In Cajun country, All Hallow's Eve is fraught with red eyes of the loupgarou that lurks in the darkness, waiting on some innocent prey. Children from those parts who trick or treat that night don't fear the flying pumpkins and green faced witches of lore ... they only fear the loupgarou. The werewolf. But though it was Halloween, I did not fear any loupgarou. How could I fear anything with Terry Thorne standing right there before me ... not expected, to be sure, but here as only a brave man would be on this night. There are many things about Terry that I adore. His ever inventive mind is one. His tender side is another. His sense of the absurd still another. His tenacity ... well, that can be both adorable and irritating.

"Stop it. When you smirk at me like that, I want to slap you!"

"Then why you laughing instead?"

"If you don't stop touching me like that, I may stop breathing altogether."

"Like this?"

"God. You've got such good hands."

"I do, don't I?"

"You are too funny sometimes ... Oh, that thing you do with your mouth ... right there ... Man. Oh, man. That's ... Wow."

For all the lightness we pretended in the darkness, he never was fooled by me and I was never fooled by him. We'd been friends for too long. We wanted to reconnect; we just both of us tended to be kind of lurching toward the reconnection. How do you do that with a friend when you've both maybe done something wrong but you know that you absolutely do not want to lose a friendship over it? This is how we did it.

We faked it. We pretended it hadn't mattered. We hid the anger we still felt at the other because we knew the day was coming soon when we'd hate that we'd been angry with each other over something we'd barely remember in the long run of our lives.

Nothing we did to each other just then really penetrated the shells we instinctively coated ourselves in because we had hurt each other and weren't yet able to let that hurt go like we just knew we would eventually. Not the way we kissed, even though there was genuine passion. Not the way I had goose bumps from the trail of his fingertips up my bare thighs. Not the way he got hard and I got wet ... and all we were doing was rubbing ever so slowly, serenely against the other with our temples pressed together and our eyes closed and our arms around each other.

"We've missed Halloween, Terry. I had been so looking forward to your costume."

"Couldn't be avoided. I would've been here if not."

"Yeah. Anything to wear that costume you promised."

"Costume? Did I make a promise?"

"You said that if you made it, which I was so sure you wouldn't, that it would feature leather, hair and howling. I had you pictured as the loupgarou in leather restraints."

"I could show you my version of the loop the loop if that suits your fancy, love."

"Not loop the loop, you goof. Loupgarou. A werewolf."

 "Think harder, Sarah."

"Mmm. Let's see then. A hairy masculine creature who howls and wears leather? Hmm. Gee, I'm drawing a blank ... oh ... Wait ... Not ... Please tell me I did not miss you coming dressed as ..."

"Tough luck, eh?"

"Damn! That really sucks."

"Yeah. I was looking forward to seeing your eyes light up. And to how long it'd take you to convince me to go home with you."

"Maybe we should do something about that ... we could have Halloween another night ... just for us ... you dress as him and I'll dress as ... let's just say, I'll wear her leather look if you'd like."

"I insist. In fact, I already have your costume. I'll send it over to you tomorrow. Now, about setting this whole thing up ... I won't be in town long this time ... so how's tomorrow night look for you? You say the word, I'll get in costume."

"Hair and all?"

"Wouldn't be the same without it."

"Tomorrow night? But that's All Saints. Where I come from, we visit our family graves, light them all round with white candles ... the priest comes and blesses the graves ... kind of a big deal."

"Yeah, I remember that. They do that here?"

"Nope. They're boors. No sense of past."

"Right. Tell you what. If you're brave enough, you meet me at the cemetery tomorrow night at midnight. We'll make up for the Halloween we missed. Just you and me ... and any other werewolves or ghouls still hanging around after tonight."

"In the cemetery? That's kind of ... intimidating."

"Perfect. Let's see if you have what it takes."

"You're on ... but, Terry? You may have to work for your treat."

When I drove up to the cemetery, there wasn't even another car parked anywhere around. Not on the streets around it, because I'd driven around the perimeter and looked for his car and everything was deserted. Not in the small parking area in front that was grassy and boggy from a damp afternoon.

But I knew he was there.

Somewhere.

Because I turned off the headlights and sat behind the wheel and saw evidence of his magic.

Candles.

Those thick tapers they use in churches. White. Beeswax. They were lining strategic points along the main pathway that led into the darkest reaches of the cemetery. The wrought-iron main gate was closed. But I could see through it from where I was parked and I could see an intermittent row of yellow-white flames that told me he'd laid out a path of candles for me to follow.

I looked all around when I got to the gate. I looked for any clues he left that I should observe. I listened hard for him or for any hints. Nothing seemed set out just for me to notice except the candles.

The gate was locked. I frowned at that; looked down at my feet. At least the costume he'd had delivered to me didn't feature dominatrix boots. I mean, they were boots, but they were boots a woman could walk in ... and climb in.

So I did. Climb, I mean. I looked down the fence and noticed a lone candle on the high cement wall ... and just on the ground below where the candle had been placed, were crates that I could mound up and use to boost myself up to climb up there. When I reached the top of the wall, I grabbed the candle but its glow did nothing to illuminate the ground on the other side. Still ... I either trusted in him or I didn't. So I dropped off into darkness on the other side of the wall, landed on soft earth, rolled gently with the landing and then gingerly regained my feet. In no time, I had made my way through underbrush back to the path of the candles.

Again I stopped and just listened. I knew looking wasn't going to be much help because it was dark enough that except for where the candles illuminated, you couldn't see details ... only the whitish glow of mausoleums and crypts that predominated this main entry path. Further away were the raised headstones but they were not much more than amorphous shapes of light gray amidst blackness from where I stood.

I thought I heard rustling, as if someone had jarred, on purpose, a piece of underbrush not too far from me. I smiled to myself and wondered if he was getting rusty in his covert tracking skills.

And then I decided to just play along. I wandered down the path, going at a steady pace, keeping to the designated route he'd laid out for me. I did pause before stepping past the back edge of each large crypt ... expecting him to step out in my path or perhaps to come up behind me after I'd passed one.

He never did.

And then the candles ran out. Right at the end of the path where the mausoleums end and the graves with nothing but headstones begin.

I stood there at this 't' intersection and looked one way, then the other. No candles down either gravel-lined path. I turned and looked behind me ... sure that I'd felt his presence ... thinking he'd snuck up behind me.

