Belated Consummation

It was late at night and Quark already had sent off his stuff to save money. But when he stepped to the main door to close it, there was she - Ezri Dax and yet not Dax. He got get along with her adequately; but he couldn't combine the memory of the wonderful, self-conscious, strong Jadzia with that girl that had inherited her worm. Inwardly he cringed on the thought of these weird practices, but outwardly he smiled, showing off his teeth.

"What causes the pleasure of your presence here, Lieutenant?" he said and waved her into the empty bar.

"I'd like to play a round of Togo," she said and walked right at the table where the Togo wheel was standing prominently.

Ezri and Togo? Now that was a new one. But when she wanted to lose her latinum, he would happily take it.

"Very well," he said and locked the door before he seated himself next to her in front of the wheel.

But she surprised him once again - she didn't lose, but won, hazarding like Jadzia had done. Her open laughter at every earned strip of latinum clung in his ear as he went to fetch drinks and snacks with dips, which he'd subtract from her account later.

"I must say," he said and leaned slightly over her as he placed the refreshments on the table, "tonight it's almost as if..." His voice dropped as he realized that it wouldn't be really compliment for Ezri, but she looked up and replied, "as if Jadzia were here? Yes, indeed." Her head brushed his lower arm, and he hastily pulled back, taking his former seat. Not that he minded any Dax coming closer, but he was sure that Ezri, confused-little-girlish-Ezri would never do that consciously.

This time the surprise was on the edge of shock as she reached out and touched his ear with one of her small hands, sensually rubbing over his earlobe. "You weren't that reluctant with Jadzia, Quark," she whispered.

He swallowed hard. "Well," he began and found himself at loss with words as she wandered along his lobe with one finger. "Well…" he said and fought off the moan as she caressed the small spot on its backside.

With his last control he pulled back in haste. "Did that worm take over your brain?" he said more sharply than intended. He definitely wouldn't want to be called into Sisko's office tomorrow morning for a lecture on human morals and insane Trills. "That sure isn't your typical behavior."

She gazed at him, her eyes darker than usual and a sparkle in them he had never seen there before. "I am what I am, joined with too many people of the past. But I found that solving some of the old...conflicts...and regrets has a positive side effect."

"Then why don't you drink a Raktachino instead, or have some garch?" He stood up and walked to his bar, but she was behind him in the wink of an eye. "I don't want to resolve *those* things, Quark," she said firmly, and her hands centered right and left on his lobes, holding him back from his track.

"Jadzia knew that you loved her..." she said and massaged the large lobes, which made Quark dizzy from arousal. "And if she hadn't met you here, on this station, her an officer, and you the default culprit, she might have given you more of what you wanted..."

Her hands wandered up and down the earlobes in a synchronized ballet of fingers, soft human skin over soft Ferengi skin, and Quark breathed harder. "Oh...if that's what you want to resolve...really...it's...."

She pulled him back to the Togo table and made him sit down, not for a minute taking her hands from his ears. Her fingertips caressed through the round corridors and followed them deeper into the center. Quark hung on his chair like a drowning man, speech long died under this sensual attack.

"I have brought something for you," she said and took out a sonic ear cleaner (device for ear cleaning?) from her pocket. "I will clean your ears, Quark, thoroughly, slowly..." she whispered and sat down next to him. When the small instrument touched his ear, he gasped. "Ezri, you know that -"

"Be quiet," she said and began to clean his auditory canal. Small warm whirls danced in it, whisking breezes of sound licked over his nerve endings. The small sonic buzzer hummed through his brain and had tinged his world with the blue blaze of arousal when she finally withdrew.

"Now the second one," she said and walked around him.

"Oh yes," he moaned as she took the other earlobe into her hands, massaging it before she applied the cleaner once more.

"I just want to make you feel good," she purred into his ear. He wouldn't be able to live through it, he thought, as the instrument massaged his auditory canal, once again warm waves pushing back and forth against his eardrum. Their rhythmic pounding almost brought him over the edge, but only almost.

"Massage them, please," he whispered in a helpless plea. How he wanted to make Dax his, any Dax now, but he knew she'd never comply to the way Ferengi held their women...

"Of course, my Quark," someone whispered into his ear, and he could feel her hands, palms, fingertips all round and over his ears, every spot on fire, his brain molten like gold and she was the latinum that poured in, every touch adding to his delight. Naked Dax on his lap, at his ears, in his canal, small buzzing sounds of a sonic cleaner...

With a strangled cry he came, and climax broke through his whole body like a thunderstorm, making him almost fall from his chair. But steady arms held him and some last careful touches on his lobes kept him from losing his mind into the frenzy. When he could breathe again, he opened his eyes. The hands were gone, and Ezri Dax looked down on him from her standing position.

"It was a long day, Quark," she said and put the sonic ear cleaner and her won latinum into her pocket. "I'll go to bed. See you tomorrow." With a friendly wave she left the bar, and suddenly all that was left of her was the half-empty glass on the table and her scent in the air.

He speechlessly looked after her for a moment, then shook himself out of his reverie and hit the table with his flat hand. "What a woman!" he muttered in awe, before he stood up to clean the drinks and snacks away, saving them for the next day.

***