Michael couldn't get it up.

At least that's what I heard. Believe me, I was shocked. That has never been a problem for him. Not ever. Little Mikey never had any trouble standing at attention and saluting the flag when I was with him. Rather the opposite, I think.

Okay, Little Mikey doesn't quite describe that most interesting portion of Michael's anatomy, but you know what I mean.

By the way I never told him I called it that and he never had a name for it either, which some men do, and which I think is disgusting. I have had girlfriends who told me about their lovers having pet names for their things.

Like Mr. Winky.

One girl operative's lover called his thing The Scarlet Pimpernel. I have seen this dude around Section and I look at his face and all I see is a six foot, walking scarlet you-know-what.

Bobbie, my mother, had a boyfriend who called his wanker, Elvis. After making love and withdrawing he'd routinely announce that Elvis had left the building.

Did he begin by waving his condom over his head and singing the theme from 2001, A Space Odyssey? I don't really want to know even now. At fourteen hearing Bobbie tell her girlfriends about it scarred me for life.

Now is that a turn-off, or what?

I will admit to referring to my boobs as the gals. They're not huge but they are at least a handful, and have remained fairly pert and they do deserve my respect and attention. I'm pretty sure Michael liked them. Thank God he didn't name them. Lucy and Ethel. Thelma and Louise. Laverne and Shirley. Which reminds me, the gals need a new running bra. They've been bouncing around like crazy lately in the old one.

Back to the Michael thing. He was on a valentine mission when the unthinkable happened. He had to seduce some woman, the fairly recent widow of a gallery owner who got into some trouble with the bad guys six months ago. Before Robin Reese, the woman's husband, died, he hid an important terrorist directory somewhere in an unknown piece of artwork. That's what intel says anyway. Section wants it badly and of course sent Michael to seduce the widow and find it.

Pretty ho-hum, standard stuff for Section. Except that Michael failed miserably at seducing the widow. I don't know why he couldn't have sex with her. I have absolutely no idea why men have those problems. I'm quite certain that it's a first for him. I'm prettysure that, even though Michael has sprouted a few gray hairs recently, he's no Bob Dole. I doubt there will be a prescription waiting in Michael's name for Viagra just yet.

I do know that Birkoff was on the com unit listening to the attempted launch. He heard everything.

" Oh, Michael, it's fine, darling. All men have that problem now and again. Maybe you have a cold," she said.

I think Birkoff fell off his chair screaming with laughter at that point.

Hearing about it made me fall off my chair, too, but I wasn't laughing. Seriously, Michael could get cancelled if Little Mikey doesn't resolve his problem.

Ops has taken him off the assignment. He's in Bucharest now trying to break into some chemical weapons lab as we speak. I don't think it was the cushiest of assignments they could have chosen to give him. I haven't spoken to him recently about how things are going lately or what they might have said to him about the reasons he was off the Reese mission.

I'm sure they made it quite clear that he wasn't cutting it. I do know they always give those chemical weapons assignments to the people who are in the dog house.

Now they're sending me in to work in her gallery to find the damned directory since the Widow Reese broke it off with Michael last week. I don't know if she ended it because he couldn't perform.

Pretty cold reason for dumping a guy.

I would rather not speculate.

All I know is that she doesn't want to see him again and that I am going to be a working girl for a few weeks. I don't know if I should be glad Little Mikey couldn't do the job. This is a good assignment. I might like working in a gallery. I do adore art and I've wandered lots of galleries, even buying a few nice modern pieces in my time.

I don't really like the fact that this has happened to him. Not that I care personally, cause I don't. It really isn't any of my business one way or another if he's in proper working order. I just know that Madeline is pretty ticked that her best, handsomest valentine op couldn't perform the horizontal mambo and that makes it harder for him.

He's been having a very hard time lately. Or a soft time, depending on how you look at it.

Oh, that was bad.

I hope the widow isn't the type of chick who gets real deep into conversations about her sex life and all that. I generally hate that stuff. There is no way I'm going to be able to keep a straight face if she launches into some speech about Michael, her former boyfriend, and his little problem over meatball sandwiches and Cokes at lunch.

