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Alec saw Max wave good-bye to Normal as the Jam Pony manager drove off and walked over to where she stood on the sidewalk. "You know," he said scratching his head, "if someone had told me three years ago that Normal would become a trannie-lover I never would've believed 'em. I mean, he used to go through an ink cartridge every three days printin' out those anti-mutant flyers of his."
"People can change, Alec," Max said quietly. "Just look at me." She shivered in the cold rain.
Alec frowned, then nodded at the house. "Seems to be clear." He was about to put his arm around her when a sound made both of the transgenics look up. A block away a homeless man was pushing a battered shopping cart up the sidewalk, headed in their direction. When he saw the two young people a wide toothless smile split his face.
"Can you spare a dollar for an old man?" he called, holding out a hand encased in a raggedy glove. Then he noticed the house behind them and stopped. "You ain't goin' in there, are you?"
"Why?" Alec asked, heading down the sidewalk with Max trailing behind. "Does someone already live there?"
"You might say that."
"What do you mean?" Max asked. "It doesn't look occupied."
The bum looked up and down the street as if afraid of being overhead, then he motioned Alec closer and said in a conspiratorial voice, "It's haunted."
Alec coughed at the old fellow's alcohol-laced breath, waving the fumes away with his hand. "It's haunted?" he laughed. "As in it has a ghost?"
The bedraggled man rolled his eyes. "They say one of those killer mutants used to live there, one that disappeared into Terminal City. Now, his ghost hangs around. People have gone in there and never come out again."
"What people?" Max asked, pinching Alec's arm to keep him from laughing any more.
The man shrugged. "Just people. Lookin' for leftovers or a place to get in out of the rain."
"Speaking of rain," Alec said, squinting up at the misting sky. He turned to Max. "I hope that ghost doesn't mind a couple of roommates for the night." He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a 20 dollar bill. The bum's eyes brightened as Alec waved it under his nose. "Go get yourself a good meal and a dry bed," he said. "But just remember one thing. You never saw the two of us tonight, and you never told us anything about this house. Got it?"
The guy was eying him strangely, a suspicion on his face that belied his apparent inebriation. "You're one of 'em, aren't you?" he rasped. "One of them mutants?"
Alec straightened, the I'm-in-control-cock-sure look vanishing from his eyes to be replaced by a hint of fear. How could he know? Did he spot my bar code? He hunched slightly in his jacket, suddenly all too aware of the tattoo on the back of his neck that was barely covered by his hair.
"We're just a couple of people tryin' to get by," he said quickly. "Nothin' special. No one." But then Alec deliberately pinned the guy with his eyes, his demeanor subtly changing. "And I think you'd be wise to remember that, old man." He clapped the fellow on the shoulder hard, his fingers clamping down like a steel vice. If the derelict hadn't truly known what Alec was before, he knew now -- and he wouldn't be talking to anybody. 494 could see the fear on the old geezer's face. Good.
*****
"Did you have to scare grandpa half to death?" Max groused as she helped Alec drag a dusty mattress out of one of the bedrooms to lay on the floor in front of the fire she'd built. "I mean, who would he have told? And who would have believed him?"
"Better safe than sorry, Max," Alec said lightly. "The last thing we need tonight is an army of vigilantes at our front door." He stood and looked around the room appreciatively. "At least that ghost story seems to have kept the looters away. Even most of Logan's stuff is still here." He gestured to the desk in the corner where a couple of computer terminals remained as well as various disks and two sets of headphones. "Father's" books were lining the shelves ... even the television set he'd scored from Harbor Lights Hospital.
"Ah, the memories," Alec said, taking a deep breath of the musty air as he stretched his sore arms.
"You know," Max said, coming up from behind and hugging him around the waist. "I miss it sometimes ... how things were here in Seattle; Joshua, the gang at Jam Pony, my crib, O.C."
"Joshua and O.C. are safe and sound at home on Chimera," Alec replied. "And Normal's doin' okay. He said Sketchy's fine too, got himself a nice lady friend now." Pulling out of her grasp, Alec flopped down on the mattress, stirring up a cloud of dust. "What's to miss?" he managed to get out just before he sneezed. And then he held out his arms to her.
"Long hours bicycling through the rain and a sore butt at the end of the day?" Max laughed, crawling into the safety of his embrace. She shivered, the tight little dress offering little in the way of warmth, although her transgenic metabolism kept her from being dangerously chilled.
