My life is very rich in one thing: Fantasy.

I don't know if that's a good thing. I try only to indulge in fantasy during off hours otherwise I'd be lost in the clouds all the time. I don't want you to think that I'm Allie McBeal with a machine gun. I do a lot of dangerous stuff that requires absolute concentration so I tend to have my brain in gear if I don't want my ass blown off. I can't be laying on my stomach on a roof trying to get a site on something and thinking about what Michael might look like dressed up as James Bond.

That would be nice, wouldn't it? Can't you just see him in that gorgeous tux from Goldfinger. Or a towel. A fluffy white towel. I wonder how he likes his martini? Actually I'm picturing him with a tall, cold glass of milk sans towel. God, I'm bad.

I do that in my private life. Indulge in a little fantasy. Boy, do I do that. Let me tell you about the radar trap fantasy.

It involves me in a very short leather skirt speeding on what I think is a deserted road and getting chased by a motorcycle cop. I stop and get out my registration, watching in the rear view mirror as the cop gets out and starts walking toward me. He's tall and sexy and there's just something about the way he walks, this loose hipped prowl. He looks really great in his uniform, the pants tight, his belt buckle gleaming in the hot sun. He had on black leather boots that reach the knee.

He gets up to the car and all I can see is his mouth. It is the most perfect mouth I have ever seen on a man. Pouty, sculpted. Absolutely carnal. I am imagining that mouth doing the most wondrous things.

He says: Ma'am, do you know how fast you were going?

I say: I'd be glad to show you how fast I can go, officer.

He tips his hat back and takes off his sunglasses and I get to see his jade green eyes. And I melt. Of course the cop is Michael. And, you guessed it, he has to tell me to get out of the car. And then he tells me in this really smoky voice to assume the position.

He gets his mouth really close to my ear. I can feel his heat, smell the leather of his jacket frying in the sun. " Spread em, lady." And then he frisks me, starting at my ankles and slowly working his way up... I won't tell you any more of that particular one. But it's good.

It's really good.

I think I watch too many movies and read too many books. I really ought to try my hand at fiction because I can think up some pretty good stuff when I'm just ready to sleep or in a bubble bath, though most of it has probably been done before somewhere. Well, hasn't everything? Everybody steals nowadays. I think Shakespeare probably even stole from some ancient Greek dude.

Anyway, life has sucked lately. Fantasy is all I have. I don't have a boyfriend, as you know, unless you count Michael. And how can you count Michael? He never calls me, just that Josephine chick. One day I'm going to freak him out and say: You've got a wrong number, dude. No Josephine here. But you have one hell of a sexy voice. What's your name? Jacques. Is that French? Jacques and Josephine. Has a nice ring to it. Want to come over and get it on?

He never asks me out unless it's that freak, once in a blue moon occasion when I have plans I can't break. Things are popping with the new millennium and a zillion freaks coming out of the woodwork, so I hardly see him any more. Section has us doing separate missions.

So I've been watching a lot of movies in my downtime. I have quite a few favourites, some of them well known chick flicks and some not. Hated Titanic. Hated Pretty Woman. Did anyone really believe she was a hooker? And that final scene where Richard Gere pulls up with his head sticking out of the stretch limo. I'm surprised someone didn't pick him off right there. Right between the eyes.

Now, I would go anywhere, anytime with Brendan Fraser, though I suspect that he has hair extensions. George of the Jungle. Drool. And the Mummy. I liked that one a lot. I have a thing for Indiana Jones types. I have a real bad thing for Tom Berringer. And Mel. One cannot forget Mel. Do you perhaps see a pattern here? Brown hair, well built, pale eyed men. Men who can be dangerous and but at the same time a little bit winsome, comely, charming. Dare I say playful? Is Michael ever playful?

Yea. He has shown that side a time or two. And I've never quite told you all about him, so I guess you have to take my word for it.

My favourite movies are all romantic. But I think the best of all is Witness. My best fantasies have been culled from that one. You know that movie. Harrison Ford is John Book, tough Philadelphia detective and Kelly McGillis is the Amish mom in the sensible shoes and the weird hat. I have seen that movie twenty times and I can't remember her character's name. Rachel? Esther? Debbie? Are there are any Amish chicks named Debbie?

You know that her name might as well be Nikita. I get immersed in that movie and I am that Amish lady. I just become her, start seeing things through her eyes. I fall madly in love with John and forget everything else in the world, even my double movie butter microwave popcorn.

There is nothing about any of those characters that I didn't love. That brave little boy with the jug ears showing tough John Book how to pet a kitten. The scene with the vintage car in the barn. When she's taking her Elvis bath and he sees her washing herself with that sponge, hairy pits and all. That gets me every time. There is nothing I didn't love about that story, that whole movie, except maybe the end. I always stop the VCR at the end just before John Book's little put-put car can drive away and leave her. There is just something so unsatisfying about being left unsatisfied.

I have to rewind it. I pretend he's driving back and that he runs back in and finds the Amish girl in the kitchen and he kisses her until she is weak kneed and tells her he doesn't care about the job he has in the city, or her dumpy clothes or the fact that she doesn't shave her underarm hair, because her biscuits are as light as baby angel's butt cheeks and he'll love her and her little boy until the day he dies. He'll even dress like an Amish dude if she wants him to. He might even go to church.

I guess it couldn't end all Hollywood happy with a big kiss and a swelling musical score. It had to be real. Being that they were not allowed to love each other because of their circumstances. It's sad. And so beautiful and it always makes me cry. And then after I'm finished watching it I sort of lay there, stunned and daydream. I pretend that Michael is John Book.

My favourite scene, and this is where the fantasy thing comes in, is when John Book is injured and the Amish girl has to care for him. That's where I neatly slice open the celluloid and insert a picture of me and Michael. I never watch that part when she puts the poultice over his bare, naked side without shivering, wish it were me. I can almost feel his skin, hot and smooth. I love that. I mean I do care that the man is in pain but that pain was just so sexy. I just curl up and die of pleasure when I see that. I would love to be her. I would love to be the one wiping the sweat off his brow, covering him with the patchwork quilt and making him tea.

Okay, I hear you. I see you with your lips pursed up in censure. I'm a sadist. I have a thing about inflicting great pain on handsome, helpless men just so that I can see their naked flesh.

I happen to like naked, helpless men. They need you.

I wish I understood men better. I guess I never will because everything I care to know of men comes from books and movies and real men don't act like they do in books and movies. And don't tell me I should read the book by the wimpy little guy who tells women what men are like. I don't remember his name and I won't mention the book because I don't want him to get free publicity. Anyone who cries on Oprah has to be a major weenie. I'll bet that guy sits down to pee.

Real men tend to disappoint you. They have faults. Too many faults. They can be oblivious to what we need and what we expect. They have issues. They never come all packaged up in a box all factory fresh like Party Date Ken. They can be really gross. They can be demanding. They don't say romantic things like they do in the movies. They don't even say the right thing at the right time. Their timing sucks. They want to grab your boobs in the kitchen just as you're getting the canapes ready for the guests in the living room and then go off in a pout. But show an interest and they want to watch the Golf Channel. They are sometimes totally clueless about what we need, what we are expecting.

But they can be so damned cute when they want to be. Every time Michael smiles I want to give him the world. I want to present myself naked on a platter with a bow on my neck.

Back to the diatribe. I got off track thinking about his smile again. Now my dear mother would tell you that she knew all there was to know about men.

