As for Michael, he was never one to embrace destiny, but his quest to find the truth, and to find his home led him back to Isabel time and time again. And in time, not very much time, I might add, Isabel came to love Michael, I think. My ego tells me that he’s not in love with her, and that secretly his heart’s desire is still me, but deep down I know the truth. And as for me, I let Michael go. It’s like that old song that wasn’t even good the first time: "If you love someone, set them free."

Alex and I don’t really keep in touch, mostly at his behest, but I know he really beat himself up after Isabel left, and the last I’d heard, he’d finally settled down to be roommates with Kyle Valenti about a year or so ago. How conveniently everyone had managed to pair off. Everyone but me, I thought grimly.

So that was how it was that I happened to be at the supermarket shopping for dinner to cook for another one of the losers in my string of worthless boyfriends. That’s the day Max Evans changed my life. Oh, don’t misunderstand, he didn’t come in and grandly save my life from a gunshot wound, or the big alien invasion or anything as dramatic as that. He just managed, quite possibly by accident, to maneuver his shopping cart into mine on the condiment aisle. I was looking for ketchup, he for Tabasco—pretty banal shopping for a day of life changeage.

When I looked up into his solemn face, it’s almost as if I didn’t recognize him. And then I noticed how deeply he was staring into my eyes. I realized with a delayed shock, that my cunt was on fire. I sucked in a breath to ease the aching of the pounding of blood in my brain. The fiery sensation spread through my belly and up to my tits, making them heavy and warm. My nipples strained against my bra, and Max’s eyes shifted down to take in my heady appearance. I might as well have had a flashing neon "Sex" on my forehead, for as subtle as I was being.

"Maria!" Max’s voice was too sharp, too loud for my ringing ears. I could now hear the blood rushing to my brain, and I flushed red. Tess came whizzing around the corner of the aisle like someone had lit a fire under her ass. I wondered idly if anyone had ever passed out from being horny, but when I saw Tess I deflated as quickly as my last date.

Her arm slid possessively into his.

"Max," I replied. Cool, totally cool. Who in God’s name was I kidding? I was so horny I was about to start humping his leg.

"Maxie," Tess purred, shooting a sideways glance at me, but not speaking. "The Morris birthday party starts at five." Well, now that pissed me off. She didn’t even acknowledge me…me, the horny woman drooling over her husband. Okay, I guess I don’t have a leg to stand on.

"Go pick up the ginger ale for the punch then, and I’ll be right along."

"But Max…" she protested.

"Go on, Tess," he ordered, easily. "You don’t need my help to pick out soda."

Tess, zero; horny women everywhere, one. Tess took the cart and went around the next aisle.

"She’s been driving me nuts today," he admitted quietly, as soon as we were alone. Well, as alone as we were going to get with Tess straining to hear from the next aisle over.

"Alien PMS?" I retorted, my voice low.

"She’s a bitch," Max finally sighed.

"Max," I said quietly. I gently reached up to touch his hair. I lightened the mood. "Maxie." Max rolled his eyes. We heard Tess banging the cart purposefully in the next aisle. "She’s really got the subtly act down," I said coolly, and Max grinned.

"Meet me," he insisted quietly, and I realize he had spoken to me. I must be staring.

"When?" I replied, without thinking. Consequences, consequences.

"Tonight at ten o’clock. The old town square."

"I’ll be there," I agreed in a hushed whisper. I would deny him nothing. As he is about to go, he bends down to the bottom shelf for hot sauce, and I see his ass is still perfect. Every dead Greek in heaven is exalting him at this moment, I’m sure. He then brushed past me and pressed against my aching nipples. I gasped, but he pretended not to notice, I guess.

Suddenly ten p.m. seemed to be eons away.

* * *

Driving home, I wondered what in the hell got into me at the grocery store. I mean, I’d always checked Max out in high school—I mean, I always thought Liz was really lucky, but I never really allowed myself to get hot for him or anything. In part, I also realize that Michael was the high school love of my life, and that skews one’s visions, always, at least to some extent. Max was far finer than Michael any day of the week, but Max didn’t have the quirky meanness that I’d been so attracted to at the time.

Now, seeing him, so desperately unavailable, I was drawn. I didn’t even like Tess in high school, not just because she intruded, and threw our whole group dynamic off its axis, but…no, I guess that pretty much sums up the reason I hate Tess. But now I loathe her, despise her and would kill to be in her shoes. Or preferably out of her shoes. Out of any clothes at all. In bed with Max. Stop it, Maria, stop it! I command myself.

Mentally, I undress Max. I began with his big feet and up his muscled calves to his tanned thighs and enormous, aching, cock. I moved up to his thin, washboard abdomen and count his ribs up to his nubby nipples and hairless chest. My eyes drifted down his strong, muscular arms and large hands. My gaze drifted back to his cock, but I forced myself to continue my inventory. I perused his strong neck and thick, dark hair, my eyes glued to his dark ones, seeing the passion swirling there.

Suddenly he’s touching himself, unconcerned of my presence. He’s stroking the underside of his shaft, making a fist and allowing his cock to slide in between his fingers. Two jerks and he’s established a rhythm, slow but heating up fast like the hot Latin beats I like to dance to when I’m cleaning my house alone. He’s now moving in a virtual frenzy, moaning, tossing his head about and he’s spurting, shooting, coming all over the place, and so, so beautiful and I just ran a fucking stop sign!

I slowed down and forced myself to concentrate on the road. I shook myself and squirmed, realizing I am soaking wet and still ten minutes from my home. I sighed heavily and resigned to driving the rest of the way home very, very aroused.

