People often ask about her. Their questions, though, seldom delve below skin deep. It's more gossip than real interest, truth be told ... it must be said it falls more into the idle curiosity category.

Where is she really from? How did she meet Chili? What really happened between them to break them up? When did she become such good friends with Colin?

But the odd thing is that no one ever asks her about herself.

She is fine with that.

Michelle D'Antonio, late of Indianapolis, Indiana and now of Taos, New Mexico, does not really want to answer questions. It has been a mark of her life, perhaps. Of those associated with the Come On Inn, there has only been one man who got to know her well enough to know the answers to many of these questions and more.

Ah, Chili Palmer, late of Trenton, New Jersey and now of Los Angeles, California. Chili would not answer your questions, mind you. Not about Michelle. For one thing, Chili would believe that if Michelle wanted you to know, she'd make it easy for you to ask. For another thing, Chili is and has been very conflicted about Michelle.

They speak. She does not understand him but at least they have always spoken. He doesn't understand her words but he understands exactly what her body says.

From the moment they really looked, one into the other, messages were transmitted unmistakably.

He comes to her that night without apology for his agenda.

She finds him waiting for her when she drives up to her home, later than she expected.

He watches her drive up, open the garage door remotely, slip the car inside. He once saw her touch the switch that operates the mechanism for this large metal door. He locked that away somewhere inside his nimble brain and now the pad of his finger touches the button with barely a glance at it as he follows her car's path.

She opens her car door just as he closes the garage door. 

Her chin darts up, her eyes find him.

He waits for her at the back of the car, between the bumper and the almost-closed garage door.

It's cold outside, winter rearing its head. Her nipples react as she knows they will when she opens her sleek wool coat, flapping the open edges so he will see what she is wearing and that her dress clings to the curves.

Was she expecting him?

Not in the literal sense ... but in the ethereal. 

Did she expect to meet him?

She remembers a vision during an intense meditation and she thinks maybe she really did have a warning that he would be on the path upon which she trod.

He recognized her when he saw her. Someone he should not have been destined to meet. A woman who would cure his loneliness, his need to touch.

When the opportunity came, he made sure they were introduced appropriately.

In his own tongue, he says, "Come to me, Michelle. I wish you closer."

In English, she responds, "You have no idea how much I needed you tonight and here you are."

She does not understand his language; he does not understand English.

At the back bumper, he waits for her.

She nears him, slowly, letting him watch her walk, her movements, her eyes. When she is close enough to touch him, her fingertips glide gently over the crags and planes of his face as he locks eyes with her. She puts a pump-clad foot atop the bumper, resting it there, her knee lightly grazing his leg.

He is about to be tested, to see if he remembers what she's taught him about how to deftly, seductively unattach her garter from her sheer, black hose. She slides the hem of her red dress up just enough to show her thigh.

His hand circles her leg below the knee. He has big hands. He knows what the sight of his big, strong hands does to women when he uses them delicately upon their bodies. It cements his command of them. It makes them sweat.

Slowly, he drifts his hand up, fingering the back of her knee, making her shiver and close her eyes at the tickle. His thumb moves to her inner thigh and then goes up several inches until it touches the top hem of her hose. He raises one eyebrow, his right, as he uses his thumb and index finger to pop the garter's clasp free.

Her hand on his face has now slipped down to the side of his neck. She leans in toward him, sniffing the pheromones he gives off when he is aroused in this way.

His hand slides under her thigh and makes quick work of the other clasp. He shoves the top of that leg's hose down ... not far ... it is the roughness of his palm he wants her to feel on the delicate skin of her bare thigh.

She murmurs in his ear in response even as her hand palms down his chest to open his coat's buttons. 

He stops and lets her touch him. As if it is his due. And it is. He is tall, broad-chested, brawny, wide-shouldered, raw-boned. Startling turquoise, intelligent eyes in a weathered, craggy face. He is at home in this body and in command of it. He has always liked it when a woman shows her instinctive attraction for his body. He has a similar enjoyment in showing a woman his attraction for her body.

When her long fingers brush insistently over his bulge, his already-hard penis, his manhood ... he shoves her open coat off of her shoulders.

She shucks it off the rest of the way. She lets it fall over the top of the car's trunk, against which he has now prodded her body. The back of her knees feels the slickness, the chill of her car's bumper. Her rounded buttocks now rest at the edge of the trunk, the biting cold of the metal not cushioned by the thin layer of her knit silk dress. It makes her gasp ... and smile at him. She likes how he simply moves her where he wants her.

His knee moves between her thighs and presses up into the delicate juncture. She nips at his jaw line. Her opulent lips are dry in the cold. They drag at the bristles of his shadowed jaw, then his chin, which she holds lightly in her teeth. His fingers have begun to press in over the crotch of her panties, proud of the damp fabric, careful with the fragile skin beneath.

He elicits a delicious, involved gasp from her when he lifts her atop the trunk's flat top surface. It is not a delicate move on his part. It is deliberate and it is bold. It asks no permission from the woman; it does not ask for her submission, it simply puts her where he wants her.

She is already unbuckling his pants, unzipping him, running a manicured fingernail down the line of hair that begins just south of his navel and widens, thickens the further she goes. And now reaching lower, inside his gaping pants, to grasp warm and hardened flesh unencumbered by underwear. She tenderly touches him. She likes the feel of him, his heft, his uninhibited thrust into her grasp. The skin is soft, silky. Velvet encasing steel. The tip of her finger slides along his tip, already dewy.