She had them categorised according to types. I can't remember each category, some of them were pretty strange. She used to buy Cosmo and take the surveys, study the articles. Is your man cheating? How's your relationship? Do you know what men like in bed? The secret sexual technique to bind a man to you for ever. What's your relationship IQ? How to know if he's the marrying kind.

Too bad they didn't have some practical advise to give her on which man would clean out her meagre bank account or break her nose. Most of her men, even though they would fall into " the really great guy" category in the beginning, would, without exception, end up in the " nuthin' but a useless prick on legs " category somewhere down the line. My mother didn't seem really to get it together in terms of her own mental and physical health until she just washed her hands of men all together and started living alone with her birds and cats.

I am twenty six years old. I have never been in a long term, mutually loving relationship with anyone. I have never even met a stable, solid man who could love me back I'll bet if I took a Cosmo survey I'd fall into the category of hopeless reject. I admit it. I do not understand how men tick, one man in particular.

We certainly can't call my relationship with Michael mutually loving. We couldn't exactly call him solid and stable either, though I'm sure you would take one look at him and say: With that face and body and French accent who the hell cares?

For almost four years we have been alternately feuding, friendly, and politely distant. We have had sex, but have never said that we love each other out loud. Well, maybe he has said it, but he was not quite himself at the time. We have an understanding, I guess, though I haven't figured out what that understanding is exactly. In England, at the Delafield Estate, I think I found myself falling in love with him again. Oh, okay, I hear you laughing. Maybe I never did fall out of love with him.

As for the way he saw that one night fling between us, I'll never know. It's all very confusing. I think I'm getting somewhere with Michael one week and the next everything seems screwed up again. We are probably better together when we're pretending to be other people because we really haven't a clue as to who we really are or what we want.

So now it's the middle of August. And nothing has changed. I've been away from this journal for a week or so. I'm still in a stew about Michael. I spent the first three weeks of the summer in a state of unreality. When I got back from England and the DeLuca mission I couldn't help thinking that Michael would finally come to me and declare his feelings and everything was going to be right with the world. But of course Michael was right back walking around Section with his usual vacuous expression acting like nothing ever happened between us. I was trying not to be sad and sentimental, trying to keep my promise to myself that I would not allow his remoteness he shows toward me within Section walls to hurt. But of course it hurt. It tears me up, makes me feel like my stomach is a clenched fist.

I think I have to do something before I go crazy. I can't lay in this empty bed alone staring at the ceiling any longer. I can't live on movies and fantasy. I am a woman. I need love. I need to be held and touched and whispered to in the middle of the night. I want have little spats over where we go to dinner and then make up by taking a long bubble bath together. Why can't something just happen? I am telling myself here and now that if I meet someone decent, I'm going to go out with him. I'm going to give it a chance.

*******

We were over halfway through the year 1999 and on the cusp of the new millennium. There is a lot to be concerned about out there in this wacko world .A raft of apocalyptic groups have surfaced. The net is brimming with doomsday prophesies. With Nato bombing Belgrade, terrorist retaliation becomes a larger and larger threat.

Michael and I had been working on separate missions; things were hectic, even by Section standards. A Russian spy, now employed by Section, alerted us to a plan of attack against the United States, Canada and England by a Russian terrorist group disgruntled with the Nato policy against the Serbs. The attacks would take place in major cities by individuals carrying suitcase bombs, each small bomb capable of levelling a building the size of the World Trade Center. On my mission, we were sent in to Russia to destroy the terrorist encampment where the suitcase bombs were said to be stored. Everything went awry, the sudden turn of foggy weather, communications glitches. We lost three ops on site to return fire and were sure that we were goners when Cowboy swooped down out of the foggy night sky and saved our arses.

Cowboy is a helicopter pilot whose real name is Jack Dawson. He had been with Section for about a year flying Spec-ops military missions in and out of the Middle East. He transferred to active team transport duty at Section One only recently. I had seen him a few times during missions, but usually in passing and at night. I never noticed how attractive he was. The only thing that really stood out in my mind about Cowboy was his height and his dark amber hair streaked with wheat and gold. He is at least a half a foot taller than Michael and rangy, kind of a young Clint Eastwood.

Anyway, the Cowboy saved our necks. I wasn't going to walk off the heli-pad that sunny morning without thanking him personally. I remember going back up to him and extending my hand. He shook it firmly. There was no electricity like with Michael, but it was nice. That big paw just engulfed my hand. I had to tilt my head way back and look up to him. Even in my mission gear the appraising look he gave me from that lofty height made me feel delicate, almost feminine. Not weak in the knees like Michael does, but it was nice. He must have looked me up and down for a full minute, before he grinned, exposing two adorable dimples and the straightest, whitest teeth I've ever seen. I remember staring back at the tall Texan and thinking that here might be just the man who could help me get over Michael.

Okay, I know what you're thinking. I must be some kind of shallow bitch. That I was going to use the poor guy to make Michael jealous? It wasn't like that at all. I just want to have some fun. I was allowed to do that, wasn't I? I'm young. My life was wasting away. I almost lost it that foggy night in Russia. This man appeared to be handsome, smart, brave and slightly younger than me, which can be a plus because he wouldn't be too set in his ways, or so I thought. And he was interested. Keenly interested. And Michael, it seemed, was not, except when it suited him.

I was walking away from him, hoping he'd catch up to me and say something. If it had been Michael, that would never happen. He has never come running after me. I'd just feel those green eyes boring holes through my back and I'd get madder and madder as I walked further and further.

As I hoped would happen, the handsome pilot came after me and asked if he might have my number. He said he'd been hoping that I would talk to him for a long time, that he'd seen me and thought that I was one pretty lady. Once I may have brushed him off as a flirt, but at that moment I was feeling like a femme fatale for once. I was in the mood to be flattered, to be taken seriously as a desirable woman. I gave him my number.

He called me right away. We went out together three times for dinner that week and each time I had a great time. I was eating too much but it was fun. He was attentive and a complete gentleman. He likes to dance, like me, so he didn't mind the club scene. One night we danced until two. I am quite certain Michael would never be caught dead at a club doing hip hops moves like Cowboy.

If the kiss I got at the door on the fourth date was any indication, we'd get along well. I mean there wasn't that pure bliss, bolt out of the blue electric feeling like I had with Michael, but it was pleasurable. It was good to feel relaxed and in control for a change. But when he touched my breast I had this weird reaction, like I was being unfaithful to Michael. It was stupid, but I felt it.

I told Jack I'd just gotten over a rather difficult relationship and I was hoping that he wouldn't take it personally if I didn't seem to enthusiastic when it came to having a deeper relationship with him. He said that he'd take things as slow as I wanted to. He said it was my call and that I was worth it. That made me like him even more.

I asked Birkoff what he knew about Jack. He knew Jack and as far as he knew thought he was a good guy. For two years he'd been elite Knight Angel team who flew the matte black helicopters equipped with night vision for the military special forces, the elite Delta Force. It is very hard to become a Knight Angel. They are trained extensively with weapons, ground tactics, fighting and are avid survivalists. Some say they are as extreme as the people they protect us against. The typical Knight Angel is also well paid, single and loves to party.

The exact reason he was now in the covert organization known as Section was unknown to Birkoff, except that Section was in dire need of night helicopter pilots. He had heard rumours that something had gone wrong on a training mission in Texas where some civilians had been shot at. There was a huge controversy and Cowboy had taken the option of becoming a member of Section. From what he knew cowboy was just a loveable lug.

Pretty simple. I could live with it.

