Small Potatoes

Here I am once again traveling down another seemingly endless highway in another meaningless investigation. It is raining and quite frankly I would rather be home sleeping, cleaning, maybe even taking a bath. It is Saturday morning and where am I? Here with Monica chasing some boogeyman or some unexplained something. I pick up the World Weekly Informer that Monica brought along for the ride. Monkey babies invade small town, I fight back the urge to roll my eyes at the headline. I glance over at Monica and she is all smiles, sexy as hell. Shame she is straight. Damn shame.

She looks so damn cute with that goofy smile, and glint in her eye, still I will feign annoyed for her sake, because right now straight or not, I am tempted to pounce.

“Caudal appendages, fetuses have them. Their coccyx enlarges to contain the spinal fluid and then shrinks as the child develops. Occasionally, it doesn’t. It’s extremely rare but it does happen.”

“Yes but, five times within the last three months, and all in a town with a population of less than 15,000 people? I’d say that is a little more than a statistical anomaly.”

“So would I. No, Monica, I think you’re right, I think something about this case warrants an investigation. Only not by us, I’d say it’s a job for the local health department.”

“So, uh, what else about this interests you?” I ask holding up the paper, Could it be uh, visitors from outer space?” I ask, I swear sometimes Monica reminds me of Mulder. We enter the hospital and Monica begins to interview Amanda Nelligan. She tells us that the doctor said her baby is healthy. Once she gets to be a few years old it’s just a matter of a snip. To which Monica smiles and replies, “That’s good to hear.”

“Did you experienced any unusual complications and or undergo any kind of fertility treatment?” I asked.

“No I wasn’t’ trying to get pregnant. I guess you could just sorta say I’m a single mom now” Amanda answered.

“When you were admitted you said that your baby’s father was from another planet. What did you mean by that exactly?” Monica asked. “You know he’s not from this planet.”

“Where you abducted?” Monica inquires. I find this interview both amusing and irritating all at the same time.

“Huh? No, no, he dropped by my apartment one day, and one thing sort of led to another…” Amanda says this as if Monica is crazy.

“No, no, I didn’t say he was an alien, I said he was from another planet. His name is Luke Skywalker. He is what’s known as a Jedi Knight.”

“Did he have a light saber?” I ask. I cannot help but notice Monica is embarrassed, so I have to rub it in a little.

“No, he didn’t bring it but he did sing me a song though. Da dum da da da da dum.” Amanda responds. She continues to hum the theme to Star Wars. I cannot believe what I am hearing. This is really beginning to amuse me. At this Monica gets up and heads to the door.

“How many times have you seen Star Wars Amanda?” I interrupt her humming trying to contain my laughter. It might not be as funny, if Monica wasn’t so embarrassed. Monica pauses.

“Three hundred and sixty eight, I should break four hundred by Memorial Day.” Amanda replies proudly. Monica exits.

“Oh, wait a minute, wait. You know these four other babies that were born here with tails?” She asks.

“No, I don’t imagine there would be.” I humor her. I find Monica down the hall looking at the babies with tails. I am on the phone. As soon as I hang up Monica approaches me.

“Take your best shot Dana, but I think there is more going on here than Luke Skywalker and his light saber.”

“I think your right Monica.” I say, she is so cute when she gets flustered. We head to the regional health department.

“Here are the PCR’s we ran of the five children. We put calls into the parents. We’ll blood test all the husbands hopefully by this afternoon, just to double check.” The doctor explains.

“They’ll be none to happy. I have to confess, this answer seems so strangely obvious, I probably wouldn’t even have checked for it.” After that she leaves.

I point to the charts, “You see here, these identical band trait matches, all showing a small loss of a part of chromosome number eight? Each of these five children, born to five different women, all share the same father.”

“I should have thought of this sooner. This kind of appended birth defect is often passed on within a family” Standing this close to Monica, I can’t help but breathe in her scent. She always smells so good. I can see the gears in her mind shifting.

“Though he most likely had it surgically removed somewhere along the way.” I smile at her, just looking in her eyes, standing close to her makes me forget that I really wanted to be home with a good book in a hot bath.