He says something to her, against her throat. It is guttural, provocative. Her back arches when his body forces hers back down atop the trunk.

She presses his body between her knees then slips her legs around his hips, drawing him closer. She moves his penis' tip around her own sex, wetting it and exciting herself, all at the same time.

His hands shove their way through the folds of the top of her dress. No buttons, just draped fabric that allows him access that is a sensual path to her breasts. He kneads her over her bra until her teeth release his chin. All this time, she has gripped him that way, controlled the tempo to some extent. Added an element of danger for him. Reminding him, as if he needs it, that she is neither meek nor mild. He revels in that. Her temperament suits him.

Her voluptuous body, ripe with curves and softness, appeals to an essential aspect of what he finds attractive in women. 

He thrusts, not meekly but with purpose, knowledge, awareness, desire.

Her hands are on his lower back, responding to his movements, lost in the first moments of joining. She does not feel the cold metal beneath her bare buttocks. She feels only where he enters her, where her thighs spread wider, where her hands move to grasp his hips, where his mouth crushes her right breast.

Chili likes Michelle but he has never really been clear about her. He used to be close to loving her. Well, close to admitting it, in any event. As a man who can love rather more easily than you might imagine, he was in love with her without wanting to admit it. He hoped she knew and that this was enough. It was only later, after they broke up, that he realized what she probably knew was that just when he'd been close to telling her he loved her, he began to convince himself that she already knew and therefore, he didn't need to say it out loud.

Chili Palmer, a consummate woman's man, faced with the one woman who read him loud and clear ... so she knew he loved her. And that he didn't tell her was not a problem for her. It was cool.

Not since she didn't actually love him.

Not in the forever after sense of love.

She loved everything about him and then some. She would have told him 'no' if he'd asked her to marry him but she ached for many months after they broke up. She tried to make it convenient for him to invite her back into his life, mind you. Even though summarily dismissed as if what they'd had for two years was nothing to him, Michelle licked her wounds and kept dropping in at the pub where she knew she'd see him since he was a part owner.

For a while, she turned up when he least expected her. She was unfailingly unwilling to bow to the expectation that she would simply walk away. She neither forced herself on Chili nor did she shrink from contact with him.

Until the combined force of his relentlessly shrewish ex-sister-in-law's verbal venom and childish pranks along with the blatant snubs from many of the other women made the pub simply not a place where Michelle ever cared to set foot in again. It seemed to be the classic case of sides being chosen after a man and woman part ways. A woman like her stood little chance with other women when they formed a mob. And what, really, had she done to offend them? It was so undignified and distasteful to a woman of her sensibilities.

If there was a good side in all of this, she did learn much about the integrity and compassion of some of the individuals in the group that frequented the pub.

His mouth on her breast is not enough. Pulling it free of the bra's cup, he grabs the breast, smashes it into his gaping mouth, as if he can force more of the succulent flesh inside, past his teeth, where he can suck and lick and ... and feel the hard peeking of her nipple as if it invites him to take a bite.

It is the willful act of not biting that he engages in ... and finds incredibly arousing. Denying himself ... but not really wanting it, anyway ... he loves the give and take of her soft flesh. The nipple, though, hard and yearning. She gasps and moans under him ... one of her hands is now on the back of his head, keeping him there, forcing him to continue this torture.

Until he drags the breast from his mouth, gazing up to follow the supple curve of her throat ... her head is back, her neck arching as she writhes beneath him.

He mauls the other breast, loving it, exciting it ... controlling it and himself.

Below, he thrusts in deep and uneven rhythm ... forcing her to concentrate, making her sigh and then murmur and then grunt. He feels her feet behind him, one in the small of his back, the other just under the descending curve of his buttocks. She is wearing those shoes still ... the red ones ... every so often, the long heel of one of them will graze his skin, reminding him she is not fully nude. Keeping him aware of the way she must look beneath his assault on her and her greedy taking of him inside her.

When he slows, he does it deliberately to regain control and concentration. He raises his head, his bangs falling before his eyes. From behind this imperfect curtain, he watches her.

She licks her lips and then raises her head, searching for his mouth or neck, whatever is within reach. Her eyes catch him out, catch him looking at her ... that uneven smile of lust that she finds exciting. Both of her hands go on the back of his head, her fingers weaving into his longish hair. She wrestles his head toward her as he resists, not wanting to be captured easily, enjoying the lover's play with her. Until at last, he lets her win ... lets her lips capture his.

Her lips are soft, plush. He likes the feel of them as he plays inside the kiss.

His kissing intensifies, grows physical, forces her down until she is flat on the metal that is no longer so cold. Not now, after this time of two warm bodies wrestling atop it. He leans in, first on one elbow. Then on the other.

And now he simply thrusts into her, his undeniable rhythm catching her, guiding her, seducing her. She responds in tempo. The way she feels under him, meeting his thrusts, jars them both.

He is soon lost to anything but the rutting.

Their lips part.

They swallow. They gasp for air. They moan soft, dark. The car beneath them rocks, protests, resists.

His last thrusts are brutal. She is caught by them. Her own writhing stops as she cries softly, deeply ... and then comes under him in waves that will not seem to stop, even after he comes inside her. Semen drips from her as his thrusts are no longer intense, now easing off.

He makes little noise this night when he comes. Not much more than a long, guttural groan against her throat as his head bows and he gives in to how good it feels to come inside this woman.

It is in a moment like this when more than one man and woman felt more than they wanted.

