Disclaimers: This rewriting of the 3rd season Xena episode Fins, Femmes, & Gems contains humorously revolting material of a sexual nature. If you are under 18, don't even think of reading further. This story uses the characters Xena and Gabrielle (and related hangers-on) without permission from MCA/Universal.
The Goddess of Love looks on with maximal grodiness as three intruders barge into her beloved temple. There she is, Miss Hotty Totty, the Warrior Princess. What could Ares see in her, considering she smells like her horse half the time? Accompanying her is her 'faithful sidekick' Gibby Gabby, (Little Miss 'I'm so innocent' -gag me with a love toy-) and the Jerkster. The invisible deity stepped aside as Xena stomped up to her sacrificial offerings.
"Joxer, quit it!" the Bard snips, pushing him away.
"But Gabby..." Joxer whines, "It'll only take a second."
Ignoring him, Gabrielle calls over to Xena, "Xena, what are we looking for again?"
"We're looking for a diamond. An enormous magic diamond. Aphrodite wants to put it in her constellation. We have to stop her."
The Goddess in question adopts an expression of disgust as she watches Xena start flinging her offerings left and right.
"Get off!" Gabrielle snarls as she rebuffs Joxer's attempt to grab her forearm. "And why exactly do we care?!"
"Pardon?" Xena asks, throwing a wicker basket to the floor.
"I said why do we care if she puts a star in her constellation?" the bard repeats. "Aren't there more important things we could be doing?"
"Nope." Xena happily responds. "Trust me, it's a long story. I'll tell you later."
"Gabby..." Joxer wheedles again. The bard's back is turned to the idiot, and Aphrodite notices that he is staring at her bottom with a weaselly leer. The Goddess' eyes narrow to ice.
"What?"
Aphrodite decides to walk over to the bard and the Jerkster. Gabrielle was trying to look at some wall carvings, but Joxer kept bothering her. The Goddess unties a drawstring of an extremely non-stylish pouch she is holding.
"Well.. uh" Joxer hem-haws, unaware that the invisible Goddess is drawing close to him. "Since, you know, you're always telling me to go away and everything, uh, you inspired me to write a new song."
"Alright. Let me hear it." Gabrielle relents. Xena is going to pay for this, she simmers to herself. I wonder if jumping off that cliff again would take me to Illusia. Either way would be preferable right now.
'Dite watches in disbelief as the Jerkster pulls out a kazoo and blows a note. Then he begins:
Aphrodite could barely shake the diamond out of the bag in time. Must hurry before he starts on the second set, the goddess thinks frantically. Holding the invisible gem right in front of Joxer's beady eyes, the Goddess breaks out into a huge smile.
"Zoik!!" Joxer gulps, blinking for a moment.
"Are you alright?" Gabrielle asks, looking up at him strangely. (For the seventh time today.)
"Must go... where needed..." Joxer says slowly, turning away from her. "Must go... very far from here..."
Gabrielle watches him walk back out of the temple, and shrugs. She looks over at Xena, but she is searching behind a statue, and doesn't see him go. Gabrielle turns back to the carvings on the wall.
"That's not humanly possible." she wonders aloud, looking over a depiction of a writhingly-entwined couple.
"Oh, yes it is." Xena remarks from across the room, and then goes back to her searching.
Gabrielle squints at the depictions, trying to imagine Xena doing this with one of her past lovers. She shivers.
The Goddess holds the diamond up in front of the bard. "And this is for breaking your promise never to bring that idiot into one of my temples again."
The carving on the wall seems to sparkle for a moment to Gabrielle, but then she recovers. Looking at the carving again, a huge grin breaks out on her face.
Aphrodite turns to the sound of something valuable breaking. Clumsy Xena has knocked over a marble podium, and shattered what was on it. "Not my chalice from Trallus!" she burns.
Xena stops in front of a basket of fruit, and begins pushing through the contents to the bottom.
"Twinkle Twinkle Little Xena, here's how you should be conceited!" Dite sings as she waggles the gem under the nose of the Warrior Princess.
Xena stops in her task, and stares at her hand for a moment. Carefully setting the peaches back inside, she lifts up the entire basket and stares at it, entranced.
"Hee Hnnn!!" The Goddess giggles, immensely pleased with herself. "My work here is done. Now let's go see if we can age Iolaus a few more years-- the fun way!" as she vanishes in a bright flash of divine radiance.
