(Spoilers for Cat and Mouse, Rated Mature Content)

It was one of those day when the old saying would have been quite true. I should have stayed in bed. I had been fighting a cold for days. My head hurt, my sinuses ached, my throat felt like I'd swallowed a razor blade. Then got period cramps on top of it. I felt like crap. I would have called in sick like any normal person with a job. I don't recall anyone ever calling in sick at Section. "Josephine? Oh, hi, Michael. I won't be in today cause I've got this rotten cold and my period" Oh, yeah.

I started coughing during the briefing. My eyes were running and Operations was droning on and on. It's hard enough to listen to Operations drone when you're feeling chipper. When your ovaries feel like two big hot rocks in your belly and your head aches, it's hell on earth.

That was when Michael surprised me. He came up to me after the briefing with what one could almost call concern in his eyes and asked if I was feeling okay. Maybe I should scrub my place in the mission. Pardonez moi, Michael? You're going to let me off for a piddley cold? I think I gave him a stunned look. I may have been a little brusque in my reply but I've been bleeding from head wounds before and the man never asked how I was. As a matter of fact he's hardly spoken to me in weeks after that wedding mission in France. And all I'd done lately was think about him. I took one of those cold preparations one night and my dreams were like erotic excursions. Me undressing Michael inch by sexy inch. Me kissing his body inch by sexy inch. Michael in a hammock in the jungle in the pouring rain. Me in the hammock with Michael I didn't want to wake up. When I did wake I was in a fever sweat and the bed felt like it was rocking from side to side.

Yea, I thought to myself, he's being really nice for a change. Asking after my health. He'll probably ask me for a date now. Maybe even want to sleep with me, just my luck. No, Nik, I tell myself, you're never that lucky. Life just always has a way of screwing me when it comes to Michael.

Yep. Screwing. I was to think a lot about screwing in the next few days.

At any rate I didn't accept his offer of letting me go back home and crawl into bed. I had to be tough. I told him I'd be fine. I could do my job. It was a matter of pride. Keeping up with the big boys. Maybe he'd had a premonition, I don't know. I should have gone home and climbed into bed with a bottle of Nyquil and a good book. I am such an idiot.

By now I'm sure you'll realise that I get out of this dilemma. I mean, I'm here scratching this out in my journal. I must be okay, right? It wasn't pretty though. I remember sitting on the cold cement floor, looking up and wishing that Michael would come tearing through the window to save me, Like Errol Flynn or Tyrone Power, his hair flying in the breeze, his teeth flashing, his saber at the ready. As it turns out I do get rescued, but Michael's sabre was occupied elsewhere.

I think that my first recollection of the mission going bad and being abducted was waking up on the hard floor in the body bag. I don't remember going down. I thought at first that I was having one of those nightmares that you can't wake up from. Every bone in my body was aching and freezing and I could barely breath. I knew I'd been compromised and I was terrified. And then I saw him. The man in the wheelchair. I could never forget that face. I thought I had killed him.

I guess it's hard to keep a good guy down. I have always, not so affectionately, called him the Rat Guy. I will never forget the cages and the rats. He had to have graduated top in the class from the Steven King School of Torture. The memories of that place come back to me often in dreams, but nightmares aren't really of the terror, of the rats gnawing at my nose and cheeks. They're of Michael and his wretched battered face. The way he extended his fingers through the bars to touch my hand. The way he lied to me with tears slipping from those long lashes. It took me a long time to trust him after that. Sometimes the memory comes back again and keeps me from trusting him.

I remember something more about that day though. Something that often comes back to me in snatches before I sleep. The minute that I got shot I remember him crying out in agony. Keening like an animal that had lost it's mate. I remember him lifting me up and carrying me and saying like a litany. " Don't die, Kita. Don't die. Stay with me love . . ." He was kissing my cheek and his tears slipped down my neck I don't know if I imagined it, even to this day.

I think I read too many hokey novels.

The Rat Guy tied me to a long leash in the middle of the room. I remember listening to the hum of his wheelchair, feeling a little bit guilty because I had put him there. It is not a nice thought, having incapacitated someone, even if he's the scum of the earth. I can remember that Tears for Fears song repeating over and over in my head every time he made another circle around me: " Every body wants to rule the world . . ." I'd heard it just that morning on the way to work. I'd been singing along in my loudest Piss on you, no one can hear me anyway car voice, which I do quite often. Lucky thing I have those blackened windows. I think of myself as just another commuter on a date with destiny.