The one person who kept her connected to the pub life and the group there was Colin O'Brien. Her friend, for some incomprehensible and totally inexplicable reason. Colin could not tell you why they were friends. He wasn't really that given to introspection ... and he didn't ever look a gift horse in the mouth.

Michelle was a gift for Colin ... she took pity on him one of those evenings when she'd dropped by the pub after Chili had split up with her. She was about to leave when she spied him, in a booth, with paperwork spread before him and a "lost at sea" look square on his handsome young face. Thus began her efforts to help him with the myriad paperwork and filings that every small business person had to learn early on to succeed. She helped set up his bookkeeping system for his new garage, spiffied up his tax reporting system, helped him work through his employee benefits and pay reporting forms. Someone had mentored her early on, she told him, and she was paying back the favor by helping Colin.

And in addition, she introduced him to the girls who worked at the spa. Ah yes. Other than an occasional visit by Jack Aubrey or Max Cooper for therapeutic massages, once Michelle no longer hung around the pub, Colin was the only one of the men there who had easy and regular entrée to Michelle's spa.

When meeting at the pub to go over his paperwork with him became tiresome due to the schoolgirl antics of Chili's ex-sister-in-law, Colin began coming by Michelle's office at the spa. Of course, a good-looking man like him was bound to attract attention from the girls there ... and from Raul, her only male employee. Now Colin, whatever else you might say about him, could fall into the sweet trap of wall-to-wall women with an endearing and faultless lust. As he was single and on the market, Colin had no compunction about giving in to his desire to date the spa girls. None at all. He was young, fit and up for about anything.

He was the kid brother who annoyed Michelle to no ends but for whom she wished the moon as his reward for the gracious loyalty he showed her.

If anyone could be the opposite of Chili Palmer, it was Colin O'Brien. Maybe that's what made her initially feel free to get to know him as a friend. Michelle should have realized that friendship can change ... and it can even be lost. But Colin was never her 'type' ... not that Chili had been, either when it comes right down to it.

What was her type?

Michelle has asked herself that quite often over the years. She is a person who believes in therapy and being in touch with her inner resources. So she has examined this singular question: what spark inside a man speaks to her? Where was the pattern there?

An internal, integral honesty of self.

That was the answer she finally arrived at.

Chili's honest self is not denied. He loves women. But when he is involved with a woman, he does not have the compunction to complicate things by dating others or chasing others. It's not an effort on his part ... it is simply an honest part of him. Not that he does not admire other women, flirt and flatter ... it's just he's not inclined to take it further.

Colin's simplicity of drive is his most honest self. He is not someone who promises fidelity. It would not dawn on him to do so. But he is not a player, either. When he is with a woman, he is with her and not thinking or comparing her to others.

So Colin, the King of Sheets, became her most loyal friend. Who knows what's in it for him? But for Michelle, this friendship came at a time when she most needed it.

Over the many months, she became more aware of his sexual pursuits and conquests than she wanted to. It wasn't that he flaunted it ... but her spa girls kept tabs. For a while, it seemed to Michelle that if she heard another woman talk about some plan to compromise Colin to entice him into the aromatherapy room or the water massage lounge or the sauna or the mud treatment center ... well, she'd have to bleach her brain.

It is late. She rubs her eyes even as she is pulling off the black metal-framed reading glasses. The computer screen has become a blur. She will check the document she is working on in the morning, giving it another read-through before sending her marketing plan proposal to her major investors.

She lets her head fall forward, relishing the aching soreness of her muscles in her neck as they stretch out kinks she's put there that night.

Rising from her leather chair ... the soft one, ergonomically correct, her prison for the last hour ... she pads over in bare feet to the cabinet beneath the window of her office. Bending over at the waist, she lets herself go, relaxing ... her palms are on the floor before her. She walks her fingers back, back, back between her ankles until she can feel the stretch in the back of her thighs. And there it is ... the release of that spring along her spine.

She sighs as she slowly rises, stretching her arms over her head, making plans to sit in on the next morning's yoga class. Sunrise Yoga ... so popular with women on their way to the executive suite.

Opening the ice bucket on the tray there before her, she plinks several cubes into a crystal highball glass that is also on the tray. From inside the cabinet, she retrieves the bottle of scotch and pours a few fingers over the ice. She imagines the ice's sharp edges exploding in reaction to meeting the fire of the alcohol. She swirls the glass and then sips, letting the cold fire drip down her throat.

The window she stands before looks out onto the back garden area of her spa. There are exercise areas, a meditation zone, gurgling natural hot spring captured in lava rock lining, an outdoor massage pagoda and the large meditation bell she brought back from a soul-finding trip to far off Osaka, Japan.

At night when there are no activities at the spa, the lights out there are low, moody, ethereal. She opens the blinds and gazes out at this inviting space below her. From the second floor, she looks down casually as she sips the scotch that she has no reason to hide but has begun to, tricking herself into believing that it is not a substitute, that she finds nothing in its depths other than relaxation at the end of a long day.

As she scans, her mind is elsewhere. It is on a man she met in August. A haphazard meeting. But now an involvement she will not classify. One she does not discuss ... even with herself.

It is now September, very late in the month. The weather outside is mild in the day, quite cold when the sun retreats. As she stands there, scotch in hand, she lets herself remember his hands on her, giving herself permission to feel again what he made her feel the last time he put his hands along her skin, inside her, under her.

But something outside disturbs her deliberate effort to arouse herself with the tactile fantasy.