I've bee dating Jack Dawson for three weeks and I'm certain that if I had never met Michael and started this habit of comparing every man I know to him, I would be head over heels in love by now. He is just the sweetest guy, an angel. He's kind of gangly and clumsy when he's not flying, like he was never meant to walk flat earth at all. He always bumps into my glass table with one boney knee. It makes the most deadly cracking sound. He has strange little habits. He's very superstitious. He tells me he learned to be that way in the Knight Angels and from baseball, his other passion. Pilots are superstitious like athletes. He pops his knuckles. The snap, crackle, pop makes me crazy.

He like to make me laugh with goofy jokes. He buys me silly things like a bag of tube socks or a stuffed bear. The bear is wearing a cowboy hat and vest. It's sitting on my bed, reminding me that I have no heart, that I am stringing him along. I feel like a teenager with her first boyfriend. Only I can't appreciate him because I have this big crush on the big man on campus.

Yesterday Jack and I went for a run then stopped for donuts. After he polished off three there were little crumbs of sugar at the corners of his mouth. If Jack had been Michael I would have been longing to kiss them away, to taste his lips, cinnamon sweet against mine. On Jack, I just thought, how cute it was.

He talks a lot about helicopters and flying, throwing out names and terms that I am clueless about. He dreams of flying Apaches, of seeing real action, of taking risks. Transport is not that exciting, he says. Too safe.

Sometimes I find myself stifling yawns. When Michael speaks, I strain to glean each word, each nuance. I look at his mouth and deep into his eyes. Jack talks too much. Michael doesn't say enough. Jack laughs so loudly I want to tell him to cool it. I have heard Michael laugh only a few times. His laughter is better than music.

Jack holds my hand when we cross the street like I am a treasure he has found. His eyes widen when he looks at me like he can't fathom his luck. Michael keeps his distance. His eyes hold secrets.

It all makes me feel guilty. I know that I am using him to forget Michael. When I am with Jack I feel nice. Appreciated.

When I am with Michael there is nothing nice. I am all sensation. My heart is a runaway pony. My skin prickles, my breath snags in my throat. My knees tremble.

I have no idea which feeling is real love. Is real love the comfortable happiness I feel with Jack? Or the empty, aching passionate need I feel for Michael?

I can't even make up a fantasy for Jack. How do you think up sexy scenarios for a man who gives you teddy bears and socks and has a blob of raspberry jam on his chin after the fourth donut?

I was forced to stay at Section really late one night because I had a lot to get done. Even Birkoff was gone. The weekend was a disaster. I made this great dinner for Jack. I set the scene. I wanted my intentions to be quite obvious. Candles. Flowers. Music. I dressed up in this tight, black " man killer" dress. Very high heels because Jack is so tall.

The whole nine yards. And then we're necking on the couch and I get a call on the cell right in the middle of it. " Josephine. Hurry." His voice, that French purr sent my heart to racing like Jack's kisses had not done. I had to explain to Jack that I had no choice but to go. He looked like a forgotten puppy. I went to work wearing the black dress. I could have gotten a similar reaction from Michael had I been wearing a gunny sack. I glared at him, but the shivers were there all the same.

I have been working every minute since. Why do I silently thank Michael for this reprieve? This last minute stay of execution? Why do I think of making love to Jack as something to be saved from?

I was tired tonight at work. I can hardly keep my eyes open to write this. I had to get the profiles done. A skeleton crew was there, a few janitors dusting and polishing. I sometimes feel a little leery of being here a lone with Section janitors. I mean who are they? What had they done to be stuck here vacuuming?

I have nothing against janitors. No, quite the opposite. I have this really cool janitor fantasy. Let me amend that. Hot. Very hot.

Michael is not a spy-boy. He's the sexy night janitor and I'm, say, a young lawyer or executive type chick who works late at the office a lot. I've had my eye on this man for months. I like the way he empties the waste basket , how he bends to get his mop through the cramped space under the desk, how he gently plays his feather duster all over my keyboard.

Okay, so I know that you figure already that it doesn't fit Michael's image and it's probably just like something that some creepy guy with bad teeth, a beer belly and his pants at half mast in dire need of butt-crack putty might write in Penthouse Forum to get his rocks off. That's fine. I never said my fantasy life was high brow, but then you haven't heard the one I have about the grand piano in his apartment. It happens to be very sophisticated and you won't hear it unless you're polite and hear me out on this one.

So, dear reader, this fantasy involves me, straight laced Nikita, in my gray suit and tight hair, getting it on with the night janitor who doesn't speak a word of English. The trysts take place everywhere: On the board room table, on the couch in the executive lounge, on the counter in the lunchroom.

Of course we have to talk with hands and lips and not words because he is Russian in the fantasy. In Russia he was a great scholar, a teacher, a poet. Here in a different country with different rules he's been forced to mop floors. His name is Mikel and the language barrier doesn't matter because we don't need words.

I was making my coffee in one of those cone filter things, pouring in the boiling water from the kettle, thinking about Mikel, how he lifts me onto the counter and takes my hair out of its confines. He always does that first, takes my hair down, burying his nose in my neck while his hands play in my hair. Then he starts yanking my top over my head and fumbling with my skirt. He's shaking and panting. He can't wait. He says something sexy in Russian. I can see the meaning of the words I do not know reflected in those stormy blue-green eyes just before he rubs his bristly cheek on my breasts. Then he lowers his head and gives me one of those fabulous tummy licks and I am dying. Just dying...

" Do you think you might make an extra cup for me, Kita?"

He startled me so badly that I knocked over the coffee filter, spilling hot water and grounds all over my tummy. It hurt like hell.

" Shit."

That was all I could say. I pulled the steaming cotton top away from my stomach only to have him push my hands aside and rip it off my head. And then he started fumbling for my skirt. I was so shocked I didn't say a word. He lifted me up and sat me near the sink, but instead of the tummy lick, which would have been a great deal more soothing, he ran the cold water, dipped a hunk of paper towels in and then smacked it over my bare flesh.

I let out this low groan.

" How does it feel, Kita?" He looked up from studying my scalded flesh with concern in his eyes. I just stared down into them, marvelling at how beautiful they are when his emotions are charged. His was breathing hard, his nostrils flaring, his lips slightly parted. I was acutely aware of the pain, but that didn't stop my breasts from tightening beneath my black lace bra.

" What?" I breathed. I was thinking about his left hand resting lightly on my ribs, just under the swell of my breast.

" Is it better?"

" Cold."

" That's how it's supposed to be."

He pulled off the towels and wet them again with cold water. The pain returned as the air touched the burned place just left of my belly button. There was something about the kindness in his eyes, the tenderness in his touch, how his hands felt on my bare skin. It all reminded me of how I long for him, how we had been together so recently and then wrenched apart. I wondered if he wanted me. As much as I wanted him. I felt a couple of big tears slide out of my eyes. I think they landed on his hand.

" Kita, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

I had the feeling that the words meant to convey more than just apology for the burns.

" It's okay, Michael. I was startled. I had my head in the clouds." It felt so good to have him touch me again, I could barely breathe.

" What were you thinking about? "

I had been thinking about sex. About him.

" Work, actually. Nothing really. Just, uh, everything."

Boy, did that sound dumb. Why am I so witty and sharp in my daydreams and such a dud in real life? It was impossible to string two words intelligently together with him touching me like that. He was so close, I could smell his hair, his skin.

That's another thing that's different about them. Why does Jack have to pour on the men's cologne? Why can't he smell like sunshine on fresh laundry and summer rain on leaves like Michael does? What does he do? Walk naked through the forest every day? Hang his clothes in a wild meadow to dry?

He took off the towels and looked at the burn. Three good sized very angry blisters had formed but I was thinking that maybe I had to work on my abs a little more, wishing I was perfect. " I think we should get you upstairs to medical."

