Who do you turn to when one
day you wake up and learn the last two years have passed you by? You turn to a man who has had the
last two years locked away from him.
* * * * * *
Chapter 1
Vaughn had broken with
her. He said it was beyond their
control. He had finally moved
on, started a new life, and just wasn’t prepared to reopen old wounds, even
though they had never fully healed in the first place. He didn't care that fate demanded
they be together. He didn’t care
that he was tearing apart her soul and his own in the process. He just knew it had to stop.
They had two conversations
after Hong Kong. One, at the CIA
headquarters after her debrief, while she was still in a daze. They had exchanged pleasantries and
acted as two acquaintances, neither acknowledging the history between them.
The second was two weeks later – that was the one which
ended it all. She decided to go
for broke and bare her soul to him.
She told him he was the only one she completely trusted; he was the
only reason she kept her sanity in the two years after her fiancé’s
death. He looked at her with
such emotion, such sorrow and regret in his eyes, but then he switched it off. He told her that she was too much for
him to bear, and he would not risk getting hurt by association with her
again. He had lost her once, and
now that he knew she was safe, he wouldn’t go through it again.
She crumpled to the floor
before him, wrapped her arms around his knees, and sobbed like a child,
shamelessly begging for him to come to his senses. A muscle in his jaw twitched betraying the desire to
breakdown, to hold her, to give her false assurances that things would go
back to normal. But he
didn’t. He couldn’t. With cold hands, he extracted himself
from her clutches and left without another word.
To say that it hurt was an
understatement. It was
excruciating, like a jagged knife ripping into a festering wound. Her nerves were raw and exposed, and
every single breath incapacitated her with pain. His words ripped her apart into a thousand little
pieces. After the Alliance fell,
she had one brief shining moment where she could be happy with her life and
not tortured by endless pipedreams of a distant future. Now, she had nothing left except
revenge, and even that had become an empty crusade. Did she want to stir up the trouble that would inevitably
follow if she went back to her old life? Or could she drop it all, run away, and become a new
person as Vaughn did. But
without him, that option seemed an infinitely hollow existence. Never again could she share her true
self with someone. She would
always be forced to look over her shoulder, forced to live her life
incomplete.
Since her return Will had
watched her nervously, as if he knew she wanted to run. He was so sweet to her, so kind. She realized he still loved her and
if she wanted, he was hers for the taking. It was so tempting to try and live that lie, but she
couldn’t. Any temporary peace he
could give her would surely be offset when she inevitably remembered he
wasn’t enough to make her whole again.
She couldn’t bear to break his heart too. At least Will had never experienced the perfection of
truly being with someone you love.
She was jealous of that innocence.
Her dad was her only
comfort. Had she always missed
the deep and haunted understanding his eyes betrayed? Or did her disappearance soften him
towards her, finally allowing the solemn mask of control to slip? Jack Bristow understood betrayal
better than anyone else. He had
lived through the pain of having the one you love most ripped from your life,
and she knew he was in agony because he could not take that pain same away
from her.
So after a month of watching
her live her life on edge, staring off into space, refusing to eat, and
wasting away to a wisp of her former self; her father dotingly granted the
one request she made. Why she
made that particular request, she can’t even begin to explain. She wanted to question Sark.
* * * * * *
Jack arranged it. He pulled strings at headquarters and
had Sark moved to a safehouse.
There was no way he would allow his daughter to go to Camp Harris in
her vulnerable state. He knew
her request was dangerous, but he also knew it had to be done. Sark was the last tangible link to
what had happened to her. They
had questioned him mercilessly, tortured him, broken him. But Jack did not doubt there were
still things the once insolent man held back. And if anyone could drag a purpose out of him, Sydney would
be the one. He was well aware of
the infatuation Sark had for his daughter. Irina had told him it was disturbingly pure and dirty all
at the same time.
He warned her that the man she
would meet would not be the same man she had known before. Prison by itself would alter any man
and the methods they used on him went way beyond mere altering. After months of torture and
isolation, he was an easy mark.