I heard that there was a concern about contamination on the chem lab mission. I have begun to think that if Michael had any luck lately it would be bad.

The guys who went in on the first team had contamination suits and the others, like Michael and Davenport (who is also apparently in the doghouse, perhaps for wearing that dress to work last month) wore gas masks, but there was some fear that there could have been leakage of noxious substances from a booby trap outside the facility. One of the guys with the second team got ill afterwards and was routinely treated for inhalation of a toxic substance, but he isn't doing all that well. Michael, apparently, is okay, but they're watching him and Davenport for signs of illness.

I hope that he isn't sick. I was watching him this morning . He looked a little the worse for wear. Kind of green about the gills and rubbing his temples like his head ached. I could have sworn that his cheeks looked a little flushed.

When I asked him how he felt he just shrugged tiredly and said that he had a sore throat but that it was nothing to do with the chemical thing.

I hoped not for his sake. That poisoning stuff is gruesome.

I like the art gallery. And I like Rachel Reese. She's a pretty woman with red hair, around forty I think, tallish and with large breasts and lush hips. I'm really surprised that he couldn't do it with her. She's really very sexy in a womanly, earthy way. I've been trying to imagine how such a nice, hardworking lady got mixed up with a slimy dude like Robin Reese. I can tell already that she had no idea what her husband was mixed up in.

She finally mentioned her affair with Michael this morning after a customer came in and started to hit on her.

I saw her set down her books on her Louis XIV desk and sigh. " What is it lately? I'm suddenly a man magnet."

I smiled and continued to unload a crate containing some paintings." You're very pretty. I can see why," I said.

" I'm a forty year old woman with a kid. I have a huge mortgage and a mountain of debt. I have no illusions about my attractiveness. My first and only attempt at a relationship since Robbie died went bust just a few weeks ago. "

" Really?"

" You don't want to hear about this. I usually don't discuss my sex life with my girlfriends. And especially not my employees," she said with a deep, weary sigh.

" Maybe you need to vent." I didn't have to listen to this. But I really wanted to know what happened. Call it curiosity. Disbelief. I don't know.

" Oh, God. Maybe I do need to talk about it, Nicole." That's the name I was going by. " But I really should just get to those invoices."

" I'm really willing to listen. I had a failed affair myself recently. I've sworn off men ever since." I guess that's what I could say happened.

" Were you in love with him? " she asked me.

I flushed. "Yea. I guess I was. But I just stopped. I don't know why. There was nothing wrong with him except maybe " I shook my head. I was getting too truthful here. " It was a work thing. He was sort of my boss at one time."

" I see. That can be tough. I wasn't at the point that I was in love with Michel. He's just so hard to forget. He was just so beautiful, so seductive. I really couldn't help myself wanting to be with him. "

She had that right enough.

" Michel was perfection. A total babe." She grinned. " He was about five years younger than me, too."

" Yea? A total babe? And younger. That's good."

" Oh, yea. Very good."

" So what was the problem?"

" The problem with Michel was that he was already in love with someone else. He couldn't forget her. And he wouldn't admit it to me or himself. Not at first anyway. "

I felt myself flushing. I hoped she didn't notice. " Did he tell you about her? "

" Very little. And that was after something happened-- or didn't happen -- on this weekend we spent together at a bed and breakfast in the country. It just seemed all to unravel right there, so I ended up playing the doting mother figure and we talked about his lost love for a while. He looked terribly sad, but he wouldn't really tell me exactly what happened, except to say that the parting had been her idea. If you could see him, Nicole, you'd wonder how any woman could let him go."

I swallowed. " So what happened then? "

"After that we decided just to call ourselves friends and go to sleep. I was glad we decided that because I knew for sure I'd never come in anywhere but second where he was concerned. He fell asleep before me and he had this dream. He was crying out her name. It darned near broke my heart."

I stared at her, the small water colour I held pressed against my chest.

" He kept calling her name in this lost way... Kita. It was Kita, I think. I keep imagining what she was like. She had to have been perfect, too. Michel was beautiful, so beautiful. I love art, you know, and he looked like a work of art. Michelangelo's David, maybe, only all grown up and refined, you know, everything in proportion and he had the most celestial, gentle eyes and a shy, almost teasing smile. He was an antiques dealer. At first I thought he was gay cause be seemed too good to be true."