“Birds do it, bees do it, and even educated MD’s do it. All five of these women shared the same OB-GYN didn’t they?”

That is when I realize that wherever I think I am Monica seems to be two steps ahead of me. She has the ability to come off as naïve, silly, innocent, and goofy, but in reality she is none of these things. She is almost like a wise owl, hiding in a puppy’s body.

“Well yeah he is the only one in town.” I reply, a little deflated, attempting to catch up with her train of thought.

“And four of the five women, the four married women, not including Amanda Nelligan, were on record as receiving insemination therapy as means of conception.” Monica informs me.

I let her walk in front of me for two reasons. The first being, that I am still amazed at how she manages to catch me off guard. The second one being that I can watch her walk. We pull up at Dr. Alton Pugh’s, the OB-GYN’s office. There are four couples inside, everyone is yelling at the doctor accusing him of not using their sperm, since all of their babies have tails. The doctor is assuring everyone that he did in fact use their sperm. Monica flashes her badge and announces that we are FBI. The man beside me tells me to arrest the doctor. I tell him to settle down, that no one is going to be arrested. I ask him why it was necessary to inseminate in these cases.

“It was a sperm motility issue. The intrauterine process that I used has about a 40 percent chance of success. I was surprised it seemed to work all four times. Now the only thing I can think is…” The doctor begins to explain.

“What are you saying doctor. I haven’t been with a man aside from my husband since 1989.”

“Look, I am not accusing anyone of anything. The last woman gave birth to a baby with a tail and she didn’t even undergo insemination. So you folks are blaming the wrong baby doctor.” Dr. Alton explains.

Shortly after this Monica re-enters the room tackling what appears to be the janitor. She looks up at me and says, “Dana, look check it out.” As she pulls down the back of his pants to reveal what appears to be a scar where a tail would be located. I run the necessary test, he turns out to be a match. Five outta five I say as I through the results on the table in front of him.

“They spelled my name wrong; it’s Van Blundht with a silent H, B-l-u-n-d-h-t.” he says.

“Lots of people spell it wrong, it’s like Dutch or something, can I go now?”

“No, there are a few things we have to clear up first.” I state. He is annoying.

“You’re the father of five children Mr. Van Blundht, is that not news to you?” I ask, more annoyed.

“Why is that so hard to believe, just because I was born with a tail no woman would want me? Maybe I got…personality, ever think of that?”

“You had sex with these women? How is it that none of them have any recollection whatsoever of that happening.” I call him out on his excuse.

“Look I am not saying one way or another. I am just saying hypothetically, if some women wanted to have kids, their husbands

weren’t capable, and everyone was happy in the end, and no one got hurt, well hypothetically, where’s the crime?”

“Well, if you’re waiting for my usual theory as to what is going on I don’t have one.”

“I do” I cross my hands over my chest “On behalf of all the women in the world, I seriously doubt that this has anything to do with consensual sex, as I am sure you are aware. I believe this has something to do with some form of Rohypnol rape.”

“Yes, I agree it wasn’t consensual, but I am not sure it was a tranquilizer either.”

We return to the motel, Monica’s room is beside mine. I put on my pajamas and try not to think about what Monica is wearing, doing, or that I secretly wish we had adjoining rooms, and that she wasn’t a straight woman. It has been so long since I had let any woman have this amount of control over me. I prefer to be the one in control, usually ending any relationship before it gets to close. I enjoy the beginning, when everything is new, and there isn’t all of that emotional baggage between you. I am always honest from the beginning that I am not interested in a long term relationship. Now I am fighting sleep because all I can think about is her. All I ever seem to think about is her, and how she somehow maneuvered her way into my heart. She the most open and truly loving person I have ever met. Most people tend to be like me, polite but not sincere. She is the opposite of this. Her love for everyone is genuine. That only fuels my desire to be with her. To imagine what it would be like, to love someone so open, so beautiful. I am thinking about her hair, scent, and smile, how her eyes light up and sparkle when she gets excited about anything. Her long legs, how I would love to climb up her body, and her long lean fingers, how good they would feel inside of me. I cannot even manage to stand next to her on any given day and not become wet, I am wet now, and I need to relieve myself.

