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r_scribblesMore Rollercoaster...
ROLLERCOASTER
-x-
On The Ferris Wheel
-x-
Slowly, gracefully, the Ferris Wheel revolved to carry their exposed little car up to the summit, where it ground to a silent stop. The happy noises of Wonderland well beneath them now, the only close sound was the steady creak-creak-creak of their car as it swung gently on its pivots, suspended up there in the balmy evening air. Tasha looked up at the darkening sky for a moment, watching as Venus shone away like a bright evening star, next to a palely illuminated Luna. Neither, she reminded herself, was as beautiful on closer inspection as they appeared to be from Earth’s distance. But then, she added silently to herself, it wasn’t as though it was a real satellite moon and neighbouring planet she was gazing dreamily at in the first place. She was blinking up at cleverly arranged pixels of light. That was all.
Still. An escape was an escape.
‘Thank you,’ she breathed.
‘For what are you thanking me?’ asked the other occupant of the car.
‘For making me take a break.’
‘It was on Counsellor Troi’s orders that you were removed from your studies. It is she who you should thank.’
Tasha didn’t reply. She breathed in the air. It still had that fairground smell, but it was fresher – cooler – up here.
‘Is this proving an adequate distraction from your upcoming evaluation?’
Tasha shot Data a small, sideways look. ‘It was, before you reminded me about it.’
Data drew breath to speak, then evidently thought better of it and closed his mouth again. ‘I shall refrain from mentioning it any further.’
‘Thanks.’
Creak.
Creak.
Creak.
Tasha leaned forward a little, causing their car to tip downwards as she did so.
‘Pretty.’
She could see it all from up here – the fairground stretching along a single, straight path in front of her, and to the sides, the later additions – the beach, the paddock and the still half-finished mountain range, in the distance.
‘I can see my house from up here…’
‘Your house…? You do not have a house.’
‘Figure of speech, Data.’
‘Would you like a house?’
Tasha shrugged. ‘You can make me a house, I guess.’ She pointed over to a section of the beach where a cliff overlooked a small, secluded cove. ‘That looks like a nice spot.’
Data nodded in agreement. ‘I shall see to it once I have completed the mountains.’
Tasha grinned. ‘With a swimming pool?’
‘Certainly.’ Data paused. ‘Although I am afraid I would not be able to accompany you on any swims. Unless you wished for me to offer you encouragement from the side of the pool. Or from the bottom.’
Tasha giggled a little and turned to face the android sitting neatly in the seat next to her, his face set in still lines as neutral as ever.
‘Data,’ she proudly breathed, ‘did you just crack a joke?’
His eyes lit up, hopefully. ‘Did I?’
‘I think so.’ Tasha clasped her hands behind her head, still surveying her little world from on high. ‘Guess you’re really on fire this week.’ She didn’t even have to look at Data to gauge his expression. ‘Another figure of speech,’ she added, hastily. ‘I mean to say, you’ve been doing really well the past few days. Creatively speaking.’
‘You have been enjoying my creative endeavours?’
Tasha glanced back at him again. For a moment the earnestness of his expression urged her to fabricate some artistic critique for him – to repeat the sentiments she’d heard her more artistically gifted colleagues speak to and about him recently – in order to satisfy that open, expectant gaze. She took a moment to weigh up the likelihood of his catching her out, and whether another critical congratulation was actually what he wanted to hear, and not just what she supposed he wanted to hear. She decided to opt for the honest answer.
‘Honestly? I really don’t know very much about art, and I’ll admit, I kinda lost concentration during your last recital.’
Data responded with a soft, flat ‘oh’, neither hurt nor annoyed.
‘But,’ she added, ‘I liked that horsie painting you did the other day.’
Data screwed up his face slightly. ‘”Horsie”?’
‘The monochrome one…?’
Data’s expression didn’t change. ‘That was intended to be an Abstract.’
‘Oh!’ Tasha folded her hands in her lap, a little embarrassed. ‘I thought it was supposed to be a horse.’
‘Ah.’ Unintentionally, as far as Tasha could tell, Data mirrored her posture - his hands neatly on his lap, a faint, awkward discomfort on his features. There was a brief lull in the conversation, in which the car swung gently again in mid-air.
Creak.
Creak.
‘But you still liked it…?’ asked Data, eventually.
