Come as he came, learning to loathe him as she stared at the swirling pattern of dark, fine hair on the inside of his thigh, and wondered if it would be worth everything to bit down, hard, and watch the blood spurt down his reclining leg.

She had hairless white arms that he could crush to bruises between his calloused hands, weak, useless fists that he could curl in his and pin over her head while he lowered down on her like a lead shield.

It took her a while to get over the scream that rose in her throat, knowing that it would only make him more excited, and just sit, lean, lay back silently while she did what she had to do, was done upon, and memorized the cracks in the yellow-tinged ceiling. The lazy weight of his hips against hers was nothing but numb, she could disconnect it from the rest of her body. If he didn't like it, tough shit, she figured- no one ever said she had to smile.

His body wasn't flabby at all, wiry and hard, which almost made it worse. He had scars across his chest that he swore, with an erstwhile smile, had come from Western-style duels, fond reminders of his lockin' up the baddies.

It was his smell, that horrible mixture of sweat and sex and strong, musky cologne, that made her gag before he touched her, that she couldn't get off her body afterwards, even when she wanted to throw her body in the wash with the sheets.

Machine wash, tumble. Dry with like colors.

This is wrong, she used to chant in her head. Wrong, bad, wrong, bad.

It amused her, when he was on top of her, with his tongue invading her mouth, and everything else, that she could crawl into a small, secret hole in the back of her brain, and evade him. Think of how she could, at any moment, tell someone, and how his life would be ruined.

How three lives would be destroyed fourscore in the process.

So she closed her eyes and stayed in that hole, stretched it into an abyss the size of her frame as he twisted her to pieces, and watched the formless black space contract with her world at every arch of her back.

It was her decision.

She was his hole, *his* secret hiding spot.

Thoughts only went so far.

What was far, far worse was when he was done, and she would just lay there for a second, and he would prop himself up on one arm with a sadistic, proprietary smirk that she would *love* to shoot off his face with the shotgun hanging at his hip-holster over the bedpost. Sweating, even as she shook, in shock, trying to keep him from absorbing into her skin like a deadly toxin, he watched her, and batted at her hair.

Once he called her "Amy", and she sat up.

Pulling the sheets about her breasts with some useless display of dignity and honor, she drew herself up, feeling like her spine was the world's strongest tissue paper, and looked him right in his odd-colored, reptilian eyes.

"I am not my mother" she hissed at him.

He only laughed.

"Hush, Puss" he would drawl languidly, usually while retrieving his Stetson from the nightstand and tilting it onto his head cockily. "Sure you aren't your mother..."

Valenti would then usually pause for dramatic effect.

"...God knows your mother would *never* have done what you just did to me when she was your age."

********************************

"Mom!"

Maria DeLuca came bounding through her front door, bookbag in hand, and peeked her blond head around the corner, into the kitchen. In the shifting afternoon sunlight, the only movement was the lazy sway of the tree on the lawn in the corner of her eye, and further into the house, the living room was dim.

She bit her lip, and stepped in, shedding her shoes and sweater as she grasped the wall with one hand to keep her balance. Scanning the quiet house, she furrowed her eyebrows when she realized she wasn't going to get a response.

"Mom?" she tentatively tried again.

Still no answer.

Maria sighed dramatically, even though she was the only one around to hear, and made her way towards her room, muttering to herself, about how her mother should have been home by that point.

There was a small Post-It note on her bedroom door, right beneath the cluster of painted gold stars and the quilted unicorn her godmother had stitched for her in third grade, the one she couldn't bear to get rid of.

"Three guesses" she muttered.

She snatched in annoyance at the note, and scanned it briefly:

"Honey-

Went for coffee with Jim. Go ahead and start dinner w/o me. Kisses- Me."

Maria pursed her lip in irritation, and wrapped her fingers around her thumbs to keep herself from cursing.

"Thanks a whole lot, Mom" she muttered sarcastically. "Golly gee, I'll be sure to do that."

