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ORION SLAVERY

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This alternate universe is vastly different from our own in myriad ways, too many to enumerate. I am in no way attempting to violate cannon, or the interpretations of others regarding any aspect of Trek future history.

 

            Up on the stage, her stricken eyes darted wildly, and she frequently, intermittently gasped in fright.

As she realized that the Cardassians were her primary bidders, her eyes fixed on them in abject terror, as well as on the few other bidders to display any interest in her.

Gul Dukat eyed Gul Evek disdainfully. “She’ll be wasted on the likes of you. All you’ll do is dispose of her via torture experiments.”

“And all you’ll do is wear her out in your bed,” he retorted.

“I’ve missed mammalian women. Since the end of the Bajoran Occupation, they’ve been a lot harder to acquire.”

“We need to learn more about how to influence humans; we’ve had too few to work with compared to Bajorans. Granted, the two species are uncannily similar, but there are still more differences than one might suspect at first glance, and I want to be prepared to manipulate them efficiently.”

“Working our side of the street?” Tain regarded Evek critically. “Don’t forget that that’s our department.”

Unfazed, Evek replied, “It’s not always realistic to ship our subjects to you for interrogation, along with the questions that we need answered. It’s far more expedient to do the job ourselves, and I intend to be proficient at it.”

Tain wasn’t impressed. “Perhaps we could best achieve your education by giving you firsthand demonstrations of our best techniques.”

If Evek was bothered by that, it didn’t show. But Dukat evidently enjoyed his rival’s upbraiding and potential peril.

“Buy her,” Tain instructed Garak.

Dukat stared resentfully. “She’ll be of no use to you. Look at her! She’s terrified of everything and everyone! You’ll never be able to judge by her what works on humans and what doesn’t; everything will frighten her!”

Disgruntled, Evek backed off, apparently deciding that this victim was too much trouble, and that he’d wait for an opportunity in which he’d have less competition.

Refusing to be intimidated, Dukat continued to bid fast and furiously against Garak, seeming almost to regard it as a personal point of honor not to let his prize fall into the hands of his long-term enemy, recklessly ignoring the potential danger of thwarting Tain’s wishes.

 

“You’re both winners!”

“That’s impossible!” Dukat thundered.

The Orion auctioneer laughed nastily and aimed his disruptor. “We make the rules here. We’ll take your money and his, and make you joint owners. You’re both Cardassians, right? You’re both going back to the same planet. It’ll be easy for you to share her.”

“That’s outrageous!” Dukat roared.

Garak was no happier, but he recognized the futility of arguing with an Orion, particularly a slave-trader, and most especially one aiming a weapon at them.

 

            “How were you captured?” Garak asked her gently, possibly to distract her from her terror. She was crammed tightly, uncomfortably between him and Tain in the primitive conveyance that was the only means of land-transportation on this rough, backwater planet, with Dukat, Damar, and Evek on the bench-seat facing them, so close that knees touched the knees across from them.

“The Orions attacked our colony. They killed some, captured others; they stole everything worth stealing, and then burned the place to the ground.” Her nightmarish memories brought renewed tears, this time of grief.

Evek observed Garak critically. “What difference does it make how they got her?” He was still irked over having lost the bid to both Garak and Dukat.

Damar urged Tain and Garak, “Let Dukat have her first. By the time you people are through with her, there won’t be much left for him.”

The girl’s quiet sobs turned to panicky whines.

Tain was never known for his patience, and he’d already lost what little he’d possessed. He told the girl, “Stop that whimpering, or I’ll give you a reason to do so.”

            She nearly screamed in fright, but clapped a hand over her own lips just in time to prevent the escape of most of the sound.

            But for Tain, that was not sufficient. “Sedate the creature.”

            She sobbed in terror.

            Garak withdrew a hypo, but said to her more kindly, “You’ll be better off unconscious for a while; you’ll have relief from your fear.”

            The tears in her eyes shone with her gratitude, but Tain demanded disapprovingly of his sometimes-operative, “Are you getting soft?”

Dukat smirked nastily at his often-adversary’s reprimand.

Garak answered tonelessly, “Just practical. I’ve simply learned to understand these people well.”

“Be certain that you don’t understand them so well that you begin to identify with them, rather than with us,” Tain ordered severely.