Nothing.

Only the flames glowing fitfully in the suddenly increased breeze of this lonely, deserted night.

All Saints Day.

Where I come from, it has meaning. It is the day that the souls departed from this earth bend near, walk among us mortals, seeing to us, content to be near enough to be felt as shadows ... and we honor not just their memories but what they left behind in the corporal reality that is us living descendents.

Perhaps it was one of them who whispered it to me ... the idea that more was going on here.

I thought about why he'd chosen these costumes ... why he'd taken the time to get them ... when he had to have been at least somewhat sure that I wouldn't have wanted to see him on Halloween ... or maybe for a long time.

That was just like Terry, I thought. His integrity would have kept him honest to what he felt ... if he'd not taken the move to come see me, he would have worn that costume to some party in honor of what he knew I would have liked about him having done it if I'd been there to see him. And the whole night, he'd have talked and laughed and drank ... and in the back of his mind, that's where we would have been together. And he'd have kept true to that without anyone knowing. Not me, because I wouldn't have been there to witness and remark on it. Not anyone else, because they wouldn't know about the things we'd once said to each other.

It made me get all misty-eyed, picturing him at some Halloween party, holding some kind of personal vigil. He's always most alone when he's with a lot of people and has no one specific who's there just for him, I think.

After a while, I began to realize that it wasn't the breeze making all of the noise over amongst the small trees and tall bushes scattered along the outskirts of the cemetery. Did he think I'd just stand here all night, waiting like a sitting duck for him to spring out at me and scare me half to death?

Actually, I was pretty sure he wasn't intending to scare me ... I figure he fully appreciated that I'd been through enough scary stuff lately. And in that way, it made me feel very safe and secure ... like any scary stuff would be so in his control that I'd enjoy being scared because in the back of my mind, I knew I wouldn't be in danger as long as he was around. He was out there in the darkness, watching me, watching over me, watching out for me. He would play with me a while ... tease my heart into beating fast ... and then he'd spring the trap.

I hated to just be that easy. He obviously expected me to just stand there and be toyed with ... all for the payoff of seeing him in that leather get-up.

Yeah.

Like I'd ever make it that simple on the man. 

Right.

I turned and looked around me at the unlit portions of the cemetery. The moon gave enough illumination that when my eyes adjusted, I could make out the field of graves before me. So I started walking, straight off the path, just meandering amongst tombstones. Most were the traditional tablet shape ... I stopped before one that was a limbless tree trunk. I ran my fingers over the granite and dipped them into the family name ... Trahan. I knew a Trahan once ... years ago.

Graveyards have a certain appeal to me. I think it is in some ways tied to where I was raised because we have Cities of the Dead and no one's buried beneath the earth because the water table is too high and we have unique customs when it comes to burials. Every year in the weeks before All Saints Day, people go clean the tombs and raised gravesites of their families. First you drench them in a strong mix of bleach and water; later you come back and slap on generous coats of whitewash until they gleam.

It's like, once a year, a virginal state of innocence robs death of its gloom. And on All Saints, you return to the cemetery, carefully place stubby white candles all along the perimeters of the gravesites and along the tombstones. That night, you wait there with everyone else for the priest and altar boys to come bless the graves.

When the candles light up the graveyards on All Saints, it is a sight to be seen. All that new white paint, all those little candles ... everywhere around you, they demarcate the final resting places. They turn a place that harbors tragic loss into a place of surreal beauty. It makes you think about life, not death. It makes you smile. It makes you feel better.

I thought about this as I paused and looked at a small headstone that was not a tablet, but a baby lamb. A child was buried there. I stooped down and touched the lamb.

My head shot up when I heard unmistakable rustling in the bushes maybe a bit more than a stone's throw from me. I bit down on a giggle. He was there. I knew it. He was watching me. Probably so annoyed that I'd ruined his plans. Probably thinking he'd unnerve me into returning to where the candles were.

Yeah.

Right.

I stood up and peered in the opposite direction and then walked. And walked. Down one lane, then turning up another, then between gravestones ... trying to keep to the center of the area, out in the open, making it hard for him to sneak up on me.

But when I reached the back limits of the graveyard, I realized that I had not heard any of the rustling and scuffling noises I'd been hearing along the perimeter for a few minutes. All along my lackadaisical travel to this point, I'd heard noises ... soft, indistinct ... but I'd known they were him. I figured he wanted me to hear him, to know I was under observation.

I got this visual of him watching me, tracking me, plotting how he'd take me down. I figured he was hard; why couldn't I be wet?

The last row was all big white tombs, small houses, crypts ... places where generations of families entombed their dead. They loomed over the gravel walkway. My boots crunched the stones when I walked. When I stopped to look up at one of the structures, I wavered upon uneven footing and thought I could hear the soft, slightly crisp sound of the small stones rubbing uncertainly against each other, waiting to see if I kept moving on.

I held my breath and listened intently for signs of him ... I admit, ever since I'd visualized him tracking me, I'd been getting more and more heated up for the encounter I knew was coming. I wanted like anything to see him ... he knew I did, too.

But I heard nothing but a hoot owl off in the distance and the shy rustles of the treetops in the lightened breeze. Inside the figure-defining leather costume, I sweated. He had clad me in a one-piece, black leather, very fitted jumpsuit made for a comic book heroine. It had short sleeves; but still, the skin of my hands and arms were covered, just not with leather. He'd chosen black opera-length gloves that were made of the finest tulle, so that from my elbows to the tips of my fingers, my skin was cloaked in paper-thin mesh material.

This is important, see? And Terry, well ... well, he is a man who will have a specific reason in mind for such a specific detail ... because the fact that the vast majority of my skin was covered was important. The fact that my hands, though, were covered in material that would enable me to feel details of his flesh while still being a barrier to really touching said flesh? Yeah, I knew that was important to him. And the thought of why he'd gone to that specific trouble made me sweat when I thought about him watching me, waiting out there in the darkness ... and ramping himself up for the moment we'd come face to face out here. Knowing he'd gone to the same kind of trouble in costuming himself for this night.

Where the night air touched my bare throat, I felt clammy. I had the most delicious awareness of every square inch of my body. A gust of cool air swirled down over me ... the wig I wore responded and I stood even stiller as long, black hair flittered up and flew with the wind before my face. The wig's hair tickled my cheek and jaw as it came floating back down after the gust evaporated.