Sark had always depended on his ability to discern what his adversary
valued in any situation; his allegiance was ever flexible. When he finally found himself in a
situation where no silver-tongue or quick wit could erase, Sark was at a
complete and total loss.
Jack shepherded her to a
non-descript safehouse, another bland track home in a suburbia of
clones. The inside was done in
neutral tones; no color, no life exists in the house. He led her to the room where Sark had
been brought and paused to look at her.
There was so much he wanted to say. He wanted to tell her to be careful, to tell her he
understands what her actions will be even before they even dawn on her. But he silently nodded and watched
his daughter enter the room.
She vaguely hears him send the
two guards for coffee. It is an
odd action, but also one that will give her free reign to question Sark
without the embarrassment of others watching. A chill runs down her spine when she realizes she can use
whatever devices she has at her advantage.
She is shocked when she sees
him, how broken and nervous he looks.
She hadn’t expected to feel sorry for him. She didn’t think she could care that his once cool and
proud demeanor had been crushed out of him. He couldn’t keep his eyes from anxiously shifting about,
and she ironically thinks they are a matched pair.
She hears his breath quicken as
she approaches him. And he
flinches when she unconsciously brings her hand to his face to examine the
cut on his forehead, the blood only recently congealed. Her touch is like an angel's, and he
wonders, not for the first time today if he is hallucinating.
Her presence of mind returns
realizing her fingers are lingering over his skin, and she steps back. She tries to remember her purpose, to
find the rhyme and reason as to why she had insisted on this meeting, but
instead, she gets lost in the pain behind his eyes. It is a pain she knows all too well. Somehow, she had always thought him
incapable of such profound emotion.
She starts to speak, but
forgets what she had planned to say.
Her fists clench tightly, and she remembers the key she carries in her
left hand as it digs into the flesh of her palm.
This confusion in the usually
controlled Sydney Bristow startles him.
Today she is walking a fine line between two paths, each a dark night
of the soul.
“Stand.” She instructs him. And he is up before he has time to
think, cursing himself for reacting like Pavlov’s fucking dog.
“Turn around.” He thinks her voice is now a mirror
image of her mother, a woman who has already lost it all and moved on.
A swift kick forces him on his knees,
and he feels something cold and hard pressed to the back of his head. He closes his eyes, waiting for the
inevitable click. Somehow he always knew a Bristow woman would be his angel
of death.
* * * * * *
Chapter 2
Time mocked him. The moment hung in the air like the
first car of a roller coaster about to crest the big hill, waiting for
gravity to suck it down into the madness of the ride. This certainly wasn’t the first time
he had faced death. He had
long since stopped caring about the outcome, but this time is different. This time he smiles at the fact that
his fate has come full circle.
He doesn’t look for a last minute escape. Instead, he welcomes death with a blind acceptance born
out of the unbroken haze of his merciless captivity.
Time pauses. Silence. And then he hears a rattle and a click. The handcuffs fall from his wrists,
and the sounds repeat as the chains around his ankles are released. The gun however, remains pressed to
his head.
His wrists feel strangely
vulnerable without the chains.
They are hypersensitive like a new layer of skin and scream with that
prickling sensation that accompanies a skinned knee.
She steps back and commands him
again. Even unbound he finds
himself strangely compelled to follow her every whim. He doesn’t understand her actions,
but he somehow senses she lacks malicious intent. One thing is clear to him. No matter how much she mirrors his broken image; she is
life, and he will follow her lead.
He slowly stands, joints creaking from lack of exercise, and turns
around to face her.
His blood flows sluggishly
through his veins; he is weak and off balance. A silvery object sails through the air, and he almost
flinches. Reflex kicks in half a
second too late, and he is forced to lunge awkwardly to catch the
object.
Keys. Car keys. His
mind supplies. He looks at her
questioningly.
“Let’s go.” Her voice is devoid of emotion.
“Where?” He dares to ask.
“Anywhere but here.”
* * * * * *
They go to her car, and he is
still not sure if this is a jailbreak or if she has gone insane since he last
saw her. Or even if this is a
crazy scenario playing out in his head during another long stretch in
isolation. Too many things do
not add up. How were they able
to just walk out of there?