The girl watched Garak bleakly as he touched the hypo to her arm, and then she slipped soundlessly out of consciousness. As her body collapsed forward, she was inevitably destined to land with her head in someone’s lap, and Garak hastily assured that it was his, not Tain’s, nor anyone else’s.

At Tain’s suspicious look, Garak told him, “We might as well be kind while we still can. That won’t last much longer. Besides, you didn’t want her to end up in your lap, did you?”

His erstwhile boss was not mollified. “And I suppose that you agree with Damar, that Dukat should have her first?”

“Yes, I do.”

Dukat looked at Garak, stunned, and tried but failed not to appear appreciative.

Garak clarified, “For precisely the reason that Damar stated.”

At that, Dukat mostly dropped his look of gratitude.

His eyes still narrowed, Tain undoubtedly wished to test his former agent. “Has Odo forgiven you for torturing him?”

Dukat and Damar stared at Garak. Evek, lost in his own thoughts, continued to gaze broodingly out of the window.

Not totally successful at concealing guilt, Garak responded ruefully, “Peculiarly, yes. In fact….” His expression turned slightly melancholy. “It formed an odd sort of bond between us. He actually approached me to be friends, not long after that.”

Tain was seldom whimsical, but he half-grinned as he replied, “Maybe he enjoyed it; perhaps he’s a masochist.”

Resentful on behalf of his friend, Garak retorted, “It wasn’t like that!”

Dukat and Damar clearly didn’t know whether to be fascinated by the mental images that they were doubtlessly conjuring, revolted at Tain and at Garak because of having worked amiably enough with Odo many times in the past, titillated by the outrageous concept of Odo as a pain-addict, or smug that their species had evidently somehow learned to victimize a shapeshifter.

Dukat voiced the obvious question, “How does one torture a shapeshifter?”

“By making him unable to shapeshift,” Tain said simply.

Damar stared. “It’s a wonder that you didn’t kill him!”

“I’m afraid that I very nearly did,” Garak confessed with a sigh.

“Well of course,” countered Tain. “We had to make sure that he wouldn’t break; we couldn’t just assume it early on in the procedure.”

Dukat and Damar could clearly see that Garak simmered with regret over the incident, but he did so silently.

 

Later, in what passed for a hotel on that excuse for a planet, it was Tain that simmered as Dukat led the girl away to his room for the night, but at least he made no verbal protest. As Garak watched her go, he marveled at the pure terror in her eyes, and shook his head at the thought of how much worse she would feel when he and the head of the Order got hold of her. If only he dared to tell her that tonight would be the easy part. Whatever he thought of Dukat, he had to at least admit, however grudgingly, that that particular gul was singularly disinclined to abuse young mammalian women. In fact, he had a glaringly obvious weakness for them. It was a good thing that Dukat had no desire whatsoever to join the Order; Tain would doubtlessly consider it essential to break Dukat of that fallibility, before he could even think of accepting him.

 

The next morning, clearly past her fright of the night before, the slave clung to Dukat, whom she evidently now saw as a gentle protector, and almost hid behind him as she timidly nodded a shy greeting to the other Cardassians.

Tain regarded the scene sullenly, and his never-amiable disposition was not improved when Dukat drew himself up and announced forcefully, “As I said last night, I intend to get my fair half out of her first, and for tonight, I’ve promised her to Damar.”

Somehow, Garak was not surprised. He’d noticed the surreptitious, lustful looks that the legate had been “casually” casting in the girl’s direction. Undoubtedly, Damar had thought that he was being sufficiently subtle, but Garak, with his training and background, missed nothing, even in comparison to others of his species: a species known for its powers of observation.

Tain’s still simmering anger boiled over at that haughty pronouncement. He moved very close to Dukat, and in spite of his inferior stature, still managed to appear dangerous to all who watched. His tone was low, measured, and ominous. “It is very fortunate for you that I have not yet completed all of my business on this planet, and that I am therefore not ready to return to Cardassia Prime. Otherwise, you and I would be having a rather serious disagreement right about now. I have been generous to let you have her first, but do not make the fatal mistake of seeing my generosity as a weakness. You would not have long to regret your error.”

Tain spun and departed. As soon as he was definitely out of earshot, Damar asked Garak, “He must have been a real joy while you were growing up; how did you ever stand it?”

Garak sighed. “Let us just say that this sort of behavior of his contributed significantly to many of the abilities that I now possess.”