The wig was long and mostly black with a white-gray streak framing either side of my face, falling from a center part. It fell right to the cusp of my breasts and halfway down my back.

I had stood for a long time before the mirror and studied myself in this wig. I am not certain I would have recognized myself in it. It made a startling difference in my appearance.

After I'd wandered up the line of mausoleums, I stopped to listen again. Still no sound. 

Had I only been imagining that the other sounds had been made by a human? Surely in a place like this there were rabbits and possums ... and other ... more intimidating animals of the night? The hoot owl screeched and something big and dark flew overhead.

"Terry?" I called softly into the night.

No answer. No noise. 

I figured maybe I'd give him another ten minutes ... play this out ... he knew I could be stubborn. Ten minutes later, I began to wonder if maybe I'd miss-guessed his intentions. Maybe something had happened and he'd had to leave after setting out the candles. Maybe he'd thought he'd be back before I got there but he wasn't and that's why I didn't see his car. Maybe he was searching for me. Maybe he knew that a smart person would realize she should have waited by the end of the row of candles. Maybe he was impatiently waiting for me there. Maybe he knew that if I was wandering around, eventually I'd return to the rendezvous point.

So I headed back. Only I got to another gravel path and didn't see any candlelight anywhere. I was turned around and disoriented in the night. I kept wandering and listening. I climbed atop a low-rise tombstone and scanned for the glow of candles.

Nothing. But maybe the larger tombs hid the light?

"Foutré. I cannot fucking believe I'm lost in here," I whispered to myself when I reached the side perimeter of the place and stood there looking back down another row of mausoleums and crypts. I called his name, low at first and then louder.

Nothing.

I stood there, my hands on my hips, one foot tapping to the beat of an unplayed melody ... and wondered just how fucking stupid a woman I could be. I had this one night with Terry in leather and what do I do? I purposely wander away from where he was going to meet me and now we can't hook up!

"This is so typical of you, Sarah. Couyan," I muttered under my breath and tried to think calmly.

And, of course, I'd left my cell phone locked in the car because there was nowhere to put it in this costume. I hadn't even taken my keys; against everything Terry and my brother lectured me about, I still hid a key in one of those magnetic boxes stuck on the underside of my car and I figured when I left here, if I was driving my car, I'd get in using that key.

But then ... a soft sound to my left. I whirled in that direction. Was it a footfall?

And then ... a slightly louder metallic clang behind me ... but when I turned, I saw nothing.

A few nasty heartbeats later ...a stone bounced before me, tossed by an unseen hand ... a piece of gravel that joined the others on the path but jarred me as if it had been a grenade landing there. I probably jumped a mile in the air.

I turned in a circle, searching in the darkness ... I could see nothing moving, nothing out of place. My heart was hammering in my chest. I'd been scared that I'd been all alone out there ... but someone was here with me ... he was here ... and somehow, even knowing that, what he was doing with me ... this cat and mouse game ... it was really charging my excitement level.

When the voice spoke to me, it was a growl that was so low and focused, that I thought at first I'd imagined it.

"Rogue," it called to me. The breath I'd been holding panted out of me. Thank God he was here. "Terry?"

"Rogue," came the voice, this time the growl came from behind me ... as if it came from the crypt back there. I walked toward it ... three steps led up to an outer platform ... on one side, a stone fainting couch with a granite statue of an angel standing at the end, her hand out to whatever ghost she might have been the only one to see ... or was she offering comfort to a grieving family member visiting the dead inside?

My hand touched the angel's hand. Through the gloves, I could feel the shape of the bumps and pits of the concrete.

I looked up at a noise to my left. Saw nothing. "Terry? Come join me ..."

"Rogue," the voice said from my right ... this time, the growl drew that name out for a long, spine-tingling few seconds ... and that growl sounded very predatory, if patient.

"Terry! What are you up to?"

"Rogue!" the voice was angry now ... a deep, pure, real growl was voiced after the last vestiges of the sound of my name left the air. It made me jump.

It also got my attention to something else going on here.

He was in character. He expected me to be ... that's why he called me Rogue.

I turned in the opposite direction of where I'd last thought I'd heard my name come from. And I addressed him properly. "Logan. I'm waiting for you. Come to me."

It's hard to describe.

But he just seemed to melt away from a shadow so dark it was impenetrable.  One minute, he was one with the shadow ... the next fraction of a breath, he evolved from it and stalked toward me.

My hand flew to my throat ... an involuntary shudder went through me ... My God.

He really had taken on the part ... he really was Wolverine ... that comic book badass good guy animalistic anti-hero who'd come to life in the X-Men movies.

Terry had taken me to see the first movie at the theater. We'd watched the sequel together on my DVD player with him warning me he wouldn't stand for me distracting him from the film by panting about and voicing my very prurient infatuation with Wolverine ... Logan ... During the first movie, Terry had been highly annoyed at how I'd kind of purred deep in my throat when Wolverine first donned that leather X-Men suit ... the one with that belt buckle with a huge "X" on it ...

And then when we'd watched the second movie on DVD, I'd teased Terry when the leather suit made its first re-appearance by muttering, "Mmm. Baby! X marks the spot ... the spot I'd like to begin at..."

He'd put his hand over my mouth and held my struggling form still so he could watch the movie without my editorial comments.

But afterwards, we'd had this conversation ... actually it was a few weeks later, to tell the truth. I hadn't even brought it up ... I didn't see any reason to really tease him or insult him about finding another man that much of interest. How would I have felt if he'd started talking about how he'd like to stick it in some stupid actress playing a sex kitten? Well, I mean, not that he didn't occasionally make a crude remark like that, but he never took it too far.

Neither one of us were the kind of people who wanted to make the other jealous ... we were as much lovers as friends and kind of mutually seemed to understand that it's not going to go beyond friendship.

But then we're both pretty much playing the field. Well, I know I am. I mean, sure, lately there's been this one guy who's been romancing me ... but it's not like I'm really looking at him or Terry or any other man to be my one and only ... which wouldn't really work well for someone like me, I suppose. Although, I do have to admit, it's been nice being the object of "the big rush" this other guy's been putting on me. Makes a girl feel, well, like maybe her heart needs the workout.