No, let me stay here and smell you. I'll die happy. " No. I've had gunshots, Michael. What's a little coffee? I have running clothes to change into."

" These need to be covered with something first. Burns are tricky. There's a first aid kit in the cupboard over there." He dipped the towels in the water again and out it over the burn. " Hold these on." He was off for the kit before I could protest.

I watched him place the Second Skin pads on my skin. He told me how to care for the burns. I love to hear him talk, to watch his mouth. It fascinates me, the deliberate way his mouth forms the English words, the slight hesitation, the way his tongue pushes the unfamiliar sounds forward against his teeth. I have seen him speak French a few times. He speaks French differently, using his hands, his facial muscles. He lights up from within.

My belly quivered as he smoothed the tape over my skin. It had nothing to do with pain. I wondered if he knew about Jack, if he cared that I was with another man.

" You'll look after this, won't you? It'll take some time to heal. If you're careful it shouldn't scar."

" I'll be fine. I don't get to wear bikinis at the beach." I pulled the wet shirt over my head. He was watching me, thoughtful. I didn't want to think about what his eyes might be saying as he watched me dress.

" Go on. Get changed. I'll clean this up." His tone was all business again. " And I am sorry about this."

" Think nothing of it." I was surprised that my legs would carry me out of there. I left the building without a coat, just plunged off into the night in my wet clothes, without even going back to my desk to turn off the computer.

***********

Try to describe your worst moment. Something that made you want to crawl into a hole and die. I'll bet you have to think hard about it. I don't. It happened last night.

It started out as a good day. Jack took me to the park for a softball game. It is a regular thing between some of the ops and pilots. I had no idea anyone played sports at Section. It was fun watching Jack play. He plays ball like he does everything else. With gusto. Like a kid at heart. He never stops grinning. I watched him hit and run the bases in his sliders and shorts and watching him, I couldn't help wonder what Michael might look like in a backwards baseball cap, sliding for home plate.

After the game we sat in the park under the trees drinking beer. Jack kept telling me he was going to get me a glove so that I could play. Then he sighed and laid his head down against my thigh, just staring at me with his clear blue eyes. I touched his hair: it grows in fine, short tufts about an inch long. I found myself wishing that it was silky brown with red and gold highlights, that the ends would curl over my fingers. I wished...

We went out for pizza later, just Jack and I. He polished off everything on his plate and then eyed mine. I grinned and passed it over. Jack's stomach can't be filled. I was struck again with how young he is, how exuberant. I think I've lost all that youthfulness. I've seen too much, done too much. I wonder sometimes if I'll corrupt him, hurt him, make him as sad and as world weary as I feel.

But as we were leaving the pizza place and he took my hand in his. He gave it a squeeze and said. " I like being with you, Nik."

I decided it was time. " Jack? Will you spend the night with me? " I just figured that it was now or never and it had been such a good day." I really didn't want it to end.

He grinned. He seemed shy. " Are your burns better?"

" I can keep the bandages on. It doesn't hurt now."

He flushed. " I don't have anything. Protection. And my roommate "

" My place is good. We can stop at the store. I need a chocolate fix. Maybe some wine." I needed the wine for courage. The chocolate because I might need to drown some sorrows later."

" Cool. Yea."

It was a little awkward. Jack went off to the drug section to get the condoms and I went to find the wine and the chocolate. He seemed to be taking a long time so I picked up the wine and went off to meet him. I rounded the corner. He was standing there talking to someone a package of ribbed and lubricated in his hand.

I stopped short in my tracks. This is where I wanted to crawl into that hole.

" Hey, Nik. Do you know Mike? "

Mike? I nodded at him, swallowing hard. " Hello, Michael."

" Hello, Ni-ki-ta." He was dressed in jeans and a soft greyish green tee-shirt. His hair looked windblown. He did not appear to be the least bit surprised or flustered.

" Hey, do you two work together sometimes? "

I looked down at the label on the wine. " We've had separate assignments lately."

Michael's basket contained apples, milk, Hagen Das ice cream and a package of Oreos Double Stuff. I think I almost choked when I saw those remembering how his kisses had tasted of cookies that night in England. There was a movie in his basket, too, something by Hitchcock. So what was he planning? A lonely pig-out in front of the television? I hadn't spoken to him since that night in the coffee room. I had no idea what he was up to lately.

" Are you better now?" he asked. His tee-shirt and the store lights made his eyes very green, like shards of winter ice.

" All healed, thank you."

Oh, God. It was so awkward. Nothing like running into the man you've been drooling over for three years while buying condoms with the man you are using to forget him. Just perfect. Just another day in the life of Nikita Dawn Wirth.

Jack just kept making small talk with Michael until I grabbed his arm. " Michael's ice cream is melting, Jack."

" Oh, yea. Sorry, dude. So take care. Good to see you."

" Thanks, Jack. Same to you. Good-bye, Kita."

I couldn't meet his eyes. " So long, Michael."

It was a very telling moment.

We walked to the check out. Jack was bouncing like Tigger. I wanted to ask him if he had been treated for ADD as a child. " He's a nice guy, that Mike. I've been out on missions with him a few times. He always makes a point of commending me to my supervisor. He's cool. Man, I'll bet he can get chicks with that French thing goin'. You know, the accent."

" I suppose it works for him. Does the Texas thing goin' on work for you, Cowboy ? " Why do guys care about that stuff ?

" Sometimes I get lucky," He laughed and hung his big arm over my shoulder. " A lot of Level 5 ops are real jerks. But Mike rules, babe. He really does."

" Yea, Mikey rules."

" Maybe we can double date sometime? Does he have a girlfriend? "

Oh, that sounded like real fun. A double date with Mikey and his girlfriend. I just swallowed hard. This was so difficult. " I don't know about his love life, Cowboy. Maybe we should pay for this stuff."

We drank some of the wine and stared at each other from opposite ends of the glass bar in my kitchen. I was alternately looking down at the fingerprints and then at him, thinking " Well, who's going to get this show on the road? "

He said, " You're okay with this?"

I nodded. We moved to the couch with our wine and started to kiss for while. It felt planned, forced, hardly passionate. Cowboy seemed shy, hesitant. He's a lot of things but shy isn't one of them. Something was wrong.

" Nikita, maybe I should tell you somethin'." He set his wine glass on the table. " I don't know how to start."

That sounded ominous.

" I want you to know that I like you and all. I respect the hell out of you. I mean I took one look at you and thought you were about the prettiest girl I'd ever seen. I mean look at you. I thought to myself: How did an angel end up here?"

" I'm no angel, Jack."

" Sure you are. You're a real nice girl. I like you a lot." He swallowed hard. " I thought maybe I could do this. Have sex and all like it didn't mean anything. But I don't love you. I was hopin' it would happen, cause you're so beautiful, but it hasn't."

" Jack, you don't need to be in love with me. I understand."

He shook his head. " But you deserve that. A girl like you deserves someone who loves her. It's just that I can't forget Lucinda. I've tried real hard. It's been over a year and I still think about her. I still dream about her. I miss her like hell. Sorry for cussin'."

" It's okay. Lucinda was your girlfriend?"

" Yea. We knew each other our whole lives. When we were twelve we started going steady. I gave her my class ring. She came to my ball games. I mean, I don't think there was one day I didn't talk to her since we were twelve. I joined up with the Knight Angels and we were gonna get married and live in Plano. I was gonna fly for the Elite Airborne and she was going to go to nursing school. And then it all blew up in my face." He ran his hands down slowly over his face.