Damar was clearly dissatisfied with that ambiguous response, but he evidently decided that he really did not wish to ask to which capabilities Garak referred. Damar was in an awkward position, Garak knew. A friend of both Garak’s and Dukat’s, always struggling not to be caught in the middle of their feud, the legate had to constantly walk a fine line, and to show favoritism to neither. Garak used to wonder just how much Dukat had told Damar about the source of their animosity. Over the years, small hints had indicated that he knew a great deal, but was refusing to take sides. For that, Garak particularly respected him, and apparently so did Dukat.

 

Damar seemed disproportionately pleased when, immediately after breakfast, Evek as well as departed on business of his own. The former almost hurried Dukat, Garak, and the girl into the first of their rooms that they came to, and locked the door.

He began tentatively, “Garak, I have the distinct impression that you do not especially approve of Tain’s plans for the girl, either.”

Garak shrugged. “He never needs my support. But no, I believe it to be a useless exercise, and for precisely the reasons that Dukat stated last night.”

Dukat’s eyes widened, and he had to work not to appear proud or grateful.

Encouraged, Damar went on, “Dukat tells me that she is a delightful, sweet, sensitive little thing; I greatly look forward to seeing that for myself tonight. Perhaps you should discover her virtues tomorrow night.”

Garak and Dukat both stared. Evidently, this was the first time that the gul had heard of this idea. Meanwhile, the subject in question squirmed and blushed prettily.

“What would be the point?” Garak sighed. “So that I will grow fond of her, and defy Tain, and save her, against all odds? You’ve been reading fantasies, haven’t you?”

“Tain isn’t the whole universe, you know. I’ve been wanting to get you away from him for as long as I’ve known you. There is so much of Mila in you; but exposure to Tain keeps running roughshod over that part of you. You would be so much happier if you gave in to your kinder side. I know the burden of guilt that you bear.”

Uncomfortable with this discussion, especially in Dukat’s presence, Garak turned his back on them. “There is no guilt. I do my job.”

“No guilt.” Damar challenged, “Then why, when your Federation friends and colleagues exhibit the least distrust toward you, do you inevitably say, ‘There’s hope for you yet’? I’ll tell you why: because you want them to mistrust you! You want to hold them at arm’s length because you’re afraid of what you might do to them someday. So far, ‘doing your job’ hasn’t hurt any of your human friends, but you fear the future. You don’t trust yourself.”

Garak turned back and regarded Damar unusually coldly. “At the moment, I’m more afraid of what I might do to you. You are my friend, Damar, but you are way out of line.”

“I know. And I’m sorry. But I’ll risk it. And now, I must risk Dukat’s wrath, as well.”

The latter looked up at him from where he sat on the bed, and stared.

Damar steeled himself and said, “I am determined to help you two whether you agree or not. This enmity has gone on between you for long enough. I want Garak to leave the Order and Tain, and go with us on our ship, but he’ll never do that as long as you two don’t forgive each other.”

Dukat rose slowly from the bed, and his eyes were aflame. “You’re right: you risk my wrath. And Garak’s right: you are out of line.”

Damar forced a faint near-grin. “Well, at least you two agree on that much.” He was clearly unsurprised that the feeble attempt at levity fell flat. “And maybe you two will end up killing me for this, but I have to try. Hear me out at least.”

Instead, Dukat stalked toward the door. “I don’t have to sit here and listen to this. And I will not discuss that subject with Garak! Not now or ever!”

“Then you’ll suffer a priceless loss.”

That remark stopped Dukat in his tracks. “That has already happened. That’s the point,” he said softly, his back still turned to them.

“No. There is much for you to regain. But you can only obtain it from him.”

By now, Dukat was impatiently jostling the doorknob, and made no reply.

“You’ll have to break it down if you’re determined to leave. I’ve hidden the key.”

Dukat spun and glared fury at him. “Unlock this door!”

“No. I’m sorry. I truly am. But you two leave me no choice.”

“I am leaving you no choice! Open this door!”

Unwilling to comply, or to repeat his refusal, Damar turned aside, and cast a quick look at Garak, his first in a while. To Garak, Damar actually appeared just a tiny bit relieved. Because he was not yet under attack from that quarter? Garak couldn’t think of any other reason. But surely, Damar could see that Garak seethed.