"You feelin' better now?" Alec asked, his voice a playful deep purr in her ear as he massaged the cold skin of her shoulders.
"Some," Max conceded. "Your arm all right?"
Alec glanced down at the makeshift bandage Normal had insisted on applying to the deep rope burn on his forearm and shrugged. "I'll heal." His eyes brightened. "You hungry? Normal gave me a sandwich he'd brought for his midnight snack." Alec reached into the inner pocket of his black leather jacket and pulled out a smashed looking object wrapped in brown paper. He sniffed the contents. "Bologna ... I think." He offered it to Max.
"Yeah, I'm hungry," she said softly, her hands wriggling beneath his shirt. "But not for food."
"Oh really," Alec said, tossing the sandwich aside and lowering his head to nibble on her ear. "You know, Max, we never did it here ... in this house."
"Don't tell me," she said, turning her face so her lips brushed his. "When you stayed here with Joshua you'd lie awake at night in bed fantasizing about me."
"Of course," Alec replied. "I closed my eyes and imagined you and me naked together on the floor in the living room in front of a roaring fire." He glanced over at the flames dancing so warm and yellow in the grate.
"Naked?" Max said seductively as she reaching back and began undoing the buttons of her dress. A second later she pulled the garment off and kicked it away, leaving her clad only in a low cut bra, scanty lace panties, a garter belt, and some badly abused hosiery.
"Uh-huh," Alec said, a playful grin on his lips as his fingers of their own accord reached around to undo the clasp of the bra. Tossing the flimsy bit of lace across the room, he sat up so Max could pull off his jacket. The hose, garter belt, and panties were quickly stripped away by his eager hands as well, leaving her sitting completely naked in his fully clothed lap.
"Tell me more about this fantasy of yours," Max said low in his ear as she began unbuttoning the fly of his jeans. Which is when she discovered something interesting. "And why aren't you wearing any underwear?"
"Didn't you ever hear of 'commando style'?" Alec said impishly. "And as for the fantasy, it went something like this." His mouth captured hers and he rolled them both over on the mattress, his weight suddenly holding her deliciously pinned down. Max wriggled beneath him, tugging on his jeans. "Hey, who's fantasy is this?" Alec complained as he began kissing his way down her neck.
"Ours," she whispered hoarsely, her hand finding and freeing him.
It really was like a fantasy, taking Max with long hard strokes on the floor in front of the fire, his jeans pushed down to his ankles and her cool hands cupping his ass as her thighs held him tightly. The setting ... the danger of the evening ... had her incredibly aroused. All she wanted ... all she needed ... was him inside of her.
Alec closed his eyes and let himself drown in the sexual sensation, the feeling of Max beneath him, her walls sucking at him, the fact she was already pregnant with his child doing nothing to diminish the overwhelming urge he had to mate with her.
She was watching him. He could feel her eyes on him, and he knew what she craved. She wanted him to lose control, for a few fleeting seconds enslaving himself to her, giving her his essence ... a piece of his soul.
No problem.
He took her harder and harder, plunging deep only to withdraw and ram into her again and again and again until her little cries became a rhythm in his mind punctuated by his own panting breath. Minutes seemed like hours, time suspended, the world around them gone.
And then--
Alec's body couldn't take it any longer, the heat rising in his groin, swelling, until suddenly his own cry drowned out Max's whimpers as he sacrificed himself to the woman he loved.
*****
The darkest hour of night was upon the two transgenic lovers when the fantasy became nightmare.
Max heard the sound first, her lighter stage of sleep a smaller step back to reality than Alec's much deeper slumber. She raised her head from his shoulder and cocked an ear. And then she heard it again -- stealthy footsteps. A light flickered by the front window of the house and her nose detected the faint odor of human sweat.
"Alec," she whispered, her hand covering his mouth.
Wide hazel-green eyes snapped open, the figments of dreams reflecting in their depths for less than a second before their focus sharpened as 494's battle-trained personality awakened and took control.
Max nodded toward the window as she removed her hand from his lips. Alec rose on one elbow and canted his head, night vision in full mode, ears perked, nostrils slightly flared, his keen feline senses seeking information.
The house was surrounded.
"Come out with your hands in the air!" a bull horn suddenly blared, the volume so loud it made both of the transgenics wince with pain. "This will be your only warning! Surrender or we will use deadly force!"