Bashir nodded and left. The Cardassian's 'I quite understand, Doctor' would bother him for the rest of the day.
'It's not the same,' he thought. 'He wants a sexual relationship and I don't.'
He stopped to consider if that were really true, that he did not want a sexual relationship with a male or just this particular male. 'I suppose with the right man... I don't know.' He arrived at the infirmary without really realizing it.
Pulling up chair up to his bench, he began to sort through cellular data on a strain of meningitis recently discovered on Tika 7. He managed to keep his mind fixed on it until he ran out of data to fix his mind on and found himself thinking of Garak again. Particularly Garak's hands and how they might feel on his hips as he held him steady to... "Stop!"
"Doctor...?"
Bashir blushed and looked at the nurse he'd forgotten was still in the room. "I've got to stop thinking about... this strain of meningitis for a few hours. I can't think constructively about it anymore." He saved the file and logged off. "I'll be in my office. Disturb me for patients only, nurse." He strode off, nodding at her submissive 'Yes, Doctor,' that bounced off his lab-coated back.
"Door lock," he said, leaning heavily against it. As disturbing as erotic fantasies about Garak were, more disturbing was the idea that he might want those things to happen. 'No,' Bashir assured himself. 'No, fantasizing about something is different from wanting it and wanting it is much different from going after it. I just have to remember that.' He paced his office. 'Poor Garak, is this why I feel so uncomfortable with him? Why he's been avoiding me? Because I've got to remind myself that I *don't* want to go to bed with him every time I see him? No wonder he's making himself scarce. Of course, I've been avoiding him too, sort of... But it's those damn dreams bothering me.'
Dreaming about sex with a mysterious lover, who later turned out to be Garak, had become a regular occurrence. Dreams dreaded as welcomed, Bashir had lost count of the times he'd woken glued to the sheets in the morning feeling as guilty as satiated. 'Why not try it?' one side of him suggested while the other side recoiled in horror, 'And kiss your friends and career and the future you've hoped all your life for good-bye.' He pushed both thoughts away, 'Enough. I have things to do.' And devoted himself to medical science for what was left of the day.
That evening in his quarters, Bashir inhaled his dinner and read his book. He found himself rereading this passage:
'Remember, as much in exaltation as in suffering, that every interaction in this myriad existence is with god. Even in dreams and fantasy, creates a new reality with god. Therefore, we are responsible for all karma we incur everywhere and in everything. So do not ask, where have I sinned, where have I been virtuous; we cannot know or understand the unknowable mind of god, leave that to god and surrender to god.' Rishi Baba, page 51.
Over and over.
'Are my dreams and fantasies also creating realities I must be responsible for?' he wondered, somewhat alarmed. And as his alarm died down, he realized he was very tired (not thinking about Garak was wearing him out) and went to bed.
The dream was never the same. Tonight he lay in a sunny meadow and let the air warm him and the grass cool him. His cock stirred and arched gently. Soft lips found his and withdrew to descend to his chest to tease his nipples to hardness. A cool, dry hand found his hardening shaft and began to caress it demandingly.
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