Let Me Entertain You...
Posted on Sun May 3rd, 2026 @ 6:41am by Lieutenant Katya Davi
Edited on on Sun May 3rd, 2026 @ 6:44am
976 words; about a 5 minute read
Mission:
Avan's Colony
Location: Davi's New "Office"
Timeline: Shortly after returning to the Valiant
Katya was happy to be back on the Valiant. Mostly. She appreciated the space, but she missed the communal meals. She especially missed one person at the communal meals, but she continually reminded herself that she could not, WOULD not go there. Not in any way. That way only led to trouble. Especially when she'd been told as much. Or was it twice? Either way, she got the message.
Maybe being back on the Valiant and back to her old routine would give her the distance she needed to get her act together. Or at least to get better self-control. She couldn't run to her secret studio on the Val. She didn't HAVE a secret studio. She paused, thinking. But maybe she could. Or should. At least some place she could be alone that wasn't her quarters.
She mentally went over the ship specs, knowing she'd worked in most areas. She didn't have an office. Someone decided ops didn't need a central location like other departments. It didn't make sense to her as a central location to coordinate everything ops had to do was important…but not an argument she was ready to have.
She did find an empty room she appropriated. Then she took a day to mark it as hers in the computer and set it up with everything she'd need for an office and dance studio. Desk. Table. Two chairs. View screen for her computer that could double as a mirror. Shelves for equipment storage. A pair of curtains to cover them when she used the room for her dance studio. It would do.
That night, she slipped back into her new office and set up her studio and cameras. She needed this to help her unwind and to work out some of her tight muscles. And she needed to escape for a few hours.
She locked the door and changed into her dance outfit. It was cut high on the sides and low on the back, covering just enough to keep her mostly modest—if she was careful—and began her warm-up routine.
When she finished, she ran through several of her burlesque routines, then turned on the lights and cameras to record her practice session and mark her progress.
The idea behind the burlesque dances was to titillate. To make it look like she was naked without actually showing that she wasn't. That took a lot more practice than the dance moves themselves.
She began with "Let Me Entertain You" and went, one by one, through her repertoire. Each number was a little different. Twice she changed the color of her headpiece and fans for variety. When an hour had passed, she paused, wondering if she should start something new or end there. It was a decent workout, and she'd remembered the moves with only a bobble or two.
Then she decided to try something new. "Computer, add black lights and pick a random song." She hadn't tried improvising before. It would be an interesting experiment to see if she could improvise on the fly and still remain modest. Or appear to remain modest.
In some of the old routines she'd seen, the dancers interacted with the audience. She wasn't ready to do that, but there was something she could try, just to see if it would work or not.
In a carefully practiced alto voice that sounded nothing like her usual one, she whispered to the camera, "Rhu, this one's for you." She hadn't tried speaking before, but she hoped the voice was different enough.
Kat turned her back to the cameras and mirror. It was then that she felt an itch on the back of her right shoulder. She shimmied to get rid of it and posed. When the strains of an old earth theme song begin to play, she began to dance. At first, she went through a few standard moves: exposing a leg. Fluttering a fan. Wrapping both fans around herself and spinning. Then she relaxed and let the music dictate her moves. Only at the end did she recognized the theme song. The theme to the Pink Panther.
She finished the dance with her back to the mirror, her two fans behind her like a feathery tail that shimmied as she walked away. Just before she got to the curtain, she turned to the camera and blew a kiss.
What she didn't notice was that there was a tattoo on the back of her right shoulder with a hologram of a pink panther. It was wiggling its backside and flicking its tail in tune with the music as she walked off stage.
It was only as she sat in front of the mirror and watched the replay of her rehearsal that she noticed the panther. She turned to look at her shoulder, but couldn't see from that position if she had a tattoo or not. She shouldn't. At least, she'd never gotten one. She'd thought of it a time or two, but that was as far as it went. Still wearing her dance costume, she went up to the mirror and turned around. then held up her PADD to look at the live feed. There was definitely something there on her right shoulder blade, but it wasn't a pink panther. It was a glass slipper and a rose. Odd. But, at the same time, she liked it. She'd figure out where it came from at some point, but for now, it made her smile.
"Computer, save recording and archive it in my personal file. Davi Dances 22792."
"Acknowledged."
Humming the Pink Panther theme, she changed back into her regular clothes, packed her costume and feathers in their bags, and headed back to her quarters to shower and get some sleep.
A post by
Lieutenant Katya Davi
Chief Operations Officer and Secret Burlesque Dancer
USS Valiant
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