Chapter 24: I See What You Don't See

Trip woke up to the feeling of cold water dripping on his feet. Looking up he saw that Anna had poked her head into his open tent. She was dripping wet and stark naked. Obviously she had just come back from a morning splash in the ocean.

"Hey, get a move on, sleepy-head," he heard her say with a chuckle. "Make yourself presentable, will you? Pat and I will prepare breakfast."

He rubbed his eyes, looking after Anna as she walked away. Seeing her well defined muscles and the firm butt, he wondered how he was supposed to be taking lots of pictures of her without ending up with a very visible manifestation of male arousal. Well, if Pat's zinger of yesterday was anything to go by, the girls did expect exactly that, and a cure was planned as well.

With a slight sigh he pushed the thought back and his Bermuda shorts down. Since clothing was evidently optional around here, he wouldn't give Anna the chance to tease him relentlessly by wearing swimming trunks and besides, he'd been a skinny dipper all his life anyway.

Walking towards the ocean he heard the giggles and 'encouragements' from Anna in the distance. For all the clowning around, he was serious about this 'job' though, and it kept his thoughts occupied. Pat was taking quite a plunge in attempting to pose with her better half. There was no way he'd let that be a wasted effort.

Anna was an exhibitionist at heart, he thought to himself as he dived forward into the waves. She got a kick out of knowing that some guys were lusting over her naked form, but her significant other didn't, and he had spent half the night thinking up poses that would leave Pat's important bits covered or hidden, without making it too obvious that that was the thought behind it.

And then there was the main goal behind the inclusion of the young botanist. The pictures should convey that they were two women in love without descending into pornography. I could really have chosen an easier debut as a photographer, he thought in amusement as he swam away from the beach.

They waited until a random pedestrian was out of earshot before leaving their hideout behind the bushes. Jon had sent Malcolm back and had Travis deliver Hoshi instead. His plan called for some finesse, not the gung-ho attitude of his clearly irritated tactical officer.

Hoshi could speak without having to hide her face, which made things easier and would give a bit more credibility to their 'from far away' cover story. The young ensign could easily put on a slight accent while still speaking the proper language.

He knocked at the door of the pharmacy and preceded Hoshi into the main attic. It wasn't very gentleman-like, but he thought it was better if the apothecary, whose name he still didn't know, saw him first instead of yet another unknown face.

"Hello again," he said with a smile that was well hidden behind the veil of his hood.

His hostess answered his greeting and came straight to the point by inquiring about the identity of his companion.

"Her name is Hoshi," he explained. "She's helping me investigate Garos's shop."

"Riann."

In exchanging greetings with his communications officer the pretty woman had finally given away her name and to him it sounded just beautiful, but then, he wasn't perhaps the most objective observer at the moment.

Everything about her was beautiful really.

Trip felt a light knot develop in the pit of his stomach as he helped Pat clean up after breakfast. Anna had gone into their tent to put on a light makeup. As if anyone would be looking at her face should the pictures come out the way he envisioned them! And that was giving him a problem already. Merely envisioning them threatened to cause a very visible reaction, so the real deal certainly would be a very special form of torture.

And Pat's whispered suggestion from the day before – that she thought it would be worth testing out just how much more enthusiastic Anna would be at pleasuring her when her better half was being had by the chief engineer at the same time – left little doubt what the two ladies had planned for the party after the job was done; and therein lay his worry.

Pat insisted that she was perfectly accepting of Anna's having fun on the side with men (specifically, him), and he was perfectly inclined to believe her. But the young botanist was so grossed out by male genitalia that she wouldn't even use a strap-on or a vibrator on Anna. It hadn't escaped his notice that Pat was always looking away when confronted with the sight of his naked front, which was the reason why he only dropped the pants for the morning splash in the ocean.

How would the young girl react to the raging hard-on he'd be bound to get during the photo shooting, even if it would be 'hidden' by a pair of Bermuda shorts? And how would she cope with seeing him pound her better half instead of just knowing it was happening? Granted, with Anna going down on her, she'd probably be well distracted, but he couldn't shake the feeling it could end in heartbreak.