I watched him circle me like a demented John Wayne around a chuck wagon and it became his song. It's a thing I do when I can't sleep or when I'm bored and just waiting. I assign a movie, a song and a book that fits a particular person. The first one I ever assigned was with Walter as I stood around with my arms over my head waiting for him the attach a wire to my back. Walter was easy. Song: anything by Jimi Hendrix or the Doors, book: anything by Kerouak or Hunter S. Thompson, and movie: The Wild Ones. Or Easy Rider. I remember the cold damp of the cement floor working its way up my aching butt and wondering if my Tampax was going to hold out, trying to assign Rat Guy a movie. I would have chosen Ben but that would have been obvious. I had to think about it. Once I met Abby, The Bride Of Frankenstein became the obvious choice.

It was not funny but I felt like laughing sitting there like a dog on a tether. I was waiting for something interesting, maybe more swinging cages and rats. I really hoped he'd gotten past all that juvenile stuff but with this leash thing I really had to wonder. I really hated the rats and their sharp little teeth, the sounds of panic that they made as they scrambled away from the fire, towards my face. I remember thinking as they bit me that it could be worse. It could have been birds. With their thrashing wings and their pointy little beaks and claws pecking at you. That would have cracked me. I have never liked birds much. Especially dead ones. Isn't that weird? I think it goes back to when I was a little kid. This older girl, a girl I really admired, worshipped almost, came up to me with this paper bag. She told me to reach in for a surprise. I thought that maybe she liked me, that she was giving me candy. I reached into the bag and closed my hand around a tiny soft body. A little dead sparrow. I remember screaming and screaming, unable to get the feel of the tiny lifeless thing out of my head.

Maybe he had cages with monkeys this time. Those little spider monkeys with their skinny little hands. They could do some serious damage. Hair pulling, sticking their sharp nailed little fingers up my nose. Sorry . . . I'm just kidding about the monkeys here, trying to lighten the mood. Maybe he'd put me in a small room and make me listen to Shania Twain until my ears bled. The birds though . . .

The abuse he'd come up with was a lot more diabolical. It involved this, dare I call her person, named Abby. Abby and Michael. My Michael. I should probably stop calling my jailer the Rat Guy. In my mind he's the Clone Ranger now.

Let me talk about Abby. She looked a lot like me. Right down to the tiniest freckle. It was disconcerting, but not like looking in a mirror. It was weirder than that. I know that I could never be referred to as a bag of doorknobs or anything, but Abbey was too beautiful. It sort of surprised me that I look like that I have this strange sense of who I am and what I'm here on earth for. It isn't just to look good. I don't spend a great deal of time primping and checking to see if my hair is done right. I just don't care about that stuff too much. Not to say I'm not clean. I brush and floss and I shower and bathe. I work out and I take my vitamins. I eat a lot of good food with the exception of one major vice. Chocolate. I love chocolate. Eclairs. Toblerone bars. Ice cream. Mocha coffee.

I thought a lot about lattes with double foam just a sprinkling over cocoa powder as I sat there freezing on that damp floor. Not that the Rat Guy didn't offer me refreshments. He was a very good host all things considered, but the first rule you learn as a hostage, is not to show your weakness. About all I did accept from him was an offer of a bathroom break The operative who looked like a Sear's catalogue model took me to the bathroom on the leash. Gee, that was fun. I asked him if he had a quarter for the Tampax machine. It's a funny thing about men. They have no qualms about shooting someone right between the eyes, but mention your period and they run screaming from the room.

Anyway, like I said before I got on the topic of chocolate, pampering myself just isn't me. I don't cry when I get a zit and I wouldn't freak out about a broken nail. I guess it comes from the years I spent sleeping in cardboard boxes and giving myself an Elvis bath in gas station rest rooms. I'm not very vain. When I look at my face it's just that. A face. Oh, I do see the faults, like the bags under my eyes from not sleeping well. And my bottom teeth are a little bit crooked but they work. And I bite my fingernails sometimes and chide myself for it, but baby, it ain't the end of the world if you leave the house without plucking your eyebrows. Abby, I thought, was more polished looking than me. Almost plastic. And she primped a lot more in the bathroom mirror. And her butt was fatter. I'm convinced of that. Anyway I was quite satisfied that any one of the people at Section would notice that she was not me right off.

I guess I was wrong. Oh, God, how it hurt. Abby was so cold, so distant. Like a Barbie doll in combat boots, a regular Femmebot. I'm never like that. Am I? Why didn't they know?