" What happened to land you here in Section? "

He took a deep shuddery breath. " We were carrying Delta Force soldiers in and out of these small towns in Texas for training exercises over a two week period. It was May. We were using live fire right there in the middle of town. It didn't feel quite right to me. It was night and there was this bus load of kids coming back from some school function. They should never have been there but they had mechanical trouble and had been delayed " He stopped and took a shaky breath. " We fired on the bus, mistaking it for one of the targets."

" Oh, Jack."

" Ten kids were killed. Some were injured badly. They talked about hanging us. I will never forget I was part of it. At one point I wanted to die."

" Then they brought you into Section?'

" Yes. It was better. I thought maybe here I could make up for things. I couldn't face Lucinda after what happened. I never saw her again. She was working at one of the hospitals they sent to kids to. " Jack buried his face in his hands and cried. All I could do was wrap my arm around his wide shoulder and let him cry it out. I laid my cheek against his back fighting my own tears.

" She thinks you're dead?"

" Yes. I died in a car crash. She got married to a doctor last month."

I took his hand and gave it a squeeze. " Do you think that we could just be friends, Jack? I could use a friend in this place. How about you? You know what Walter said about us?"

" That old hippy dude?"

I nodded. " He figures we're a couple of blonde beach bunnies separated at birth. I don't think mating would be a real good idea. I was wondering, though... I have a tale of woe to tell in the love department. I've been interested in this guy for years. And mostly he just acts like I don't exist except when it suits him. And I always go running back to him whenever he calls even though I tell myself I won't do it any more. Feel like hearing it? "

"Is this guy in Section? "

I blushed. " We ran into him tonight. You know him as Mike."

" Shoot. You're kiddin' me."

" No, I'm not kidding."

We both looked at the condoms on the counter and started to howl.

Cowboy stayed almost all night and no, we didn't change our minds about having sex. We finished the wine and ate the chocolate watching the Full Monty. I laughed my head off. It's one of my favorite movies. Cowboy had never seen it and he tends to be a little on the prudish side, so I discovered. He said his dad was a Baptist preacher. That's why he can't curse without apologising.

He had a little trouble with the Brit accents but after a while he caught on and was laughing as hard as me. Maybe it was the wine we drank or the chocolate, but I started forgetting my troubles somewhere that night, not that I didn't spare a few thoughts for Michael. I had to smile over that meeting in the store and I wondered if he's licked the stuff off the Oreos while he watched his movie. Was he wondering if I was here making wild, blissful love to Cowboy? Was he wishing it was him. I doubt it.

Cowboy's face was brick red during the stripping scene. He said he didn't even know his thing was called a penis until he started school. He said his mother never liked to mention such things in mixed company. That had me on the floor snorting.

I sat cross legged on Walter's counter two days later eating a low-fat cranberry muffin and watching him fiddle with a comm unit. He grinned at me. " So, how are things with you, Sugar? You seem pretty happy. Happier than I've seen you in a while."

" I am happy, Walter." I grinned and popped a bit of muffin in my mouth. It was good. I was really getting better at baking muffins. At least Cowboy and Walter thought so.

" I'm glad, Sugar. Is it this boy Jack who has you grinning? "

" Boy, Walter? " I laughed. Yes, Jack was a boy. Compared to Michael, Jack would always be a big, silly, fun-loving boy.

" He looks like he still ought to be in high school. But if he's making you happy, who am I to say anything. I like the kid."

" I like him, too."

" You gonna eat all those muffins you baked for me, Sugar? Don't take this wrong. He's not going to get hurt, is he?"

" Jack? No. Nothing has happened. We're friends. That's all." I told him about running into Michael at the grocery store. About Lucinda, too.

" Talk about bad timing, " Walter hooted. " You're going to set him straight?"

I shrugged. " I don't think he cares one way or the other. I didn't get one of those urgent Josephine calls that night," I said. I had been sort of hoping that Michael might cook something up to bring me in just so that I could know he was jealous. But there would not have been a reason. Things have been remarkably calm around here. Perhaps a lull before a storm. That's the way it usually works.

I gave a huge yawn.

" What's that all about?"

" I was up half the night learning to juggle. Jack's teaching me. He's so good at it. It takes a lot of effort, timing, coordination. I almost have it."

I yawned again and stretched. " We've been doing it for hours and hours the last few nights. It takes a lot out of you. Jack's a perfectionist and he has the stamina to do it for hours. Plus he's had a lot of practice. I guess that's because he's a pilot. He's so focussed. He can do it so many ways, too, Walter. Standing, sitting. Even from behind. It's so awesome,Walter."

Walter's eyes widened a little. His mouth dropped open. He seemed a little surprised, rather than impressed, but I was really wrapped up in telling him about my new found skill.

" He says that I'm getting real good. Yesterday we did it in front of a mirror. We did it over and over again. Walter, I was exhausted. The sweat was pouring off me, but it really felt good. When we first started he tied one hand behind my back and just made me get the feel of his special balls in my hand. Just handling them, squeezing them a little, you know, so I could get a feel for the rhythm. But they're small and soft, so it was easy."

Walter cleared his throat." Interesting, Sugar. Hold that thought. Uh... Hi, there Michael. What's up?"

I turned around. Michael was standing a few feet away. He looked as pressed and polished as usual but his cheeks were slightly pink. It was the first time I had seen him since the store. I wondered how many weights he had to lift to counteract the Hagen Das and Oreos. " Hello, Michael," I said. " Want a muffin? "

" Uh, no thanks. Could you have a look at this Walter. It's not working." He handed Walter a PDA.

" Sure, Michael." Walter was biting his lip.

Michael gave Walter a nod, turned on his heel and left.

Walter started to laugh. Shriek, actually. He was holding his sides. I glared at him. " When, exactly did he come in? "

" When you said you'd been doing it all night with Jack."

" You don't think he thought I was talking about "

" I think he looked slightly choked when you said that Jack had those special soft balls."

I slept in this morning a woke with a stiff neck. Too much juggling. I couldn't do anything with my hair and there was a huge pimple on my cheek. Like Mount Etna. And the cover stick just made it appear all the more disgusting.

And my hair looks like hell, too. Sometimes I just pull it all into a misshapen wad at the back of my neck and hope that someone will mistake it for fashion. That maybe I'll pull it off cause I'm tall and have an attractive face. I think most people reckon that I'm lazy. My mother always said that I looked okay from the front but that I never combed the hair at the back of my head in my life. She was right. I remember her combing the rat's nests out and throwing the fluffy yellow balls into the red Australian dirt. I lost enough hair as a child to outfit Lady Godiva..

Some days I don't care, but this morning I looked as ugly as a mud fence.

I was late for work and didn't eat my Cheerios so I was sitting at my computer with my stomach growling like a wild beast. It was just going to be one of those days. I looked over and caught Birkoff smirking at me. If Walter told him anything he was going to be dog food. Maybe Birkoff was just looking at the pimple. As if he didn't have two or three to call his own.

I might have been able to get into the groove, but Michael came into the room looking like perfection on a stick. A big hunk of eye-candy. He was walking with Operations receptionist, Melanie. He had his head bent down the hear her better. I sometimes wish I was as petite as Melanie, or Melanoma as I call her behind her back because she is a vapid bitch on wheels. I hope he doesn't like that half baked cheerleader. But they do look good together. She's so tiny and feminine and he's so big and manly.