Anna's significant other must have had noticed his moping and she brushed down the tip of his nose with the back of her index finger.

"What are you moping about now, Trip?"

"Not sure about your idea of a threesome," he admitted honestly. "I'd hate to have worked half night to make the photo shooting as little stressful as possible for you, only to hurt you myself by grossing you out."

To his surprise she started to laugh, hugged him and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"You are too sweet. You don't gross me out, only your ... thing, and that's my problem, not your fault. You can hardly chop it off, can you? And Anna would be really cross if you did. I wouldn't have suggested it if I wasn't sure I can handle it. Just enjoy it and stop worrying. You're spoiling it for yourself."

With that, she walked away towards the girls' tent.

"Enjoy your tea," Hoshi whispered with a grin as she disappeared out of the door to bring back the results of her various scans to the ship. He closed the door, thinking about the last hour.

Riann's pharmacy looked more like an alchemist's lab to be honest. All sorts of liquids were lazily boiling in flasks over open flames and evidently one of those had been water. All the time he had thought he was helping her make some sort of pharmaceutical experiment, when in reality she had him make this planet's equivalent of tea. But at least he had now a damn good excuse to spend a few quiet hours with her.

"You are no Akaali, Jon," Riann said calmly as she handed him a cup with the hot drink.

"What makes you say something like that?" He feigned incredulity.

"Your false ridges are coming off," she replied, casting her eyes upward to hold his glance while tranquilly sipping her drink. "Your friend Hoshi seems to speak our language well, but she has an accent. You don't have any accent, despite saying you are from a faraway city. I would say you come from one of the many stars in the sky. And if you can travel that far, you must have technology that enables you to speak our language, or at least make it appear so."

He didn't offer any resistance when Riann bent forward and removed the veil from his hood. He was too stunned to offer any reply. This civilization might be living in the equivalent of Earth's 'middle ages', but the woman before him had a razor-sharp mind, which made her even more attractive and irresistible.

"Your face looks much better like that," she said with a little smile, still showing no signs of being shocked by encountering an alien on this world. Instead she started reattaching the loose prosthetic ridge with a sticky substance she took down from one of her numerous shelves.

"How long have you known?" he asked in faint embarrassment, seeing that she immediately recognized the mismatch of lip movement and speech.

"I knew something was wrong when you presented me with that strange story of it being a taboo to speak without hiding your mouth. When this illness broke out, I travelled to all known areas on this world, trying to find out if someone understood what happens here. I didn't only fail to find someone who could help me; I also never encountered any such taboo."

He shook his head ruefully. "There's no point in me denying it, is there?"

"No, Jon, there isn't," she agreed, and to his utter shock she edged closer to him. "Is this known on your world?"

He gathered her in his arms as he eagerly returned her kiss. His mind was still screaming at him not to fall in love any further, but the point of no return had long been passed.

Somewhat nervously Trip made the final adjustments to his photography equipment.

The camera was mounted on a tripod. Its spikes kept it steady on the grassy underground. Most of the photos would be taken on the beach and in the water. The latter especially would need a telephoto lens, as fixing the tripod in the loose sand of the beach was nigh-on impossible.

The subjects for his photographic début walked up to him chatting happily, still clad in identical bright red bikini bottoms and standard issue Starfleet shirts. He took one last long cleansing breath before they would come near enough to hear him sigh.

They came to stand in front of him and looked into his face with expectant smiles. Even Pat seemed less nervous than he was. It was time to get it over with. He never thought that having two gorgeous women pose naked for him would feel so weird.

"Okay, girls; shirts off," he instructed, trying to hide his insecurities behind his 'professional' persona.

In a heartbeat the shirts were off, but when Anna hooked her thumbs into the waistband of the skimpy garment, he quickly added that the bikini bottoms were meant to stay on – at least for the time being.