" Maybe he was. Maybe Kita's a dude."

She laughed. " No. I'm pretty sure Kita was a girl. I know plenty of gay antique dealers. He wasn't. He was straight. He was also kind and attentive and my little boy liked him." Her tone was wistful." Actually Adam adored him."

" Adam? Your little boy's name is Adam? "

God, Section could be so damned cruel.

" Yes. You'll have to come to dinner and meet him. He's six and an adorable monkey."

" I'd like that, Rachel. Are you sad about it? That it's over with this Michel? "

" No. I'm mostly just sad for him. I think that Michel was still madly in love with this girl and just couldn't let himself make love to me, that's all. I have to say that he was a most unselfish lover. The foreplay that night was " She sighed, " quite perfect. For me at least. I would have liked to remain friends with him, even sometime lovers, but Adam was getting too attached to him and I really didn't want to be with someone who couldn't give his whole heart to me. I knew it wouldn't work. It was better for Adam if I didn't let it progress to anything that might be painful to end."

" I admire that."

" Thank you," she said with a smile. " You know, I ought to call Michel and introduce you two. You'd make him forget his Kita."

" Oh, I doubt that. I don't want to meet anyone just now."

The phone rang then. Rachel picked it up. " Rachel Reese Gallery," she said. She frowned and then sighed. " Okay," she said and hung up the phone with a groan..

I looked at her. " What is it?"

" I know it's a lot to ask being that you've only been here less than a week."

" Ask."

" Can you look after things by yourself? "

I nodded. That was the plan.

" My son is ill."

I felt a little start. Had Section done something to her son to get me alone here to search?

" He has spots all over him."

" Spots?"

" Chicken pox. Seems he just got them and the teacher noticed. It's been running rampant in the class. I always wished they'd hurry up and get that vaccine here. I have to pick him up and get him home."

" Go home. I'll be fine. Tell him I hope he feels better. "

" Thank you, Nicole. Really, I'm so glad you're here. He had a really high fever a few days ago but it stopped and I thought he was all better and that it was just a cold, so I sent him to school. I hear this chicken pox thing is a real ordeal. I can barely remember it except for the scars I have now. "

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

Three days later I had found the directory. It was amazingly easy and I was in Section's good graces once again. No one died. No one suffered and their stupid little black book, which was hidden in a hollowed out telephone book in his office at the house, of all places. I had pulled it out thinking to order Adam and I a pizza when I babysat the adorable Adam so poor Rachel could get some respite.

It's now in Section's hands.

I did feel a little sorry about leaving Rachel and the gallery so abruptly.

I had three days off. One of them, I spent with Walter. We'd gone out for this rather awkward dinner. Walter has changed a bit lately, since he came back from that forced retirement. He mainly keeps to himself. We've drifted apart. We don't confide in each other as we once did.

I sometimes wonder if they did some playing with his head during that time he was away. I would not put it past them.

I was locking my apartment up to go on a shopping trip, an all day thing, when I saw Mick in the hallway.

" Popsicle. You look positively gorgeous today. Are those jeans Gucci or Versace? "

" They're from Sally Ann with a few rhinestones added, a la Nikita." I was happy he noticed. I was lately into making cool, decorated jeans like the ones in In Style magazine. That was something my mother had done all the time. She'd encouraged my creativity, too. I had a jean jacket with INXS on the back punched in crooked rows of studs that I did myself. I was quite fashionable as a twelve year old.

" Very cool. Did you hear? I was going to wake you and tell you, but I thought--."

" I haven't heard anything, Mick and I'm in a hurry. What's going on? "

" They took Michael up to Meds. He passed out cold last night. We were meeting an informant of mine and he just flaked out cold in the car. Just slumped over the steering wheel at a red light."

" What? " My heart sort of sank in my chest.

" Yea, he was sick. Running a fever of a hundred and five. I called Section and they came and got us. You should have heard him moaning about this bird he was keeping at his apartment. I don't know who the lady is, but she must be rather hot for him to be that worried about her."