As for Terry? Sometimes I think he's more in love with the idea of "a one and only love" than he is with the reality of making something like that really work because he'd have to consider it a joy to make substantial room in his life for something other than his job.

Terry'd said to me, a few weeks after that time we'd watched the second X-Men film on DVD, that he'd wished they'd had the courage to take it to an 'R' rating and be more honest about the sexuality of the characters. Here they were, he said, crammed into these naughty, sensual leather outfits ... and they all seemed to lead such chaste lives, even if some of them supposedly had things going on with other X-Men.

And for some reason, I said the thing that I had admired was that they let Logan and Marie, or Rogue, have this rather suggestive sexual attraction in the first movie that was pretty Lolita-ish.

"I mean, she's 17 and he's like ... an old man of like 85 or something who's seen it all, done it all ... being rather obviously a mutant with a predatory, ruthless animal inside him, I bet he's enjoyed a rough, no-holds-barred sex life. While she, on the other hand, cannot have her skin touch anyone so she's maybe never going to be able to have sex. A virgin for life, a girl, matched up with a man like Wolverine? Whoo. Yeah, they teased us with it, but I suppose they couldn't do more than hint at it."

"And your point is? He's a man ... she's a woman ... she may be a virgin technically, but her powers let her absorb not just another person's life-force but also their thoughts," he said.

I lowered the book I'd been reading and peered at him. We were lounging on opposite sides of the couch. He was pretending to be interested in some file among the group he'd brought in to try to work on.

"Terrence Thorne! Are you a closet X-Men geek? Don't tell me you read those comics?"

He gave me that annoyed scowl of his ... the one with the pursed lips and dipped chin ... the one that is supposed to get you to shut the fuck up.

"You are! I never knew that! No wonder you dragged me to that first movie!"

"I did not drag you. You took one look at the poster and said 'I'm so there.' Remember?"

Could absolutely not help the giggle that came from me. I wiggled my toes in his groin. "Well, it wasn't Xavier I was eager to see in leather, I can assure you of that."

We kind of each slid into the couch cushions a bit more. He picked up his file from his lap after giving me a further scowl. I picked up my book from my lap. We each had a foot lazily rubbing around in the other's groin. It was rather obscene, really.

After a few minutes, we settled into reading ... until he said softly, "Imagine what that's like for her? She touches someone ... she knows their intimate feelings, desires, urges ... through them, she can experience the understanding of sexual intercourse ... and yet, her touch drains them of their life force, doesn't it, so that's the closest she'll get?"

I glanced up over the book. His eyes were down on the file. "Yeah ... but Wolverine's got that healing ability so he's ... well, he's always been invincible ..."

"Isn't that the real kicker? That she's just about the only one who can take him down? Who could fuck the untouchable girl? That one's pretty much a death wish."

"But even if he got beyond that ... she's a virgin ... he'd have to be gentle ... is that what he wants? Would a man like that ever be attracted to such an innocent child? Would he be able to see her as anything other than a virgin?"

"Rogue really isn't a virgin."

"She isn't?"

"Think about it, Sarah. She gets the thoughts and feelings from everyone she's touched. So, she might be technically but she'd have all the sexual memories of every person she ever touched. So imagine a virgin with a catalogue of people in her head - and what they've done ... men ... women ... heterosexual ... homosexual ... the whole nine yards. And she has desire, of course - that's a natural human need. She just can't touch."

"Imagine that ... When she touches Logan, she pulls his power ... and also his thoughts ... feelings  ...urges. She would know what turns him on ... what he's done. So she hungers for him ... if nothing else she has a serious crush ... but now, she knows not just how to attract him, what turns him on in a woman ... but she'd also know what she'd be getting involved with if she entered into a sexual relationship with him. So you have this girl who must be insanely frustrated with her natural teenage hormones running wild ..."

"Add on top of it the sexual memories and feelings of very experienced adults, including this one man she is attracted to ..."

"... so if she ever willingly embarked on that ... decided to be with him ... she'd do it fully aware of what he'd expect ...and she'd know enough to be making an informed decision about what she'd want in the encounter, too.

"And he'd know that. He'd understand that, wouldn't he? And yet ... she's never really been with a man physically. She's a virgin only technically but what a technicality."

"Jeez. I've never thought about that."

"So you got Wolverine ... biggest bad arse there is who isn't afraid of death or her skin or anything ... the attraction there, is that they're both untouchable ... Wolverine emotionally; Rogue physically."

"But it just so happens, they spark a certain way together that overcomes that, shall we say. Plus, Wolverine's all animal, too ... heightened senses ... taste ... touch ... hearing ... smell. Wow. There was a lot more going on in those movies that I ever thought about."

"Interesting, isn't it?"

"Terry?" Neither one of us was even pretending to be mildly interested in our reading material at this point. He gave me that soft, assertive, all-man 'hmmm?' of his. "I love it when we have these kinds of discussions. You make me think. You challenge me to see things from a new perspective."

And ... skip ahead months ... to this night. And he chose these costumes.

Memories, I thought as Terry strode aggressively toward me. We shared this memory. We shared the knowledge that we each knew what the other hungered for in this night. No holds barred. Playing roles that allowed neither of us to hide ... allowed both of us to see inside.

I might be innocent ... more innocent than him ... but I have urges that match his ... and he knows he will never have to hold back his wild side in this night.

We stood looking at each other when he reached the bottom step. He was clothed ... from his neck to his toes ... in a black leather action hero suit that hugged his every plane, emphasized every single physical feature that I most lusted over. He'd taken the time to do his hair and sideburns in something resembling Wolverine ... and his chin was down ... and he was totally, utterly, intensely focused on me.

And it scared me. That he could be that much of a man.

I wasn't sure I could be enough for him ... maybe I was too much a girl ... except I wanted him too badly, too amorously, too lustfully, too blackly to ever let fear stand in my way. I'd acknowledge the fear, I'd use it, I'd overcome it. In this night, I was a woman up to what would happen between us.

And then he was up the steps. Until he stood on the stair just below me. We were almost eye level but he was still taller than me.

"You were supposed to wait for me." His voice did something wicked to me.

"You were supposed to be there."

He did that light growl, deep in his chest. "You have to learn to do what I say."

"You have to say what you want me to do."

