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THE REPTILES OF WAR

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            In a parallel universe not so terribly different from ours, Gul Dukat had never had a half-Bajoran daughter named Tora Ziyal. Therefore, Damar had never had occasion to kill Dukat’s daughter. So, Dukat had never gone insane, nor embarked upon a series of increasingly bizarre activities. Instead, he had remained entirely stable and firmly in charge of Cardassian forces, and he and Damar had together become disenchanted with the Dominion, and decided to start a movement against it. Thus it was that when Kira and Garak went to help the Cardassian Resistance against the Dominion, they had been helping both Dukat and Damar. And when Rusot had threatened to kill Kira, Dukat had joined Garak and Damar in aiming phaser rifles at him. And now, those three men and Kira were stuck hiding in Mila’s basement for an inordinate amount of time.

            After days and days that felt like an eternity of awkwardness to Kira, in the wee hours when the men were hopefully asleep, she finally gave in to the tears that had been threatening to spill for days. It was her best chance to preserve her dignity, to get the crying over with and out of her system when presumably no one would hear.

            She hadn’t counted on Cardassian light sleeping and superb hearing. Thus came the solicitous, concerned inquiries, the shrugged-off caring hands on her shoulders, and her own hastily-wiped cheeks.

            No one believed her transparent lies: “I’m fine!” “It’s nothing.” “Fine, really!”

            Then came Garak’s accursedly insightful, “Now, Colonel, it’s obvious what must be troubling you. It can’t be comfortable being the only Bajoran among Cardassians. Nor being the only woman among men.”

            There, it was said. And it hung in the air, confirmed by Kira’s looks of consternation at the three. Dukat’s and Damar’s doubts, if any, vanished in the face of it. Kira’s reflexive denials died just as quickly. Her venom didn’t die so fast.

            “Garak, do you have to be so blasted intuitive?”

            His disconcerting smile did nothing to assuage her resentment.

            Dukat tried to reassure her. “Now, Nerys, surely you’ve noticed that we’ve done nothing to harm you; you’re here to help us, after all. And if we were going to rape you, we’d have done it already.”

            Kira sagged in disbelief at his bluntness.

            Damar smiled wryly. “Smooth, Dukat.”

            Garak found their banter almost comical, and concealed his slight smile behind his hand.

            Dukat was rueful. “Perhaps I worded it tactlessly, but Nerys, despite my well-known interest in you, I only wish to seduce you, not attack you. In fact, throughout the Occupation, I never once forced anyone.”

            She watched him, wide-eyed, until his ego reasserted itself, and he added, “I didn’t need to use force.”

            As she rolled her eyes, her gaze happened to fall on Damar, just in time for her to see an infinitesimal, telltale twitch. Still looking at him, she surmised, “You can’t say the same, can you?”

            He returned her gaze without flinching. “No. But just because I participated in gang rapes during the Occupation doesn’t mean that I necessarily will do so now.”

            Kira held Damar’s gaze. “Nor does it mean that you necessarily won’t.”

            He watched her for a moment. “Fair enough,” he admitted matter-of-factly.

            She let out a long, unsteady, shuddering sigh, and forced her eyes to shift to Garak.

            “You don’t want to know,” he cautioned her solemnly.

            She drew in a deep breath. “Well, that was ominous enough that you might as well tell me. It can’t be any worse than what I’m imagining.”

            “Can’t it?” He seemed dubious, but continued, “Very well, then. Rape was a commonly-used torture method of the Obsidian Order.”

            Instantly unable to hold his gaze, Kira wilted into a muttering ball of misery.

            Suddenly, shrewdly narrowing his eyes, Dukat asked her, “Were you ever raped during the Occupation?”

            Unable to meet his eyes, she shook her head spasmodically. “I barely escaped it a few times, though.” She shuddered violently in memory, and her eyes winced tightly shut.

            “And let me guess,” he went on sarcastically. “You never gave yourself to any of us willingly, so you’ve never been with a Cardassian.” The resulting spark of fear in her eyes not only confirmed his supposition, but also charmed him and inflamed his desire for her. Dukat couldn’t help flashing a predatory smile. “You have no idea how much your fear and vulnerability attract me.”

            “They do make you extraordinarily tempting,” agreed Damar, his voice noticeably huskier than usual.

            Kira looked from one to the other, fighting a rising panic that seemed to grow perversely stronger, even as she realized how much her own reactions were heightening their needs and endangering her.

            Garak spoke with measured calm. “Kira, I remind you that we’re predators. Your compulsion to run or fight is the very same impulse that drives us to attack or chase. You’re giving off almost irresistible pheromones.” His eyes were unsettlingly lit.

            Damar grinned. “Like most mammalians, Kira is the picture of unwary naïveté, mostly unaware that she’s being figuratively stalked, even now.”