She clicked on her lamp, and pulled off her tank top, kicked off her skirt. Her uniform was hanging on the door- thank god Mom had, once again, forgotten that she worked Wednesday nights after school.

Well, at least it wouldn't be Maria's special boxed macaroni and cheese for the third time that week.

Willing herself to calm down, she fingered the glass vials in haphazard disorder on her dresser until she found the lavender oil.

"Breathe" Maria said, in a forced monotone. "Your mother's dating life is none of your business."

Her eyes squinted shut.

"Damn aromatherapist" she whispered. "Didn't I *say* that nothing's a substitute for cyprus oil? Nooooo... lavender's just as good. *Sure.*"

She looked in the mirror, tilted her head back until the tiny vetebre crackled, and pulled a brush through her short mess of honey-colored curls until they fell into some semblance of order, and belted her uniform around her waist.

Liz's dad would be mad enough, that she dared to wear the sacred garb outside the Crashdown, she thought ironically. Better save the antennae for work.

Maria kicked one sneaker around the room until she found its mate, and took a second to fasten her aquamarine pendant around her neck. She toyed with it's little blue stone, and it settled in the hollow of her throat.

"Blue for peace. Blue for calm" she intoned.

She examined herself once more in the mirror, as if the tourists would actually care, but fluffed her hair once more, and grabbed her purse from the bed where she had thrown it.

This was good- Liz would be there, and she could pour out the whole, long, sordid story.

*Eww... Mom's with Valenti again!*

It was almost comical, when put that way.

Almost...

"But, uh... not quite" she murmured, talking back to herself.

She had set a beeline for the door, again, when she heard her mother's blithe laughter, and the tinkle of bells that told her Amy DeLuca was home. And not by herself, either.

"Maria?" her mother called.

"I'm here" she replied shortly.

Valenti, hat in hand, stepped in the door. The wide, amused smile he had worn on his sun-weathered face wavered when he saw Maria.

"Hey, honey" Amy enthused, sweeping around her daughter in a whirlwind of scent Maria recognized, with a wave of revulsion, as the "sensual" fragrance from her mother's personal cabinet of emotions-in-a-bottle, and kissed her on the cheek.

"Hi" Maria answered, pulling away with a forced, tight grin. "I'm off to work."

"Maria" Valenti regarded her all of the sudden. She was forced to turn around, and he dipped his head almost imperceivably.

"Sheriff" she managed through between gritted teeth.

"Nice to see you" he said politely, undaunted.

"Yeah" was all she replied, with a shooting glance at her mother so that the steely tension in the room couldn't be more patently obvious. "I really need to go. I'm going to be late."

With that, she rushed out the door, not caring how rude or inconsiderate she looked.

"Fine girl you got there, Amy" she heard Valenti say, with no trace of irony in his voice, as she stalked to the car. "Reminds me a lot of you..."

Maria just rolled her eyes, and jabbed the key in the ignition like it were a deadly weapon.

********************

"And then he, like, tried to say hello to me..." Her eyes opened wide in disgust. "As if, you know, he was trying to impress *me*..."

Liz Parker's face contorted in a very good moue of disgust, and crinkled her nose. Maria basked in the sympathy.

"I mean, it's creepy enough with Valenti around constantly" she confided. "Without him actually speaking to me."

"Do you think his spending so much time with your Mom lately has anything to do with you?" Liz wondered, handing her an armful of ketchup bottles to be stacked in the back room. She managed one free hand to slide the door open, and shut it behind them.

"Like... he's on to the Czechoslovakians, and figures I'm just their nutty interpreter?" Maria guessed.

Liz bit her lip as she started to arrange the bottles by size next to the mustard and relish containers.

"Something... like that" she said.

Maria shivered.

"No, I think it's worse" she murmured. "Much worse."

"How much worse than... that does it get?" Liz fretted, and the fact that she was thinking of Max Evans was splashed all over her dark features.

Maria paused a moment, bottle-cap in hand, her teeth gritted together.