He crooked an eyebrow at me. He reached a gloved hand out and stroked the back of his fingers down my jaw ... and then down my neck ... and then down my leather-clad chest ... slowing as he stroked over my breasts ... and then down to the 'V' juncture between my thighs. He lingered there for the fraction of a second it took him to look in my eyes and make sure I acknowledged that he'd felt free to do that to me. And I crooked an eyebrow at him in response until I read in his eyes the acknowledgement that I'd felt confident enough to stand there and let him do it. But ... then I swallowed hard and I felt this uncharacteristic blush heat my cheeks when he made this sudden, quick movement to rub a knuckle right in along my inseam and, with such accuracy, he had hit right in on that bud that had already been tingling in response to his presence.

"C'mere. Wanna show you something," he said.

Without waiting to see if I'd follow, he just took off ... down the steps, across the gravel path, into a grassy area and then headed over along the tree line near the perimeter of the cemetery. By the time I caught up to him, he was entering the trees. He stopped only long enough to glare back at me, like he almost resented having a kid along with him that he had to watch out for.

When we emerged from the bushes on the other side of the trees, we were in an open grove. It was like an oasis after the area with all the graves. This was a grassy expanse completely surrounded by a ring of bushes except for small opening for a nearly overgrown path leading from the main part of the cemetery to this space. In the middle of the grassy area was what at first seemed to be a grouping of elegant pillars in an open-aired circle ... it was a white portico made of thin tapered Corinthian columns, with a wide border top and bottom that joined them. But there was no roof or cupola ... just the sky above. There was enough ambient light from a street lamp on the other side of the perimeter fence that I could clearly see in here, but the light itself was defused and warm.

"Wow. What is this place?" I asked him as I followed him toward the columns.

"Place of solitude," he said, low and deep. "Place of reflection."

I could picture someone coming here, in the midst of remembering a deceased loved one, and taking respite here within these confines. It was a place to be alone. The symbolism was not lost on me.

As we entered into the portico, I saw a plaid blanket spread out on the grass inside near a small fountain. A silver bucket sitting atop the fountain's flat edged perimeter held a wine bottle. Two glasses stood ready to be filled and even as I took this in, he knelt down upon the blanket to do the honors. I watched his back move in the leather and wanted to bury my face there. I tried not to watch that way; I tried to be adult about this experience ... but I was anxious, nervous, facing the unknown. My eyes caught a wicker basket just behind where he knelt. I smiled ... I bet myself that inside there was Halloween candy to complete this night's theme.

I really should have thought to bring some candy for him, I mused. He might have liked that.

We sat on opposite corners of the blanket and sipped our wine. He sat with his back propped against the fountain. I hugged my knees in and tried to relax. My eyes kept darting around ... I'd glance over at him; the moment he looked in my direction, I looked away ... I'd glance at the basket and wonder about what was inside but when he tapped it with his gloved finger, I blushed.

"Aren't you supposed to say the magic words to get the goodies tonight?" he teased me softly.

I glanced at his face. He was trying to smile. "Trick or treat?"

"Good girl, Rogue. I brought you a treat."

"I'm not a child, Logan. I didn't come here for you to give me a ... Oh! A caramel apple! I love them!" I said as I reached for it.

"Yeah, I know."

I took a big bite and relished that buttery sweet taste of the caramel mixed in with the tart crisp apple. I wiped a bit of the juice from my chin and grinned at him. "It's so delicious ... hey ... where's yours?"

"Only brought one."

"Would you like to share mine?" I reached it out to him in offering; lowered my chin and bit my lip. He slid over close to me. His hand came over mine and pulled the apple to his mouth. I watched as he bit into it ... taking a huge chunk out of it. Chewing it slowly, purposefully, intently.

"So ..." I said and cleared my throat. "Is this how you lure little girls into your clutches, Logan?"

"That what you want to be with me, Rogue? A little girl?" He gripped hard onto my hand and took another bite of the apple.

Just before he moved the apple from his mouth ... while his teeth still gripped the apple ... I leaned in and took a bite from the opposite side. Our lips came perilously close to touching. Neither of us moved for a long few seconds ... and then he released his hold on the apple. I tossed it away, off somewhere in the grass beyond.

With this instant speed, he was atop me ... an animalistic noise, like a cross between a shriek and a purr came out of him. I lay stock-still and simply watched what he would do. Crouched over me on all fours, rocking back and forth on his knees ... his nose sniffing from my armpit to the bend of my neck ... his fingers playing with my hair, bringing it to his face for him to scent it.

This close to me, I could smell the cigar he must have been smoking. It quickened my heart ... yet another piece of evidence of how far he'd gotten into his character, who smoked cigars but not cigarettes. Mingled in with the soft aroma of the cigar was the distinctive scent of leather and the scent of pure Terry.

He leaned back on his haunches and his hands held my waist. And then he raised his hands across his chest, forming an 'x' ... and he gave me a smile that made me take in a sharp breath of anticipation. I saw him flick his thumbs but didn't know until later what this was ... and instantly, blades shot out from his gloves, right at the knuckles ... enough like the movie's Wolverine for it to be incredibly impressive.

"Foutré," I whispered.

"Don't move. Don't even breathe."

The blades on his right hand sparkled in the light as they flashed toward me. He drew the index blade down the front of my leather suit ... I could feel the tip of the blade as a tickling thin bluntness as it traveled. It was quick and then it was over. He sat back up, his eyes glittering in reflections splintered here and there across his face by the way the light caught those steel blades as he raised his hands away from me.

Those blades ... another specific detail he'd seen to. One he wanted me to really notice, really think about. This was as much about showing me the danger of his character as it was about showing me he was in control of the danger he presented to me.

And what of the danger I presented to him in my character? My skin could not touch his skin or he'd die. The only reason my hands could press against any part of his body was because he'd given me gloves to wear. I couldn't kiss him, lick him ... not his natural body, anyway.

I felt my chest tighten at a quick realization ... those steel blades ... part of him but not a natural part ... they were the only part of his body I could taste with no danger to him. Imagine that? My soft tongue against his hard blades? Showing him that I trusted him that much that I'd put such a delicate, vulnerable part of me upon this sharp, dangerous part of him, showing him that I trusted him so much that I knew he'd not cut me?

"Wait," I whispered to him as he seemed about to make a move.

I reached up to touch his gloves, feeling the mechanism that had hidden the blades ... and then carefully pulling his right hand down before my face ... I leaned up and placed a kiss along the palm of his gloved hand before turning it over. Our eyes met. I saw this look in there, like he was scared but fascinated.