‘I thought it was really pretty,’ Tasha replied, ‘in a Data-ish sort of way.’ She looked down again, and a happy thought suddenly hit her. ‘And I like this place, don’t I?’ She spread her arms out to indicate the vast Holodeck simulation below. ‘I mean, this is art, isn’t it? This is creative.’
‘That is true.’
‘And since you got back from Tau Cygna V I have to say, those mountains have been getting much more attractive. The way that the setting sun hits the snow on the top these days…? Gorgeous.’ She smiled, much easier this time, inwardly overjoyed to have discovered a medium in which she could genuinely praise his recent artistic streak. Taking his vague half-smile to represent grateful pride, she continued merrily. ‘We are gonna have to send you off on your own to isolated, radiation-flooded little colonies much more often if this is how it’s going to inspire you.’ She gave him a playful nudge. ‘What else did you discover down there?’
Data didn’t reply for a while. Tasha, believing his silence to mean he simply had no answer to give, went back to looking down at the scenery below.
Creak.
Creak.
Creak.
‘Tasha.’
‘Mmm?’ she replied quietly.
‘Are you very anxious about your evaluation?’
Tasha sat up and faced him. ‘Of course I am. Data, I thought you said you weren’t going to mention…’
She trailed off as he awkwardly rested a hand on the side of her face. Before she could ask him what the Hell he was doing, he leaned forward, bridging the short distance between them and planted a feather light kiss on her surprised lips. For a few seconds her brain seemed incapable of processing what was going on, or how she should deal with it. She knew that it was a different action to the kiss they had shared before his trial, and certainly to the few kisses they had exchanged during sex. This was very gentle, very still – the only other contact on her body his unmoving hand on the side of her face, his lips only very slightly parted. It was almost completely chaste. Almost. Her body froze up again with that now familiar unease, and a conflict that was beginning to become all too common swelled within her. She fought back the urge to relish the kiss, to control it, harden it, open up his mouth with hers and push her tongue inside, as she knew it would be so very easy to do. And yet, for some reason that she couldn’t fathom, she didn’t stop him from continuing to kiss her, either.
He pulled out of the kiss as simply as he had begun it, bringing his hand back to join the other on his knees, regarding her, blankly.
She took a deep breath, swallowed, and cleared her throat a couple of times as she tried to think of a response that wasn’t either idiotic or another trite recital of the same lines of discouragement she had used before on him and, during weak moments, to herself. Failing to come up with any coherent original reply, however, she opted wearily for the same tired old speech.
‘Data, no,’ she sighed. ‘It’s like I said before. This is not a romantic relationship. Even if we wanted one, which, let’s face it, neither of us really do, it would be impossible for us. We made a mistake… we made a couple of mistakes… but it’s not fair on either of us to keep doing that. Besides,’ she added, indicating to the projection around her, ‘I thought that, above everything else, we were going to be like kids in this place. We were going to keep our past, our… indiscretions… out of this. I thought that was what was supposed to make it special.’
The android blinked. ‘I was not aware that that kiss should be interpreted as a sexual invitation.’
‘Are you kidding? What did you intend that to be?’
‘A comradely gesture, of solidarity in times of difficulty,’ Data replied, seemingly bemused by her reaction. ‘Your promotion rides on the upcoming evaluation which will stretch your knowledge and ingenuity to their limits, as my mission on Tau Cygna V did mine, and you are concerned that you will not succeed in…’
‘Wait,’ interjected Tasha. ‘Is this what somebody on that colony told you?’
‘There was a woman there,’ Data admitted.
Tasha arched an eyebrow.
‘She was… interested in me.’
‘I bet she was.’
‘Scientifically speaking,’ Data added.
‘Right,’ Tasha replied, dryly. ‘And Deanna Troi’s fascination with chocolate ice cream is purely cerebral.’
Data frowned. ‘I do not understand.’
Tasha sighed. ‘And it was this woman who kissed you, was it? The way you just kissed me?’
‘It was not intended as a prelude to sexual intercourse.’
‘Trust me, Data. It was.’
Data shook his head. ‘She told me…’
‘Data, not everybody who wants to have sex with you is going to just come out and say it. Most people are a lot more subtle than the likes of Yours Truly.’
‘But she said…’
‘Well, she must have twisted the truth. That was not a platonic peck on the cheek.’
‘Oh,’ Data replied, softly. ‘That does go towards explaining her reactions when I returned the gesture.’
Tasha folded her arms. ‘You kissed her back?’