"Pretty bad" she muttered. "I think... I think he and Mom are sleeping together."

"Bad picture" Liz cringed, reaching out in comfort to her friend.

Maria accepted Liz's hand on her shoulder, and looked away.

"I don't think she gets it" she said. "You know, it's "Jim" to her, and he's just the greatest thing since holistic medicine. I'd just *love* to show her the softer side of Valenti..."

"The one who chases innocent people and tries to ruin lives." Liz finished grimly.

"That's the one."

Liz rubbed a soothing circle on her back, and looked down.

"Have you talked to Michael?" she ventured. "I think he and Iz should know..."

"You told Max?" Maria asked her blankly.

Liz turned red.

"I figured it was important" she stuttered. "Especially since..."

Maria felt contrite for snapping at her.

"Sorry" she said. "I just can't take this right now... I mean, they're getting serious, Liz. It was one thing when they were just dating, and all, but now she's with him all the time."

Liz slowly moved across from Maria, and sat on the floor.

"Maria" she ventured. "I think that you just need to stay calm. Freaking out right now... it's a dead giveaway."

Her face must be red, Maria realized. It happened all too easily to her.

"I just can't think about this right now" she announced. "I can't deal with it."

"You can spend the night with me... you know that." Liz offered.

Maria offered her a wan smile.

"It's closing time" she said. "Maybe I'll meet up with you later... I think I'm just going to go for a drive, and clear my head."

Liz smiled at her.

"I'm sure talking to Michael will help" she said simply.

Maria just looked at her.

"That's why you're my best friend, Liz" she sighed. "You just read my mind."

***********************

And it did help.

Twenty minutes later, all she saw was black, and all she felt was him. Eyes screwed shut, her body wedged beneath his on his beat-up couch, with his mouth devouring hers from above, and a simmering heat encasing her from below, arms looped safely around his neck, and his hands on her skin beneath the hem of her shirt, Maria lay her head back and let him kiss her mouth.

Michael groaned, deep in the back of his throat, and she felt the vibration in her mouth, on her chest, through her head. He pressed his lower body against hers, and caught a handful of her curls in between his fingers. The sharp features of his profile were against hers, her mouth and his mouth, and then on her cheek, her chin, the hollow of her throat, and she buried her face in the wild, thick tangle of his hair.

She was breathing hard, and he was panting above her, he moved his other hand from the small of her back to the belt loop of her jeans, and pulled her against him. His breath was hot, and it soaked beneath her skin, and all around her when he found the small spot between her neck and the couch, and covered her.

It had been a long time since she considered that it was an *alien's* tongue through her lips, an *alien's* long, slim hands rubbing her body with his until the friction was so heated and rough that hers writhed in the unbearable warmth, and all she wanted was to rip her clothes off and devour him whole. At the times when all she could feel was his burning exhale, she thought of a cold, blue pool, and his naked body slicing through it.

Because it was Michael.

He pulled away and yanked her up, and she leaned against his shoulder, drawing air into her lungs.

His apartment was dark, and his face was cut up into thin bands of moonlight falling through the blinds in the living room window. She looked up, and his eyes were there, feline, in the shadows, shining iridescently.

"Why did you come here?" he wanted to know.

"Valenti's with my mother" she said softly, pushing one hand against his chest, and laying her cheek on it.

Michael tensed.

"Does she know where you are?" he asked.

"As far as she knows, with Liz" she answered.

Michael sat up, and propped her up, not carelessly, but in concern, and ran one hand through his even-more mussed hair. The plain silver band on his finger caught the half-light and bounced it off the grayish walls. He looked over at her, and his expression burned her more than his fingertips had.

"We should do something" he was saying, drumming his knuckles restlessly against his knee. Maria was gazing right at him, and yet she seemed to go right through him.

"You don't get it..." she insisted. "It's more than just that."

He was surprised.

"What do you mean?" he asked, with uncharacteristic concern.

"Valenti" she said. "I don't know what he wants, Michael, and I'm sure it's not good, but I think it's more than just you and Max and Isabel."