I would not think about the possibility that there was a ' bird ' waiting for Michael at his apartment. And if, indeed, there was a girl he was keeping at his loft, what did I care?

" Do they think he may have been poisoned or contracted some virus on that mission?"

" I don't think so, but they've quarantined him just in case."

They had him in the isolation unit.

Ops was outside his room talking to a Section doctor. He looked at me as I went and peered in the window.

" You have downtime," he said with a frown.

" I heard he was sick." I looked through the window at Michael. He was pale, his hair spread on the pillow, picking up red highlights from the overhead fluorescent lights. Something kind of twisted in my gut seeing him that way.

" He's quite ill, " said Ops.

" Do they know what it is, yet? "

" No. They've done some tests. They've got the fever down somewhat. He's apparently had the fever, a headache and cold symptoms for a few days."

I looked at Ops and the doctor, thinking about something funny. It couldn't be.

" Rachel Reese's son has a raging case of chicken pox," I said. " Do you think there's a chance he contracted them? "

" Chicken pox? " Operations scoffed. " Every adult's had that."

The doctor grinned at me and then looked back at Operations. " Not all adults. And it isn't something we routinely worry about. Most ops are assumed to have had childhood diseases like this, " said the doctor. " In an adult the symptoms can be very dramatic, very much like this. The virus can cause pneumonia or other complications and if a pregnant woman gets it, well, you know. If he does have it and I dose him with an anti-viral agent I know of and a drug called Acyclovir he ought to be fine. I'll start him on a course of antibiotics now, too, to ward off infection. If we're lucky, he'll just be real itchy for a week or so."

It was chicken pox. Not a simple case, but they'd caught it in time. By the time Michael's first set of scabs had formed he was a wild man demanding to go home. The Acyclovir had diminished some of the worst symptoms and he'd been left with the itchy rash.

He was such a pain in the butt that the doctor decided to send him home with a Section nurse, who had instructions to be on the look out for secondary symptoms.

He sent her back fleeing in horror back to Section in one day. Erica said she would rather be cancelled for not doing her duty than stay with the nasty beast another minute.

It wasn't all that funny.

I meant to ask Erica if the 'bird' was still there and what she looked like, but she'd been sent off on a day's stress leave.

I was busy pecking away at my computer when Madeline called me into her office.

" We'd like you to stop by and see him. He's a bit of an animal. He just hung up on me and now he's refusing to answer the door or his cell phone."

I tried not to laugh. " So you want me to give him a baking soda bath? Make sure he doesn't pick or scratch? "

" We want you to make sure that he's eating and taking his medication. Maybe you could stop and get him some groceries. He's apparently got sores in his mouth and won't eat."

" Yuck. Yea, okay. I guess I can."

" So how do you feel about this? "

" I'm glad he's not sicker. I hear it could have been a lot worse. How am I supposed to feel? "

Madeline just shook her head and gave me that Cheshire cat's smile.

Madeline's been asking me some pretty weird questions. At least she didn't bring up the headaches and the chamber thing again.

***********

I stood outside his door with a bag containing non-acid food like puddings, cottage cheese and ice-cream. " Michael, answer," I yelled, pounding on the door. " I'll just shoot off the damned lock, you know."

He finally jerked open the door.

He looked so appalling I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. All I could think of was: Pizza Face.

It was heinous. His face was covered in blisters, some new, some scabbed over. One eyelid was drooping. He wore a pair of tearaway pants all open at the sides so it looked like a slit skirt and a white tee shirt. And he had oven mitts over his hands.

I winced.

He almost slammed the door in my face.

" Wow, Michael, you look gross," I said.

" Thanks. Why are you here ?"

" To see if you're alright. Are you baking something? "

" Baking? "

The oven mitts on his hands were green and looked like snapping alligators. I had bought them for him at the public market on a whim. "The oven mitts? "

" They keep me from scratching myself."

I tried not to smile. " Okay. I thought you might be real bored and considering giving a puppet show. Let me in. I brought you some food."

" I'm not hungry," he said, testily.

" Section orders."