Data nodded, watching Tasha as she sank a little further away from him, biting the inside of her lip.
‘Does that upset you?’
‘Why should I be upset?’
‘Why, indeed?’ Data responded, more bemused than ever. ‘We are, as you have made plain several times, not in a monogamous relationship…’
‘We’re not in any kind of relationship…’
‘But your reaction to the discovery of a shared kiss with another woman appears to be hostile…’
‘Two shared kisses,’ corrected Tasha.
The Ferris Wheel shuddered back to life, and with a noisy Clunk, began to revolve again, sending their car on a slow descent.
‘I do not see how that makes any difference,’ Data replied to her, slightly raising his voice to be heard over the ride’s engine.
Tasha just sighed, watching as the ground came gradually approached. She was annoyed, and she didn’t know for the life of her why. After all, what did she expect, knowing his attitude to sex, knowing his inability to form romantic bonds, and after she had made it clear that the sexual ties that they had had – loose as they had been in the first place – were no more? It wasn’t even as though he’d slept with this other woman. He hadn’t even known what the kisses had meant. Perhaps, she mused to herself, that was the very reason she felt irked – he’d shared with this faceless, nameless woman a moment… two moments… of innocent bonding, unimpeded by any of his sexuality programming. He had kissed her simply to kiss her. She wondered, glumly to herself, when the last time was that somebody had kissed her Simply Because before she recalled that it had actually been only a couple of minutes beforehand – that sweet, still moment at the top of the Ferris Wheel. Data had kissed her.
The realisation hit as they reached the halfway down point. He had kissed her. He had instigated the kiss, without her so much as suggesting that he did so. It had been his kiss, not her kiss returned. She had no idea whether, prior to Tau Cygna V, he had ever done such a thing. She presumed not. She moved closer in to him again, and offered him a small smile, to which he responded with another look of puzzlement.
‘I guess the increased creativity your mission inspired didn’t stop at horsie paintings and pretty mountains,’ she told him.
Still, Data frowned. ‘You are being particularly cryptic this afternoon, Lieutenant.’
They were almost at the bottom now – the double sized attractions of Wonderland passing by their heads as they continued their descent. A mischievous idea sparkled in Tasha’s mind. It was childish, sure, but then, she was supposed to be a child here, wasn’t she...? She shuffled closer to him still.
‘You brought me here to take my mind off my studies,’ Tasha added, ‘I’d say that was a job pretty well accomplished. Have I thanked you for that, yet?’
‘Indeed, you have.’
‘But not particularly creatively,’ she replied. ‘Not taking a leaf out of your book, anyway.’ She paused. ‘Two kisses, was it? With this purely-scientifically-interested girl?’
‘In total, ye…’
He didn’t get to finish his sentence. She leaned in and kissed him, carefully copying his actions from earlier; a static hand on his cheek, her slightly parted mouth gentle against his, not quite platonic, yet not quite erotic, simulating that tentative, innocent first awakening that so many youngsters - normal, healthy youngsters – were supposed to enjoy. Data responded in accordance with her actions, as he always did, allowing her to kiss him in the manner she had chosen, mirroring on her lips the calm, gentle pressure that she had opted to use on him. She presumed that it was because she had initiated that kiss that he waited for her to end it rather than pushing her away.
‘We had come to an agreement,’ he muttered - now utterly lost - once his lips were free. ‘We were no longer to have any sexual contact, but since you determined that a kiss such as that was indeed sexual… have you had a change of conviction regarding that matter?’
‘I just wanted to kiss you simply to kiss you,’ Tasha replied. ‘And to thank you. That’s all. It won’t leave the Holodeck, I promise.’
Data pondered this for a moment, then nodded, seemingly satisfied with her explanation. ‘Very well. Shall we…’
Clearly, it wasn’t Data’s day, as far as finishing sentences was concerned. He was cut off yet again as she kissed him once more – quicker this time, but still with the same level of carefully controlled frisson.
And that, she told herself, makes it three to two in my favour. I win.
Tasha felt her feet touch the ground as the Ferris Wheel finally came to a full stop. She sat back in the car and patted his cheek playfully.
‘That’s better.’
‘Have you finished thanking me?’
‘Yes, Data.’
Data nodded and pulled the safety bar over their heads. ‘What shall we do now?’
They stared at each other for what Tasha felt was just a split second too long for comfort. She took in a deep breath, and answered him with the first non-filthy thing that sprang to her mind.