Xena sees the flash appear out of nowhere, but couldn't care less. The apple of her eye was right in front of her, and it was-
"Peaches!" Xena worshipfully intones. "Oh my pretty peaches. Did I bruise you any? I'm so sorry. I would never crush your fair skin, oh no. Your soft, fuzzy skin, how it excites me so... I want to taste you, to bite into you, to feel your salty-sweet tang running down my chin-- Ah, the ecstasy, I can't stand it... But I won't! No... I won't. For I worship you more than life itself. You are my obsession!"
On the other side of the room, Gabrielle had her quill and parchment out, and she was furiously scribbling.
"It is humanly possible! It is!" the bard exults to herself as steamy, forbidden thoughts run through her mind. "Every curve, every limb, must be accurately recorded," she says to herself while drawing, "so that I may know... it. Ah!"
Her drawing complete, Gabrielle walks away from the wall towards the light in the center of the room. Holding it up, she looks at her handiwork, and smiles.
"Oh.... It can be done. In truth, I cannot imagine something so beautiful being possible. It staggers me to think of it. But ohhh..... If I could do this... And other things... Ohhhh... The joy I would feel would shatter the constraints to this petty world, and lift me up to the heights of the Elysian Fields!"
Xena watches Gabrielle do a pirouette under the skylight, and shrugs. She looks at Gabrielle again, this time with new eyes. Now that she thinks about it, how could Gabrielle compare to her peaches? She was so drab, so ordinary, so *there*. Funny, she used to consider the bard pretty. But now she realized that she could never compare to the indescribable perfection that was Peach.
"Gabrielle." Xena walks over, tears forming in her eyes. "I'm so sorry..."
Gabrielle felt Xena's hand touch her shoulder, and the touch jolted through her. She looked at Xena, wondering what was the problem. "What?"
"I'm sorry..." Xena began, struggling for the heart-breaking words. "But I must be honest with you. My heart belongs to another. One... more beautiful. Much more beautiful than you. I'm sorry."
"I'll get over it." Gabrielle shrugs. Then her expression brightens. "Hey. Could I watch? Oh, this is perfect. You've given me an idea."
Gabrielle struggled to contain the waves of desire pouring over her. Xena's touch had sparked something in her. Now she wanted that touch again, wanted to know how it felt, wanted to... write it down!
Hugging her basket against her chest, Xena looks at her as if she were crazy. "Well, we'd better get going. I saw an orchard off in the distance on the way here. We've got to chance it that it's the right one! I pray to the gods it is. The mission depends on it."
"Okay." Gabrielle agrees, flipping her scroll over to begin writing on the other side: Xena tore the green bra off the bard, with all her passions spreading forth like a plague, overrunning her cup of desire, and spreading out like a firestorm of carnal frenzy.
"Why aren't you riding Argo?" Gabrielle asks, as Xena led Argo beside her.
"Riding her might jostle my peaches." Xena seriously explains, holding the basket up with her other hand. "Why?"
"I think you're obsessing over that fruit."
"I am not!" Xena defends, protectively clutching the basket to her. "And it's not just any fruit!" She watches as Gabrielle writes something on her scroll. "What are you writing?"
"I sing the song of Xena..." Gabrielle exults. "The warrior she was, the love bunny she is."
"What?" Xena asks, looking over strangely at the bard. Gabrielle is writing as she walks, a silly grin on her face.
"Nothing."
"What are you writing?" the warrior asks.
"My latest opus." the bard responds haughtily. "This will top anything I've written before. A story of such love-drenched passion, it will set the parchment afire!"
"Whatever happened to accounts of our battles?"
"Boring." the romance writer responds. "There's more to life than just battles."
"Such as?"
"Such as sex!" the bard exclaims, looking down to her scroll again.
Xena releases Argo's bridle and snatches the scroll from the bard. She reads it aloud:
"We did what!" Xena exclaims, her face in shock.
"Neat, huh?" Gabrielle saucily smirks.
"Gabrielle, that-that's the most disgusting thing I've ever read!"
"You think I should have gone with a fist, instead?"
"Ah-Ah What?! We never did that!"
"But we could. And notice how delicately I wrote it, too." the bard innocently responds.
