a god before?!"

			      THE END