She leans toward the window, looking down, searching for what her subconscious mind has noticed. Suddenly, she hears laughter, a tinkle of it. And she realizes someone is running back toward the spa's rear entrance. Someone has left the hot spring and is running, leaving wet footprints that glisten in the path's lighting. And then someone else is running ... someone larger. This is when she makes sense of it. A woman being chased by a man. Love play. Lovers teasing each other as they rush from the hot water, through the cold air, into the spa's main building where the air will be warm on their wet skin.

Or perhaps it's simply one of her spa girls and Raul, her spa boy.

She shakes her head and chides herself. She should not call them that ... spa girls and spa boy. But it fits and they seem to like it.

On the way out of her office, she reaches beneath her desk to grab her shoes, slings her purse over her arm, grips the leather handle of her attaché, slips her coat over her shoulder ... and she is locking up her office, leaving for the night.

On the main floor, she listens for the sounds of the two people in the spa this late. They must have ignored her car outside. Or perhaps they thought she'd gone to dinner with a client. Whatever it was, it would prove a fateful mistake. They would go on notice ... she did not forbear disciplining wayward antics of her staff. She ran a taut ship ... but turned a blind eye and ear to anything harmless she deemed healthy to staff camaraderie.

Ah, she sighed, they were inside the pool area now, the skanks. Probably skinny dipping just because they knew she'd have an absolute cow if she knew they were doing it. Well, they were in for a shock ... it'd keep the rest of the staff in line when they found out about her catching them, chastising them, docking their pay.

Silently, she lets herself in through the aromatherapy room, hoping to surprise them. Lights glow inside the adjacent pool area and through the glass-paned connecting door, she notices someone must have left the steam room door open, letting mist flood into the cooler air in the pool room. Leaving her purse and other burdens on the aromatherapy table, she enters the pool area, and nearly walks into the portable towel closet before she sees it. Putting her hand on the cedar wood of its sleek side, she pokes her head around to see the view.

Mist rolls and disorients her.

Who is in there?

Sounds echo and enlarge.

A door shuts tightly and the sound in the room dampens. Someone has shut the steam room door, apparently realizing their mistake. If she waits just a short while, the air will clear and she will see who is inside, for she can hear splashing and a woman's light cascade of giggling from the pool.

Waiting feels odd to her. This is her place. Why play this game? But she knows the answer ... because she has to have the upper hand and if she charges in at this point, she would be proceeding blindly, in the dark as to who is here and just what they are doing.

The noises lower around her. It takes only seconds for her to comprehend what she is listening to. She can hear the low purr of a man's voice. And a woman's breathy protests that are not very earnest.

As if she's snapped a finger, the mists rise toward the ceiling. It is that sudden. She leans around the wood cabinet.

The woman's head is lolling over the lip of the pool. The man has dark hair. It is wet, dripping. He pulls her away from the edge of the pool, his arms wrapped around her, his mouth consuming hers as they bob in shallow water.

Colin.

Regina.

In August, Michelle received a quite unexpected and flattering invitation to Cort and Bou's wedding festivities. She was not going to go, mind you. She just did not see what was in it for her.

But shortly after the invitation came, Maximus stopped in her office to pay his respects on the way out of the spa after a massage and steam. And in the course of that one visit, he gave her a different viewpoint.

Maximus was an investor in her spa, getting involved when she decided to expand. Jack was, as well. The investments would not turn a profit the first year, but thanks to her savvy, they began paying off in the second year. As investors, both men got free use of services ... and were particular favorite clients for the girls ... and Raul. They remained favorites, in fact, even though they kept the visits strictly professional. Not that Jack did not enjoy the flirting and Maximus did not understand exactly the impact he was making. Men will be men, after all.

Michelle cherished these moments when either of them would stop in like this. She would smile to see them, rise from her desk, come to greet them. They would never stay long. These were courtesy visits and nothing more.

On this particular day in question, however, Maximus had another purpose. It was the paintball war, of course. He wanted her on his team. She was flattered but more than that ... she liked the idea very much. Of course, if she came for the pre-wedding day festivities, she was obligated to attend the wedding itself, wasn't she?

This was how she ended up arriving alone at the wedding. Colin had offered to serve as her escort, still feeling that need to watch over her among this group lest there be trouble.

It was a fortuitous happenstance, then, that Michelle had turned down his offer. She went alone, dressed in a subtle, figure-enhancing piece of black jersey.

Staying in the background, sipping a sparkling water, trading jibes with Hando and compliments with those women who'd been on her side in combat the day before ... she passed the time leading to the ceremony in an atmosphere that was never once fraught with tension for her. Actually? She enjoyed it. Not as much as if she'd been more of an inside player but the camaraderie from the paintball war spilled over to this evening ... and then the softly enchanting reason for the gathering did the rest.

Not that she was affected by the romance.

But after the ceremony, she was standing off to the side, alone. And she happened to see a man she did not recognize. His shape seemed familiar ... and she got the visual memory of a member of the opposing paintball team, tall and proud upon a horse, close to Bou's side. It had to be him. In the deep concentration she'd been in during the battle, she'd not really paid attention.

He seemed to feel her looking at him. Just as he was during the paintball war, he was by Bou's side when Michelle really noticed him that evening. They looked at each other from their solitary positions. They recognized something quite open and frank.

Desire.

Yearning, raw and sharp.

The quenching draught for their thirsts.

