He knows she likes Daniel Pierce's eyes. That she likes the way they darken for her. That she likes the way she is reflected in them. He knows she likes Daniel Pierce's body, too. If only she knew that the real Daniel Pierce was several inches less worthy.

Ha.

Vanessa is a pleasure to deal with, really. She doesn't seem to feel the cold and the blackness when he pounds into her. She just clutches at Pierce's shoulders and moans, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" He knows enough to know she's not faking it. Perhaps because she is just as cold inside as he is. Cold and empty. Consumed by her idiotic crusade and Cadmium X.

Her bottle blond hair is soft. And she likes to drink vodka over ice before sex. As many times as he takes her, she drinks. The congresswoman is a walking cotton ball soaked with alcohol. It seeps from her pores. And he gets just a little bit drunk by association.

He remembers wining her and dining her at the beginning of the summer. She put out on the first date like a bad Catholic schoolgirl. And she was just as shameless for it when he had her backed up against the doorframe of the filing room. With little Miss Parker just a few feet away. He is almost certain that she would've opened her legs for him right there, with the petrified virginal audience. It would've been interesting had there not been vital work to be done. Interesting to watch her head fall back...to listen to her moan the name that isn't his as Liz Parker's eyes grew bigger and bigger--horrified and aroused despite herself. But no...he swept her away.

And he lets her moan "Dannnnnnnnnnnn" long and loud to borrowed walls, to borrowed ears, to a borrowed cock.

Would she scream if she knew that the aliens she hunts for are so close? That one is inside her right now? Would she push him away or pull him closer? Would she demand he mate with her in gray? Would the sexless body, the oval head, and the smooth, pewter-like, flesh get her off more readily than Daniel Pierce? Would it soak up her liquor?

He is clinical as he watches her writhe beneath him. Objective. He studies her responses even though he is attuned to them, anticipating them, by now. It is one thing he learned from the lab at Eagle Rock. From the white room. He knows where to pinch to cause the slightest irritation. Where to caress to cause unspeakable pleasure. What to arouse so that her suspicion stays as submissive as she is to her passions. He has learned to play her like a violin. But she is nothing as fine as a Stradivarius, is she? Not like Isabel or Tess. She is human. Coarse. Stupid. Ordinary. A fiddle, then...not a violin.

A fiddle whose strings he can pluck so artfully.

So artfully that she clenches around him in a matter of instants, telling him it was "fucking fantastic." He laughs, softly, replies, "Shouldn't that be...'fantastic fucking'?" And she chuckles...reaching for the glass of Smirnoff's on the nightstand.

As he rolls off of her and lies back, he glances at his watch with the vague innocence of a blue-eyed boy who needs his beauty rest.

He can leave now. He has kept her busy long enough.

Max will need to be intercepted. Updated.

"Dan...?" Her voice is slurred. "Dan, why do I let you do this to me?"

He smiles. "Because I can."

She sets down her vodka. She opens her arms. And he sighs. 'Once more unto the breach'...is there anything...anyONE he wouldn't do for the Cause?

No.

Max can wait another five minutes.

Once again he watches her beneath him. He strokes her strings and watches her stretch and arch.

He thinks he is just a little intoxicated.

As long as he sobers up by morning, he will be fine. He will be effective.

"Dan....Dan...you're so good."

No, he thinks, I'm so bad.

He touches her hair. He whispers the right things. He thinks of the Four. And he wonders...he wonders if he will even live long enough to play a finer instrument. To play a violin. To be rewarded by a dark amber, long-limbed Stradivarius.

He doubts it.

She fills her glass with more clear poison.

And then he says "good-bye."

October 2000.