“Damar!!”

The legate turned back to his gul. “Don’t you see that Garak is every bit as much a victim of Tain as you are? Imagine what his early years were like, always caught between the most opposite parents imaginable! I’m convinced that that’s the real reason why he’s claustrophobic: he feels trapped, squashed between them!”

“I’ll thank you to stop analyzing my guts,” came Garak’s steely reply.

Ignoring that, perhaps realizing that he was running out of time with both of them, Damar desperately insisted, “Garak couldn’t refuse Tain’s orders; he would’ve been executed! And then someone else would still have tortured your father to death! It wouldn’t’ve changed anything!”

“I’m warning you!” Dukat’s voice was low and threatening. “Do not speak of this to me in front of him!”

“You’re blaming the wrong man! You should be blaming the magistrate who sentenced him! Or even Tain, whose job it was to choose someone to carry out the sentence! There was nothing personal in it; Garak didn’t even know your father very well! And he didn’t know you at all, not then!” At this point, Damar had to actually back away from Dukat in order to buy sufficient time to finish what he’d begun. Inevitably, that moved him closer to Garak. Damar chanced a quick glance toward the agent, and his eyes sent a silent plea to let him complete what he’d started. Damar couldn’t’ve been too encouraged by what he saw in Garak’s eyes either. The legate barreled ahead with his speech. “And I don’t believe that Garak has any genuine animosity of his own for you anyway! He’s only hating you back because you first hated him! I’m sure that he would never have held anything against you at all, if you hadn’t despised him first! But now you have a precious opportunity to ask him invaluable questions! If it were me, Dukat, I’d want to ask Garak all of the things that no one else could answer! If I were you, I’d want to know if my father had called for me in the end! I’d seek Garak’s assurance that he wasn’t any harder on the victim than he was required to be; and I’d bet anything that Garak wasn’t, and could therefore give that reassurance! I wouldn’t want to miss this chance!”

Dukat’s fist swung, and as Damar ducked to avoid it, he tripped over a small stool that he’d understandably forgotten was there, and which was now immediately behind him, and tumbled backward over it onto the floor on his rump. Dukat stared at his underling’s graceless sprawl, and at Garak, who had also moved menacingly closer to Damar until the misstep, and now loomed hesitantly over him as well.

Damar said quietly, “All right, I’m finished. Maybe in more ways than one. If you two must kill me, go ahead; I certainly can’t stop you, not both of you, and not from this position. But I wish that you wouldn’t; I wish that you’d think about all of this for a while first, instead of acting hastily. I care so much about you both, and I only want to help.”

Garak’s hands fell limply at his sides, and Dukat’s fist dropped. Damar struggled not to look relieved. The three held that tableau for an indefinite period, long enough for Damar’s breathing to steady, long enough for Dukat’s eyes to cool, and long enough for Garak’s tense stance to relax.

“I hope that you’ll both forgive me…as well as each other.” Damar sagged tiredly back against the wall. “I value my friendship with each of you.”

For a long time, neither of the other two spoke. And when one did, it was anything but profound.

“Where’s the little girl?” Dukat was casting his gaze around the room.

Two scared blue eyes peeked at them from beyond and just above the edge of the bed.

“We frightened her,” Garak observed ruefully.

“Aw, Honey.” Dukat went over and scooped her up into his arms.

 

Hours later, the three men sat more calmly around the room, as the girl slept.

Damar quirked a slight grin. “At least, you must give me credit for bravery. It took more courage for me to talk to you two like that, in such close quarters, than the whole damned Dominion War demanded of me.”

For quite some time, Dukat’s sideways glances at Garak had been bleak and uneasy, but the perpetual blame that Garak had been almost used to seeing in the gul was significantly absent.

Almost mechanically, Garak finally told Dukat, “I’m not going to make you ask. Yes, he spoke fondly of you. No, I was no harder on him than absolutely required.”

This at last broke through his former adversary’s inertia of reluctance. “At least, just tell me that you didn’t use ‘The Device’ on him!” Dukat nearly pleaded, clearly almost afraid of the answer, and yet abruptly desperate for it.

“I did not. I’ve seldom ever used it, and never on our own kind. The time that you and I used it on Julian’s nemesis Sloan was one of the very few times that I ever have.”*

Dukat’s relief was palpable, and for a time, he was too overcome to speak. Then, he asked tentatively,  “So…he didn’t break???”