Michael's a stud. No two ways about it. His hair is getting longer again. I like it long. I love the way he parts his jacket and slides his hands into the pockets of his impeccably pressed pants. He's so handsome, so refined within Section walls and yet I know that so much passion burns below that staid exterior. Sensuality, a lethal sense of humour, a delicious danger. It's all part of that Michael mystique. I wonder if he will ever let me know all of him.

I could stare at him all day, all polished and neat like this, but I think I like him rumpled better. In those jeans and the open white shirt, or when he sleeps, with the pillow creases on his cheeks and the beard stubble. And those eyes when they open beneath those silky long lashes, all dewy, heavy-lidded and teal coloured. Those few mornings I awoke with him beside me I touched the soft fall of hair on his forehead and pretended that he belonged to me. Me and no one else.

Just then, as I thought that he turned and looked at me. Fixed me with that look that makes me feel like a butterfly mounted to a piece of card. I lowered my eyes quickly and punched in the wrong codes. I could feel him looking at me, probably seeing the crappy looking hair and the gray sweater that makes me look dumpy. I know that sales girl lied through her braces when she sold it to me.

I knew he'd be leaving for Tajikistan later that day. I wished I were going with him. I wanted to be on his team again.

I chanced a look up. He was still staring at me in that silent, assessing way he has. I felt like telling him to look after himself. I wanted to tell him that entire box of condoms is in my bedside table awaiting the right guy. Awaiting him.

I wanted to kiss him good-bye.

**********

Dear Ann Landers,

I am a secret agent. I think that I may be in love with my boss, but he hardly knows that I'm alive...

I need help. I need another woman to talk to. The last friend I had was Carla. You know that story.

I dreamed last night that I was in a mansion with many rooms. I was following Michael through a maze of hallways, all painted black with black doors. I knew that he was there but I could not see him or reach him. I could hear his laughter, a low, husky echo far away, as if he were teasing me. Every time I thought I had reached him a black door slammed in my face. I woke abruptly, angry at him, bathed in sweat.

He went out last night on a mission to Tajikistan to a terrorist camp outside Dushanbe where several Red Cross workers were being held by a militant Tajik warlord called Rezvon Sodirov. Cowboy is on the mission to fly them in.

I watched Michael walk out yesterday, checking his watch, so familiar to me in his black mission gear and yet as aloof and distant as a stranger in a bus station. I watched from the upper deck until the doors swallowed his lean, dark form with a swoosh. A heroic knight going into a dark cave to fight the dragon.

The day was long and dull and as I write this now I am thinking of his face and knowing that I will have a hard time sleeping.

I was asleep at three this morning when someone knocked on my door. I opened to find Jack standing there dressed in jeans and boots, his cap in his hands.

" Jack, what are you doing here? "

" I have some news. I wanted to be the one to tell you." His voice broke. There were tears in his blue eyes. " It's Michael. I tried to save him. Things just went bad right from the start. It was as if someone had warned them. There was a lot of gunfire. I stayed there with the helicopter as long as I could "

" Is he dead? Did you see him get hit?"

" No. We lost six operatives. We had to leave him in there. No one saw what happened to him." He pulled me into his arms as much to comfort himself as me.

Michael.

I pressed my face into his shoulder. No. No. No. I would know if he was dead. I would feel it. Inside I could feel nothing. When I could speak it was so softly I was surprised that he could hear me. " You couldn't make contact at all?"

" Nothing. His transmitter wasn't working. We assumed he was killed or taken prisoner."

Madeline called me in a few hours later. I found her misting her orchids. She seemed different, but maybe that was me. Her sharp edges were softer, but then to me the world is different. If he is dead, I will never see things the same way again. Everything is parched, cracked and gray. My feet plod as if through wet sand.

There was a sadness in her beautiful face, her eyes red rimmed. I moved into the room, numb, tired, so very tired.

" Sit down, Nikita."

I did as told, remembering the funky green couch she used to have, the racks of clothes. I used to talk to her as a friend. I was dressed much as I did back then, jeans and a sweater. Back then it was to defy authority. Now it was because the clothes were just the first things I saw to put on. I could smell myself. I had showered this morning but nothing could remove this sour smell of fear, desolation. It was on the inside of me, like I had been torched, left to rot.

" Nikita, would you like some tea? Something to eat? You look very pale."

" I don't want anything," I said. " Thank you."

She nodded. " You will keep up your strength. It won't do any good to make yourself ill." She smiled at me. " For now, we have to be positive. I know that things don't look good, but Michael is Michael, after all."

I remember the time when Michael was lost in Bosnia. Madeline gave herself a heart attack to save him. I wondered at the time if it was for Michael or just because she had orders to bring in Petrosian. I never did figure it out.

" What can I do to help you? Do you want some time off? I can take you off the Balafas mission. I don't think your mind would be on the work. Would you like a week? You have time coming."

" Why are you being so kind to me, Madeline?"

" You might not believe me, Nikita, but I care about you. I care about you and Michael."

I stood up and nodded. I would take the week. I didn't know if I should believe her. The words struck a chord in me, caused a flood of tears I had been too numb to shed. Amazingly she came and pulled me against her, held my head against he shoulder.

" Go home," she said softly. " I'll be in touch." Her voice was shaky. I could feel her body tremble. " Find something inside yourself. Something that was his and hang on to it."

I knew that moment that he might well be gone. That she believed it, too. Otherwise she would never have said those words. I would never have seen the sheen of unshed tears in those dark brown eyes.

I woke at five from a fitful sleep, showered made coffee and waited. At six the phone rang. My heart skittered across my chest.

" No communication," Madeline told me. " We'll call if there is word. Do you need anything?"

I hung up. I know it was rude.

I ended up in the park. It's been raining for two days. Heavy, cold, soaking, unseasonable. I had forgotten my umbrella and my cell phone. Maybe I forgot the phone on purpose. If they call me I fear they will tell me that he is dead. That he has been shot or tortured. If he is dead, I pray that it was quick. That he did not suffer too much.

The park was empty except for a few hearty mothers and their children. They stood by the lake dressed in yellow slickers throwing grain to the ducks. When I was little I'd go to the park with my bag of stale hot dog buns, tossing the chunks, watching the ducks bob and dive. I wonder if Michael ever did that with Adam.

I ended up walking the lake. A few joggers passed me. I passed the tables where Michael met the old men for chess. What was the diamond broker's name? Mr Goldman. Mike, if you need an engagement ring for that healthy blonde girl, you know where to come. What will they feel when the handsome young man with the sad green eyes never comes again? Not a word. No forwarding address.

I kept walking, past the bookstore he frequents, past the coffee shop where he gets his morning cappuccino, my feet covering the ground he has walked so many times.

If he is dead, I would know. If he is dead my body would stop, like bolt of lightning had struck me, wouldn't it?

I don't suppose it works that way, does it?

" Michael, come home." I said it with each steps, avoiding the cracks. I must have stepped on a lot of cracks to have such dismal luck. I stood out in the rain in front of his building for a long time, listening to the pigeons in the eaves; they were smart enough to be out of the rain. My hair was plastered to my face, my coat soaked.

A pair of lovers linked arm in arm came toward me. They were talking, conspiring as lovers do to make the rest of us jealous, sharing the same red umbrella, arguing about where to lunch.

" The Bistro on Fontaine? "

" We went there Sunday."

" But the salads are go good."

" Did I tell you how beautiful you are today?"

" Yes, but tell me again."

I watched them disappear around the corner, envious, yearning. I took one more look at the building as if expecting him to open one of his windows, lean out and grin at me.

" Michael...come back to me," I whispered.