I thought my heart was going to shrivel up like a raisin when the Rat Guy told me that Abby was to take my place at Section. That Michael's life was in my hands. One screw up and he was dead. The gravity of that was overwhelming. Not Michael. No one would take him from me. No one. It turned me to ice thinking about it. It was hard not to show it in my eyes. I almost did laugh when she started playing with the gun even though she pointed it at him. He would know, I thought, in amazement, if someone aimed a gun at him. He has a sixth sense about those things. He didn't even look up. Maybe at that point he didn't know it wasn't me? Maybe he trusts me that much. Could he trust me enough to let me point a gun right at his head? I don't know. Nice gun, she murmured. I knew then that Abby liked killing. I would not let her kill Michael.

God, I never thought that this was going to be so hard to write about. I want to tear out these pages and never look at them again. I've put this off for days. When I had to make the decision to use Birkoff to get the Clone Ranger the code I wanted to die. Poor little Birky. I almost hoped that he'd blush and make a run for it with his pants around his ankles. I thought they'd just neck for a while but he came on to her like gang busters. The horny little devil. I really didn't know that he had it in him. Thank goodness she'd put her glasses in a position to read the computer codes and not toward the rest bay. Hearing it was bad enough. And I would never say that stuff to anyone, let alone Seymour Birkoff. The moans and the sex words were all her. I felt as if I'd been an accomplice to child molesting. He's like a snotty nosed little computer geek baby brother to me. I knew he had a bit of a crush, but good lord. And if I had to assign him a song of the day, like I did Rat Guy, I think it would be that one from Hot Chocolate: I Believe in Miracles. Yea, Birky. That's what it would take. And your movie? PeeWee's Big Adventure. Your book? Mad magazine. You haven't proved yourself ready for Penthouse.

Enough said about that. I think we're both okay with it now but he still looks at me funny like he's taking my clothes off with his myopic eyes, that little cat with the cream grin on his face. He's going to get popped in the nose for that one of these days. I kind of liked the way Abby was with Operations and Madeline, though. Chilly. I told her to be cool with them, but civil. She took it to a whole other level. I think I could learn a thing or two from Abby's demeanour. She rocked when it came to tweaking the balls of authority. Yea, I told her what to say, but the fact that I was pissed off at them for interrogating me would have been right there on my face for them to see. I can't hide anything. All of the emotions just seem to bubble right up there into my face. Abby was the ice maiden, the one with the reins in that situation and I have to hand it to her for that. I don't know what song I'd assign them, maybe some really dark by Wagner or Orff. Madeline's movie is a toss between Mommy Dearest and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane.

I suppose I've got to write about Abby's encounter with Michael. I've had a lot of time to think about it, a lot of restless nights on the floor waiting until my new bed comes. I didn't have to deliberate too long about using him. I had no other choice. It was the first thing that came into my head when I realised that the Rat Guy was mistaken about us, thinking that we were lovers and all. I knew that I could use it to my advantage but I just didn't know how hard it would actually be. I almost laughed when Michael gave Abby the famous 'look'. The patented Michael blank stare, as I have named it. He's been very much back to his old ways lately. Distant, except for that remark about my cold. I guess I've been a little reserved and remote, too. I don't want to look like I'm pining away for him. We have not been speaking much at all. I almost wonder if he's forgotten about this so-called friendship we're supposed to be forming.

I had this outlandish sense of hope deep inside me all that time I sat there with my knees drawn up to my chin staring at the television monitor. That Michael would take one look at Abby and know that she wasn't me. I mean I'd know him in the pitch dark by his scent, his feel, the way he uses his body, the way he tastes. He has this flavour I can't describe in words. It is dark and smooth and sensual. He's a million and six times more delicious than chocolate. He's Michael. I crave him. His essence is embedded in my soul. He never leaves me. I have spent long nights alone in my bed recalling the most minute details about him, the freckles on his shoulders, the flecks of blue and green in the unsettling icy grey of his eyes. The slight indentation in his rather uncompromising chin. I don't even have a picture of him to stare at. I had this crazy hope that he would know me too. Anywhere.

I almost giggled when the Rat Guy said that you, Michael, must have hidden charms. And then I sobered up thinking that Abby was going to see a lot more of those particular charms than I could hope to.

I was surprised at how fast you said yes to her invitation. You were very cool, but your back was to the camera and I couldn't see your face. I had this secret little wish too, that you didn't really know that she wasn't me yet and that was what you'd been wanting for all along. Just for me to stop you in the corridor, and tell you that I wanted to jump your bones. My place in one hour, Michael. Be there. Maybe I should do that one day.

I watched her come on to you in the apartment hallway, wearing my fabulous new skirt, that is now in the Goodwill box, with the top pulled much lower over her breasts than I would ever dare. I watched her try it on, preening. She wasn't wearing any underwear. And she stretched the buttons on the skirt. They were not supposed to gape like that. So, I was trying very hard to be calm, trying to think of something else so it wouldn't hurt so much.