Surely Jack Bristow would not leave his precious Sydney without
backup. Where were the guards who just a few minutes ago watched him like
hawks? He struggles to assess
the situation.
“Sydney, has your driving
really gotten that bad?”
He’s not sure where the quip
came from, but it feels good to try to remember who he was.
Unfortunately for him, she
doesn’t take the bait. She seems
too exhausted to bother. A
strange look crosses her face as if she is remembering something she’d rather
not.
He shakes off her reaction and
opens the passenger door in a sweeping gesture. She looks away, indifferent to his kindness.
This is not how he pictured his
escape. At first, he had
expected Sloane to engineer his release, or Irina to come and reclaim him like
the prodigal son. But they
didn’t. They had left him
there. They had left him alone.
He had valuable intel to
exploit, and he would have gladly capitalized on his knowledge; but Jack
Bristow made it very clear that they only wanted intel on one subject –
Sydney. When it became apparent
he had nothing to share, Jack had him thrown into isolation and made sure
they lost the key.
There was no one to turn
to. No one to impress. No way to prove himself. It shouldn’t have disappointed him,
but it did. He had always known
his alliances were fickle; that if you got caught, you were burned. But he had thought that he was a
player, and players weren’t carelessly forgotten. So now the one woman who by all rights should have been
perfectly happy to watch him rot in jail is the woman handing him the key to
his salvation.
At first he drives around
aimlessly waiting for her to provide a direction. Questions race around in his head, but he is forced to
remember his schooled patience.
There will be plenty of time for answers later.
Her implied trust dares him to
believe she has truly given his freedom back. But there must be a catch; Sydney Bristow would not come
along for the ride just because she was bored. He glances at her but she is lost in whatever private hell
she is letting herself stew in.
When he figures out where they are, he realizes it is time for an
executive decision.
The freedom of choice is
dizzying. He would like to
indulge in the infinite possibilities, but an old master wins out -
survival. When he sees the
highway, he makes toward his own safehouse. He takes the entrance ramp, revving the engine to outpace
the typical granny disrupting the flow of traffic in the weaving lane. They are a fourth of a mile from the
interchange and he must do some aggressive maneuvering to make the left
exit. He skillfully outraces a
teen in a sports car in the third lane, and just barely cuts off a Mack truck
in the fourth. Adrenaline causes
him to shiver as he needlessly plays with their lives. He glances over at Sydney; she is
unphased by his driving.
Her cell phone rings, and
caution starts to kick in. The
silence in between rings is deafening and stretches on for many
heartbeats. After the fifth
ring, it finally registers in her consciousness, and she looks at it like a
snake poised to strike. In a
burst of sudden activity, she snatches it up and flings it out the window,
leaving it to clatter on the pavement before being crushed by another car. She didn’t even bother to check the
number.
When she finally speaks, it is
with cold logic. “We need to
ditch the car. It probably has a
tracking device.”
“Don’t worry, I have it
covered.” Once again he finds
himself following and anticipating the orders of a Bristow woman without
hesitation. He wonders exactly
when this instinct was ingrained in him and even stranger, why it fills him
with a surge of pride.
* * * * * *
After twenty minutes he pulls
into a long driveway in another monotonous neighborhood of drones. Suburbia is such a buzz kill, he
thinks as he gets out of the car.
He approaches the house, finds the key hidden in a false molding on
the doorframe, and enters. His
actions are purposed, as he knows they can only be there for less than
fifteen minutes without detection by the CIA.
She follows him into the house
and stops in front of his prized Hieronymous Bosch. It is a fanciful depiction of heaven and hell with
hundreds of surreal figures twisting in ecstasy and agony. He had found it in a private gallery
in Antwerp, one of handful of paintings that had remained in the painter’s
native country. He had bought it
on a whim to hang outside of his office, thinking it an amusing way to psych
out his associates as they awaited his presence.
“I bet the artist had more fun
painting hell.”
He is surprised by her
seemingly incongruous observation and watches her curiously.
“In heaven, you have endless
flora and fauna. The detailed
perfection is so placid and boring.