"No we couldn't!"
"And why not?" the bard asks, a puzzled expression on her face.
"W-Why not?! How can you ask me that? How can you even be thinking that??!"
"You won't know until you try." Gabrielle insists, seemingly unbothered by Xena's reaction.
"Well, two reasons:" Xena attempts to continue. Gabrielle was acting really weird, and she didn't like it. "First, I already had a baby, and have no desire to repeat a similar passing anytime soon, and second well, I've seen how often you wash your feet."
"There's nothing wrong with my feet!" the writer hotly responds. Then she gets a peculiar expression. Feets... Fetish... Fetishes!
"Well, I've never seen this side of you before. You're giving me the creeps."
"Oh, like you'd come up with a better story!" the bard grins, nodding her head.
"Look, I'll help you write something better... later..." Xena trails off, as her nose detects the scent of something. Something perfect.
Turning from the sex-addict who has seemingly taken the place of her bard, Xena gasps as she takes in the view. There it is... the grove of her dreams... An orchard of peaches! Ignoring everything else, Xena runs like a carefree girl into the orchard.
Xena spins in an arc of ecstasy, with peach trees surrounding her on all sides. Each tree is bedecked with a dozen or more ripe peaches. Looking into her basket, she gives a whoop for joy and sits down against a trunk.
Gabrielle has followed her, and decides to sit down against a tree opposite from Xena. She rummages through her pack for her choicest writing supplies.
Xena holds up one of her purloined peaches, eyeing it with desire.
"A-Omphff." Xena takes the entire peach into her mouth.
"-Swish swish swish swish swish-", her cheeks puckering back and forth.
"-Ptooie!-"
"Oww!" Gabrielle cries with exaggeration as the peach pit bounces off her head. "Quit it!"
"Sorry." Xena chortles between gulps of peach pulp. "Couldn't help it."
Although inspired by the muse, Gabrielle puts down her quill with a mighty effort and watches Xena eat peach after peach after peach.
"You're going to be sick." Gabrielle warns, as Xena lifts up her 12th peach.
"-Mmmphf!-" Xena tries to talk as she bites into the new one. "J-tust one morf!"
Gabrielle watches Xena eat the pulp away from the fruit. Then she erotically licks every shred of pulp and juice from the pit.
"Ohhh.... I think I am sated for the moment, my love..." Xena croons to the pit, before pitching it onto the pile with the others.
Gabrielle tries to begin writing again, but Xena interrupts her thoughts.
"Gabrielle," Xena slurs, swallowing the rest of her fruit. "did you know that every peach is made up of millions of tiny orgasms?"
"You mean organisms."
"No, I mean orgasms." Xena sighs contentedly, wiping the remaining juice from her lips and sucking her finger.
"Xena?" the bard asks, taking up her quill. "You said you were going to help me write my story."
"Oh yeah..." Xena remarks, idly holding up the last peach from the basket. Her eyes focus on it with beseeching love:
"How may I describe the devotion that is mine, to this, the most succulent of tender flesh? She is my peach. My... tender stuff. Oh, how lovely is this, the soft curve of the nub of skin, which curves downward to the delights within... Touch the soft fur, the golden shade of peachy fuzz that is so delicate, so soft, and yet so inviting. How I long to run my fingers along its velvety texture..."
"Wow, this is good!" Gabrielle remarks, struggling to write as quickly as the words come out of Xena. Xena had never before shown any aptitude for flights of whimsy. Gods, this was really turning her on.
Xena's gaze meets the bard's. "So tasteful... So tempting is the peach fur, that I am tempted to dwell on it alone for days... How exquisite is its beauty. I know that whenever I feel lonely, feel needful, I only need reach out to that tempestuous fuzzy peach, and I will be comforted, and content. It's all I want to hold, to touch, to have. This beautiful thing can only have one name..."
"Oh, Xena. Stop!" Gabrielle blushes, waving at the sentimental warrior.
"My peach, of course." Xena concludes, holding up her precious fruit to gaze at it better.
"Humphf!" Gabrielle grumps, making a face. She returns to writing her parchment, mouthing some comments best left silent. "Go on."