            Dukat nodded. “She’s only just becoming aware of the fiendish thoughts that she’s got us thinking, and the fact that her innocence regarding Cardassian males makes her even more alluring.”

            Damar’s breathing was becoming unsteady with lust. “Imagining the horror in her eyes if she would suddenly be confronted by the very real danger of us acting on our own desires, is such an erotic thought!”

            “She’s helpless, completely and utterly helpless,” said Dukat. “If we should suddenly decide to have her, she wouldn’t stand a chance of getting out of it, and she knows that.”

            Listening in growing terror, Kira’s eyes were almost crazed with fear; the men were torturing her with words. Seeing that, the three broke into broad grins, eyes twinkling; they’d never seen her so completely at a loss.

            “Good night, Kira,” Garak told her gently, evidently deciding that she’d had enough torment for a while.

            She was stunned. “You’re not going to…?!”

            “We told you that we wouldn’t,” Dukat reminded her matter-of-factly.

            She seemed to swell with rage. “You were teasing me?!!”

            Damar raised a finger to emphasize his words. “Everything that we said was absolutely true. Your responses are having an adverse effect on our control. But, we promised not to harm you, and we meant it. However, you’re not making it easy.”

            Chastised, Kira sank back down onto her cot, watchfully ensuring for herself that they were doing the same.

            She was the last to fall back asleep. She knew, much to her misery, that from then on, there would be sexual tension among them, to make the confinement even less endurable. She supposed that she believed their promise not to do anything against her will, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t going to do anything, especially anything to try to change her will. Ordinarily, that prospect would cause her no undue worry, other than regarding the level of discomfort that their attempts would bring. But these circumstances were far from ordinary, and she realized, aghast, that she was now as much a part of the problem as they. She was long overdue to…please herself. She needed to be alone and couldn’t be. The need had been growing stronger each day. She didn’t dare give in to it while they slept; she couldn’t risk them waking and catching her, especially knowing how easily they’d already caught her crying. Nor could she just tell them of her problem; they could use that as the perfect excuse to start trying to change her mind. She wondered if they were having the same problem, and then that really worried her. After all, how strong would their resolve remain to be gentlemanly with her, if they were suffering from the same growing ache? How much discomfort would they be willing or able to endure, in the name of good diplomatic relations? How much self-control did reptilians possess? And how long would they manage to put whatever fondness or respect they felt for her ahead of their own growing need? Unsettling things had happened, even before tonight’s embarrassment and uneasiness. She knew that they sometimes watched her sleep; she had awakened several different times to see their eyes on her. At first, it had revolted and unsettled her. But more recently, it made something twitch between her legs when they did that, and that really scared her. To make matters even worse, she’d caught herself watching them when they’d thought that she was asleep. While all were awake, she’d stared at their powerful, black-clad, wiry legs as they paced restlessly in the confining space. She’d studied them from behind, examining the severely straight cut of their black hair above their wide scaly necks, and noticing how the cobbled pattern of their military uniforms seemed to echo those very same scales. She’d observed their powerful, gray hands and fingers planted authoritatively, confidently, seductively on their hips. Their people had been so used to being arrogantly in charge, terrorizing the entire quadrant for so many centuries, even before the Bajoran Occupation, that they positively exuded masculine prowess effortlessly, even unknowingly. She’d stared at those strong hands and imagined what they could do with the soft, tender, fragile flesh of her most delicate place. That, in turn, had summoned unbidden the memory-image of a rape that she’d witnessed and been unable to stop during the Occupation: three fully-clad Cardassian military men taking turns crouching onto a nude, helpless Bajoran girl. Three. Just like she was now here with three. At the time, the sight had left her sick and vomiting, and then nightmare-ridden for weeks. But now, seeing it again in her mind’s eye, through the haze of erotic need that tormented her, and with the presence of the three easily most attractive Cardassian men that she’d ever seen, as well as the ones that she’d actually had the chance to get to know and like at least somewhat, made her legs clench tightly and insistently, squeezing in self-stimulation. Dukat, Damar, and Garak were undeniably compelling, charismatic, mesmerizing: perfectly, classically handsome Damar; rugged, unique, intensely frighteningly handsome Dukat; and refined, enigmatic, dangerous-when-you-least-expected-it, sophisticatedly handsome Garak. She couldn’t help imagining vividly how it would feel to look up into the ice cold blue eyes of all three men, confident and in charge of her, and feel those powerful hands that had controlled worlds and lives, and had tortured and beaten and abused, now going into her most vulnerable place, putting her delightfully at their mercy. During their conversations, she’d even found herself listening appreciatively to the tone of each man’s voice: Garak’s eloquent, cultured, obviously well-educated speech, Damar’s smooth, professional-speaker-like, perfectly-modulated tone, and Dukat’s careful, calculating, intense manner of speaking. Oh Prophets, now she was even finding their voices sexy! But she certainly couldn’t subject herself to the ultimate humiliation and risk of yielding to the three of them, here in this basement. How could she ever face any of them, or even herself, afterward? And she couldn’t single out any one of them: privacy was impossible, plus doing so would dramatically worsen any self-control battle that the other two were enduring. No, this situation was impossible. In anger, mostly at herself, she rolled over and turned her back to them, willing herself to sleep.