When he approached her, his eyes on her the entire time, she stood where she was and let him take the superior position on this field. She heard him speak but did not understand a word he said. Bou did the interpretation ... an introduction of sorts. His name ... unpronounceable on first hearing ... she was told to call him Vince instead and her first thought then was that she would learn to say his real name before the morning.

And she had.

As he left her in the morning ... she said it softly, huskily.

She knew she'd see him again ... she read it in his eyes, the reaction to her learning his name and the sound of it in her voice.

But in her mind, he remained named as she'd first met him and first whispered his name ... Vince. Invincible.

She should either walk away ... or announce her presence. But she does neither. The sight captivates her. Two dark heads bouncing in the pool, wisps rising from the water, overhead lights off and only the underwater lamps and those along the walkway are on.

She should be angry ... or annoyed. But she is neither. She watches, finding in herself the voyeur she has always treated with caution. She licks her lips as Regina moans, a nasty sound with the way it echoes off the brittle walls.

Colin is guiding Regina over to where the sloping, wide stairs lead down into the pool's shallow end. At this angle, the voyeur is watching his body from the side as he covers Regina, obviously positioning himself to enter the younger woman.

The voyeur holds her breath. Her hand slides sensuously down the side of the slick wood cabinet until it drops onto her thigh and edges up ... until she lets it slide across her throat and then down, between her breasts, where it stops as she watches.

Colin is thrusting now. He does not talk. He only fucks. Regina gasps and squeals at first, but when Colin begins to hit the mark, his pace quickening, his force making the water slap and roll around the twosome ... well, then Regina lets the back of her head fall back into the water and makes these primeval sounds of a woman on the edge of orgasm, seeking her release, intent on it, knowing it is coming, trusting this man to give it to her.

His neck is taut. It is arched back, veins prominent. His eyes closed. His tongue, just the tip, poking out between his lips. His upper arms bulge. She cannot see the rest of his body as sharply etched in the lighting because it is under the water that is roiling around him. Waves caused by his frenetic final pumping motions.

Just then, the voyeur hears a door open. Her head turns in time to see MariLu tottering out of the steam room ... and a man's hand slapping at her bare ass, prodding her out. The voyeur does not need to see the man to know who it is. It is the one she has only met once or twice ... Hando. Newly arrived. Raw and mean. And something else she recognizes underneath: a desire to erect an unbreachable wall, an aura, a persona that will not be substantially questioned or challenged.

She slips back into the shadow created by the wood cabinet. If Hando or MariLu were to turn and look directly in her direction, they would see her. She stands frozen in spot, daring them to see her, to invite her to destroy their night.

If they see her, they do nothing overt.

Hando is hooting and it echoes loud and rough off the walls. She puts her hands over her ears; the sound is annoying. She hears MariLu squeal out for him to let her go and then there is a loud splash followed swiftly by a louder one.

The voyeur, she figures this is the sound of the girl being tossed in the pool and Hando jumping in after her.

She hears nothing from Colin and Regina at first. But Hando is cooing out Colin's name and then she hears Colin tell him to 'piss off, ya hoon.'

The sounds rise ... laughter, at first ... and then a suggestion that she knows will lead to Hando pressing for more adventurous, harder, group sex. Anything to keep that distance between him and intimate connection with women.

She slips back into the aromatherapy room and stands in the dark. She waits until her skin is cooled off from the experience in the pool. And then she puts her coat on, puts her purse over her shoulder, holds her attaché clutched in her hand.

Re-entering the pool area, she immediately finds and flips on the overhead light switch.

The four young people in the room freeze and look toward her in varying shades of shock or cool.

Out, is all she says to them. Out.

Hando yanks himself out of the pool. He is naked. He scrubs at his penis, rubs his scrotum, advances toward her, sauntering over as if he thinks he will put fear inside her at his approach. Her eyes narrow and she just watches him.

Enjoying the show, he says. There is no question in his voice and she wonders if he really did see her in there earlier.

Out, she says through gritted teeth. She is not afraid and he now knows this.

He casually picks up scattered clothing, dressing as he walks.

She has been so involved in watching him that by the time she looks toward the others, she sees the women have gathered towels around their bodies as they tiptoe toward the massage room where she presumes they left their clothes ... or, more likely, had their clothes stripped from them.

Colin's back is to her and he is pulling on his jeans. His wet body makes it difficult but he finally manages it. He turns around, looks into her eyes. He passes her on his way out to the lobby. He says nothing to her.

In the morning, the only thing she will say to him when he comes to her office is that she will never allow that again. He only nods at first. And then he says to her that he is sorry that he abused his privileges there at her spa. There is something so endearing about what he says and how he says it.

There are nights after this when she is alone, working late. And when she is finished and is drinking her scotch, she sometimes fantasizes about his young body ... and that he is there, on her chocolate leather couch, looking at her as she strips for him.

There were more visits from Vince over the months elapsing since August. All it took was to catch a glimpse of him, waiting on her as she drove up ... or looking at her when she opened her door ... and the heat between them melted even the obstacle of not knowing the other's language. Who needed words though ... for something so elemental, so primitive, so natural.

A man. A woman.

He was unafraid of her temperament, her strength, her eccentricities. She dressed in clothes that boiled his blood in ways he found most insanely delicious to his temperament. In those provocative clothes that would reduce weaker men to puddles of babbling goo, she would pose seductively in her bedroom door while he waited patiently after she'd pressed him into her suede couch.

She felt empowered, freed, invigorated by him. He was powerful, not to be denied, rough handed and sure of touch. He did not budge an inch. He commanded total absorption when he was there. In return, he made her feel more in touch with her adult self ... an unapologetic woman and a frank man.

