Disclaimer: Thankyou Joss Whedon for creating “Firefly” and these fabulous characters. Thankyou Mutant Enemy and cast for bringing them to beautiful life. And thankyou Fox for airing the show and making the DVD, even if you didn't have the sense to commission more episodes.

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FEELING

The shortage of water for washing on Serenity had never irked her as much as it did today. A meagre sponge bath was simply not enough to wash away all that she was feeling. Idiotic, needy, weak.

She applied more soap and scrubbed furiously with the loofah, even though she wouldn't be able to rinse it all off. But even had she been in one of the most luxurious bathing houses on Sihnon, she wouldn't have been able to make herself feel properly clean.

Because today she had broken Guild Law. She'd set off in her shuttle to meet her client without the proper preparations. The syringe had remained in its box, unused. For the first time since becoming a Companion, she had decided to feel. Experience for herself the sensation of skin on skin, flesh in flesh and understand the strange craving that led otherwise sensible men and women to abandon reason and throw caution to the wind.

She couldn't get the image of Mal emerging from Nandi's room out of her head. The memory of him doing up his shirt buttons and pulling up his suspenders. Although he was embarassed at her seeing him there, he was far from unhappy. He was glowing with the warmth of satiation. And it stung like a slap in the face.

She didn't know who she was angrier with, Mal or Nandi. If she'd lived long enough it might have been with Nandi. For bedding the man Inara had slowly fallen so deeply in love with. And for feeling all that should have been hers. As a mere whore Nandi didn't have access to the numbing agent. It must have left her system years ago. No, she would have felt ... what? The sad truth was Inara didn't know.

Nandi had had it all. The feel of him, the taste of him. His smell, his warmth. Sensations Inara longed for but could n