We got a call from the police station this morning. Eddie was supposed to be booked.

“Deputy, are you sure you don’t remember anything about last night?” I ask.

“The guy cold cocked me, except he wasn’t a guy. He was me. My head hurts.” The deputy tries to explain. Monica rings the bell on the desk and motions me over.

“I found Van Blundht’s clothes in the locker room. He must have walked out of here wearing the deputy’s spare uniform.”

“Van Blundht somehow physically transformed into his captor then walked out the front door leaving no one the wiser.” I tease.

Oh my gosh, is she flirting with me or just teasing me back? No, I quickly remind myself she couldn’t possibly know what affect her teasing would have on me. She is so cute, and clueless, she wouldn’t intentionally do this to me.

“Monica, why can’t you just go for the simple answer? With that blow to the head the deputy might have just as well identified McGruff the crime dog as his attacker. “

“Two men, roughly the same build, same coloring the addition of the uniform goes along way to explain how one person can mistake one man for another at three o clock in the morning.”

“Conversely, my theory goes a long way to explaining how four married women could mistake Van Blundht as their husbands, and how Amanda Nelligan could think it was Luke Skywalker. Agent Scully, you and Agent Mulder have seen this type of thing before, haven’t you?”

“Yes we have, but what are you saying, Monica, that Van Blundht is an alien?”

“Not unless they have trailer parks in space, this is something different.” Monica says.

We are on our way to Eddie’s father’s house... Monica is deep in thought. I do not understand how she reaches her theories, but then again I never really understood how Mulder did either. My mind continues to drift back to picking china patterns out with Monica, Oh how I would love that. I would love to do a lot of things with her honestly. I let out a deep sigh, all of my attempts to detour my thinking about her, are unsuccessful. As we pull up to seventeen prospect parkway, and exit the car Monica asks me if I could be someone else for one day who would I be. My first response is her boyfriend, only in the sense that I would know what it is too, touch her, kiss her, and feel her but I don’t dare say that. My mind goes blank as I try to search for a more safe answer.

“Hopefully myself” is all I can come up with, and even as I am saying it I realize how stupid I sound.

“So boring, wouldn’t you even be tempted to try out someone else’s existence for a day, live your life as somebody else.” She asked smiling.

Oh great now she thinks I am boring. I wish I could tell her what my original response was, but the shock, fear, and disappointing look on her face would be more than I could bear right now.

“Looking like someone else, Monica, and being someone else are two completely different things.” I attempt to cover for my stupidity.

“Well, maybe not, I mean everybody else around you would treat you like you were somebody else, and ultimately maybe its other people’s reactions to us that make us who we are.” She says this while looking into my eyes, her hand is on the small of my back. She is gently guiding me up the stairs. I know she is a gentle and touchy person, but her hand is burning through my back and all I want to do is lean up and kiss her. She is the epitome of sexy, a truly sexy person is one who has the ability to be incredibly sexy without even realizing it, just as she is now. It radiates from her being without her even trying or worse yet, trying too hard. There is nothing more pathetic than someone trying too hard. She is staring at me, oops; she is waiting for an answer. Hopefully she will just assume I am thinking of one.

I wish I could think of witty reply, but she is a beautiful, frightening distraction. It is frightening in the sense that I cannot halt my thoughts of her.

“It can’t be a dead person” she says faintly while staring at the man next door with a leaf blower.

“Why the hell not?” I ask now annoyed. I do not understand what answer she wants from me or why this question is so important to her. She turns back to me,

I guess since it is her game she gets to make up the rules. I still don’t know what this is supposed to mean. Luckily I don’t have to; just then elderly man opens the door and asks us why we are creeping around his porch.

“Eddie what did that moron do now?” He asks as he moves to let us enter the house. While I explain to the father why we are looking for his son, Monica continues to look out the window at what I can only assume is the leaf blower.

