Chapter 2: Comparative Posterior Analysis

Alright, this really takes the cake, he thought to himself. If she was going to chew him out for something, she had a very interesting way to go about it. As his attempts not to dribble became more and more desperate, T'Pol looked at him as if it was completely normal that she would receive him without absolutely nothing in regard to clothing - she was buck-ass naked.

"If you would close and lock the door, please, Commander?" she asked him without so much as raising an eyebrow about his stunned reaction.

Although his mind was currently hazy at best, he somehow managed to find the button and the door closed. In an unexpected feat of coherence he even managed to find the lock button.

"I-if I may state the obvious, Subcommander – you're sort of n-naked."

It sounded completely lame, and he stammered like a fifteen year old five minutes from losing his virginity, but it was just about the only thing his dazzled brain was able to come up with at the moment.

"Most perceptive, Commander; your vision is apparently unimpaired."

Such a dry zinger – and she had fallen into a habit of delivering quite a few of those lately – would normally have been a source of much amusement, but at the moment he was too stunned to react in his usual manner. After the experiment had been concluded, the pictures had been locked away in the encrypted storage of the science department, so he had not thought he'd ever see this spectacularly gorgeous and simply perfectly shaped body without a uniform again – and now she stood before him in her birthday suit and this time she didn't even bother to hide anything.

"If it isn't too impolite; may I ask why you're naked?"

She regarded him with a look that would have seemed completely empty and impassioned to most of the crew, but he'd spent enough time with her to know that she was sort of amused. The slightly cocked right eyebrow gave it away.

"I had a certain suspicion about your most expressive evaluation of my images in the experiment. I wanted to make sure that you were really impacted substantially by the sight of my unclothed physique and not just following a false urge to compliment me."

He stared at her blankly. If he didn't know better that sounded like a very Vulcan (read: roundabout) way to say she needed confirmation that she was really as attractive as he had written in the form that came with the experiment.

"In addition," she continued and he could see a slight greenish blush on her cheeks. "I noticed during the recording of the images and the immediate aftermath that not wearing clothing was a somewhat ... invigorating sensation. Unfortunately the temperature is too low for a prolonged state of undress. Temperatures below twenty-nine degrees centigrade appear cold to Vulcans."

"Nothing easier remedied than that," he said with a shrug, happy to be back in his element. He pointed at her environmental controls. "May I?"

She would definitely need to meditate longer than usual before going to sleep. Presenting herself unclothed to the human had caused a torrent of unknown sensations, even arousal. The emotions stirred up by his strong reaction to the sight of her physique, which corroborated his answers in the experiment, were not at all unpleasant. But they were potent and unfamiliar.

The discovery of foregoing clothing and the invigoration the activity elicited had come completely unexpected. For the experiment Phlox had visited each female in her quarters, but when he arrived to produce the recording of her body, Ensign Sato had been present providing explanations for several aspects of human behavior she did not understand. The decision had been made to record the young ensigns picture in situ as well.

After the doctor had left the young linguist had not dressed, but just continued their conversation in an unclothed state. Not wanting to appear demanding of certain conduct, she had mirrored the ensign's choice until the low temperature had forced her to get dressed. This was when she made that discovery.

She looked up and saw Commander Tucker work on the environmental controls, but it didn't escape her notice that the young human also kept looking at her occasionally in what he most likely thought to be a surreptitious manner. For a former operative those glances were however not very well concealed and to her surprise she found his interest in her physique not at all unpleasant, not even mildly.

"Commander, are you willing to assist me in interpreting the results of the experiment?"

Upon hearing her question, he put his tools down, which he seemed to carry everywhere in various pockets of his uniform. Why he wiped his palms clean on his uniform when he was supposed to provide a verbal answer eluded her understanding. Her mind emitted the unfamiliar, pleasant sensations again, when she noticed that he used the situation to inspect her physique again.

"I'm not sure the other guys would want me to know what they think about the girls. Malcolm told me, so we can discuss that, but I'm certainly not in a position to discuss the Capn's beauty ideals."

"All participants have agreed that the results could possibly be discussed with other participants. The only restriction is that none of the females will be informed of who provided which comment, with the obvious exception of me of course."

"Alright, what do you want to know?" he asked and she saw him return to his work on her environmental control. She pressed the record button to save their conversation for later analysis.

"Seven months ago you and Lieutenant Reed were rescued from shuttlepod One and both of you were inebriated. When the Captain ordered me to investigate the shuttle's voice recorder, I overheard a remark by Lieutenant Reed that hinted at a fascination with my posterior."

He emitted a groan. "Please don't tell him you know that. He's stuck-up enough as he is."

"However, in the experiment, Lieutenant Reed commented on my bust instead and identified the posterior of Ensign Sato as superior to mine. Are such preferences subject to frequent change?"

To her surprise, he turned around and was clearly amused. "He likes Hoshi's tush the best because it's Hoshi's - simple as that. Malcolm's hopelessly smitten with her. She could have three black teeth and he'd still say she has the nicest smile. That's where your experiment fails to factor in the element of love. We have a sayin' – love makes you blind."

"Your perception of attractiveness changes when a male develops affection for a female? I believe that is what the word 'smitten' means, is it not?"

The Commander did not answer immediately. Instead he finished his work on the environmental controls after announcing a short delay to his answering her inquiry. The logical explanation was that his explanation was of a longer nature and he did not wish to present it in a state of alternating between his work and concentrating on their conversation.