Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Pleasure's Foehn (6 page)

The up and down motion of the man’s chewing stilled and he stared at Davan as though she’d grown a second head. “I ain’t telling him nothing of the sort! You want to piss him off, you can damned well do it yourself!”

Exasperated at the resistance she was getting and she’d been onboard less than two hours, Davan advanced on the pudgy man and jabbed a rigid finger at his chest. She punctuated every sentence with a quick poke.

“I’m sure every one of you is scared to death of Cair Ghrian but I’m not. He’s a man—just like you—and I’m sure he puts his britches on one leg at a time. If you want to walk on eggs around him, that’s fine, but I have no intention of doing so!”

Seamus Rawls gawked at the wild-haired woman thrusting her finger painfully into his chest and took a step back. There was steel in the woman’s look and that look rivaled the captain’s in intensity.

“And you can tell everyone who’ll listen that Davan Shanahan isn’t a pushover and she doesn’t take crap from anybody,” she snarled. “Do you understand?”

Seamus nodded. “I hear you,” he grumbled.

30

Pleasure’s Foehn

“I control the meds around here and I sign off on whether or not a girl works. No work, no pay. It’s as simple as that. Piss me off and that girl might not work the entire time I’m assigned here.”

“Yeah, well, who’s going to do that girl’s work if she’s been redlined?” Seamus challenged. “You think about that?”

“The rest of them can pull double, triple or quadruple shifts for all I care,” Davan replied. “One girl, five guys. Makes no difference to me.”

Rawls eyebrows shot up into the salt-and-pepper thinness of his hair. “You can’t do that.”

“I can and I will and you’d best tell the girls to walk on eggshells around
me
because I can be just as gods-be-damned mean as Cair Ghrian and when it’s that time of the month, I’m even worse!”

Seamus’ lips twitched beneath his scruffy mustaches. “Is that right?”

“Damned straight,” Davan replied, hands on her hips.

“I imagine the cap’n will have something to say about that, but you just keep right on believing you got some power here, wench.”

“Don’t call me that!” Davan snarled, her eyes blazing. “Don’t you
ever
call me that again, mister, or I’ll have you up on sexhass charges so fast your head will spin. You get that?”

A negligent shrug was Seamus’ answer. He turned and ambled lazily to the door.

“You do what you think you gotta do,” he said as the door slid back. An audacious wink was his goodbye comment.

Seething, Davan stood there and watched the ‘bots rolling out the door behind Rawls—each one putting a metal hand to its head and tipping an imaginary hat and cheerfully bidding her a “g’day”. If Davan could have slammed the door behind their departure, she would have. As it was, she kicked the metal door and mumbled a few vulgar words. When the Vid-Com clicked on, she yelled, “What the hell do you want?”

Cinnabar’s face appeared on the screen. “We have a girl complaining about sharp pains in the lower right quad of her belly. Looks like it might be her appendix.”

“I’m on my way,” Davan said. “Is there a med team in the sickbay?”

“You have six corpsmen who work a twelve-on/twenty-four-off schedule, plus three nurses. I’ve already alerted the head nurse for this shift to get the op ready just in case it is SaraLyn’s appendix.”

“Thanks.”

“Uh-huh,” Cinnabar acknowledged then the Vid-Com screen went black. Despite the lack of respect the other woman was showing her, Davan was thankful for something to do to take her mind off the miserable situation she was being forced to endure for the next six months. As she left her quarters, she hoped she’d be as busy as predicted so the time would pass quickly.

31

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

* * * * *

Cair viciously tucked the tail of his uniform shirt into his trousers. As usual after a Vid-Com visit from his mother, he was in a foul mood.

“Interfering old biddy,” he muttered.

Checking his appearance in the full-length mirror, he decided he looked presentable enough to take the bridge. There were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes—which his mother had not missing noting—and he was still a bit queasy as he left his quarters. The last person he wanted to encounter outside his door was Seamus Rawls.

“Tied on a pretty good one last night, eh, Cap’n?” Seamus asked.

“Aye and it came unraveled this morning,” Cair admitted.

“Day ain’t over with yet, either.”

“What did she do?” Cair snapped. He had known the moment he saw Seamus something was up with the new arrival.