“Yes, he uh, attacked a sheriff’s deputy during his escape from custody.” I answer, while Monica is now looking at pictures on the wall.

“Sir, do you have any idea where your son may be?” I am getting a little restless at the small talk.

Monica is looking back at forth at the father and a poster on the wall of a man with a tail that reads see Eddie the monkey man.

He then proceeds to strike a similar pose to the one on the poster declaring, “One and the same, hey you want to see…” He threatens to undo his robe right there in front of us.

“No! no thanks” I answer stopping him in his tracks. I am getting really tired of all of this. Eddie Sr. is shifting through some magazines.

“My son had his removed when he was uh, just a kid. Kept bugging me and bugging me, till I finally let him do it, there you go.” He hands us a magazine with a boy on the cover having showing his tail. The headline reads a tale of a tail.

“I told him it was a mistake, I said Son, you ain't much to look at. You ain't no athlete, and you sure the hell ain't no Einstein, but at least you got that tail, otherwise you're just small potatoes. He didn’t listen.”

“Does your son have any other unique medical conditions, aside from the tail?” Monica asks.

“Ms. Reyes, that son was born sickly, we used to have this condition down in the south called, pellagr-“

“Uh, no actually I didn’t.” I respond. Monica looks at the father suspiciously and he bolts.

“It’s him!” Monica says chasing after him. I run for the front door since Monica ran toward the back after him. Hopefully, we can cut him off. Monica comes around to the front, and picks up his discarded robe.

“Pretty spry for an old guy huh?” She states. I know where she is going with this.

“Well whichever one he is, he’s a man with a secret wouldn’t you agree?” She starts to walk off. We return inside to look around. Monica goes upstairs and I stay down. She is making a lot of noise up there. She yells something but I cannot make out what it was. I head upstairs to see what she wanted. She has her hand on the chain to the attic and white powder is falling through the cracks.

“Its quicklime, move back over there” She says as if she wants to protect me from whatever is in the attic. She pulls the chain and a dead body falls out, with the tail intact. We transport the body to the morgue where so I can do the autopsy. Monica leaves and while I begin. She re-enters some time later with coffee.

Her smile will be the death of me one day I think as I glance over at the actual dead body. She is so thoughtful.

“It’s difficult to say, the quicklime burned the tissue even as it preserved it. It is one of two things I haven’t figured out yet.”

“That would be this, it is striated muscle tissue.” I show her the sample with the microscope.

“Everywhere, his entire body, as I can tell this man has a thin stratum of voluntary muscle tissue underpinning the entire dermal layer of his skin. That is not normal. This man’s body is quite a scientific specimen, and thankfully it is preserved and intact. In other words there are essentially six hundred and fifty four muscles in the human body, and this man has six hundred and fifty five.”

“You got me, Monica, maybe none. It appears to be atrophied, although it may look that way as a result of the mummification.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, although I am pretty sure where she is going with this.

“Well, um, if this musculature underlies the entire skin, then maybe it could be utilized to remold the skin's shape and texture, which would go a long way to explaining why we're looking for a man who can appear to be his own father, or anyone else for that matter.”

“Isn't it much more likely, Monica, that this man simply has an identical twin?”

“There is something about Van Blundht’s Mo that bothers me. His victims were four married women who wanted to get pregnant…”

“And one single woman who didn’t I remind her. She just nods and leaves. I finish up and find Monica in the hallway holding a bag of ice on her head arguing with two men.

“Van Blundht surprised me, hit me over the head, then he got away.” She explained.

“No, but the local authorities are already on the warpath for going after one of their own. They'll catch him eventually.”

“So what? That’s it for us?” I surprised that she is so willing to let this go, maybe it's due to the blow to the head.

“I know I dragged you out here Scully, but I'm beginning to think this whole thing is just a waste of time.”

“Now you think there's no X-File here?” Maybe I should examine that injury, then again, it might not be a good thing to be so close to her now.