It’s hell where the true creativity comes out. So many demented creatures and damned
tortures. It must have been
liberating to exercise original thought in that age. The Renaissance was deceptive that
way. Sure the arts were
considered the epitome of culture, but the subject matter remained dictated
by the church or the wealthy benefactor.”
He would love to explore these
metaphors with her, but the clock is ticking. He leaves her there lost in contemplation.
The bedroom is a stark contrast
to the visual orgy of the painting.
The white on white, which used to be so aesthetic and serene, now
seems sterile and cold. Without
Allison the room has no warmth.
The bed looks exceedingly lonely, missing her naked form languidly sprawled
out and haphazardly wrapped in the bed sheets.
Grief grips his heart. It is an emotion he has not yet
allowed himself to acknowledge.
He has always suspected that something happened to Allison. Exactly what, he cannot say, but he
guesses Sydney’s disappearance is involved.
He couldn’t ask questions
without betraying his weakness for her, so he had to forgo closure to protect
the one tiny bit of sanity he had left.
Not now, he chastises himself.
He must stay focused, and not stray into remembrances of their last
night together in this bed.
He grabs a clean suit and
changes, wrinkling his nose at its stale scent. It hangs on him awkwardly, making him look too young and
calling attention to the weight he lost in captivity. He grabs an emergency bag filled with
necessary items and is about to leave when a bracelet on the nightstand
catches his eye. Allison must
have forgotten it that night.
He impulsively picks it up and heads to find Sydney.
He stops in the kitchen,
searches for a sharp knife, and calls her name, pulling her away from the
painting. She follows his voice
and stops still when she sees the bracelet.
“What are you doing with that?”
He thinks she is referring to
the knife and offers it to her handle first.
“I gave that bracelet to
Francie for her twenty-fifth birthday.”
He shifts his grip and clenches
the handle of the knife tightly, as anger surges through him. He wants to curse her very existence
for being so ridiculously important that he had to prostitute Allison for
her. The venom he sees in her
eyes is lethal, and he knows he must somehow diffuse the situation because
otherwise she will surely kill him, the knife a mere formality. This is not the time or the place to
explore this fight, so he stabs the knife into the counter.
“I need you to remove the
tracking device.”
He rolls up his sleeve, lays
his arm on the counter, and bares his wrist to her. He doesn’t know what
shocks him more – her whispery touch as she traces the artery up his wrist to
his forearm searching for the device, or the sadistic gleam in her eyes when
she slides the knife into his flesh. He makes a fist, tensing at the pain, but at least it
reminds him he is alive. He is
mesmerized as she expertly extracts the sliver of metal, throws it on the
floor, and crushes it with a sickening crunch of her heel.
She stares for a moment entranced by the sight of his
crimson blood flowing freely down his arm and dripping on the counter in
perfect little circles.
Eventually she remembers pressure is needed to staunch the flow and
bandages his arm. She
impulsively brings her fingers to her lips, tasting his blood before turning
to use the sink. What doesn’t
surprise him is how quickly the gesture sends the rest of his blood south.
* * * * * *
Chapter 3
The miles fly by as she watches
her old life fade away in the side view mirror. She vaguely registers they are going east, as the suburbs
and redundant strip malls fade into desert. Nothing feels real to her. It’s as if she is watching a stranger inhabit her body.
Never could she have foreseen
that she would run away with Sark when she got out of bed that morning. She had only planned to interrogate
him, to hold him accountable, to demand that he provide those elusive answers
that no one else could tell her about those two years. And if that meant coercing his
confession by any means necessary, she would not have been opposed to the
idea. What she hadn’t expected
was the familiar haunted look in his eyes.
From the moment she had stepped
into the room, she had switched on autopilot. It was not unlike the ingrained
response mechanism she relied on during missions. Pure instinct.
Action and reaction.
Because stopping to think things through could get her killed. Everything else was beyond her
control.
The landscape stretches
unbroken, except sporadically punctuated by a derelict building, a truck
stop, or a mom and pop joint that looked like it never left the fifties. The billboards draw her attention the
most.
“For Rent, Call 310-555-5762.”