Slowly, carefully, deliberately, I put my tongue along the broad side of the outer blade and licked it ... not far, just far enough for him to get the message ... and for me to see it had been the right thing to do.

When I let his hand go, he took a deep breath before flicking his thumbs again to make the blades disappear. He bent down and placed a slow kiss upon the middle of my chest, right over where his blade had drawn a line down my leather costume.

"Hold on," he said as he moved off me. I watched as he peeled the gloves off ... crawling the tiny space to the wicker basket, he tossed the gloves inside and pulled out some other leather gloves to slide onto his hands as replacements.

He'd gone to all that trouble, worn those first gloves just for that one effect. I felt absurdly elated, like I'd risen to some challenge, as if I'd passed a small test.

"Stand up," he ordered me as he concentrated on pulling the replacement gloves on. So he was still into this role ... still needing leather gloves between us.

I did exactly what he said. I felt my body tremble ... as if it really was me facing this big step of becoming a woman. On his knees now, he approached me and when he got close, he reached up and grabbed hold of the neck of my leather costume ... and he simply unpeeled it by ripping along the line he'd just scored with the blade.

"Jesus. You're not wearing anything under this?" he murmured.

But he wasn't looking for an answer. He was just looking. And all he could see at that point was ... skin that held innate danger for him. If we remained in character, he could touch it with his gloved hands, but he could not kiss it. He could smell, but not lick.

I wondered if he saw my skin as if it glowed softly white in the moon? Isn't that what men thought of when they thought of virgins? I looked down to see what he could see in the opening he'd cut ... I have such fair skin anyway ... did he want to mark it as the animal inside Logan would surely want to? Jesus, what a temptation this would present to Logan. He could look, he could mark as long as he had his gloves on. But you just know he'd want to taste, to nibble ... what would it do to Logan to know that one slip, one tiny indulgence of saying 'fuck the taboos, I'm gonna suck your breasts like I want' and he'd be a goner?

And here was Terry, unwilling to lose control of himself even though he had to be so fucking horny ... but here he was, insisting on keeping to the role-play, staying in Logan's place and not be able to put his mouth on me. He really was such a man.

"Would you like to see me?" I asked him softly. I felt a maiden's blush at this step ... to be unveiling myself to a man with whom I wished to be intimate.

"Do it slow."

I carefully wiggled out of the open suit. He helped me smooth it down over my hips and off my legs after he carefully undid my boots. When he was done, I shivered in the night air. I wore nothing but the thin tulle gloves. My nipples peaked; as much from the sudden blast of cooler air over skin that had been hot and humid as it was from the vulnerable way this made me feel.

Every part of my body seemed on lurid display as he just looked. My breasts felt ripe, heavy, aching for a touch of man. My sex felt plump, open, wet. I squeezed my buttocks together when that ended up being the first place he chose to stroke. His gloved hands traced my contours and I felt the rise and fall of a want to not be this exposed.

My chin seemed to lower of its own volition, seeking a way to send my wig's black hair cascading over some part of my nakedness.

"No one's ever touched you here?" he said, patting over my sex with his hand.

"No one but me."

"That's going to change tonight." His eyes came up to mine. They were dark and partly shielded by his lashes.

With no tentativeness, he turned his hand until he was rubbing his index finger over my tender area. I spread my legs; it seemed an instinctive reaction to the crude touch ... the seam of the glove suddenly caught a glancing rub over my clit and I gasped. He saw it ... saw the light in my eyes, the fire, the culmination of me always wondering what it would be like to really be indulged in a session with leather in just this kind of way ... to feel the rough grain of leather, to smell it on him ... feel it under my hands as I gripped in hard on his shoulders to steady myself.

And what he did in response nearly killed me. He deliberately rubbed the seam over my bud ... and when my neck arched back and I groaned softly, hesitantly ... he rubbed harder, rhythmically. I felt the wig's long hair stroking down my back.

I opened my eyes and saw stars when he slid the now-slick finger up into me. No one had ever done anything like that to me ... I didn't know how to react. And yet, I'd envisioned this once upon a time ... and I did know something. Just like she would have ... Rogue, I mean.

He caught me when I came because if he had not, there's no telling how I would have landed. If I would have ever thought he'd go slow in this night to introduce a virgin to sex, I thought wrong. He was way too wanting something wilder to do that ... and I just knew it on instinct.

His mouth was near my ear even as I was still trying to catch my breath ... but how could I if he kept this up? You cannot believe his voice, his manner ... brusque, driven, needful ... each syllable he uttered like flint being struck against granite, over and over, until by force of his will, the spark it caused would explode in the vacuum around us.

"I watched you ... from the moment you dropped over the wall. I almost grabbed you right there and fucked you. But I wanted to see you ... watch you ... see if you had what it took ..."

"I got lost."

"I got hard as I tracked you, Rogue. So fucking hard ... Feel me ... I been hard like that for so long tonight, watching you, waiting to touch you. Claim you. Put my scent on you ... smell you on me ... Christ, every time I see you in this getup ... What it does to me, what it makes me want to do to you ... Want my mouth on you ... Taste your response to me ... I want your mouth on me ..."

"Fuck ..."

"I want to fuck you. Hard. Now."

"... me ..."

"You want me. I can smell it on you."

"... now!"

"No one will ever take you like I will."

"I want you ..."

"Do you know everything I'd do to you?"

"Yes."

And I did. Or at least, in that moment of role-play, I did know his every dark passion. I read them, one by one, as they passed in the shadows of his eyes and the changes in his face as he got the visceral images of what each impulse would feel like to make reality. I saw so many things and I read so much into it ... and some of what I saw was hard for a woman like me to acknowledge, to know he might share this with me but maybe it wasn't because of any other reason than that there wasn't any other friend he'd maybe ever known he could feel safe to do this with and know we'd be us on the other end of it.

"I wouldn't want to hurt you, you know that ... right?" he said it low, almost soft, like another man was here... and it made me picture the way Logan had held Rogue when he thought it was only him who cared enough to come after her and make her feel the need to belong with a group he himself didn't want to admit he needed. The way he wanted to protect her, like she was the only one he'd let himself care about but he was fighting sexual longing because maybe that was the one real danger to him when it came to Rogue.