‘Rollercoaster…?’
ROLLERCOASTER
-x-
On The Ferris Wheel
-x-
Slowly, gracefully, the Ferris Wheel revolved to carry their exposed little car up to the summit, where it ground to a silent stop. The happy noises of Wonderland well beneath them now, the only close sound was the steady creak-creak-creak of their car as it swung gently on its pivots, suspended up there in the balmy evening air. Tasha looked up at the darkening sky for a moment, watching as Venus shone away like a bright evening star, next to a palely illuminated Luna. Neither, she reminded herself, was as beautiful on closer inspection as they appeared to be from Earth’s distance. But then, she added silently to herself, it wasn’t as though it was a real satellite moon and neighbouring planet she was gazing dreamily at in the first place. She was blinking up at cleverly arranged pixels of light. That was all.
Still. An escape was an escape.
‘Thank you,’ she breathed.
‘For what are you thanking me?’ asked the other occupant of the car.
‘For making me take a break.’
‘It was on Counsellor Troi’s orders that you were removed from your studies. It is she who you should thank.’
Tasha didn’t reply. She breathed in the air. It still had that fairground smell, but it was fresher – cooler – up here.
‘Is this proving an adequate distraction from your upcoming evaluation?’
Tasha shot Data a small, sideways look. ‘It was, before you reminded me about it.’
Data drew breath to speak, then evidently thought better of it and closed his mouth again. ‘I shall refrain from mentioning it any further.’
‘Thanks.’
Creak.
Creak.
Creak.
Tasha leaned forward a little, causing their car to tip downwards as she did so.
‘Pretty.’
She could see it all from up here – the fairground stretching along a single, straight path in front of her, and to the sides, the later additions – the beach, the paddock and the still half-finished mountain range, in the distance.
‘I can see my house from up here…’
‘Your house…? You do not have a house.’
‘Figure of speech, Data.’
‘Would you like a house?’
Tasha shrugged. ‘You can make me a house, I guess.’ She pointed over to a section of the beach where a cliff overlooked a small, secluded cove. ‘That looks like a nice spot.’
Data nodded in agreement. ‘I shall see to it once I have completed the mountains.’
Tasha grinned. ‘With a swimming pool?’
‘Certainly.’ Data paused. ‘Although I am afraid I would not be able to accompany you on any swims. Unless you wished for me to offer you encouragement from the side of the pool. Or from the bottom.’
Tasha giggled a little and turned to face the android sitting neatly in the seat next to her, his face set in still lines as neutral as ever.
‘Data,’ she proudly breathed, ‘did you just crack a joke?’
His eyes lit up, hopefully. ‘Did I?’
‘I think so.’ Tasha clasped her hands behind her head, still surveying her little world from on high. ‘Guess you’re really on fire this week.’ She didn’t even have to look at Data to gauge his expression. ‘Another figure of speech,’ she added, hastily. ‘I mean to say, you’ve been doing really well the past few days. Creatively speaking.’
‘You have been enjoying my creative endeavours?’
Tasha glanced back at him again. For a moment the earnestness of his expression urged her to fabricate some artistic critique for him – to repeat the sentiments she’d heard her more artistically gifted colleagues speak to and about him recently – in order to satisfy that open, expectant gaze. She took a moment to weigh up the likelihood of his catching her out, and whether another critical congratulation was actually what he wanted to hear, and not just what she supposed he wanted to hear. She decided to opt for the honest answer.
‘Honestly? I really don’t know very much about art, and I’ll admit, I kinda lost concentration during your last recital.’
Data responded with a soft, flat ‘oh’, neither hurt nor annoyed.
‘But,’ she added, ‘I liked that horsie painting you did the other day.’
Data screwed up his face slightly. ‘”Horsie”?’
‘The monochrome one…?’
Data’s expression didn’t change. ‘That was intended to be an Abstract.’
‘Oh!’ Tasha folded her hands in her lap, a little embarrassed. ‘I thought it was supposed to be a horse.’
‘Ah.’ Unintentionally, as far as Tasha could tell, Data mirrored her posture - his hands neatly on his lap, a faint, awkward discomfort on his features. There was a brief lull in the conversation, in which the car swung gently again in mid-air.
Creak.
Creak.
‘But you still liked it…?’ asked Data, eventually.