“28 Miles to Joe’s. Home of the
72 Ounce Steak.”
“Rick’s Rattlesnake Ranch. 1 Million Rattlers And Counting.”
She occasionally catches him
staring at her out of the corner of his eye with a wary look, as if she has
suddenly grown two heads. She
knows he is disturbed by her actions, but she isn’t inclined to give him reassurance
that she hasn’t gone completely insane.
Sark hadn’t lost his edge. They had switched cars twice on their
way out of town. She was oddly
amused by his latest choice - a sexed up corvette. If you are going to run away, at least do it in style.
That made sense with Sark. She
sank back into the seat, absorbing the carnal smell of the well-oiled
leather, and propped her knees against the dashboard.
“Bob’s Tractor Truck Depot.
Farm Road 115 Next Right.”
“Adult Fantasyland. Best Outlet – Skin Flicks Magazine”
The highway ahead shimmers with
the heat, and it isn’t hard to imagine that they could slip away from this
world and drive right into an alternate reality. A warm drowsiness settles over her as the roadside
attractions become increasingly strange. She is not quite sure if she should trust her eyes; maybe
she is hallucinating.
“Visit Ted’s Taxidermy
Museum. Home of the Pete, The
Two-Headed Platypus.”
And then there it is - the
garish bipedal, plaster and concrete statue of Pete beckoning passersby to
join the absurdity. What could be more incongruous than a taxidermist in the
desert? Was there anything out
there besides the unidentifiable bloated roadkill that was big enough to
stuff? She can’t help but snort
at the thought. Sark looks at
her funny, but she refuses to include him in the joke.
Ted’s was one of those crazy
sideshows she remembers from many a road trip in college. When she first saw it, she remembers
sneering at it and wondering why on earth would anyone would want to go
there. But on subsequent trips
she began to look forward to it.
Ted became a ritual marker of the journey like the state line or the
desert protected area. She
wanted it to break the monotony of the drive, but as much as it amused her,
she never actually stopped there.
She always had a convenient excuse not to – the need to make good
time, or a just missed the exit.
Taxidermy is a strange art, she
muses. Usually only big game
animals are stuffed. So what
would Ted stuff? Scraggly jackrabbits
and scrawny coyotes? A gila
monster? Maybe he had hunted
lions and elephants in Africa but moved to the Mojave to retire and gamble
away his retirement across the state line.
She thinks the whole process is
really gruesome - skinning a dead animal, and robbing it of its dignity. Creating a husk of the original with
its glassy eyes staring off forever into eternity. The natural decay of time never allowed to take its
course.
After Ted’s she is left with an
endless row of telephone poles, and soon they lull her into a trance where
she is not quite awake but not quite asleep. She leans her head against the window, her cheek smashed
against the glass.
* * * * * *
She doesn’t realize she had
fallen asleep until his voice on the phone breaks the silence. The sun has sunk low on the horizon
and glares at them angrily in the rear and side view mirrors. Sark looks fatigued and shifts
stiffly in his seat.
“Yes, Mr. Benedict please. Yes, you can tell him this is Mr.
Sark.”
“. . . . Yes, yes, I’ve been tied up on a
project . . . ”
“Are my usual accommodations
available? . . . a bottle of your best champagne
waiting and dinner . . .”
“No, no I won’t be needing
those services, I am bringing a companion with me.”
Outwardly he conducts business
as usual. He reaches over and impulsively
caresses her cheek. This
self-assured young man would impress the casual stranger, but she sees
through his front. There is a
certain hesitation in him. It’s
almost as if he is seeking her approval. When she does not acknowledge the gesture, he withdraws
his hand looking slightly wounded.
She senses he wants to jump
back into his former role as quickly as possible, like none of the last two
years ever happened. But the
transition back to the real world doesn’t come easily. She knows you can’t miss two years of
your life and expect the world to remain the same. It is a lesson that they are both learning the hard way.
“And you’ll take care of the
cameras?”
“Very good then.”
“That’s very kind, but I’m not
sure if I will be joining the games just yet.”