And it would have been dangerous ... on an emotional and physical level. God ... what was I doing? I was getting into this ... but it was so hard to remember all these little nuances because truly what I wanted right then and there? I just wanted him and I wanted him as wanton and abandoned to a fantasy as I could get him. I don't know why that was; it just was. Maybe even then, I was already making sense of what I was feeling and it had taken role-play to make me act out some of it. Funny that ... facing reality within fantasy play?

In the pause of thinking about facing reality, I asked myself one question: why had he wanted to do this with me?

He doesn't do things, not specific things, without a reason ... even if it's a reason he may not tell himself until later and then feel guilty over it if he thinks he let emotions overrule that calm, methodical side of him that makes him ignore his own desires in favor of helping the world or one of her citizens.

So ... why this? And why do it with me over someone else?

I looked at my hands on his chest. They were shaking ever so slightly as I realized why he'd done this with me.

For weeks, he's avoided me ... last time we'd seen each, he'd realized I'd begun to form an emotional attachment to another man. It had not seemed anything I should have hidden from Terry; he'd known I'd been dating, as he had been. It was not that I had found myself in love with this other guy, leaving Terry out in the cold. But somehow Terry had realized this man had found a way into my heart against all my expectations. And Terry had been angry about it, even if he knew he didn't have the right to feel that way. But Terry still wanted me to have a place in his life; he was unwilling to give that up.

Why had we both gotten so angry about this?

What was I to him? Was I his Rogue ... the innocent who had viewed some of his darker desires and still hungered for him? I remembered what he'd said about the crystal clear sexual dynamics of Rogue and Logan: who could fuck the untouchable girl.

Was that how he saw me? As untouchable?

Not physically untouchable as Rogue was ... but emotionally. Just as he'd said Logan had understood Rogue's needs to be touched, did Terry understand mine?

That's really when I understood the hidden level of his mind at work here.

He was attracted to me and my innocence was part of the reason. My innocence about men and how to love them.

He liked the scent of innocence this gave me and yet sought now to take it from me. He saw me ready to lose it, somehow instinctively just knew it ... and wanted to be the one to show me that with the right man, it was okay to put myself in his hands, knowing what he wanted, wanting the same thing and letting myself experience it instead of just feeling like I understood it by watching others do it. Break through the barriers to experience what it feels like to be in love, that is.

And he was be willing to withstand the danger of standing in there while I fought against him trying to take it from me ... all for the payoff of helping me lose my emotional virginity. Knowing by that instinctual way he had of me that I had known just what I was getting into when I first got involved with him.

He wasn't about to have put in all that time challenging me along only to have a rival claim his prize.

So in the end, that's what he got out of it, isn't it? He could indulge that base part of his masculinity ... he could renew his mark on me ... but he could also make a new mark on me ... and since he was wearing gloves, he didn't even have to touch me to do it. Now there's some damned other psychology at work there. My mind was spinning with it all.

I put my hands to the belt across his middle ... to where that "X" hung ... I stopped, my head down ... trying to decide how far I'd take him down the path he wanted to go down.

"Logan ...we can't ... can we?"

"I want you to touch me."

"But we can't make love, can we? I can't take you inside me ... can't feel you there ... can't kiss you ..."

"There's a way."

"You'd die."

His hands started unzipping his suit, lingering, taking his time when he got to his waist. He grunted out the words: "You let me worry about myself. I'm doing this ... no matter what."

Our eyes met. Was I in the same place he was? And somehow, I knew ... I just did.

I reached inside his zipper and stroked my fingers over his length before gently pulling his hardness out of his suit. It felt so odd to touch him with those gloves on. He shifted under me when I asked him to show me how ... he talked me through jerking on him, caressing him ... I scooted off his lap and bent over him, studying his length with genuine curiosity to learn, to catalogue what may have been the only time for me to do something like this.

"It's hot ... so hard ... angry looking ... does it hurt?"

"No ... but yes ... it aches."

"Because it needs to be inside ... it needs to come."

He just groaned. There must be something about an inexperienced woman's curiosity that can be a turn on to the real man playing this game with me.

From a pocket at his chest, he drew a foil packet. Handed it to me. Told me to put it over him. This was when I realized what he was going to do to enter me ... but to maintain no skin-to-skin contact. Even as I smoothed the condom down him, I knew ... if we'd really been them? It wouldn't have worked because other bare skin would have touched. But that was okay. We'd entered the deeper illusion where we could ignore the parts that didn't stay with the fantasy's internal logic in exchange for having the connection we really wanted.

When the condom was on, I told him that I knew he liked women to take him in their mouths and I just wanted to try it ... before he could stop me, I had him inside my mouth ... it was unpleasantly jarring not to taste him ... but it was also unbelievably erotic to be willing to carry this that far for him.

He shoved me off ... I knew he was close ...I could feel it as tension in his thighs ... in the way his breathing had grown hoarse when I'd wrapped some of the wig's hair around his shaft as I'd pumped while trying to fight the way the rubber made me gag to have down my throat.

And then he simply put me on my back with no pre-amble, no gentleness, no menace.

"Spread your legs," he muttered ... into it now in this driven way ... at war with himself. The man he really was would never have approached a virgin this way ... except in some ways, I'd been virginal when we'd met and he'd not ever really found it necessary that first time to not press me. I'd wanted it ... wanted him.

His fingers dipped inside me, gathered my moisture ... smeared it atop the condom. "This will hurt ... at first ... it will be worth it," he whispered suddenly. I put a hand on his chest; he glanced down at it; I dropped it instantly.

When he entered me, I convulsed around him ... this odd sensation of not understanding how to control it ... the urges ... the urge to expel something that large ... the urge to bring it in deeper ... the urge to scream at the memory of what it was to be stretched the first time, to feel it as both an intrusion and a fulfillment. The urge to cling to him as he made me a woman.

In all the way and he had this sudden curl to his lip as I locked eyes with him. My lips gaped open; I breathed through my mouth and tried to control the panic even while I was freaking out from the way it felt to finally feel this for myself instead of imagining it through other people's urges and memories. And in this flicker of something shifting between us, he shoved in harder, like he needed to prove it to both of us that he was capable of taking just for the sake of taking.

It was the whimper, I think. I think that's what did it to us both.

Because I whimpered when he did that ... and then I just stopped having my own will.