‘I thought it was really pretty,’ Tasha replied, ‘in a Data-ish sort of way.’ She looked down again, and a happy thought suddenly hit her. ‘And I like this place, don’t I?’ She spread her arms out to indicate the vast Holodeck simulation below. ‘I mean, this is art, isn’t it? This is creative.’
‘That is true.’
‘And since you got back from Tau Cygna V I have to say, those mountains have been getting much more attractive. The way that the setting sun hits the snow on the top these days…? Gorgeous.’ She smiled, much easier this time, inwardly overjoyed to have discovered a medium in which she could genuinely praise his recent artistic streak. Taking his vague half-smile to represent grateful pride, she continued merrily. ‘We are gonna have to send you off on your own to isolated, radiation-flooded little colonies much more often if this is how it’s going to inspire you.’ She gave him a playful nudge. ‘What else did you discover down there?’
Data didn’t reply for a while. Tasha, believing his silence to mean he simply had no answer to give, went back to looking down at the scenery below.
Creak.
Creak.
Creak.
‘Tasha.’
‘Mmm?’ she replied quietly.
‘Are you very anxious about your evaluation?’
Tasha sat up and faced him. ‘Of course I am. Data, I thought you said you weren’t going to mention…’
She trailed off as he awkwardly rested a hand on the side of her face. Before she could ask him what the Hell he was doing, he leaned forward, bridging the short distance between them and planted a feather light kiss on her surprised lips. For a few seconds her brain seemed incapable of processing what was going on, or how she should deal with it. She knew that it was a different action to the kiss they had shared before his trial, and certainly to the few kisses they had exchanged during sex. This was very gentle, very still – the only other contact on her body his unmoving hand on the side of her face, his lips only very slightly parted. It was almost completely chaste. Almost. Her body froze up again with that now familiar unease, and a conflict that was beginning to become all too common swelled within her. She fought back the urge to relish the kiss, to control it, harden it, open up his mouth with hers and push her tongue inside, as she knew it would be so very easy to do. And yet, for some reason that she couldn’t fathom, she didn’t stop him from continuing to kiss her, either.
He pulled out of the kiss as simply as he had begun it, bringing his hand back to join the other on his knees, regarding her, blankly.
She took a deep breath, swallowed, and cleared her throat a couple of times as she tried to think of a response that wasn’t either idiotic or another trite recital of the same lines of discouragement she had used before on him and, during weak moments, to herself. Failing to come up with any coherent original reply, however, she opted wearily for the same tired old speech.
‘Data, no,’ she sighed. ‘It’s like I said before. This is not a romantic relationship. Even if we wanted one, which, let’s face it, neither of us really do, it would be impossible for us. We made a mistake… we made a couple of mistakes… but it’s not fair on either of us to keep doing that. Besides,’ she added, indicating to the projection around her, ‘I thought that, above everything else, we were going to be like kids in this place. We were going to keep our past, our… indiscretions… out of this. I thought that was what was supposed to make it special.’
The android blinked. ‘I was not aware that that kiss should be interpreted as a sexual invitation.’
‘Are you kidding? What did you intend that to be?’
‘A comradely gesture, of solidarity in times of difficulty,’ Data replied, seemingly bemused by her reaction. ‘Your promotion rides on the upcoming evaluation which will stretch your knowledge and ingenuity to their limits, as my mission on Tau Cygna V did mine, and you are concerned that you will not succeed in…’
‘Wait,’ interjected Tasha. ‘Is this what somebody on that colony told you?’
‘There was a woman there,’ Data admitted.
Tasha arched an eyebrow.
‘She was… interested in me.’
‘I bet she was.’
‘Scientifically speaking,’ Data added.
‘Right,’ Tasha replied, dryly. ‘And Deanna Troi’s fascination with chocolate ice cream is purely cerebral.’
Data frowned. ‘I do not understand.’
Tasha sighed. ‘And it was this woman who kissed you, was it? The way you just kissed me?’
‘It was not intended as a prelude to sexual intercourse.’
‘Trust me, Data. It was.’
Data shook his head. ‘She told me…’
‘Data, not everybody who wants to have sex with you is going to just come out and say it. Most people are a lot more subtle than the likes of Yours Truly.’
‘But she said…’
‘Well, she must have twisted the truth. That was not a platonic peck on the cheek.’
‘Oh,’ Data replied, softly. ‘That does go towards explaining her reactions when I returned the gesture.’
Tasha folded her arms. ‘You kissed her back?’
Data nodded, watching Tasha as she sank a little further away from him, biting the inside of her lip.