" Yea, well, I know you wouldn't come here on your own accord."

" Listen, I know you've already chased off the Section nurse with your bitchiness, Michael. I'm impervious to your bull shit."

" And I don't need a fucking nurse."

For Michael to swear he had to be perturbed. Or in pain.

I raised my eyebrow at him and peered in the doorway. " This place is a mess. I'll just come in and put these groceries away and clean up. I ducked under his brawny, speckled arm and walked in. " Do you have someone here already? "

" Someone here? " He rubbed at his bare arms with the oven mitt. " Who would be here? "

" Mick mentioned that you had a girlfriend now."

He looked surprised. He ran one of the alligator oven mitts through his hair. It was kind of greasy looking and stood up all over the place. God, he looked so pathetic.

" A girlfriend? Mick said I had a girlfriend. And tell me, Nikita, does that bug you?"

" Bug me? Why should that bug me? " I set down the groceries, feeling somewhat less cool than I would have thought. " I don't care who you sleep with. Is she from Section? "

" I'm not sleeping with anyone," he hissed at me. His jaw was held so tightly I feared it might snap. " I don't know if you've heard the gossip at Section but I'm now a virtual eunuch."

" Really, hmmm. Okay. Don't worry about it. Do you think you could eat some soup? I brought mushroom soup and unsalted saltines. I think the doctor said that would go down alright."

He sighed. " I don't care. Just don't sprinkle parsley in it."

I have this Martha Stewart thing about doctoring up canned or frozen food. He'd always shook his head over that. " It's okay, but I'd like it better without the green stuff," he'd say.

I opened the can and dumped it into a bowl. " I can't believe you never had this disease before. Didn't all the kids you knew as a kid have it? I had it when I was eight. I have scars all over my ass from where I picked."

" There are only three scars on your ass."

" Three? You noticed that."

" I'm more familiar with what your behind looks like than you are, Nikita. I think about it every night."

I looked at askance at him. Jeez. What a thing to say. And I wish you could have seen his eyes when he said it. It was like they were on fire.

I know when he wants me. I know the look. And that was the look. I almost dropped the soup bowl and ran.

Instead I swallowed hard and said. " Okay. Three scars. Not that bad. Anything else I should know? " That just came out. I wished I'd not said it the moment it did.

"There's a small birthmark high on the nape of your neck right at the hairline. I'm sure you've never seen it. It looks like an angel kissed you. I loved kissing you there..."

I know I flushed at that. He was still looking at me in the predatory way. " So your sister never had chicken pox either? " I asked, changing the subject.

" My sister was at my aunt's in Paris when she got it. I guess that's why I never it caught from her."

I set the bowl in the microwave. " You didn't get to go out much, did you? "

" It was the asthma thing. I was always sick with that and my mother kept me away from other kids. I rarely played with anyone. I had to be solitary. No dust. No pets. No climbing trees or running. She was afraid I'd catch something and die."

" That must have been awful."

He shrugged. " I had my books and my cello."

" A boy and his cello. A different kind of love story."

" Yea, well. It was better than nothing. And she, at least, did whatever I wanted her to if I rubbed her in the right places."

Oh, God, Michael.

His cello was a girl. That made sense, I guess.

He smiled. " Nikita, could you go to the hardware store and get me some bird seed? "

" You have some unusual chicken pox cravings? Makes you want to eat birdseed, right? " The microwave dinged and I took the steaming bowl out. " Are you sure you don't want some millet sprinkled on this? A few grubs? "

He sighed. " Funny. Real funny. I need wild bird seed. I need some for Juliet."

" Okay. Who's Juliet? "

" She's a blue jay."

" A blue jay? "

" Yes," he said. He removed the mitts and reached for the pepper.

I stilled his hand. " Doc says no spices. It'll hurt the sores in your mouth."

" Piss on him." He took the pepper and sprinkled it over the soup.

" It's your funeral. So where is this blue jay? "

" I'll introduce you to her after I eat."

We went out onto the roof later. While I was staying at his place I used to go up and sit in the sun. He had a few trees in containers and a couple of Adirondack chairs out there.