"I contemplate the beautiful crack which curves from the top and descends downward, down to the forbidden delights within. Dare I part this delicate lining? Dare I induce the precious juices within to pool and issue forth? Yes, yes I do, for I yearn to taste the essence within the peach, to brush the soft inner tissues with my tongue, to feel its silky texture, and induce the nectar to come to me. Come to me! Come to me, the taste of the innermost essence that I treasure so. Ohhh... To taste the moisture within, and command it to come forth to my waiting mouth. Truly there is no greater ecstasy than this..."
"By 'Dite's bosom!" Gabrielle swears, shaking her head as she feels herself flush. "This is too much. I've got to keep writing, or I'll just burst! Please Xena, more. Xena?"
It is then that the bard notices that Xena has fallen fast asleep, her fruit clasped to her bosom.
"Fine." Gabrielle sighs. "I can write this without you."
Xena awoke from the close of a wonderful dream, and batted awake her eyes to fix on the bard. Gabrielle's quill was at her side, she had fallen asleep too. Xena carefully got up silently so as not to awake the sleeping bard, and walked over to see what she had been writing.
Xena picks up the parchment and reads it:
Oh my gods, Xena thinks. My poor Gabrielle. You've really gone off the deep end of the whirlpool, haven't you? She continued reading:
Gagh! Xena shudders. I'm having sex with her thigh now? This is just too much.
Ummph, Xena almost chokes in reading it. Now she's turned me into a slug! Should I get some salt?
Xena struggles mightily not to burst out laughing. Now I'm making a sandwich! Oh Gods... Should I open a delicatessen? I must not start laughing.
By Poseidon's lipid loins! Xena chuckles to herself at the bard's inventiveness. If she really did all this, she'd die of dehydration before we were done.
Xena shakes her head for a moment, and then reaches down to take the bard's quill. I can give this story a better ending.
Xena watches carefully from the side as Gabrielle slowly wakes up. She bites down a grin as she watches the bard take up her ever-present scroll to review it. It's funny how she won't put that thing down, the warrior muses to herself, inspecting the peach she is holding distractedly. Then she looks back to Gabrielle, whose face crinkles into a frown.
"Who finished my story!!" the bard exclaims. The last time Xena had seen this expression on her was when she had used a bit of her scroll when nature called.
"I did." Xena coolly responds. "I thought it was too serious. A little humor never hurt a story."
"A little humor??" the bard huffs. She lifts up the scroll to read Xena's writing aloud:
Gabrielle looked angrily at Xena, who was doubled over now with silent laughter, although it appeared she could not keep silent for long. Gabrielle continued:
"Ha Ha Hah Hah! Ahh Hah Hah Hah Hah!!" Xena busts out laughing, finding the bard's wounded expression all the funnier.
"How dare you laugh at my writing!" Gabrielle steams at the laughing warrior. She resumes:
"This is the stupidest story I've ever read." Gabrielle simmers.
"It's the second stupidest story I've ever read."
"Ha Ha. Very funny." Gabrielle responds. She continues:
"You..." Gabrielle began, an insult on her lips. Then her expression fell, and she crumpled to the ground, sobbing.
Xena stopped laughing, as she took in the bard's reaction. She didn't realize just how much her writing had hurt the bard. She watches in amazement as Gabrielle bawls her eyes out, her head slumped against the rough tree bark. How strange, Xena considers to herself. It is as if she were so obsessed about her writings, that any criticism... Hey, wait a minute.
"Gabrielle, wait!" Xena excitedly calls out to her. "I know now what's going on. I know what your obsession is! It must be a spell of Aphrodite."
"Me? You're the one that's obsessing!" the bard says between sniffles.
"I am not. What about?"
"Peaches." the bard responds with puffy eyes, gesturing at all the peach pits.
"But why..." Xena trails off, now thinking about it for the first time today. Why were peaches so fascinating to her? What did they remind her of? Then her gaze trailed down to the bard's raised legs, to her skirt, and the light-hued underwear she could just barely see beneath.
"Fuzzy... Peach-colored... Indescribably delicious..." Xena intones, kneeling down before the bard. She puts her hand just below the bard's belt, on her skirt. "My obsession. The thing I love most."
"Your obsession?" Gabrielle asks skeptically.
A light seems to flash over Xena's eyes, and in that moment, she realizes that she is herself again.
"You've made a big mistake!" Joxer yells through the bars of his new cell. He'd only been there for two minutes, and was already feeling claustrophobic. He hoped Xena would pick up the trail and come to his rescue.