And for that time, time itself for Michelle was divided between the enjoyable hours at work, the friendship she indulged in with Colin, occasional nights out with business associates and the rampant sex whenever Vince paid a visit.

Michelle began to believe that there were times when he was telling her as he was leaving when she might expect him to return. The truth was, she didn't need to know ... she simply looked at it as the delightful surprise that waits around the corner when you least expect it.

But then November brought ill winds.

First she heard of it was from Colin ... St. Bernard of the Come On Inn. Calling her very late at night. 

Something bad had happened, he told her, something to do with the pub ... and it appeared to him, from what he knew, that there was danger to every one of them. Even her, who never went there anymore.

Not that she was fooled, but he said the word 'danger' as if he were not afraid. A dismissive tone, that's what he used, when she thought about it later.

"Then why are you bothering me?" she said, soft and cool.

"Someone kidnapped Biebe. You remember him?"

"Of course. Very nice man. Why would someone kidnap him?"

"Some talk. Dunno if it's true. Just that ... some meeting they just had ... all us men ... Maximus says Mrs. Biebe called him ... and that there's some hinky company after all of us ... the men, I mean."

"The men?"

"The ones ... like me. Y'know."

"No."

"And there was some talk that all of you ... all of you been close to any of us here at the pub ... that you could be targets, too."

"Targets?"

"Yeah. Like that."

"But it's the men ... the men from 'his' movies? The real targets?"

"Looks it. From what the General thinks. Seems to know something."

"That means you, too, buster."

"Yeah, kinda," he'd replied in that languid way of his.

"So why are you calling me again? You want me to protect you?" 

"Other way round, love. Figured I should look in on you ... make sure you're aces."

"Aces?" She had sighed. He woke her up for this? "Colin, start at the beginning ..."

And then he had told her about that night's meeting in the pub's kitchen that gathered all the men together. About the odd calls from Clarity to both Uma and Maximus. About the people who'd endangered Maximus and his family, about this Mephisto company after them, about them thinking they were a race of time travelers, and that it seemed to the prudent members of the group that this could be a general danger to them all ... and yet, even to Michelle, it seemed unlikely she was ever going to be in danger.

But Colin ... well, that worried her. Of all of 'them,' those men from 'his' films, it was only Colin she felt immediate and intense worry over.

"You never know, love, and we were asked to pass the word ... so I'm passing it to you," Colin said.

"Maximus was in danger? Wow. That's ... it's disturbing," Michelle said, and how it felt to think of friends that strong who were not safe in this world.

"Seems I could be next," Colin said and she could hear a bit of cheek in his tone.

"Then maybe you should go into hiding ... can't one of your harem put you up?" Michelle said tartly, meaning his Spa Girls tribe.

"Sounds like a good idea, love."

"Then go have fun ... but, Colin?"

"Yeah?"

"Please promise me ... Colin? I know we kid around but ... but you do know ... I want you to be safe, okay? Promise me?"

"Sure. If you promise me the same thing."

"Me? No one cares about me, Colin! I'm not involved with any of you ..."

"You're a friend."

"Some friend, eh?"

"You're my friend."

"I'm touched."

"Michelle ... love? You want me to come over there? Stay with you while this goes down?"

She hadn't expected the offer ... nor did she believe it when she felt grateful and ... maybe ... just a little ... relieved that she wouldn't have to sit up all night worrying over noises just because he'd called to give her scary news. "You know what, Colin? I think that would be a good idea ... you come over here and it gives you a place to stay where they won't look for you ..."

"And I'm there just in case someone comes looking to mess with you," he said and she could imagine him straightening up to his full height.

"Seems smart for us both."

"I'll be there in two shakes."

"One thing, though ... do not tell the Spa Girls you're living over here or we will be overrun with them."

"Do my best."

This was how it came to be that Colin came to watch over Michelle. And why it was her place that became his place to hide out for a while from this danger.

It was surprising how natural it was when it came down to it, although by anyone's estimation Colin and Michelle were the least likely bedfellows. Not that they were bedfellows. Colin moved into the spare room, kept it clean and tidy and didn't make any move to expect more.

Michelle got up a little earlier to finish her yoga and still have time to make a cooked breakfast for him - although she insisted he drank a fruit and bran smoothie to start with as his usual diet horrified her sense of healthy eating. Colin began joining in on her stretching exercises before breakfast....he brought her to work and was there at 6:30 every night to take her home, insisting on being the one to drive as an extra precaution.

One night after this had gone on for less than a week, Colin was driving her home, her mind was not where it was supposed to be but was instead wondering if he was wearing that new cologne she'd left in his bathroom that morning.

She had a smile on her lips and sunglasses over her eyes. He could not see the way she was watching him drive. 

"There's a lot of talk...'bout me and you...they think I'm giving you one...just thought you ought to know, Michelle...I didn't encourage it but they're bound to think the worst...you know what dirty minds people have," Colin muttered in his laconic way.

He changed gear smoothly and stared straight ahead into the traffic, silent for quite a while.

Michelle looked out her window and thought to herself how it was that she had not the least care what anyone thought about her and Colin. But would anyone even care what he'd come to mean to her in this time? How she had learned many things about him under the pressure of this last week? How they simply seemed to confirm things about him that she'd taken in almost instinctively from the moment she'd met him? How the fact that he could be good and kind to her, in that rough way of his, just because he felt it was right ... how that made him a true and through gentleman to her? A good guy?