“He remained courageous until the end.”

After a silence that was becoming considerably more comfortable than any of the previous ones had been, Garak said, “You told me once that your father’s only mistake was trusting me, but he didn’t feel that way; he didn’t see my assignment as his executioner as any personal attack on my part. He even told me that he bore me no ill will.”

“Then, neither must I.” Dukat hesitantly offered his hand.

 

“When’s Tain due to return?” wondered Dukat somewhat later.

“Any time now.” Garak nodded.

“Let’s take the girl and go! Come on, please!” Damar urged. “Garak, you no longer have any reason to stay with him! You certainly owe him nothing!”

At Garak’s resultantly pensive expression, Dukat marveled, “Are you actually considering defying Tain?”

“He’s already made up his mind that I’ve gone soft, and nothing I can do will ever fully dissuade him. Even destroying that helpless little girl won’t do it, so why should I?”

Dukat said wonderingly, “And I always thought that there was no mercy in you. But from these recent discussions, I see that I was wrong, and I’m pleased at that. If you really wish to part company with that monster, you will indeed be welcome to join us on our ship.”

 

Unfortunately, Tain’s return coincided with the three men and the girl exiting the room. “Going somewhere, Garak?” A small but deadly disruptor was in Tain’s hand.

The girl squealed and ducked behind the three. None of the men moved.

Then there was disruptor fire, but it was Tain who was vaporized. Garak and Damar turned to look at Dukat, who held the discharged weapon. The three men stared dumbfoundedly at one another for a brief moment.

“He left me no choice,” Dukat then said quietly.

“I know,” admitted Garak.

Dukat stated awkwardly, “The supreme irony of this has not escaped me.”

“It is…impressive,” Garak agreed.

Damar was shaking his head in horror. “Tain would’ve killed his own son!”

Almost casually, Garak commented, “It wasn’t the first time that he’d tried.”

Following long, significant shared looks among the three, they silently took their smaller charge and departed.

 

After only a few days of togetherness aboard ship, Dukat and Damar expressed great curiosity to Garak regarding Tain’s enigmatic reference to Odo.

As briefly as possible, Garak related the unfortunate set of circumstances that had led up to the shameful event of his abuse of Odo on Tain’s orders.

His male audience of two shook their heads soberly. The female audience of one, scarcely ever out of their protective sight on the otherwise all-male ship, listened in evident horror.

Knowing that the other two males understood and empathized with his former awkward position, Garak turned his attention to the girl, and emphasized, “But Odo forgave me within days, and even approached me to form a friendship. I was indeed fortunate in that outcome.”

Wide-eyed, she agreed, but with a different slant. “You certainly were! I’m sure that not one person in a million would’ve ever forgiven you something like that!”

Disconcerted, but trying not to show it, Garak skeptically questioned, “Only one in a million?”

Apparently with her shock still growing, she replied, “Did I say one in a million??? It would probably be more like one in a billion!!! This Odo must be an extraordinary individual!”

Dukat and Damar tried not to grin ruefully as Garak attempted not to sag guiltily. Resignedly, the former agent prompted, “Go ahead; say it.”

But at the same moment, she turned more reticent, stopped meeting their eyes, and evidently thought better of her not-well-thought-out forwardness.

Seeing that he must provide more encouragement if he were to draw her out, Garak guessed, “Is that your way of telling me that you would never forgive such a thing?”

But instead of making her more forthcoming, the question threw the girl into a near panic. She had risen from her chair and was backing away from him.

“Now what?” Garak was becoming frustrated with her.

She was nearly breathless. “I just…never expected you to…turn it into such a…personal reference! Because I don’t ever want you to think of me as a potential victim for that sort of thing, even for a fleeting instant! It makes me afraid of you, Garak! You know how cowardly I am!”

“We automatically think of everyone that way! Besides, I was speaking only hypothetically.” He was perplexed.

“For now.” Her look was guarded, even haunted.

“Have I ever hurt you? Or threatened you?” he cajoled.

Instead of responding directly to either question, she stated grimly, “I know what Tain wanted you to do.”

The three men regarded each other bleakly, clearly stunned that she knew.

Dukat said somberly, “We had hoped that you were aware of little of what was going on, that night that we…bought you.”