While he gives his laundry list
of necessities to the man on the phone, she rests her head against the window
and lets the hum of the car lull her back to sleep.
* * * * * *
The next time she wakes, the
hum is slowing down, and they pull into a gas station. A lone floodlight overhead slices
into the desert night. She’s
disoriented at first, a sensation she has become used to in the last month. A
dull headache pounds into her consciousness, and she is cotton-mouthed. He gets out of the car to pump gas,
and she slowly stretches, trying to work the kink out in her neck.
Once back on the road, she
tries to go to sleep again but can’t.
She shifts and turns trying to find a position that won’t leave a
crick in her neck. He takes pity
on her and hands over a blessedly cool bottle of water. She downs half of it in one draw and
presses the bottle against her forehead.
Sleep won’t come to her so she
finally gives up and stares out into the nothingness. It’s a new moon, and the darkness threatens
to swallow them but slowly, dotted pockets of civilization appear along the
road. She knows they are nearing
the city when she sees a faint glow on the horizon.
Vegas. Fitting. Sark always seemed to be a slave to creature
comforts. It doesn’t surprise
her – nothing much does these days, but she hadn’t yet bothered to speculate
on their destination.
She is reminded by the
often-quoted weekend getaway rule:
Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. It might work well as her new motto.
They had been driving in
silence the whole trip, not worrying with the radio, both too preoccupied in
their own little worlds. It’s
almost a revelation when Sark decides to turn on the radio. The voice of Elvis floats through the
night welcoming them back to civilization.
“But I can’t help falling in
love with you.”
She rolls her eyes at the
melancholy irony.
“Not a fan of Elvis, Sydney?”
As they get closer, they are
assaulted by the cacophony of neon lights running down The Strip into the
night. The frenetic energy is
quite a contrast to the hollow desert.
He pulls up to the valet at the
Bellagio and the attendants rush to greet them. She notices him counting the security guards, the cameras,
and the hotel employees. She
also notices a distinguished looking gentleman in an Italian suit waiting for
them.
“Mr. Sark, it’s always a
pleasure.”
“Mr. Benedict, so good to see
you again.”
Benedict reaches to open
Sydney’s door. “Your companion
takes my breath away.”
She snorts out a laugh. The false flattery does not impress
her – in the last month she looks nothing like her former self. She is dressed in a simple black tank
top, crop pants, and slides, her hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and she wonders
if it was a conscious decision to adopt her mother’s prison style. They both
look like wraiths.
“Any luggage?”
“We’re traveling light. Some
time freed up and we decided to make the trip on a whim.” He puts his arm around her
possessively, and pulls her to him.
The gesture is strangely comforting, but it also makes her skin
crawl.
“Then maybe I could send up a
tailor and a wardrobe assistant so you can enjoy the town in style.”
“Perfect. Schedule it for tomorrow
afternoon. We plan to sleep in.”
“Will you be joining the game
tonight?”
“No, perhaps tomorrow.”
* * * * * *
The lobby is a cross between opulent and overdone. It
reminds her of one of the great European cathedrals, every inch from floor to
ceiling elaborately adorned betraying a vanity that had more to do with
flaunting wealth than piety. There is always a duality with Vegas – she may
be the most expensive call girl in town, but underneath the dazzle and show,
she still gets down on her knees for the money at the end of the night.
They continue to the rear
elevators passing a smoky lounge that filled the air with a sultry alto
voice. The activity is a
headrush, but both refuse to betray that they might feel out of their element
in a situation each has lived thousands of times. And all the while Sark’s arm remained wrapped around her,
his fingers slowly tracing unconscious circles over her side. She knows it is part of the cover,
but she gets the feeling that she is his life preserver against this ocean of
hedonism.
Upon entering the room, Sark
grins like a little boy. “It
feels so good to rejoin the land of the living.”
What doesn’t kill you only
make you stronger, she thinks. He shrugs out of his jacket, and she half
expects him to jump on the bed he is so giddy.
He makes his way to the ice
bucket and pops open the champagne, messily spilling it. The bubbles cascade down dripping off
the cuffs of his sleeves.
