As the chirrup of the dabo wheel slowed, Quark started for the table. “Stay here,” Treir told Hetik, squeezing his upper arm to emphasize her words. She strode in Quark’s direction, her long legs quickly eating up the short distance. She intercepted him about halfway to the table. “Quark,” she said, modulating her tone so that she sounded very pleased to see him. “What are you doing here?” She let herself almost sing the words, an attempt to focus Quark’s attention on her. Behind her, she heard the wheel come to a stop, and the staccato sound of the rondure bouncing into a cup.
“What are youdoing?” he demanded, even gruffer than usual. She saw that he looked upset, and she wondered if his mood had anything to do with his increasing flirtations with the station’s security chief. Two nights ago, after that Jem’Hadar had appeared as though from nowhere, she had watched Quark and Ro coquet with each other; she had also heard Ro suggest that she might return to the bar later that night, but Treir had not seen her in here since. Nor, she suspected, had Quark.
Now Quark leaned to his left and peered past Treir toward Hetik. “We don’t allow gamblers to touch the dabo wheel,” he complained to her in a lowered voice. “Let alone allow them to make the spins.” He looked angrily up at her. “Wasn’t that the first thing I taught you?”
Treir bent at her knees and slung herself around to Quark’s side. As she slithered a bare arm across his shoulders, she said in a breathy voice, “But not the last thing you’re going to teach me, I hope.” Obvious, and Quark would see the words as a ploy, but he often responded to such advances regardless. She draped herself around him, her tall, lithe form folding up in such a way that she actually seemed to become the same size as the much smaller Ferengi.
“Really?” Quark asked, looking at her lasciviously. “And what else would you like to learn?” Treir liked predictable behavior; it had kept her in luxurious accommodations, elegant clothing, and a relative life of leisure for some time.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, gently kneading his shoulders. “I’m sure you’ll think of something interesting for me.” She started to ease him around toward the bar and away from Hetik.
“Wait a minute,” Quark said, setting his shoulders and not allowing Treir to turn him. “The dabo wheel.” He pointed in that direction.
Bad instincts,Treir railed at herself. She had moved too quickly to get Quark away. She knew better, but she had acted rashly. Probably because I was flustered by Hetik,she thought, but that was a poor reason. “Don’t worry about it, Quark,” she said, trying to segue now from a personal mode to a business mode. “There’s no latinum on the table.”
“Then what’s he doing?” Quark wanted to know. He extricated himself from Treir’s hold. She pulled away from him, and in the blink of an eye, she towered over him once more. Quark looked up at her accusingly. “Is he rigging the dabo wheel so you two can steal me deaf later?”
“Be careful what you say, Quark,” she told him. “I know you were just in a bad mood the other night when you intimated you were going to fire me, and maybe you’re in a bad mood now, but you don’t want to drive away just about the only thing drawing customers in here.”
Quark made a show of peering slowly around the bar at the few patrons present. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m turning them away at the door.”
“It’s breakfast time,” she said. “Don’t be sarcastic.” She added a smile to her admonishment, attempting to find the right attitude that would work with Quark today. Treir had initially believed that his supposed pursuit of Ro had been for the sole purpose of gaining some business advantage relating to her position aboard Deep Space 9. His continued sour mood, though, was beginning to convince her otherwise.
She held her hand out toward the dabo table. “That young man’s name is Hetik,” she said. “He made a pilgrimage here to see the Celestial Temple for the first time, and he—”
“I don’t care what his name is or why he’s here,” Quark said. “I want him to stop touching my dabo wheel.” He glared over at Hetik. “And tell him to put some clothes on.”
Treir glanced over at Hetik. The meaty young man was paying no attention to them, instead studying the dabo table. He wore a pair of tight black shorts and a small matching top that barely covered the upper portion of his torso. He looked very good—very sexy—and he seemed remarkably at ease. Treir knew well how uncomfortable it could feel to wear so little in public. In fact—
“He’s wearing more than I am,” she said. Her outfit—provided to her by Quark, of course—consisted of little more than a pair of narrow bands of shimmering silk, one at her chest and one just below her waist.
“You have more parts people want to see,” Quark said with a leer.
“Some people,” Treir agreed. “But some would rather see Hetik’s parts.” She realized then how far this conversation had sunk, and that it would not likely improve, and although Quark’s mood might, there was an immediacy to her need to discuss Hetik with him. She had intended to speak with him later, convinced that by the time he arrived at the bar this afternoon or this evening, she would have been able to prove to him the worth of what she had done.
“Anybody who wouldn’t prefer your parts is a fool,” Quark said.
“Perhaps,” Treir said. “But fools spend their latinum as much as the wise do—maybe more so.”
“That’s true,” Quark said, but then he looked up at her with a quizzical expression. “But what’s your point?”
“My point is, maybe Hetik could bring in a new set of customers, and thereby improve profits.”
A smirk played across Quark’s face, his skepticism evident. “I don’t think so,” he said.
“Well, that’s too bad,” Treir told him, “because he’s your new dabo boy.”
Quark’s eyes widened, and then his mouth dropped open, completely revealing his pointed, unaligned teeth. He closed and opened his mouth several more times. Like a fish,Treir thought, gasping when removed from water.Finally, Quark managed to form words. “He’s my new what?”
“Your new dabo boy,” she repeated. “I hired him.”
Again, Quark’s mouth oscillated between closed and open. “You what?”He brought a hand up to his chest, as though he were suffering a heart spasm.
She moved toe-to-toe with him and stared down directly into his eyes. “I hired Hetik,” she said, enunciating each word slowly, “to be your new dabo boy.”
Quark returned her gaze, still agape. “He’s…he’s…you…you…” he sputtered. It seemed to Treir as though he did not know what to be upset about first: a dabo boyin his establishment, or her—an employee—hiring a new worker.
“Listen to me, Quark,” she said, dropping any pretense from her voice and manner. “If some people come in here to ogle me while they’re drinking and gambling, then other people will come in to ogle him.” She pointed a thumb back over her shoulder toward Hetik.
Quark shook his head, then closed his mouth and seemed to regain his composure. “Nobody’s going to come into the bar to see either one of you,” he snarled, “once I have the two of you thrown out an airlock.”
Treir felt her features harden, and she leaned down until her face was only centimeters from Quark’s. “Be careful with your threats, Quark,” she said in a fierce whisper. “Hetik might hear you.”
“What he’s going to hear,” Quark said, apparently unfazed by Treir’s words, “is me firing him.” He backed up a half-step, then started around her. Just before he would have passed her, she reached out and took hold of his upper arm. Quark stopped, and they regarded each other.
“Don’t do it,” Treir said. She knew that this would work, that Hetik’s presence in the bar would bring in more customers, which would necessarily increase her own tips. And she liked Hetik and wanted to help him. She leaned in toward Quark. “Perhaps we can come to some sort of accord about this,” she said, breathing warmly in his ear.