Suddenly a figure stumbles against him, and Joxer smells the stench of beer and other things from him.
"Ugh!" Joxer grimaces, shoving him away.
The sot staggers back, but doesn't fall. Instead, he totters unsteadily and then grabs Joxer by the shoulder.
"Ey! You wanta fight me buddy?" the drunkard bellows.
"Get away from me!" Joxer yells, shoving him away again.
The drunkard sidles up close to him again, pointing his finger across Joxer's face.
"There's me buddy!"
Joxer turns his head to look, and a rough-looking man comes walking up. He reaches up to a patch of armor on Joxer's chest, and begins stroking it.
"Don't you just love the way leather feels across your body?"
Joxer's eyes go wide. "LET ME OUTTA HERE!! LET ME OUT!! XENA! GABBY!! SOMEONE!!! HELP!!!!"
"Gabrielle! That's it!" Xena exclaims, grabbing the bard by her shoulders. "We can overcome our obsessions."
"How?" Gabrielle asks, although 'Why?' comes to mind first.
"By looking within ourselves for the true answer." Xena hurriedly explains. "I realized that my love of peaches was the personification of the love I feel for a person. A certain person."
"Really?" Gabrielle says, tapping her quill to her chin in thought. "Let's see... I love sex. I can't get enough of it. What does that mean?"
"That's not what you've been doing, Gabrielle. Think!" Xena insists.
Gabrielle slips away from her grasp and gets up. "I don't understand... sex is everything to me, it's all that matters. No, wait a minute. It's not sex itself I've been focusing on... Let me think... It's depictions of sex, stories of sex. Stories about other people having sex. Not me. That's what I've been obsessing about!"
Xena watches as a sort of light seems to pass over Gabrielle's eyes, replaced by an expression of relief.
"I realize now what it means." Gabrielle enthuses, taking Xena by the hands. "It was you. I was jealous. Jealous of all your sexual adventures... All your past lovers. I wanted to capture what it was like for them, to know what it was like for them... to be with you."
"And I wanted my perfect peach." Xena responds wistfully. "So soft and perfect, so everything I've ever wanted. You. It was you. You are what I've wanted all along."
"And I you." Gabrielle whispers, looking soulfully into her eyes.
Xena leans forward impulsively to kiss Gabrielle, and when she does, the taste is sweeter than she could possibly imagine. Gabrielle feels the world falling away from her for a time, and then, too soon, the warrior breaks contact.
"Remember what you were asking before about that wall carving?" Xena asks with a smile.
"You mean..."
"Yes." Xena finishes. "It isn't humanly possible. That's the whole point. The fun is in trying."
This time it is Gabrielle who embraces Xena in a passionate kiss, sweeping her arms around the one thing in the world worth obsessing about.
Aphrodite peeks from around the closest tree, and grins. Everything went just as planned. "Rift that, Ares." she observes, disappearing to leave the lovers to their passion.
Xena catches the flash out of the corner of her eye, as Gabrielle ravishes her collarbone with kisses. She allows herself a small, knowing smile. You're not the only one who can make deals with the gods, Gabrielle.
Gabrielle slumps off of Xena's nude body, and lays back on the cool grass to look up at the starry firmament above.
"Xena?" she asks, panting.
"Hmmmm?"
"You remember that technique that Lao Ma used to mend your legs?"
"Yes. What about it?" Xena asks wonderingly.
"I'm gonna need it to be able to walk again."
"I figured." Xena coolly notes, casually stretching her arms behind her head. She watched a shooting star flick across the heavens, to take its position in the Goddess of Love's constellation.
"Xena..." Gabrielle sighs. Even getting words out was difficult, from the wave she was still riding. "Why haven't we ever done this before?"
"I think it's obvious."
"Enlighten me." the bard prompts.
"Do you think you could take on a dozen thugs with your staff right now?"
"I couldn't take on Salmoneus right now." the bard exhales loudly.
"There's your answer."
"Oh."
Silence for several moments.
"Gabrielle?"
"What?"
"I'm hungry again."
"Xena, no. Please. Have some compassion."
Xena scuttled her way past Gabrielle's waist, eliciting a sigh of torment from the naked bard.
"I am not a peach!"