Seamus scratched his nearly bald pate. “More like what she said than did.”

Arriving at the elevator, Cair shot his supply chief an irritated look. “Don’t make me pull it out of you, Seamus. I’ve already had a run-in with that frizzy-haired bitch and spent twenty minutes being lectured by the Wardeness. I don’t need any more shit today.”

“Her Majesty called, did she?” Seamus asked, chuckling. “No wonder you look like somebody slammed your dangly in the door.”

Grinding his teeth, Cair stormed into the lift as soon as the doors opened.

“I spent my morning redecorating the little darling’s quarters,” Seamus said as he sauntered into the elevator behind his commanding officer. “Has some notion she’ll be spending a bit of time in there.”

Cair snorted.

“My opinion exactly,” Seamus agreed. “Nothing extravagant, mind you, and much of it was things she’ll need.”

“Like what?”

“Sheets, towels, pots and pans.” At the mention of the last two items, Seamus cocked an eye to the man standing beside him.

“Planning on cooking, is she?” Cair growled.

“Well, now, that’s brings up what she said that got me to thinking,” Seamus said. As the elevator came to a stop on the command deck, Cair turned to Rawls. When the chief of supply had finished with his report and the captain had given him an additional order, both men leaving the elevator wore nasty grins on their faces.

* * * * *

32

Pleasure’s Foehn

A hot appendix was a piece of cake for Davan and she was pleased to see the med team did their jobs well with a minimum of unnecessary talking. Though the two orderlies and nurse never smiled when they introduced themselves and didn’t go out of their way to make Davan feel welcome, neither did they cause her any trouble. They went about their duties like professionals and that was all that mattered in Davan’s book. She wasn’t there to make friends.

After telling the nurse she’d check on the patient in a few hours, Davan untwisted the cap on a bottle of water and drank greedily. “Any one else I need to see?” she asked. Lt. Maere Brennan glanced up from the report she was writing. “Not for a few minutes yet. We have an ear infection, a migraine and one girl who says she’s got some kind of discharge. They can wait until after lunch.”

“Let’s get to them now. I’ll eat later,” Davan said.

“Suit yourself,” Maere replied. She laid the report aside. “I suggest you take the time to eat now else you might find you won’t the time later on.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Davan stated.

Famous last words, she thought as she trudged wearily to her quarters that evening, her belly grumbling. It was well after midnight and she’d been bombarded by patient after patient after patient all day. Most of the complaints were easily handled but a few had been more complex and had managed to wear Davan out. In between a few apples, a banana, a couple of plums and some crackers, she had seen over thirty patients. She was yawning by the time she stumbled into her quarters, too tired to do anything save take a shower.

The Vid-Com seemed to chime almost as soon as Davan’s head hit the pillow but one look at her watch told her it was 0630. Groaning she sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with the base of her palms and swung her legs from the bed. Grateful the sleep platform had been as comfortable as she had hoped, she plodded into the bathing chamber, washed her face, brushed her teeth and stared at her hair for a full minute.

“What in the hell is wrong with my hair?” she asked, irritated the frizzies were still hanging on.

She was of a mind to do a Khadeeja and pull every wayward strand out of her head. Realizing that would hurt, she stood there contemplating whacking it off to chinlength but decided against it. Normally, she loved her waist-length auburn tresses. Why they were determined to annoy her at this particular time she had no idea but knew she had to do something.

Stripping off the tank top and panties she’d worn to bed, she turned the shower on, stepped under the tepid water for a few moments until her hair was wet then ran a comb through the straight hair until it was free of tangles then braided it tightly in one long queue. With every hair in place, she oiled it with a perfumed conditioner then wound the whole thing into an elegant chignon at the back of her head. Satisfied with 33

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

the results, she dressed in her white MedSurge uniform and with a smile on her face, opened the door.

Then the smile disappeared with the first step she took into the corridor. Stopping as still as death, she slowly lowered her head and what she saw on the floor made her temper heat to white-hot rage for lying there were row after row of chicken eggs—filling in at least a ten foot by ten foot area directly in front of her door. Her right foot had crunched three of the eggs and the yolk and albumen oozing up over the toe of her white shoe. There was no way to get out of the door without crushing more eggs or taking the time to stoop down and pick enough of them up to make a pathway.