Now he had some kind of big cage rigged out with chicken wire and two by fours. There was a blue jay hopping around in it. The bird's wing was dragging behind her a little. We went up to the cage. I didn't want to really. I'm not all that fond of birds.

" Bonjour, Juliet," he cooed. The bright blue bird tilted her head and made a loud caw. Her beady little eyes studied me." Qu'est-ce qu-elle y a ? " Don't quote me, but I think I got that right.

I looked at him. " She understands French? " I teased. " You really think she'll tell you what's the matter? "

" Oui. If I ask nicely. She just asked me who the beautiful woman is."

" And what did you tell her? "

He smiled. " I told her that you're the one I always talk about. I tell her quite often about you."

" And just what do you say?"

"I tell her that your wings are damaged, too, but that you'll fly again. I tell her that I'll wait forever for that day."

I just looked at him, perplexed. I had no idea what he meant. " My wings are perfectly fine. I think those chicken pox have addled your brain. She's so pretty. Can she fly? "

" Not yet. She was a lot worse off a few weeks ago. A cat must have got her. I think her wing will mend. "

" Where did you find her? "

" I was out walking the paths in the park and Romeo came out and shrieked at me. He was protecting her. I found her hurt under a tree."

" Romeo? "

" Yea. Her partner. He might be around here somewhere. He usually perches on the tree over there, but he's shy sometimes. He still doesn't quite trust me with his lady love."

" He followed you here after you brought her home? "

" Of course. Jays mate for life. You didn't know that? " He was reaching into the cage. The jay hopped onto his finger and preened herself.

He pursed his perfect mouth and chirred at her. In the sunlight his eyes held those blue and gold specks within the green. The wind that seemed stronger up here on the roof and it picked up his longish hair and blew the silken strands around his face.

Even with the chicken pox scabs he was beautiful enough to steal your breath.

" I don't know much about birds. I didn't know birds mated for life."

" Nature's like that for a lot of species. You find your mate and you stick together. No matter what." He was staring at me and then seemed to have to tear his eyes away from me. " It's like that for some humans, too."

" I don't believe that."

"I do. He'd probably have let himself die there, too, if I hadn't found her."

" Why? Some kind of crazy bird suicide pact? "

" Maybe."

" It's kind of sad." I made myself sound indifferent." Mother nature's a bitch, isn't she?."

He smiled. "No one puts thing quite like you, Kita."

" Sorry."

" Don't apologise. It's you. And I like it when you're being you."

" Whatever the heck that means." Sometimes it's like Mikey's in his own little world lately.

"Sometimes I lie in bed with the skylights open in the morning and I hear them calling to each other. It's the loneliest sound I've ever heard."

I took a deep breath. I didn't know why I suddenly felt sad. Was it the thought of him waking alone? Or the poor birds separated and calling for each other. Whatever it was, it was silly. He was looking at me in a strange way, his eyes all soft, his swollen mouth lifting at one corner slightly.

He had this look of a man waiting. Waiting for what, I don't know.

" Do you want to hold her? "

I swallowed hard and shook my head. " I'm not big on birds, but she's nice. Now that you've eaten, I should clean up the kitchen and go. I'll get that birdseed, if you like. "

He set Juliet back on the floor of the cage.

We went back in the house. While I was cleaning the kitchen he went off to wash up. I thought about the incongruity of it, this cold, solitary man, a killer for all it was worth, taking a sick bird home and nursing it to health.

And why did it touch such a chord in me?

I tried to think. Something seemed to hover at the edge of my memory, like a dream. You know how dreams are. So brilliant while you are in them and then lost or faded to glimmers the minute you wake.

I set the washed and dried soup bowl on the counter and bit my lip. Why is it I do this? It's like deja vu. I am always trying to remember

" Nikita? "

I turned. He was standing there in the kitchen, shirtless, awful scabby blisters covering his beautiful, hard chest. I had to take a deep breath before I could answer him. "Oh, Michael. Do they hurt very much?"

" A little. They're more itchy." He held up a bottle of calamine. " Think you could get the ones on my back? I can't reach them."

I nodded. " Yes. Sure, Michael, and then I'll go."