‘Does that upset you?’
‘Why should I be upset?’
‘Why, indeed?’ Data responded, more bemused than ever. ‘We are, as you have made plain several times, not in a monogamous relationship…’
‘We’re not in any kind of relationship…’
‘But your reaction to the discovery of a shared kiss with another woman appears to be hostile…’
‘Two shared kisses,’ corrected Tasha.
The Ferris Wheel shuddered back to life, and with a noisy Clunk, began to revolve again, sending their car on a slow descent.
‘I do not see how that makes any difference,’ Data replied to her, slightly raising his voice to be heard over the ride’s engine.
Tasha just sighed, watching as the ground came gradually approached. She was annoyed, and she didn’t know for the life of her why. After all, what did she expect, knowing his attitude to sex, knowing his inability to form romantic bonds, and after she had made it clear that the sexual ties that they had had – loose as they had been in the first place – were no more? It wasn’t even as though he’d slept with this other woman. He hadn’t even known what the kisses had meant. Perhaps, she mused to herself, that was the very reason she felt irked – he’d shared with this faceless, nameless woman a moment… two moments… of innocent bonding, unimpeded by any of his sexuality programming. He had kissed her simply to kiss her. She wondered, glumly to herself, when the last time was that somebody had kissed her Simply Because before she recalled that it had actually been only a couple of minutes beforehand – that sweet, still moment at the top of the Ferris Wheel. Data had kissed her.
The realisation hit as they reached the halfway down point. He had kissed her. He had instigated the kiss, without her so much as suggesting that he did so. It had been his kiss, not her kiss returned. She had no idea whether, prior to Tau Cygna V, he had ever done such a thing. She presumed not. She moved closer in to him again, and offered him a small smile, to which he responded with another look of puzzlement.
‘I guess the increased creativity your mission inspired didn’t stop at horsie paintings and pretty mountains,’ she told him.
Still, Data frowned. ‘You are being particularly cryptic this afternoon, Lieutenant.’
They were almost at the bottom now – the double sized attractions of Wonderland passing by their heads as they continued their descent. A mischievous idea sparkled in Tasha’s mind. It was childish, sure, but then, she was supposed to be a child here, wasn’t she...? She shuffled closer to him still.
‘You brought me here to take my mind off my studies,’ Tasha added, ‘I’d say that was a job pretty well accomplished. Have I thanked you for that, yet?’
‘Indeed, you have.’
‘But not particularly creatively,’ she replied. ‘Not taking a leaf out of your book, anyway.’ She paused. ‘Two kisses, was it? With this purely-scientifically-interested girl?’
‘In total, ye…’
He didn’t get to finish his sentence. She leaned in and kissed him, carefully copying his actions from earlier; a static hand on his cheek, her slightly parted mouth gentle against his, not quite platonic, yet not quite erotic, simulating that tentative, innocent first awakening that so many youngsters - normal, healthy youngsters – were supposed to enjoy. Data responded in accordance with her actions, as he always did, allowing her to kiss him in the manner she had chosen, mirroring on her lips the calm, gentle pressure that she had opted to use on him. She presumed that it was because she had initiated that kiss that he waited for her to end it rather than pushing her away.
‘We had come to an agreement,’ he muttered - now utterly lost - once his lips were free. ‘We were no longer to have any sexual contact, but since you determined that a kiss such as that was indeed sexual… have you had a change of conviction regarding that matter?’
‘I just wanted to kiss you simply to kiss you,’ Tasha replied. ‘And to thank you. That’s all. It won’t leave the Holodeck, I promise.’
Data pondered this for a moment, then nodded, seemingly satisfied with her explanation. ‘Very well. Shall we…’
Clearly, it wasn’t Data’s day, as far as finishing sentences was concerned. He was cut off yet again as she kissed him once more – quicker this time, but still with the same level of carefully controlled frisson.
And that, she told herself, makes it three to two in my favour. I win.
Tasha felt her feet touch the ground as the Ferris Wheel finally came to a full stop. She sat back in the car and patted his cheek playfully.
‘That’s better.’
‘Have you finished thanking me?’
‘Yes, Data.’
Data nodded and pulled the safety bar over their heads. ‘What shall we do now?’
They stared at each other for what Tasha felt was just a split second too long for comfort. She took in a deep breath, and answered him with the first non-filthy thing that sprang to her mind.
‘Rollercoaster…?’