And how she'd begun to wonder why he never wanted more than that ... how easy it would have been for them to slip over that edge while under the pressure and concern over what was happening with their group of people? Biebe in danger? Ann Cooper kidnapped and Chili Palmer nearly distraught over it happening while he was watching over her? The men over in France facing danger none of them could help with? Some unknown force feeling as if it was massing against them all?

Even Vince was affected by it all, coming by three nights earlier and seeing how different he was ... and somehow knowing that his place was to protect Bou and her daughter, ones who were in much more legitimate danger than Michelle was.

It was Colin in this car with her, saying these things to her ... and she should not have been thinking of him this way because he was not her type.

Then his voice again ... soft and drawing this out ... as if he was working this out only right then and voicing it as it came to him. "It's not that I wouldn't, Michelle...I'd like to hold you all night if I could. This thing's messing up my head, too. But I wouldn't want anything like that with you... meaningless sex, you know? Because it wouldn't be meaningless for me."

Michelle said nothing. Not a thing. She did not want to interfere with this unusual moment of revelations for Colin ... for she was sure that was what it was.

But then she looked down at his hand on the shift knob. He slowed for the next light and then came to a stop. When she looked up, he was looking at her. Her sunglasses hid her eyes.

He swallowed smoothly before finishing his thought. "In case anything happens to me...I just wanted you to know...I always liked you more than I said. Half the time I hung round at the spa just for a look at you...I know a classy woman like you'd never go for a bloke like me...but I'm going to tell you anyway. I think a lot about you....If they take me too in the end...promise you'll think about me sometimes, eh?"

In all her life, she was not sure, had any man ever just talked to her without guile? Shown her his vulnerability even knowing she could stomp all over his ego so easily? She had been so ready to answer him with a quip and a pat answer ... something else to put him off ... to keep the distance between them she had thought was needed for his type. But those last words of his ... he had brought her up short.

He was afraid ... afraid he'd be taken like Biebe. That he'd not be able to stay here. That if he left, he would not be missed. That she would not miss him. That there would be no one left here who'd maybe think about him on the cold nights and wish he was there keeping her warm.

"It frightens me, too ... what's happening," she finally said to him, taking her sunglasses off, no longer needed them to keep him out. "I've been trying to blank it out. But it frightens me more to see the impact this is having on you and the others in the pub group. There are so many of us who care for you all ... including you, Colin. What if we lost you all? I was thinking this wasn't bothering you ... but I realize of course it would be. What must it be like for you? For each of you men?"

All those months ago, who they'd first become friends, Colin could have so easily taken advantage of how vulnerable she'd been after the break up with Chili. But he hadn't ... he'd made one move and when she said it would be a mistake, he'd been fine with it. If he hadn't, they'd just have been lovers passing through each other's lives and they'd never have been friends.

Here he was then, all this time later, facing a danger and a loss she could not comprehend. Imagine the uncertainty of his existence these last few days?

"If you left here, I would remember you in a very special way, Colin," she said as she leaned back in her seat and watched him drive through the intersection, toward her home. She reached across and touched him. Her fingers traced through the light hairs along his arm. She followed the contours down, until she was stroking his wrist. His eyes glanced into hers.

"I could never forget you, Colin. That's never going to happen. I would be lost if anything took you out of my life," she told him. "I have a confession to make, too. I know I'm not the sort of woman many men know what to do with. But you have always treated me like I'm just me ... just Michelle D'Antonio, someone you like being around. I have watched you for so long now ... seen you with so many girls around here ... and wondered if you ever thought about me in that way."

Now it got tough on her. How to say this? And what was really going on with her? She was so tired of the need to be firm and in control. Now was the time. If there was no other. What if it all ended? What if they all disappeared tomorrow? Would she face the future knowing that his one chance, she'd let it go?

"Maybe we should realize ... we may not have all the time in the world to figure this out," she said, working this out as she was saying it. Understanding dawning on her ... she did not have to reserve to only Vince her willingness to dive headlong into something to see what happened. "Maybe we need to live in the time we have and if we do, Colin ... if we do, I want to be with you."

"Straight up? You mean it? Jesus Christ...I can't stop my knee shaking..."

She laughed. He grimaced and then coughed. But when he pulled into her driveway, he looked at her as he turned the car off. And the look on his face was not the kid brother ... it was a man she was about to get to know.

"If I go up with you now, I'm not going to behave myself...you sure this is what you want? There's still time to change your mind," he said, his voice a gravelly solemnity to it that made her smile at him as she slowly got out of the car and walked with that certain step to her gait toward her front door.

She looked back at him as he followed.

He didn't need any other answer from her. By the time he reached her, she had the door unlocked so he just swept her up in his arms and headed inside, taking the steps toward her bedroom two at a time as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

For all that first night brought them, they have been discreet. They have had the nights together, when she was not traveling and when he was not out with his buddies. He still technically stayed nights in his own room but there were few nights they were not in the same bed, either his or hers.

She liked the way he treated her ... he may not be the smoothest man she'd ever met, but he didn't take advantage of her, either. He took what she offered ... he offered what he could let her take ... sometimes she wondered if he even knew how he made her feel like the girl she thinks she used to be ... Did he know she worried over him? With all the uncertainty of those days, this man felt it in ways she hadn't yet got all figured out.

She is the kind of person who respects her own instincts. In the morning, she can look at herself in the mirror because what is life if not to be lived?

"I don't know why I'm here," he says to her that night.

He has arrived with no notice, no warning, no clue.