* * *

At five minutes after ten, Maria ambled up the sidewalk to sit beside me on the hard stone bench. I shifted so my cock would have room to grow in my pants without rubbing against the cold cement. She’s wearing tight black leather pants and a royal blue angora top, and briefly I recognized the fabrics no more went together than a whore does at a society luncheon—but I didn’t dwell on that, and instead I strained my eyes to see down her blouse.

Her breasts were creamy-colored and aching to burst free of the confines of the collar of that sweater. Her hair, long and blond, swept past her shoulders, and she has it pinned back from her face so her rosy cheeks could be seen, and appreciated. They looked as round and ripe as apples for the plucking and it suddenly occurred to me that my cock was wildly out of control. It’s straining, and she’s gazing at the front of my khaki shorts with wide, shocked eyes.

I shifted, and tried not to bring any more attention to my pants, so I patted the seat beside me. She sat down next to me. I think she’s embarrassed, because she went straight to the formalities.

"How is Michael?" she asked.

"Fine," I replied, coughing lightly. "He and Isabel are fine. She’s uh, expecting."

"Oh," Maria looked crestfallen, and that is why I moved to put my arm around her. I think she felt suffocated then, looking at the truth. She got up and moved to stand by the fountain. "And how is Tess? Will we see a junior version of you any time soon?"

"No," I answered. "I make her take birth control. God forbid we ever see a junior version of *her.*" She laughed lightly, and moved back towards me. I am delighted by this new development.

"Max, why did you really want me to meet you?" she asked honestly. "Surely it wasn’t just to stare at my tits in the dark all night."

"I guess I just wanted to remember."

Maria paused. "Sometimes I miss Liz so bad it aches, Max. It’s okay to miss her, and to still love her. I mean, I do. We all do, and will," she replies. Somehow hearing this makes me feel a little better about all the pining I do. I guess in a small way, I felt guilty for not giving Tess the life I promised her when I agreed to marry her, but in another way, I felt horribly resentful towards her for draining the best years of my life out of me.

She cocked her head, and so I took the opportunity, and answered. "I will always love Liz, but Liz isn’t who is here now. Liz isn’t my desire," I responded huskily. I could see my words were having the planned effect. Maria eased down on the other end of the bench, and she sighed heavily.

From the bar across the street, they cranked up the music. I strained to recognize the tune, and eventually realized it was a very old song that I’ve heard before. "Why Can’t I Fall in Love?" Its heady, rich, sexy sound made me want to pull the little ticking time bomb of lust beside me into my arms and grind against her shamelessly.

"I’m so sick of being unhappy," I finally admitted as Ivan Neville crooned to a hundred drunken patrons of Roswell’s only really sleazy bar.

I know she’s out there waiting
I know it’s time…
Why can’t I fall in love?

Well, that seemed to be the question of the evening. And lucky me, I think I knew who had the answer. Maria touched my arm, and sparks erupt as she caught visions of the dark fantasies I’ve been having since I ran into her this afternoon. She groaned as she saw the latest, me completely naked, humping her luscious, naked ass into the bench beneath us.

"You have to stop this," she managed in a choked whisper.

"I can’t, Maria. I won’t," I finally narrowed down our options, and she seemed to accept this silently. I can’t believe that I, sweet, solemn Max Evans is propositioning one of my best friends in the world.

"My house is only a five minute drive," she consulted her watch. "Meet me there." She walked away, shaking her ass, now knowing I’m watching. I restrained myself from chasing after her. Instead, I hurried towards my car and followed hers around the square towards the city’s biggest subdivision. She lives just four blocks from where I used to live. Getting out of our cars, I appraised her home as I appraised her.

Together, we hurried up the sidewalk, for it has now begun to rain. Together, we shook off the droplets and the air sizzled between us, now void of any alien intervention.

She made us drinks, then escaped to the bathroom, and when she came out, she was naked, gloriously naked.

God, oh, God. If I had to thank you for everything tonight, I’d never finish. I realized, almost as if I was outside of my own body, that I was stripping and following her to the bedroom. I was down to my socks, which I leaned against her doorframe to remove. She was splayed out on the bed, her hair fanned out behind her head, like a blessed, naked angel. She wrapped the sheet demurely around her waist, but I didn’t let her cover her hot body. I was on top of her in an instant, tearing the sheet away, sitting above her on my haunches, giving careful evaluation of the writhing mass of gorgeous beneath me. My fully erect cock brushed against one of her stiff nipples, and I thought that for a moment she was going to come without me even touching her.

Her cheeks were now impossibly red, flushed with the heat of impending lovemaking. Her breasts were swelling, rippling underneath my heated gaze, and her nipples were aching, begging to be touched. Her hard, flat tummy led way to her thighs, and I slipped back in order to view her swollen lips and flushed sex. Her legs spread beneath me and suddenly I was between them, surging inside of her. She moaned beneath me, and I spread her legs wider, bringing them over my shoulders. I grasped a nipple between my teeth and plunged into her once again. Her head could not sink into her pillow any further, and she let out a scream of pleasure I’ve never heard before. Not from Liz, not from Tess…Maria was desire personified.

Her eyes fluttered open, and shut, struggling to stay open, struggling to watch me come. The pleasure proved too unbearable, and she squeezed her eyes shut as her muscles clamped me like a vise and she came powerfully, arching off the bed to meet my chest with hers, a feat in flexibility.

Suddenly, as if renewed, she was matching me stroke for stroke beneath me, and as she crested the orgasmic wave once again, I met her and followed her into bliss.

As we lay together, I realized we don’t feel uncomfortable at all, as most people do after casual sex. The real shock to me was that maybe this wasn’t casual sex. For whom? For her? Surely it was for me…or was it?

She snuggled up next to me, and I found myself waiting until she was asleep before I removed myself to get dressed and go home. As I looked back to her angelic body, I realized she was smiling, and I smiled, knowing I’ve made her happy.