“Yeah, uh fine.” She says this kind of unsure, leaving me unsure as well. I finish the paper work from the autopsy while Monica writes up the report for Skinner. I keep glancing at her, something seems askew. I cannot determine what it is. She is deep in thought and seems slightly confused. When she is finished we head to Skinner’s office to go over the report. It appears that allowing Monica to do the report may not have been the wisest decision. Skinner seems annoyed as he is reading it.

“It was a typo.” “Twice? Agent Scully, what about the body you found? Did you establish a cause of death?”

“Yes, sir. The subject, Edward Van Blundht Sr. died of natural causes ... specifically heart disease and advanced age.” I answer.

“We think the son hid the father in the attic so he could continue to cash in on the old man's social security checks.” Monica adds.

“I entered him into the national sex offender’s database. The West Virginia State Police have a photo and a description and they will coordinate with local authorities. There should be an arrest soon.” I confirm.

With this Skinner allows us to leave. As we head to the office Monica asked what my plans are for this weekend.

“Well, seeing how it's Friday, I was thinking I could get some work in on that monograph I'm writing for the penology review.” I offer, hoping that she will be impressed with my diligence.

“Oh” Is all she says, I haven’t impressed her, she probably is thinking about how boring I really am.

"Diminished Acetylcholine Production in Recidivist Offenders" I read as I am glancing through the report on Eddie’s father.

“Though actually I might ditch that though” I do not having any exciting plans like Monica does, so I might as well work and keep busy. Hopefully, this will help in my efforts to stop fantasizing about a woman who is not interested in me in the slightest.

“Yeah, I have to say, Monica, the anomalous musculature in the corpse we found really has me intrigued. In fact, I think I'm gonna go to Quantico and have some tissue samples run. I'll see you Monday.” After saying this I walk away, I really am not up for any of her joking about my mundane life. After some quite interesting findings at Quantico and the drive home to do more research. I know this case no longer holds Monica’s interest, but this is fascinating to me. Upon entering my home, I shower and put on more comfortable clothing. I am thankful not to have to wear three inch heals when I do not have to. I pull out my entire collection of medical and research books, when I hear a knock at my door. Who could that be? I walk over to the peep hole and see Monica smiling.

“No…um…come on in” not only does she think I am boring, but now I am stammering like a teenager. I notice a nice bottle of red wine in her hand.

“Who’s that for?” I know the question sounds stupid, but that is what this woman does to me. Great now I am a boring, stammering, stupid teenager. She seems different, some what unsure of herself. Monica has always been confident, even when she is trying to convince me of some unreasonable theory of hers.

If it were anyone else I would assume they were trying to seduce me. This, however, is Monica and whatever is going on with her, I do not believe seducing me is a part of her plan despite her looking as sexy as hell in her black leather pants, and fitted black sweater.

“More autopsy data. You know, everyone at the lab found Mr. Van Blundht pretty fascinating. We discovered additional anomalies related to the hair follicles in his scalp, genital region as well as what I would only assume has to do with mammary glands. I can't even begin to guess at the nature of it until we can run it through the transmission electron microscope.”

“Yes it is, so seriously, Monica, what’s going on, are you ok?” I pour us both a glass of wine.

“Uh huh, I was just hanging out, not doing much, and I was thinking. We never really talk much…do we?”

“What do you mean…really talk? No, no we don’t Monica.” I am confused. Is she hitting on me, the wine, the clothes, and make up? I would say yes if it were anyone, anyone other than Monica. She has a boyfriend and has never given the slightest indication that she was interested in women, let alone interested in me.

“I know about your work, tell me something personal, like who you went to the prom with.”

I decide to start a fire, which may not be the best idea with her looking as sensual as she does, and her sparkling eyes and smile are not helping. If I do not get away from her, even if it is only momentarily, I am afraid I will try to kiss her. I start the fire and return to the sofa. Damn, that didn’t help at all. I am still so confused. As I begin my story I see that Monica is hanging on to every word I say. She is asking questions, and is really interested in what I am saying. She isn’t just being polite. We are getting close to finishing the bottle. She leans over and pours me the last glass.