Lifting her egg-streaked foot, Davan hopped backward on her left foot and leaned against the doorjamb to remove the slick shoe. With her eyes narrowed into thin slits of malevolent intent, she shook as much of the goop from her shoe as she could then hobbled to the galley to wash off the rest. Casting a quick look at her watch, realizing she had to be at sickbay in less than ten minutes, she took off the other shoe and with a violent hiss of breath did the only thing she knew to do. 34

Pleasure’s Foehn

Chapter Four

Cair lay in his bed with his hands behind his neck, staring up at the ceiling. The Vid-Com had chimed twice and on the third chime, he would have to get up, shower, and get ready for the day whether he wanted to or not. Until then, he was tolerating the much-practiced mouth of the woman who occasionally shared his quarters and trying not to show the complete boredom he felt.

Amethyst ran the tip of her limber tongue over the head of his cock, laving it as she massaged Cair’s balls with one hand while gently twisting his shaft upward and downward with the other. She was a highly sought-after pleasure girl on the
Foehn
and was an expert in most techniques. The one she was using on Cair was among her favorites.

Closing his eyes and drawing in a long breath, Cair tried not to wince as Amethyst stuck her tongue into the slit of his cock. He was still sore from their bout the night before and—if truth was told—feeling far too drained to be engaging in a bout of sex this morning. Though he’d refrained from taking even a sip of his beloved brandy, he found he still had a bit of a hangover and a headache that was starting to make a nuisance of itself.

Amethyst pushed up to her knees then placed herself between Cair’s legs, spreading his thighs further apart so she could have better access to that sensitive area at the base of his scrotum. She slid her fingers there—stroking and pressing gently—

then eased her middle finger toward his anus. Enveloping his long rod in her mouth, she relaxed her throat until her teeth were grazing the thick hair at his crotch. The Vic-Com chimed for the last time and Cair let out his breath in a long push, reached down and took Amethyst’s head in his hands, pulling her mouth from his flesh.

“Enough, Sweeting,” he said gently. “We’ve run out of time.”

Amethyst ran her tongue over her full lips, looking up at him through the sweep of her long, artificial eyelashes. “You seemed a bit distracted this morning, my Prince.”

Cair clenched his jaw. He wasn’t her prince and he was irritated afresh each time she used the term. “I’ve things to do today,” he said.

“But you’re still hard,” she protested and started to lower her head but Cair twisted, threw a leg over her head and slid from the bed before she could gulp him in again. He padded into the bathing chamber, leaving her kneeling on the bed, an unbecoming pout puckering her lips.

As Cair stood before the urinal, he glared at the erection he hoped was piss-inspired and not Amethyst-induced. Of late, he had begun to tire of her appearances in his quarters and when she was there, her constant manhandling of his privates. Conversation was limited to her telling him what had annoyed her during the day and 35

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

what she demanded he do about it. He considered the woman one step above the moronic and longed for someone of intelligence with whom to converse.

“What you need,” his mother had told him the day before, “is a woman who will challenge you. One who won’t let you bully her. You need a good old-fashioned berserker type to set you back on your heels from time to time. Someone who will tweak your nose and not let you get away with your juvenile browbeating.”

“Did you send that spooky-haired woman to my ship?” he had demanded. His mother had actually smirked at him. “Now, why would you ask that, Cairnan?”

“Don’t you think I recognize your hand in this? I’m not stupid, Madame!”

“Well, Cairnan, that remains to be seen and you certainly haven’t convinced me over the years that you aren’t.”

“I want off this ship!” he had yelled, slamming his hand against the wall, and that had been a mistake for his mother—that imperious Queen of Amhantar who ruled his home world with an iron fist gloved in velvet—had broken the Vid-Com connection without so much as a goodbye.

Nor would she accept his return calls during the remainder of the day. He could hear Amethyst talking to him but he ignored her. She never had anything interesting to say and what she did say always concerned what she thought or what she wanted, or what she needed. The splash of his urine drowned her out and he was relieved to see the hardness of his shaft subsiding. Shaking the drops from his cock, he walked over to the shower and turned it on, grateful for the roar of the hot water as he climbed in.