She would have known, wouldn't she? Rogue, I mean. In that moment, she would have known already what he liked, what turned him on, what got him off so good he'd never recover. She'd know also what part of the way he liked it that most fired her own libido, her own darkness.

But not me.

I reached for him in this moment because it wasn't Logan I needed ... it was Terry ... my Terry ... the one I sometimes got and sometimes ... most times wasn't quite sophisticated and knowledgeable enough for.

We were on different wavelengths. I should have said something.

He pulled out of me with this lewd groan; told me to turn over. "On your knees." He leaned over me, his hands running over my rump ... around my hips ... fingers shoving up me, a hand eager on my breasts, breath on my shoulder, all pretense of who we were mixed all together into some dangerous zone of total safety because we neither of us could remember the rules if there'd ever been any between us.

"You like this, don't you?" he growled near my ear. "Tomorrow, when you're looking for bruises and scrubbing grass stains off your knees, you remember whose cock was between your legs."

"And you remember whose body you were trying to get into," I said with a grunt as he shoved me over onto my hands. And then I choked on the cry of desire when he pushed inside.

"That's right. No more lip outta you."

"That all you got?"

I felt teeth, the hard edge of them, sinking into my skin ... this flicker of them ... as if they were going to draw blood but then thought better of it. "I've got all you need, love."

Except he didn't. Or rather, maybe he did, but he hadn't been willing to give it to me.

And maybe that's something we were fighting that night.

It's so confusing.

How do you do this? How do you let yourself go this far with someone, trust him this much and yet not really trust him with all the secrets of your soul? Do you ever trust any man with those secrets? I never had.

How did he do this? He could be this honest but only by not being himself? What didn't he trust me with? It almost broke my heart ... was I such a bad person to him?

He was impossibly large and rude inside me. And not once did it ever enter his brain to slow down, to back off, to ease me into this. Perhaps that's why I came like I did. Because I was begging him to stop even while I was holding on so tight to his hips that there was no way he was getting out of me. Not to mention that I don't think there's a man alive who'd be able to fight his instincts that hard to pull out when I was coming around him in waves that shook me and made me writhe under him.

It was his rude movements that affected me. The way it simply and uncomplicatedly felt raw, primal and basic. 

Then I was on my back ... he got buried so far in me ... he had one leg draped over his shoulder and his hand was gripping in grimly to my other leg, holding it tight over his hip while he ground in and out ...

With my gloved fingers, I played along the skin at his nape ... I liked how it felt utterly like I was let inside a masculine world every time I ever was in an intimate position with him and I could stroke his skin there and feel my fingers tangle into the hair there ... feel the tendons of his neck flexing ... sense the power of words, spoken and unspoken ... as he made me feel like it was so important to him that I love coming with him just as much as I did.

When he came when I was holding him like that ... I could feel what he wouldn't say and nothing ever quite prepared me for that.

He made those last lunges, the dying gasps of a real man living out some clutter of fantasy that was mostly play but some serious. And then he held me through my aftershocks while I trembled and clung to him and told him in breathless whispers that for all I'd known about how this felt to others, I'd never realized how it would feel to me.

"It isn't the same when you're the one really doing it, is it?" His voice was hoarse, sated.

It isn't the same. It isn't even the same no matter how hard you wish it was.

I watched the red flame turn to orange and then die completely. I smelled the heady scent of a fine Dominican cigar as he drew on it, puffing to get the correct draft, letting the smoke waft from his mouth and rush toward me in gusts of his breath.

"Is it time to take the gloves off, Terry?"

He didn't say a thing at first. What could he say after all? "What do you mean?"

"I mean, our gloves. The ones we're wearing. The ones you brought for us," I said, softly, playfully. I reached for his free hand. He let me peel his leather glove off.

He flicked his fingers; I gave him first one arm and then the other for him to slowly roll the thin fabric gloves down, down, down until he smoothed each one off my fingers.

"That better?" he asked me.

"Almost." I sat up and grabbed for his cigar. Took a small puff. He looked at me like he had a new idea about me but I just kept it lightly clamped between my teeth as I took the final glove off his other hand. I handed the cigar back, slipping it between his lips. "You know what I wish?"

"Hmmm." Sex-slated manly sound. Even in repose, after the feast, he's still a predator.

He puffed on the cigar as I looked down at him, lounging there on the grass. Instead of answering him, I leaned in closer and let my fingertips stroke his chest. Around each nipple that puckered in response. Feeling the hair on his chest, too fine for me to have felt with the gloves on. Up his neck, feeling the hard stubble like nettles pricking at the swirls of each of my fingerprints. I stroked his hair back off his forehead. He looked so him, so relaxed, so not the man I'd just done that with. And I knew this was one of those magical moments that step right out of time and are never repeated.

"I've always liked touching your body," I said, almost a purr, lulling him if I could. "But it's your heart I'd most like to touch."

Our eyes met. His head moved ever so slightly, side to side, as if to say, "No, that's not quite what tonight was about."

"What makes you think you haven't?" he asked me.

I tried to draw my hand back, spooked by a sudden cold gust of wind that sent the wig's hair tingling down my spine. He grabbed my hand, though, and held on. And then unfurled my fingers to place them into the middle of his chest.

Over his heart.

My hand seemed to find its way ... my palm flattened out over his skin, pressing down and I could feel his heart, beating in a steady drum beat rhythm.

Here I'd been wondering how Terry and I stay friends when my playing the field has had unexpected consequences between us ... when another man has made in-roads with me that Terry thought belonged to him even if Terry had never offered something more to me ... More. More and I don't know what more he might offer.

Would he offer "a one and only" kind of love to me? Is that what this meant ... that he wanted to make the offer if he thought I might accept?

He gazed at me, soft eyes. He touched me with gentle fingers on my cheek. Somehow I just knew. I knew something about him and something about me that I never had before.

This night, I realized, we'd laid each other bare, taken away all the costumes. Trick or treat. The scariest moment of our lives. That's the thing about horror stories, isn't it? It's when the loupgarou jumps out at you as you least expect it that makes you scream.

Terry had taken my emotional virginity that night; it left me wanting to explore what else he had to offer me.

Foutré. Just when I thought the scary part was over, he leaps out of the shadows to take me by surprise and make my heart beat so fast and out of control. He really is the loupgarou.