“So there we are at two o'clock in the morning, me and my moiré taffeta dress and Marcus in whatever the hell it was he was wearing. It had an um... a Kelly green cummerbund on it. Anyway, so, I know that Marcus is thinking that it's now or never, and I'm thinking...”

“What are you thinking?” She interrupts me, not because she is rude, it is as if she is caught up in the story.

“It wasn’t the cops, it was the fire department. My friend Sylvia and her idiot date…”

“Had built this campfire that went totally out of control and so we all had to ride back on the um... what do you call it… the um, the pumper truck. Yeah. Marcus was the twelfth grade love of my life. I can't believe I'm telling you this!” Now she has me giggling. Her look turns serious.

“The person you wanted to be when you grew up, when you were in high school. How far off from that did you end up?” She asks this with sincerity, but there is also a desire in her eyes. Now I wish I didn’t start the fire, because there is enough heat coming off of her to burn my house down.

“No, not just that…do you wish you could ever go back and do it all differently?” She says this in a soft sexy voice, with a smoldering look in her eyes and I realize I am burning down with the house as well. She moves in, and my entire body begins to tremble. I have wanted Monica for so long and yet here she is her lips moving in towards mine, with a look that steals my breath. I am paralyzed. Just then my door burst open, and Monica is standing in the doorway. I jump up off the sofa and look at Monica at the door, then look at Monica on the sofa. What the fuck is going on. The Monica on the sofa morphs into Van Blundht right before my eyes. How the hell did that happen? Monica is standing in my doorway out of breath and looking shocked. If I wasn’t seeing it with my own two eyes I would never believe it. Why did she have to come in and see me about to kiss her? What I thought was her. I yell and cuss at Van Blundht, cuff him, and read him his rights. He is busted and he knows it, he doesn’t even put up a fight. I never meant for Monica to find out, and especially not this way. She is on her cell calling for them to pick up Van Blundht, I am on my phone requesting a medic on the scene to administer an injection. A high dose of a muscle relaxant so he will not be able to morph into anyone else in another attempt to escape. I am looking everywhere but at Monica, how can I look at her, I just want her to leave. Instead she plops down on my sofa. After everything is done, and everyone is gone, I glance at Monica. She is resting her forearms on her legs, her eyebrows furrowed, nibbling on her bottom lip. She is in deep thought, probably trying to choose the right words to let me down easy. I can hear her now, I am truly flattered and if I weren’t straight I would definitely be interested in you. I am trying to stay busy in my kitchen but there isn’t a whole lot to do in here. Whatever effects I was feeling from the wine are completely gone, I almost wish they weren’t. It might help this be a little more bearable.

I glance at her and walk to the bathroom. I don’t know what she expects me to say, Monica, I am in love with you and have been. I know your straight and I know it is stupid but…what the hell can I possibly say to her. While inside my bathroom I use my cell to call and make sure Van Blundht is still in custody. I whisper so she doesn’t hear me. I wouldn’t want to make that mistake twice, not that the real Monica is going to kiss me, but I need to be sure he is locked away. I return and she is sitting there looking at me like a wounded puppy. She is so cute I just want to hug her, but I know the let down is coming. I just wish I could skip it and wake up the in the morning with all of this behind me. She motions for me to sit beside her. I do, and we sit in silence for sometime.

“There were four married woman who wanted to get pregnant, and an ex-girlfriend.’

“Remember when I gave you a birthday kiss and Danny snapped a picture of it?”

“You keep that picture on your dresser?” I am not sure where she is going with this. I forgot all about that picture. I didn’t forget about the kiss though, her lips were so soft. Monica is looking shy and flustered all at the same time.

“So what you are saying is that after he attacked you, went to your house. He saw a picture of an innocent birthday kiss and assumed we were together and came to my house as you to seduce me?”

“Essentially” she replies shyly. “Dana, I know what you must be thinking but I am…”

“No, not exactly” she whispers and my heart sinks to my toes, my mouth is dry and if I wasn’t sitting I would pass out. I can’t ask her anything because I am afraid I won’t be able to speak. She starts looking at the floor. I am suddenly speechless as I assume she is. Well with the exception of an old love song that now, for some unknown reason goes through my mind.

