Chapter 3

Episode 3: A Happy New Year

Her hand rested in the crook of his elbow as Trip and T'Pol entered the Mess Hall for the New Year's Eve party and all eyes were on them. Not so much because the chief engineer was wearing a tuxedo, it was T'Pol who got all the stunned looks. She was wearing a long ruby evening dress with a very low-cut neck-line to put it mildly.

Trip stifled a chuckle seeing that even Jon was about to dribble when he saw the ridiculous amount of cleavage on display.

"Why thank you, T'Pol," Anna said with a bright smile, passing by arm in arm with Rostov. "The rest of us are going to be invisible for the evening."

Trip was about to think of a witty reply, after all Anna was the only one equipped with enough mammary tissue to challenge the Vulcan, but his XO had already sauntered off.

"I fail to understand the fascination with this attire," T'Pol noted. "As our celebratory group meeting starts in three hours, Lieutenant Reed and the other members of the group will see me unclothed. It is illogical to react that strongly to me actually wearing clothing."

Trip threw his head back and laughed softly. "That's illogical humans for ya, darlin'. The saying 'less is sometimes more' exists for a reason.

"This is unacceptable," the Vulcan Ambassador said. No, he ranted, Maxwell thought to himself.

"Sit down, Soval," he said calmly, deliberately using the Vulcan's first name to signal that this was no official talk. "How about telling me first what you find so unacceptable?"

"The behavior of T'Pol and Commander Tucker is an outrage!"

Maxwell's eyes went wide. Where did this come from? If anything the outspoken chief engineer of Enterprise had been unusually well behaved, considering he hadn't had a go at the Vulcan for trying to scupper their mission.

"I'm afraid you lost me Soval."

"Their interaction is overly familiar," the Vulcan insisted. "They seemed to communicate by just exchanging looks."

So this was what got the Vulcan's knickers in a twist. Anger boiled up in him as he wasn't taking any interference with the private lives of his people. He had enough of that shit every day listening to Admiral Black. Maxwell stood up from his chair and towered over the sitting Vulcan.

"Listen, Soval. I want my people to be familiar with each other. You've been a good friend for many years, but I'm not taking any attempts of imposing your values on my people and T'Pol is one of them. It took my wife and me twenty-four years to understand each other just by exchanging looks. If those two managed that within two years, they have my support. Did I make myself clear?"

A deep sigh sounded from the Vulcan's mouth, which was an unusually emotional reaction of the otherwise rigorously controlled Ambassador.

"I needed to make sure that you are 'on the same page', as you would say, Maxwell. If the High Command learns of their obvious attraction to each other, the children may be in grave danger."

"Wait a minute, Soval, you are NOT against them?" Maxwell asked, stunned about Soval's statement.

"Officially I am forced to oppose their union, unless you wish to work with someone else in the future. Privately I can admit that from what I saw, T'Pol has chosen well."

Soval really never ceased to amaze, Maxwell thought. What had started as a rant – very un-Vulcan-like – had ended as a blessing for whatever was up between Tucker and Enterprise's science officer.

"You said something about grave danger?" the Admiral asked with a worried look.

"The High Command has a history of reacting violently to unions between Vulcans and off-worlders," the Ambassador replied and for the first time in years Maxwell could see a genuine emotion on the Vulcan's face – worry.

"Let them try Soval and they'll learn how humanity reacts to that," Forest said with a serious face expression.

He crashed against the wardrobe as they tumbled into T'Pol's quarters. With a swift movement he shoved the hems of her evening dress aside and the firm breasts of the Vulcan were free for access. Normally she wouldn't be so expressive if it wasn't for the fact that she was slightly tipsy from many glasses of Champaign. She wasn't drunk, but just about loosened up enough to overcome some of her stronger inhibitions.

While his hands still massaged her naked breasts, T'Pol was eagerly pushing her tongue into his throat. A good five minutes went by until they had sated all the pent-up desire.

He pulled down the zip on the back of her dress and when it fell off her shoulders he noticed with a gasp that she had not even worn panties underneath. Granted, with the dress reaching down to her ankles there was little danger of anyone noticing, but the sheer naughtiness left him speechless. With a last lustful look back at him the naked Vulcan disappeared into her bathroom to prepare for the upcoming celebration in C47.