 

            The next morning, predictably, Garak was the one to be contrite. “I’m sorry for last night’s awkwardness. We shouldn’t have taken advantage of your feelings, and teased you so. Although everything that we said was true, we didn’t need to ‘rub your nose in it,’ as it were.”

            “I’m not blaming you,” Kira replied. “This problem was inevitable; it had to come up, but I don’t know any better than you how to handle it. No telling how long we’ll be stuck down here.”

            That caught Dukat’s attention. He observed her shrewdly. “What does the length of time that we’re down here have to do with it?”

            Judging from the way that their brow ridges rose in unison, Garak and Damar were just as puzzled.

            Suddenly self-conscious, Kira dropped her eyes and mumbled, “Well, the longer we’re down here, the more difficult it’ll be to…to….”

             “To what?” Dukat insisted pointedly.

            “Well, to keep control, like you said last night.”

            He stared at her. “We told you that we won’t force you into anything. Don’t you believe us? Do you think that we’re lying to you?”

            “No,” she managed, not meeting his eyes. “I can tell that you’re sincere.”

            Damar had sudden insight. “Maybe you wonder whether we’ll be able to keep that promise, if we’re stuck here for a truly extreme amount of time.”

            “That’s part of it.” She still did not look up at them.

            Dukat was becoming surly. “Well, now how am I supposed to guarantee that? Are we going to be down here for the rest of our lives?? What do you expect me to say???”

            Garak had been watching her steadily, waiting for Dukat’s brief tirade to end, and then he said quietly, “Kira, you said, ‘That’s part of it.’ What’s the rest of it? Is it that you distrust us, or do you distrust yourself?”

            “Well, I, …I mean I’m, …it’s….”

            The former Prefect of Bajor lost patience with her hemming and hawing, realized the truth because of it, and said bluntly, “You’re horny.”

            Kira clamped her jaw shut and stared at him in shock. But her expression denied nothing. All three Cardassians began to smile.

            She stammered even worse, “Well, I’m used to being with Odo; …it’s not as if any of us can have any privacy; …we might be killed at any moment; …oh, I don’t know what I’m saying!”

            “I do,” Damar said flatly. “If we’re about to die, this time should be spent more meaningfully than just sitting here staring at one another.”

            Dukat took over smoothly, “And you’re used to regular…ahem…relations with Odo, and now you not only don’t have him here with you, you can’t even be alone to solve your own…discomfort.”

            Garak speculated, “You could try doing so while we’re asleep, but we’re even less likely to sleep through that, than we did your crying.”

            Kira slumped miserably. “Is my life just an open book to you three? Are you sure that you’re not part Betazoid??”

            Garak grinned playfully. “Do we look part Betazoid?”

            Thinking of the trademark Betazoid feature of space-black eyes, and looking into their cool blue ones right now, she shook her head. “No.”

            Dukat challenged her, “Are we that repugnant to you, that repulsive?”

            At first, she dodged the question. “I’m just so uncomfortable with all of this sexual tension.” She gritted her teeth at even having to say the word “sexual” in front of them.

            Her long-time pursuer moved slightly closer to her, nonthreateningly, but studying her expression. “You wouldn’t feel any sexual tension if you were completely repelled by us.”

            She flinched, and Garak began to smile knowingly.

            Damar saw both of those reactions, and urged gently, “We’re not repulsive to you, are we?”

            She covered her face with her hands. “Oh, Prophets, this is a nightmare! Wake me up, please, somebody!”

            Garak firmly, but ever-so-gently pulled her hands from her face. “You’re not dreaming. But you are stalling.”

            She barely managed to meet his eyes; her face was stricken with panic. But as he held her hands and her eyes with his own, Dukat and Damar maneuvered smoothly to sit on either side of her.

            Her breathing was unsteady; she eyed each of them, stammering, whispering, “This…is…going to happen, …isn’t it???”

            Dukat said evenly, “Unless you give us a clear signal to stop.”

            Three pairs of hands were just beginning to caress and explore.

            Already becoming entranced by the touches needed for so long, she had one final moment of panic. “Don’t hurt me, please!!!”

            “I’ve never hurt a woman in this way,” said Dukat.

            “I will not hurt you this way,” said Damar.

            “I’ve long wanted to love a Bajoran woman gently, and you are without a doubt my first choice,” said Garak.

            Kira lost herself completely in their electrifying caresses, and surrendered.