"I doubt that" he responded absently.

He ran his thumb over her upper leg, and she pulled away.

"I didn't come here to talk about Valenti" she said, busily.

"Like hell" Michael said blatantly. "First of all, I think I'm entitled to know, and second, I don't think you would have just blurted it like that if you really didn't want me to know."

"I didn't say I didn't want you to know" she replied, with more venom than she had originally intended. "All I meant was that I just don't want to dwell on the situation at length..."

He didn't believe her for a second.

"All right" Michael said matter-of-factly. "Why did you come over here, then?"

A red face, that hot blush that betrayed her every time, started at her hairline, where the sequined headband was, and trailed down to her toes with his glance. She considered the lavender polish on her nails, and evaded his eye.

"I just... I wanted to see you" she admitted.

For a moment, Michael didn't respond.

"That's good" he said. "But now we have to do something about this."

"No, we don't!" she exclaimed, a thick clot of anger welling in her throat before she could control it. Michael recoiled, just slightly, and Maria found herself fighting back the bobbing lump as she pinched her skirt between her fingertips.

"Can't we just... for a very little while, *not* think about this? Can we do that?" she asked him finally.

"Yeah" he sighed. But I can't just let this go, Maria- Valenti..."

"Shut up" she ordered him, in what wasn't exactly a playful tone, before swinging herself over his lap, and kissing him.

Michael closed his eyes, and wrapped her legs around his waist, twined himself around her, and let that dim haze sink over his mental pictures again, but kept it in the background, even as she pushed him back on the cushion, and attacked him with her mouth.

***********

She couldn't eat lunch with him across from her.

His hat was on the never-used fourth chair, his frame on the seldom-implmented third, and in *her* usual chair (which was sort of anal-retentive when she thought of it, but she was fully ready to rip his head off if he sat there), she dropped the spoon time and again moodily into her bowl of vegetable soup, and tipped the broth back lazily.

He didn't speak over his food. Valenti had table manners, but he concentrated entirely on the mission in front of him, and devoted his attention entirely to the execution of it.

The sheriff ate. Maria played with her meal. Amy glared.

"This is really fabulous, Maria" she said with forced cheer, hoping like hell to break the ice. "Where did you get the recipe?"

"Liz" she said shortly.

"Oh, is it on the menu at the Crashdown?" her mother asked enthusiastically, jumping on any opportunity for conversation like a dog on a bone. "I haven't seen it.."

"No, Mom, it's just something she has on file" she answered through gritted teeth.

Amy pretended to be ambivalent to the bile behind that statement, and turned her attention to their as-yet-silent lunch companion, and began to simper.

Maria's hand stirring the soup grew tense. Wasn't like Mom to act like a freaking idiot. Of course, everything so far in relation to that whole *thing* defied normalcy.

She wasn't paying attention, and she sent a spoonful of broth flying, complete with sliced carrot in the midst of it... and splattered it all over Valenti's shirtfront.

"I'm sorry" she said quickly.

Amy had stood up, her face ashen with rage.

"Maria!" she cried.

"I didn't mean it" she insisted, knowing that there was no way she was going to believe her.

"Sure" Amy hissed. To the sheriff, she redfacedly offered him a napkin. "Let me clean that off for you.."

"It's OK, really" he insisted oilily. "I don't think she did it on purpose."

"It doesn't matter..." Amy went to say.

"He doesn't need to defend me" Maria muttered. "What is it, you don't believe *me*?"

But she had already gone to the kitchen to get a soapy cloth.

She had left Maria in the room with *him*.

Sighing in exasperation, she threw down her napkin, and went towards sulking in her room, but Valenti's voice at her back stopped her.

"You really should watch your mouth around your mother" he said, in a not necessarily threatening, but still unpleasant tone.

Maria smirked, and turned around, a cool expression of placidness on her face.

"The day you tell me what to do with my mouth" she informed him. "Will be a cold day in Hell."