His apartment was easy to break into. I am a spy after all. It felt strangely right to be there. I looked around. I had only been in it a few times but I know his loft as if it were my own. I covet it in my dreams, as I covet the owner. I have imagined how he lives here and have built my late night fantasies upon those imaginings.

I have given him an ordinary routine, a good wife who loves him deeply, hot meals to come home to. I have given him love and companionship. I have given him my heart. He knows nothing of all that. Such are my beautiful, lonely dreams.

I slipped off my wet sneakers and walked through to his kitchen, barefoot. It was late. The skylights were stark, black holes above my head, the windows mirroring my intrusion, cold and sheeted with rain. I decided he need curtains. He needed a woman to tell him things like that.

He had left in a hurry. There was an orange rind on the counter, curled and dry. Toast crumbs on a blue plate. Half a cup of coffee with a slick of oil on top. The paper carton of milk was left out. I took the carton and emptied the sour, white gobs into the drain, washed the cup and plate and put them away.

All traces of him gone.

I went over to the stereo. There were several CDs in the changer, a sophisticated machine he programmed to play his favorites. I pressed the play button:

See the storm set in your eyes.
See the thorn twist in your side,
I wait for you.
Slight of hand and twist of fate,
On a bed of nails she makes me wait,
And I wait for you
With or without you,
With or without you.
Through the storm we reach the shore,
You gave all but I want more,
And I'm waiting for you,
I can't live,
With or without you

I pushed the power button, tears clouding my vision. But Bono's voice stayed with me, in my head as I climbed the stairs to his loft. " And I'm waiting for you..."

I made my way upstairs to his room. His bed is large, unmade. The sheets are blue, wrinkled in the middle from his body. The pillow is mangled because he folds it beneath his head when he sleeps. Michael sleeps like a tyrant, on his back, his arms jutting out from behind his head, his legs open. He kicks all the blankets free. I sleep on my stomach. We would be fighting all night for territory. That makes me grin as I write this.

I stood there and imagined him gloriously naked beneath the blue comforter, his brown curls wild on the pillow. So splendid.

I sat on the edge of the bed. The television sits at the foot. A tape was poking out of the VCR. I reached over and pulled it out. Hitchcock's "Notorious".

I know that movie. It was one of Bobbie's favorites. I remember thinking it was silly, pointless. Black and white. I didn't understand it, but I was young. My mother would watch it and cry over Cary Grant, how handsome he was. Ingrid Bergman. Wasn't she lovely? And so sad. Such sad eyes.

" He really did love her, you know, Nikki," she said to me. " Devlin was a spy though. He couldn't tell her he really loved her until the end. He had to let her marry the little guy with the weird mother. It was his duty."

" Yea, Mom, he had to keep his love a secret or there would have been no plot."

What was he thinking as he watched this, I wondered? Did he think of me? If only he had told me. If only I had told him. I hoped he knew, he had to have known how I felt, that I loved him. He probably knew it even before me.

I picked up his blue robe from the end of the bed, held it up to my face and breathed the scent of him that clung there. Shampoo and soap, coffee, oranges, Michael's essence, still fresh and alive. My tears soaked the soft blue fabric.

I lay down on the bed, sinking my head into his pillow, hugging the robe to my chest. I would stay there and breathe him into me for a few minutes, for the last time and then I would go back to my apartment. I would never come here again, but I had to do this now, just to know that he was real, that he lived, that maybe, once upon a time, he was mine.

I was having the John book and the Amish girl dream again. He had come back to me and it was very early morning. We were in bed together. I was fully clothed in a constricting white nightgown but he was quite gloriously naked, his body spooned against my back, his chin pressed against my shoulder. I could hear him snoring slightly and I could feel the prickle of his beard through the cotton gown. So very real.

In my dream I sighed happily, wanting for nothing. I was in an iron bed, too small for two, but cozy. The curtains blew like stiff white sails bringing in the smell of starch and flowers and sunshine. The birds chattered and peeped outside. I could hear their little claws scrabbling on the window box. I let my hand trail down the front of my gown, over my breast, taut and achy, needing his touch, to the hand that held me, the fingers splayed over my ribs. He was hanging on to me for dear life.

I touched his hard arm. " Michael, I can't breathe..."

He stirred, his beard catching in my hair. His voice was throaty, very deep, his breath hot on my ear. " Tired. Let me sleep. I love you..."

My eyes popped open.

My dreams are never that good. They always end before the delicious part, just as the monster comes in and crunches me.

It was almost dawn. I could heard the rain on the skylights. I was in Michael's room, his bed. His soft blue robe lay wrinkled under my cheek. I felt behind me with my hand. A naked, smooth flank, slightly hairy thigh, a butt so firm you could crack an egg on it. I'd know his butt anywhere.

Michael.

My eyes adjusted to the light that seeped into the room. My heart pounded wildly as I looked down at the hand beneath my left breast. Long slim fingers, elegant nails, now torn and bleeding, knuckles scraped and scabby, the wrists wreathed in angry welts.

" Michael," I whispered. "

I raised his poor, battered hand to my lips and kissed it. He didn't move, such was his state of exhaustion. His skin was hot against my lips, but coursing with life.

I spoke his name again, like a prayer. Then I buried my face in the pillow, still holding his hand and sobbed.

Finally when I knew I had cried enough and knowing that I couldn't delay the inevitable any longer, I lifted his hand from my ribs. I hurt him doing it because he let out a small gasp, but did not awaken. I set his hand carefully on the mattress and slipped out of bed. I sat back on my heels just looking at him, marvelling over his naked sleeping body.

He was no stranger and yet he was. I looked at his face, puffy and bruised, his lip split and crusted over. His shoulder, ribs, hip, his flanks were all covered in bruises. He had been kicked, I'm sure. He breathed as if he had a bad cold. I wondered if he did or if he'd had his nose broken again.

Michael. Tears slipped from my eyes again. If I ever see the person who did this to my man, he'll live a miserable life sans balls. I swear it.

My stomach still clenched like a fist, my heart still full and aching, I covered him with the coverlet the best I could. Even the soles of his feet were hurt, chilled. I covered them carefully with the warm blue robe.

He was alive. Really here. This wasn't a dream. He had come home to me. He stirred slightly, his arm twitching, as if seeking my body. My John Book fantasy come to life. So I wonder where he keeps the tea and the poultices.

I know you think its bad of me. Relishing the fact that he's naked and helpless. But things don't happen like this for me. My daydreams rarely reach fruition. Reality always rears its ugly head.

What had he done?

Where had he been and how had he come back without alerting Section? Why would he risk it? What would they do to him when they discovered he had broken with protocol? Been out there on his own. Fear skittered like a melting ice cube down my spine at the thought.

He should have called me. I would have helped him.

I hoped Madeline was still in a giving mood. I had to call her. I didn't really want to.

I tip-toed out the door, over the pile of unfamiliar clothes, the soiled tennis shoes, filthy, wet khakis. He must have been anxious to get out of the smelly things, too exhausted to even shower. I hate to mention this but he had smelled a little ripe, the poor man. Not that I mind, if he doesn't make a habit of it.

I made my way down the stairs to find my cell phone. Where had I left my coat?

I heard something and stopped. It had not come from upstairs but to the right, near the guestroom. I turned.

There was a woman standing there. A beautiful, small dark haired woman. She was wearing nothing but one of his black tee-shirts. And she held a gun in her hand.

With a steadiness born of practice she pointed it at my face.

" Who are you?" the she-vision asked.

I just stood there, stunned. So this is why it took so damned long. I have been crying for three days thinking that he is dead and now I just want to kill him. " I could ask you the same question," I said. " My name's Nikita. I'm a friend of his."