Apparently unwilling to face them while speaking frankly, she turned her back and paced restlessly. “Even before the Orions caught me, like most Federation citizens I had…heard things…about your people. Things that I’d wished that I hadn’t heard. That’s the main reason why I was so terrified up there on the stage when I saw you-all bidding on me. Your species considers normal, even routine, abominations that most sentient species wouldn’t even consider doing under any circumstances.”

Garak grew defensive. “Now wait a minute! The Romulans…!”

“And the Klingons, on occasion, and the Breen,” she agreed. “But not the Vulcans, nor the Andorians, nor Tellarites, nor Betazoids, nor Bolians, nor Tholians, nor the Gorn, nor even the Orions! And certainly not humans!” When she turned and caught sight of their darkening expressions, her tone turned pleading. “I’m sorry; I don’t mean to insult you! You three aren’t to blame; you didn’t invent the system! But don’t you see: it’s so strange for biological beings like you to do such things to other biological beings. Because anything that you-all can do to someone, can be done back to you-all by someone else. No one likes being vulnerable, but we all are: you, too. It would be different if you were robots, and safe from turnabout retaliation. For that matter, do you really want to ‘give ideas’ to other unscrupulous species that might use your own diabolical techniques on you someday?? So, isn’t that awfully risky behavior for you, too???”

 

It was days before Garak, Dukat, and Damar returned to treating her in their easygoing, affectionate way again, weeks before she ceased to behave skittishly toward them, and months before they seemed to truly have dismissed her perhaps too-frank remarks and completely put same out of their thoughts.

More than half of an Earth-year later, she wistfully observed the three, and asked tentatively, “Will I always belong to you?”

Dukat frowned slightly. “Are you asking to be set free?”

The girl was genuinely startled. “No, not at all!” Then, she blushed at their surprised amusement at her unexpected enthusiasm for her status. She hastened to explain. “The colony where I lived is gone. I have nothing and no one to go back to in the Federation. I’m asking not to ever be resold to anyone else who might not be so kind to me as you are.”

Touched, Damar marveled, “So, you want to stay with us forever.”

She nodded.

Garak said tenderly, “We have no plans to sell you.”

 

It was more than a year before she was sufficiently relaxed about their routine of taking turns sleeping with her, that she became playful enough to make a bold suggestion of her own.

“Do you three ever want to share me all in one night?” Her eyes teased them as much as her words.

Amazed at her uncharacteristically flirtatious demeanor, Dukat asked, “Wouldn’t that wear you out too much??”

“I didn’t mean one by one; I meant all in one room.”

Damar commented in astonishment, “I didn’t know that you were such a daring little thing!”

 

Her idea was a success, but it was still more months after that before she said coquettishly, “Do you three want to pretend something?”

“Like what?” Dukat asked with a smile.

“Want to pretend that you’ve been chasing me, and now you’ve caught me, and I’m your prisoner?”

“Hon…ey,” Garak said very slowly, hesitantly, fighting to keep an inevitably diabolical grin from his expression. He softly caressed her neck below the jaw line. “That’s like asking us to be rough with you.”

“Just a little.” She was wide-eyed.

“Oh?” Garak couldn’t help but be skeptical.

Dukat’s smile was tolerant. “I thought that you were afraid of things like that.”

Her expression became earnest as her smile dropped away from her face. “Well, sure, at first, when I didn’t know you or trust you yet. But this is different. Now I know that I can trust you.”

“Oh.” Garak wasn’t convinced. “But it’s still somewhat suggestive of an attitude that you didn’t ever want us to even think, about you.” He couldn’t suppress a secretive grin.

“It’s just playing,” the girl responded lamely.

Dukat tested her. “So, we mustn’t be rough for real?”

“Well, only a little.” Her irresistibly naughty smile returned.

Dukat grinned and shook his head and Damar chuckled. Garak wore a sideways, cautionary grin with raised brow ridges.

Looking from one to another, she defensively said, “What???”

“Our innocent little girl has some slight masochistic tendencies,” announced Garak.

She lowered her eyes, ashamed.

Garak tilted her chin to make her meet his eyes. “It’s okay.”

Dukat concurred. “It’s rather charming.”

Damar put in, “I might even go so far as to say that it means that you’re normal.”

The girl rewarded the men with a glowing smile.

 

 

*See my story, “Of The Highest Order.”