I took the bottle from his hand and he turned. His lovely sculpted back must have had a hundred sores, though they didn't seem inflamed or infected in any way. I was glad of that. " Rachel's son had this. Did they tell you that?"

I tipped the cool lotion onto my fingers and rubbed it across his heavily muscled shoulder blades. He sighed. From relief, perhaps?

Perhaps it was my touch. I don't know.

Touching his skin made my breath catch in my throat.

" They told me he was sick. Is he okay? "

" Yes. I looked after him for a day. He showed me the air plane you helped him make."

I felt him sigh beneath my hands.

" He's a fine little boy. I hated it. I hated using her that way."

" I know, Michael."

" They're still laughing about it at Section, aren't they? My little problem. "

I gently rubbed his back with the cream. " Not any more." I lied.

" I assure you, I could prove right here and now that I would never have a problem with you."

I didn't dare ask him to turn around. I was pretty certain that he could prove it. I finished covering his poor back with the cream and was in such a hurry to get out of there, I almost tripped on his hall carpet. I barely looked back at him.

" Get the bird seed for me."

" Yep. I'll do that."

I never went back. Coward, I guess. I sent a delivery boy with the seed.

But I couldn't get to sleep that night. And when I fell asleep I dreamed that we were making love under the trees and that there were these stupid bluebirds flitting around us carrying flowers in their beaks.

He didn't have any scabs. He was gorgeous. Glorious. Totally. He was under me in the grass, naked, his face all serene, his lovely eyes half closed. Like a prince in a fairy tale.

And Little Mikey was happy, too.

It was like a Disney flick.

Okay, maybe if Disney made adult art films.

Three weeks later Michael was fine, just a few slightly red spots on his face. He had healed up very well but for one tiny spot under his ear that would only leave a tiny scar. The doctor said he was lucky. If he hadn't been able to administer the Acyclovir in the first days Michael could have had dangerous complications.

He came up to my desk while I was reading through some files. He looked handsome and back to business in his black suit. As usual his hair was slicked back, the curls tamed and his hands were clasped behind his back.

" I see that you have some downtime tomorrow."

I nodded.

" Do you have plans? "

" Michael, I can't go out with you."

He frowned. " I know that. Can you meet me at the park? At ten for an hour."

I sighed. " Okay. I was going to run anyway."

I got there at noon, looking around for him. It was cold and rainy. Puffs of steam formed as I breathed. The new jogging bra was keeping the gals quite perky.

I spotted him coming down the path with a cage in his hand. He indicated with a wave of his arm that I should come over by the trees.

" Hi, what are we doing? "

Michael grinned at me. He was wearing jeans, boots and a thick Shetland wool sweater with a mack over it.

" I'm freeing her today. She's ready to fly."

I looked down at the cage. She looked well. Her wing no longer drooped. I squatted down beside him. " Hi there, bird. How's tricks? "

" It'll be mating season one of these days. She and Romeo will have to get to know each other again."

" Do you think she's forgotten him? "

" Not in a million years. She's true blue." He opened the door to her cage. Tame now, she hopped onto his hand and pecked at his finger. " No, ma belle, you're free now." He rose and lifted his hand into the air.

She flew off, tentatively at first and then swooped and soared into the sky with joy.

He watched her, his eyes bright, his teeth flashing in a laughing smile.

" She's so beautiful," I whispered.

" She's got her wings back. She's free," he said simply. He said it without meeting my gaze.

We watched there in complete silence for a time. And then, as if out of nowhere, a male blue jay appeared. He was a little larger, brighter, slightly flashy. He landed under the tree and let out a piercing cry, tilting his head to look at Michael.

" There you go, Romeo. She's all yours. Go and make some babies."

I grinned over that.

He turned to me. " I'll buy you a cup of coffee," he said.

" I should go. I "

" Just coffee, Kita," he said softly. Rain was dripping off his nose. " We have to do something to celebrate. Right? "

I nodded. The blue jays cawed at each other from their places in the tree. I picked up the cage.

" No. Leave it there. I hate those damned things."

He reached out his hand.

I put mine into it. His warm, hard fingers folded over mine.

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