Do you know what song I have assigned to you, Michael? I kept hearing the same lines over and over as I watched you kiss her, your casual stance there in the open doorway as she greeted you and pressed her anatomically engineered breasts against your chest. " Here comes the rain again . . .falling on my head like a tragedy." In my head I could hear Annie Lennox's powerful, plaintive voice. I wanted her singing to drown out the sound of Abbie's excited whimper as you kissed her, the sound of that catch in your throat, the sound your heart hammering. Maybe it was her heart. Did your heart hammer like that when you kissed me, Michael?

"I want to walk in the open wind, I want to kiss like lovers do, I want to dive into your ocean, Is it raining with you? "

I didn't want to watch but something compelled me. Something ugly. This need to compare myself to her. I was hoping that you'd had garlic for lunch. I was silently uttering a thank you to you for taking off the glasses she wore. But then she had to move them again, probably to taunt me, and I saw more than I wanted to. The Rat Guy kept looking over at me. Almost in sympathy. It was like he wanted me to burst into tears or pull a hissy there on the cement floor. I was thinking about porno movies. My mother had this boyfriend who watched those movies all day on the video recorder. Women making it with the Pizza boy and the UPS man. I remember walking in on this one about a cowboy with a ten gallon hat . . .I will not tell you where he hung his hat. I used to feel dirty just thinking about it. That was degrading. This was worse.

I noticed something, Michael. You were silent. You let her undress you. She undid the buttons on your coat, your shirt. She did it all. When we were together you tore your own clothes off and threw them everywhere. We were frantic. It took us ten minutes to find my panties and your socks. Do you remember that? That memory is so sweet as I think of it now. And you were so quiet with her, Michael. You said nothing. Not a single sigh, not even a moan. When we were together you said lovely things to me, whispered in my ear in French, told me I was enchanting, beautiful, how you loved my breasts and my long hair and my legs. You told me to wrap my legs around you, to kiss you. . .

And it was odd to me, too, how you kept pulling the sheet over to cover the two of you. She was very vocal, urging you on. I told her you liked that. That you liked me to talk dirty to you. I didn't really know if you did like that. I recall being too overwhelmed to speak when you were loving me. I remember something else, Michael, from the two times that you and I were together. I wasn't on top. Never. But Abby was. Controlling it all, riding you. I was hoping that you were letting her use you that way to tell me something. That this wasn't your idea. Only hers. That you were just letting her take what she wanted. I hoped so.

I'm hoping that by writing this I can put it behind me. I saw you just before Maddie killed her. You were staring at her in the monitor, that faraway look in your eyes. I couldn't tell what you were thinking. I didn't want to ask. It made me angry, confused. " She was convincing," I said, hoping that you'd refute it.

" No, Kita, my love. She just didn't taste like you,"

You could have said something like that Michael. I wanted you to tell me a lie. But you gave me that unreadable look and said, " Very." I think my heart fell right onto the floor at my feet and shattered at that moment. I wanted to slap you, Michael, to hurt you like I'd been hurt. But I'd asked for it. It had been my sacrifice. Mine alone. I told myself that then, because of the anger. Maybe I have changed my mind about just who did the sacrificing.

I could have killed her right then for taking you from me again and leaving that empty hearted tin soldier in your place, but I let Maddie do it. It doesn't matter who did it. I wanted her gone. I didn't feel anything when her head snapped back.

I'm still hoping though, Michael, stupid as that seems. I go back through these pages and remember. Sometimes I've embroidered the truth a little when it comes to you. The theme is always the same. I love you and I can't have you. There is always a screen between us. I am like a bird, I think, beating my wings against it until I fall, exhausted. When am I going to get tired of this and give up? I don't want to be that poor sparrow in the bottom of the paper bag.

Maybe there is someone else for me. Maybe that's what you've been saying to me all along and I just don't hear it. Maybe tomorrow I'll be walking down the street and he'll be standing there. He'll smile at me and open his arms and I'll just forget you.

I dreamed of you last night. I was dressed like Abby. In the clothes she wore. I met you at the door. You came into my arms and kissed me." My love, my dearest love. . ." you whispered against my lips. I could taste the words in my mouth, feel your hard hands on me and your arms circling my waist as you lifted me and carried me to the bedroom. Of course I woke up like I always do long before the good part. I always wake before the good part. I lay in my brand new unadulterated bed staring at the ceiling.

I knew I couldn't go back to sleep. I tried to think of a movie for you, one where the male lead was sad and solitary. One where the female has her heart on her sleeve. I lay there for hours going through the list. Nothing really came to mind. But Annie Lennox was echoing in my head : Here comes the rain again Here it comes again Here it comes again Here it comes again. . .

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