They had never said it out loud, but since they had spent the first night together five days ago, they were living in a relationship. They had alternated between his and her quarters for the nights, which was why both of them had half their belongings in the other's quarters. As a result he found his normal casual attire in her wardrobe.

Not that the clothes would stay on once they arrived at C47, so there was no point in selecting festive attire. Normally everyone just showed up in casual clothes. Having prepared himself, he opened T'Pol's side of the wardrobe and he selected her ruby catsuit and a pair of panties. That would be all she needed.

T'Pol came out of the bathroom and stored the toiletries in her chest of drawers before walking up to him to claim another kiss. He took her hand and made her sit down on the edge of the bunk. She looked expectantly at him.

"Darlin' we haven't said as much out loud, but I tend to think we're living in a steady relationship. Am I wrong in that?"

Up went the eyebrow as she looked at him somewhat bemused.

"Of course Trip; we have been spending each night with each other. I though this much was obvious. Do you need a verbal confirmation?"

"Not really," he said with a smile. "But we're preparing to go and have sex with other people. Just need to know where that fits in."

He could hear her take a deep breath. That would mean a longer explanation then.

"I explained to you that biological implications cause a heightened urge to mate."

He nodded his understanding.

"I understand perfectly that you would be willing to sate my desires, but this would be required in such frequency, it would make our sexual relations meaningless. I do not wish them to be meaningless."

He smiled. Leave it to T'Pol to declare her love while talking about casual sex.

"So how do you deal with it on Vulcan? I'd guess the concept of swinging is not really known there."

"Of course not," she replied, stealing another kiss. "On Vulcan mating is a mere mechanical act. I doubt that any female has ever experienced the pleasure that I am privileged to experience. Normally the female's sexual drive is not triggered by a virus, but by the first mating after the wedding ceremony. The mates then live in seclusion for one year during which the male is required to quench his mate's desire for intimacy ... frequently."

"I can see where this gets a bit boring," he admitted with a chuckle. "But the group only meets once a week."

He could see her fidget slightly.

"I regularly visit Ensign Sato and Lieutenant Hess. Occasionally I also engage in sexual relations with Ensign Sato and Lieutenant Reed at the same time. Are you offended by that knowledge?"

"Are you comfortable with it?" he asked.

"It is an agreeable arrangement," she admitted, but countered with a question of her own. "Are you comfortable with it?"

"Well, I've known about you and Hoshi," he replied with a smug grin. "Her quarters aren't really sound-proof. As for the threesome with her and Malcolm; I think I wanna watch that."

She threw her arms around him, planting another kiss. "I believe a demonstration can be arranged, beloved. Lieutenant Hess expressed the same interest. Maybe you can ... watch together."

He threw his head back and laughed.

Jon sat in his quarters staring at the PADD before him.

It was the only picture he had of Rianne. She was bent over a flask, some sort of liquid boiling lazily in it. He didn't even want to imagine what the woman went through, exiled to a far away continent by the Vulcans. There was only one solution.

Since she was the only person on the planet who knew about alien presence, she had to be removed from it and the obvious place to go was Enterprise.

And it wasn't quite free of self-interest either as his thoughts had often wandered back to the beautiful female ever since they had liberated her planet from the deadly influence of the Mallurians.

Trip helped her out of her shirt and they walked naked into the refurbished storage room that was known to everyone only as C47. Of course it didn't look anything like a storage room. The floor was covered by a dark red carpet, which they had procured about a year ago, when the group was still only consisting of Anna, Hoshi, Rostov and himself.

Over the months a lot of additions had been made, not only to the group itself, but also to its little hideout. There was a large mat for gangbangs, a particular favorite of Hoshi, several divan-style beds with various liberator shapes and even a love-swing, which was very popular with Malcolm whenever he felt like a bit of man-love. And there was of course a veritable arsenal of sex toys, all carefully crafted by him, Anna and Rostov in numerous secret night shifts in engineering.

After having attended the big party in the mess hall, the group had retreated to their 'hobby room' to greet the New Year swinger-style. Champaign, wine and even some harder substances seemed to be the only commodity that was still in good supply as the buffet had left little to guess how thin the provisions were stretched by now.

Apparently most had therefore gone for the liquid part of the offerings and some were well buzzed. T'Pol was still okay, merely tipsy enough to make her slightly cross-eyed and a bit more expressive with her affection, but Hoshi and Cutler seemed to have nipped the odd beverage too many and were giggling like school girls.