He reaches for the champagne flutes pouring them each a glass, and
raises his in the air. “Thank
you for liberating me.”
She responds to the toast
mechanically and walks over to the window staring down at the millions of
multi-colored lights and millions of lives passing by in an endless display
of light. All of Vegas is a
stage show before her.
“Sydney, what are we doing
here?”
“I have no idea.” She answers
without giving it a second thought.
He watches her expectantly for
a moment, and then decides she must be telling the truth. He drapes his jacket over the chair
and starts to unbutton his shirt. “Dinner should be up shortly.”
Sydney watches and remembers why
it had been so fun to banter with him on missions. His aloof attitude easily got under her skin, but she
never gave him the satisfaction of showing it. And he is easy on the eyes.
He winces slightly as he pulls
his shirt off his shoulder, revealing a rainbow of bruises across his
torso. Some the vivid red and
purple of fresh bruises and others the faded yellow and green that had been
given weeks before.
She doesn’t react as he
unbuckles his belt, brazenly stripping in front of her. “I’m going to go take a shower. When the porter comes up, tell him he
can burn these.”
He shifts uncomfortably under
her gaze as she catalogs the bruises. “You’re welcome to join me. I’m sure it is big
enough to accommodate two.”
He turns away to his purpose,
and she is amused that some things do not change.
* * * * * *
Chapter 4
He didn’t expect Sydney to
actually join him, but it never hurts to try.
Hot water rushes down the back
of his neck, as he slowly feels life returning to him. He tilts his head back, letting the
water thoroughly soak his hair.
The courtesy soap and shampoo is a little fruity for his taste, but
infinitely better than the skin-drying institutional stuff provided in
prison. He rotates his shoulders
to allow the jets to pound into his abused muscles into submission. He works the soap into a thick,
satisfying lather, running it over his body desperately wanting to erase the
grime of captivity. He scrubs
his chest, his arms, his legs, and eventually greets his hardening cock. The isolation and torture of prison
had all but killed his sex drive.
Now that he was back in civilization it is returning with an
embarrassing vengeance. The one
blessing of isolation - he was spared being made someone’s bitch.
He had always prided himself on
his control but sitting next to Sydney Bristow was like the slow burn of
lighting a shunt. He had always been drawn to her. The woman exuded sexuality, and as any red-blooded man who
saw her, he wanted her. She may
act like a wisp of her former self, but she still radiated the same allure,
and her disassociated state brought out the unexpected urge to try and
protect her. Her soft feminine
smell had pervaded his thoughts while in the car. It wasn’t even a discernable perfume, just some clean
shampoo or soap she used – apples, maybe. And after two years of smelling dank cells reeking of
sweat and urine or stringent hospital-like disinfectant, Sydney smelled like
heaven.
He thought he had done an
admirable job of controlling himself thus far, when all he wanted to do was
straddle her thighs and fuck her senseless. The real puzzle in trying to figure out all that had
happened was that he has the distinct impression, she just might let him.
Before prison, she had often
had a starring role in his fantasies.
He vividly remembers her lounge singer outfit from Paris. The neon pink hair, the kohl eyes,
and the tux bustier that suited her well, enhancing her slight curves.
He could easily I imagine her
without the pants, just the bustier and French cut panties. Her legs graced with fishnets and garters;,
the whole picture finished off with stilettos and a crop. Her controlled demeanor marks her as
a perfect dom. She would play
the scene well, and she could probably even teach him a few things. He had to admit to himself that he
wouldn’t mind getting down on his knees for her.
Once again, he loses itself
mentally tracing her yet unseen curves and liberally pours the shower gel in
the palm of his hand. He wraps a
fist around his cock, sliding and pumping, letting the sensations work him
into a hyper-excited state. He
looks down admiring his ability to still grow to amazing length, one that
women beg for.
Friction builds, faster and
faster, fingers making a ring around the base of his cock. The sight of the tip cresting over
and peaking out of his fist is too much. He feels his balls tingle and tighten in that familiar
tell, and one thought of the sweetness between Sydney’s thighs send him
groaning and shuddering and spurting his release painting a Pollock pattern
on the tile.
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