" Do you live here with Michael? He didn't tell me about you."

Oh, of course not. But why would he tell this lithe, wood sprite anything about me? She was gorgeous. Delicate, womanly in all the right places. I frowned at the way his tee shirt draped on her pert breasts. Tiny hands. Little feet. Almost black hair and green eyes. More of an olive green, not the pale green peridot colour of his. They would make such a gorgeous pair. Like the pair he made with Simone. Or Elena. Or even Terry. All dark, all small, all ethereally lovely. All so unlike me.

" I don't live here. I was feeding his pet snakes. What's your name? And could you please lower the gun. I have to pee like a racehorse and you're making me nervous."

She lowered the gun. " My name is Isolde."

Oh, of course. Tristan and Isolde. Legendary Celtic lovers. She would have a name like that. She looked more Latin than Irish. Her parents must have known that the name means 'most beautiful.' You helped him?" I asked. You brought him here?"

" Yes. I helped him. He's ill. It was difficult to get here." Her voice was low, accented. Perhaps French?

I nodded. " I'm sure he could have made it far easier on everyone." I looked at her slender knees. Maybe her legs were a tad thin. It just had to be. His helper couldn't have looked like Pat from Saturday Night Live. Oh, no. She looked like she stepped out of Ricky Martin's new video.

" Listen, I'm leaving now, " I said. " Don't shoot me in the back or something. Will you tell Prince Charming when he wakes up that he's probably in a shit load of trouble? "

I turned my back on her, slipped on my coat and walked out the door into the rainy gray dawn, taking deep gulps of air into my lungs. I had to get out of there. I had to think. I wanted to cry.

I was ten feet away from the building when I heard him call me. His voice was hoarse almost drowned out by the heavy fall of rain. I almost pretended not to hear and then I turned around.

He was standing in front of the building, the rain soaking him, his hair in dark curls. He called me again, his voice so hoarse he could barely get the words out.

He was just standing there in the rain, almost gaunt now and terribly bruised. He was wearing a pair of black pyjama bottoms and nothing else. The rain ran in rivulets from his hair, his chest. All I could think about was how beautiful he was all wet like that.

He had actually chased after me. For the first bloody time. Ever.

What was to be proud of in this? Why should I feel like doing a dance in the rain like Gene Kelly because a poor, sick, beaten, half drowned, half naked man in wet pyjamas had come after me? I should be ashamed of myself.

But I wasn't.

I wonder if this is love? People in love to crazy things.

Does he love me?

I have very vague assumptions about love. I am not very good at figuring this out.

Maybe he just cares about me. Like a friend.

But he said: I love you. Had I dreamed that? Had my name been attached to the endearment? I don't recall. Did it need to be? And was that a friend sort of 'I love you' or a lover sort? Have I ever heard the lover sort? I don't think so.

So very confusing.

He's never held onto me like that before. Like I was his lifeline. Did he know it was me? Or was he perhaps dreaming of someone else?

Why did he take off all his clothes? Did he take them off when he saw me?

What a dumb question! Yea, Nikita. He took one look at you, got so horny he had to rip off his clothes and leap on the bed. He was wet and he stunk like the smelly terrorist he took those clothes off of, stupid. That was it.

Who the hell was the black haired chick? Had he been thinking of her and then saw me and thought: Oh, well. Don't look a gift horse--

He was coming closer. I had to do something. Maybe run and hide behind the telephone pole? Throw myself in front of that bus. He'd see me in the light of day in grungy sweats with skanky hair and no make-up and red swollen eyes and then he'd go back in to the goddess with the gun. Not good.

" What were you doing in my bed? "

" Sleeping," I said. " I was sleeping." Oh, good answer. I didn't go any closer. I was staring at the cracks in the sidewalk. I could feel my whole body reacting to him. God, was this feeling going to just take me whole and swallow me up? He absorbs me like a sponge.

I want know something. What does love look like? Is love as beautiful as you are, Michael? As heartbreakingly angelic? If it isn't, Michael, can we try to make it that way?

" Why my bed? "

" I needed to be there."

" Why?" The word was a soft whisper, a mere sigh.

" I care about you. Okay. What the hell do you think?" I swiped back a mutinous tear.

Why didn't I just blurt it out? Okay, Michael, you win. I love you. I love you to total madness. My love for you made me crazy. I thought you were dead and that I could never say the words to you. I was trying to tell you in the only way I could. Clutching your blue robe. Burying my face in your pillow just to smell you.

I wanted to know you on your last day. I wanted so badly to go with you. I would go anywhere with you now.

" I never thought you'd show up. I hoped. I didn't expect you to bring company." I sounded awfully petulant.

" I had to."

" Sure."

" You thought that I was dead?"

"Gee, no kidding." I gulped back a sob. " Who was that woman, Michael ?"

" She's of great importance to Section."

" So this was all planned. I got duped again?"

" No. I wouldn't do that to you, Kita. Things are complicated. I can't tell you right now." The Jedi master of vague statements. He started to cough. He was wet, cold and in great pain. That fact was obvious.

" Please, Michael. Just go back in. How long since you've slept?"

" I don't remember. Kita, I need to tell you "

People were starting to go to work. A man with a sour expression and an umbrella stared at us. I wanted to shout at him: This is love, buddy. We can do what ever the hell we want. We put our lives on the line for you. You just go to the office and live your boring little life.

" Michael, tell me the truth. Did you have to sleep with her to get her to cooperate?"

He laughed. Then he coughed. " I thought I was supposed to be able to get women to cooperate with one look, Kita."

"Well, I have heard that. And you're full of yourself. You never answered my question."

" No. I didn't. There's only one person I want to sleep with."

" Oh..." I hoped he was referring to me. He had managed to skirt the issue so easily. Very smooth. I kind of liked the obtuse answer. I liked the wet look, too. The man could start a craze. Wet Calvin Klein pyjama bottoms.

" Will you trust me on this?"

" Yea, on this."

" It might take a while before I can tell you everything."

" I've got my whole life."

He laughed. Threw back his gorgeous wet head and guffawed. Then he coughed again. He knows me. I am a crazy, impetuous, impatient whirling dervish. He is the patient one. He is the rock. Maybe he will finally get me to stay in one place for five minutes. I know exactly how he can do that.

" May I ask you something?"

" If you go right in. I don't want you getting sicker."

" You ever have fantasies, Kita?"

Had he found my diary? I blushed. " Sometimes."

" I do. Finding a six foot Goldilocks sleeping in my bed is one of them."

I bit my lip. " Was she clothed?"

His eyes burned. Fever, maybe. Maybe he was delirious

" Didn't involve another chick, did it? Or bears? "

" No, my darling Kita, you are more than I can handle." He smiled like a cat with his mouth full of feathers.

I felt like crying again. This was better than a fantasy. We were five feet from each other, but I could feel him. In me. All through me. Tight, under my skin.

" Believe in me. You don't have to, but do it anyway."

I nodded. I knew my eyes were getting red. I look really gross when I cry. " Please go back in. I do believe in you."

He smiled and started to turn. " That's a start. I think we're getting somewhere. I'll see you at Section."

" Yes." I had to get back. Maddie could only be nice for so long. " Michael?"

" What is it, Kita?"

" Do you know how to juggle?"

He grinned. " No."

" I just learned. I'll teach you."

" I'd like that." He turned and walked away from me, back into the building.

I stood there in the pouring rain and watched him disappear through the door. I alternately laughed and cried all the way home, covering the precious steps past the coffee shop, the book store, the chess tables in the park.

He was home. There would be time after all.

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