Instead of the usual run for T'Pol's oral attention, the men and women of the group had been separated to different tables and he could see that Hoshi was already 'topping off' with the provided Champaign.

Anna Hess, the 'mistress of ceremony' for the evening was standing in the middle of the room, ready to reveal her plans. She too was swaying slightly on her feet, but at a guess he'd say she wasn't much worse for wear than T'Pol.

"Alright folks; instead of the usual free-for-all, it's gonna be fun and games tonight," she announced. "Our first game is called 'blindfolded blowjob bingo'."

"I somehow like the name of that game." Malcolm's dead-pan quip spread amusement among the attendees.

"Okay guys, sit down on these five chairs," his XO instructed and he moved to do so with the other four men.

Once they were all sitting next to each other, Anna began to blindfold them – first Taylor, then Malcolm, followed by Travis and Rostov. He was the last to be relieved of his vision. Silently he waited for further explanations, but Hoshi's incessant giggling made it hard to concentrate on the sound around him. He heard the rattling of plastic in a glass container.

"The rules are simple. We play five rounds," Anna continued and he felt that she put something sticky on his chest – a colored marker, most likely. "Trip is red, Rostov green, Travis blue, Malcolm yellow and Taylor white. We girls take turns drawing chips and on my signal we'll blow the corresponding guy for one minute."

He could hear the amusement among his fellow guinea-pigs.

"If you correctly guess who'd been polishing your pole you get the chip, if not, the girl gets to keep it. If you blow your load the chip stays with the girl and you'll have to finish off the other guys after the game."

"And the winner?" Trip asked.

"The winner gets finished off by way of 5-way blowjob from all of us girls and he gets to prepare the ladies for the return match."

Several very interested male hums elicited chuckles from the girls.

"Alright guys, erect the masts!"

Rhythmic clapping from the girls – all except T'Pol most likely – went on as he stroked his meat to make himself hard. The sheer naughtiness of beating off for an audience was enough to have the not-so-little-engineer standing at full attention in record time.

The captain returned to the mess hall an hour after he had left it. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know why ten officers had left the party two hours before midnight. There was probably a very interesting private party going on in a certain former storage room.

But despite the missing officers the party was still well attended. On his way here he had authorized Chef to dip into the stocks of the captain's mess. Not that they were any less depleted than the general food stocks, but it would suffice to fill the buffet with somewhat more appetizing food than had been the case earlier this evening. His steward was currently busy distributing some of the delicacies among the skeleton crew, who kept the ship running.

"May I?"

Jon needed to shake his thoughts off before he became aware of the situation. A waltz was playing and a brightly smiling young woman from science had just requested this dance. Normally he wouldn't like such familiarity between the captain and a crewman, but what the hell, this was New Years Eve. Returning her smile, he offered his hand and led her to the dance floor.

The fifth round had just started and Trip had trouble concentrating on identifying the technique being used on his throbbing organ. Just one chip was resting in his hand – the meager result of the previous four rounds, but at least it was the most important one – he had correctly identified T'Pol.

But so had Travis, in fact if the ship's helmsman would get his current partner right, he'd end up with a clean-sweep of nabbing all five chips. His attempts to remember, who it was who liked to twirl her tongue around the head of his tool, were interrupted when he heard a groan followed by the satisfied hum that T'Pol usually let out when someone spray-painted her throat.

By the sound of it that meant Malcolm wasn't only quick to shoot on a weapons range. To be fair however, being exposed to T'Pol's excellent technique after four other women had thoroughly warmed him up was a bit of a competitive disadvantage. Thankfully, for Malcolm it wouldn't be much of a punishment to finish off him, Taylor and Rostov. The security officer had by far the most active bi-streak.

Travis however, well he'd get the big prize. At least Trip got to score a second chip, as the maniacal, drunk laughter about Malcolm's mishap had given away that Hoshi was currently kneeling in front of him.

He should have known of course that the bold young woman's action would open the flood gates. As a result Jon had spent the last thirty minutes being passed around among the female crew members. For once he was momentarily thankful for the low amount of women in the crew. For all the problems that imbalance caused, for the moment it meant he would soon get a breather. He had almost forgotten how exhausting dancing could be.

But it was for a good cause. The improved food and his gentle mingling with the crowd had transformed the mood of the party and it was now much more light-hearted. It also meant that Forest & Co, Admiral Black in particular, had a very bellicose captain coming their way.