“Neither have you” she says barely audible with a look that sends shivers down my spine.

“Um, I…you know…keep it hid at work, for reasons I am sure you are already aware of.” I manage to mumble out.

“I mean I saw the obvious signs but nothing concrete, as you probably did with me.” She continues.

“Well yeah, but I just dismissed them, because I didn’t see anything else to back them up.” I admit.

I brace myself not really wanting to hear the let down coming. Even if she is attracted to me, that doesn’t mean she is going to give up what she has with Gary for me. Monica wets her lips and studies me closely. She looks confused, scared, but there is something else in her eyes for a quick moment. Desire, but as soon as it shows itself it disappears. I am not sure what to think about that.

“I am not sure what you are asking me.” I don’t want to make the deadly mistake of inferring something that isn’t there.

She is looking at me as if she is a deer caught in the headlights. Then her gaze returns to the floor, when I wish she would just look at me.

“Monica, please just say what you are trying to say.” My heart is racing. My palms are sweating, I need to know what she means, what she wants.

“What did he do that made you want to kiss him/me?” She looks up at me almost childlike with a look that is threatening to break my heart.

“Monica, oh gosh, um…I don’t want to talk about that” but the way she is looking at me, I can tell I am going to have to.

“Ok…um,” I take a deep breath. I really did not want to get into all of this with her. “He showed up at my house, which my first instinct was something was wrong with the case and that was why you were here. He had the wine with him, and then I thought maybe something happened between you and Gary and you just wanted someone to talk to. He really just wanted to talk about me. He was asking me about my prom of all things, which of course I thought was odd. He just um I don’t know…he was so caught up in every little detail of my story, it just felt nice.” Now I am embarrassed by that last little omission. I don’t want her to think I am desperate.

“Don’t be” she gives me a look that tells me not to take it any further and I don’t. She is biting on her lower lip in deep thought again.

“So what you are saying is that it was him giving you all of his attention.”

“Well, sort of, I don’t know, Monica, it is complicated.” I cannot tell her it is because I have wanted her for so long, that despite my best efforts I have fallen for her.

“If I were to give you all of my attention…” She trails off, looking as if she didn’t mean to say that out loud. I reach over and gently touch her chin, pulling her face toward mine. I am searching her eyes. I need to be sure that this is what she wants. She doesn’t look away, instead she is searching my eyes as well. Her eyes move from mine to my lips and back to my eyes. I feel as though my heart is going to burst. My head is getting light and my breath escapes me. I gradually move my lips closer to hers, giving her enough time to back out if she wants to. She doesn’t she moves in to meet mine. She brushes her lips against mine and it causes both of us to shudder. Her lips are so soft, softer than I remembered. Her tongue is barely tracing my lower lip, and I open my mouth desperately needing more of her. Our tongues begin to caress each other, ever so delicately exploring one another. I could kiss like this all night, except my need for her is beginning to take over. My hands are cupping her face and I deepen the kiss. She moans into my mouth. Her hands are in my hair and now they are moving down my neck and my back. Her touch is tender, my body shivers, which causes her body to shiver. It is as if our responses to each other are exactly the same. I never would have thought Monica was interested in me, and now I can tell how wet she must have become just by kissing me, as I have from kissing her. Her scent is flooding my senses and they are

moving into overload. As much as I want to slowly make love to her, my intense need wants to rip her clothes off and take her right here. I lightly run my fingernails down her neck, down the sides of her arms. She lets out a throaty moan, and breaks away. We both attempt to inhale as much air as possible. She looks at me with the most primal desire in her eyes. “Take me to bed.” She almost demands. It is at that moment I realize that for as long as I wanted her, she has wanted me. That tonight once our animalistic fervor is quenched we will be able to talk. To talk about what is only beginning between us, but feels as though it has always been. I would have never dared to dream this possible. I stand looking at her, the raw passion in her eyes, only to be matched by what I am feeling. As I take her by the hand I am certain of one thing, and that is tonight we will burn the house down together.