"What's happened?" she asks him, knowing it's something that he needs to tell someone and that this is really why he's there ... because it's her that he will tell ... and he knows she will listen.

"Maximus ..."

"I know. I've been told. Paul called."

"I was at their house when she got back. I don't think it's ever going to be the same."

"I agree."

He paces in front of her fireplace. She thinks he looks cold. So she brushes back the remnants of the last fire, arranges more logs in the grate. When the flames take hold, she rises from where she's been kneeling. She wipes her hands on her jeans. He is no longer pacing but his back is to her. She goes to the bar, makes them each a drink.

When she turns back, he is standing before the fire, staring into the flames. She remembers a night, some months back, when she stared into the flames of a bonfire on a beach.

"It's made me think, Michelle. Really think about life. About the fact that I got no one in my life who'd miss me like that if I were gone. Maybe I've waited too long, is what I wonder."

There seems to be a lot of this going on in the men, she thinks to herself. Not self pity but self awareness ... that time is passing and they are not filling it up to the top with what would matter to them if it just ran out one day.

"Are you sure no one special would miss you?" she asks him.

He glances at her before looking into the bottom of his glass, the beads of sweat littering his palm. "She'd miss me."

"I'm sure she would. You've been special to her."

"Would you?"

"I would."

"Why?"

"Because you were special to me."

"Why am I not still?"

She says nothing. He is playing games now, like people do when they won't face an uncomfortable truth and would so prefer to pretend instead.

"You're right," he says, sighing, closing his eyes. "Would we have made it if not for that?"

"Neither one of us wanted what you see they had ... we didn't want marriage ... or not to each other. You know that. That doesn't make it wrong ... it was right for us."

"If I had asked you to marry me ... was there ever a time when you would have said yes?"

"No. I loved you ... I love you still ... but I don't want that. I never have."

"Maybe I'm never going to find anyone who will feel that way about me. You think that's what I'm realizing now? That I finally get it ... that I know now that I want someone singular in my life but I'll never have it?"

"You were married before. You'll marry again."

"I loved you. Did I ever tell you?"

"No."

"Did I need to?"

"Probably. But I didn't love you for any reason but for how I felt about you. How you felt about me didn't matter. It was love given freely."

"He's dead. Everything is changing. No, I take that back ... everything has changed already. Maybe I need to move on."

"Maybe you need to stand still for a change."

He suddenly moves, stepping smoothly toward her, his hand under her chin, tilting her face up so he can kiss her. She has kissed him before, and often, and well. This kiss is a memory and it is life.

And then it got worse.

Maximus died.

They received word from Paul who called Colin late one night with the news. Colin looked at her while Paul was talking. She knew it was something really bad. He told her when he closed his cell. Just told it to her.

They both sat up in her bed and just looked at each other. She cried. He held her. And then she held him ... clutched in tightly, whispering to him to make love to her. The news frightened her. It rocked them both.

Maximus had been a special friend for Michelle. He had been a man whom Colin had measured himself against.

The danger they were in seemed oppressive ... and if it could claim Maximus, who would it claim next?

The love they made was physical, exhausting. In the early morning, before the dawn had really lit up the day, they woke and turned to each other again. Colin, young and fit, had much energy and confusion to work out.

He spoke to her after, as she lay tucked under his arm and he encircled her in the solidity of his form.

His childhood, his mother, his dog ... school, cars, girls ... drifting from subject to subject, he just talked. He told her the oddest details but nothing of major importance. She learned more about him that morning than she ever would, and she knew this. It was as if his words could leave a mark, a trace of him remaining if he was taken from this place. It touched her deeply.

When he was a child, he'd had a black dog that his uncle had called Smoky because he had one white wispy patch of puppy hair on his chest. The dog followed Colin everywhere. When he went to school each day, Smoky stayed behind, roaming the land and getting into adventures Colin said he wished he knew about. Then it seemed he just got old overnight and when Colin was 16, the dog crawled into an outbuilding and died. Like he didn't want to be a lot of trouble or fuss, Colin said.

His mother had a blue dress with yellow and pink flowers. Tiny little flowers, a random pattern that Colin could remember trying to draw once a few years ago when he'd got to thinking about that blue dress with the little flowers.

It was his uncle who first got him into car engines, Colin told her. It was his dad who taught him patience and that sometimes the answer to any problem was a good, swift kick to the side of a stubborn car. Did it work, she asked him. Not always, Colin said, but it always made his dad feel he'd at least punished the car if it wouldn't cooperate.

His first girlfriend's name was Shelly. He lost track of her early on and now he couldn't even say for sure what her last name was. But he did remember kissing her once after she'd put on some lip gloss that smelled like watermelon and tasted sweet but not like watermelon.

He remembered the first time he'd seen Michelle. When she'd come into the pub one night and walked right up to Chili Palmer, lounging at the bar. How he had just watched her move, the way her hips swung, the way her breasts jiggled like mounds of gelatin in the low-cut dress she'd had on.

"You were looking at my breasts?" she asked him.

"Like every other man wasn't? What d'ya think men look at, love?"

"My eyes."

"Love ... c'mon."

"My hair."

"Yer arse."

"I have such strange arms. Have you ever noticed how freakishly long they are?"

"These arms?"

"Yes. These. See?"

"I can't see anything but these ..."

"Those are not my arms."

"And?"

"Nothing."

"When you look at me, what do you see?"

"I see you. I see a good man who matters to me."

They eventually got dressed but it was only after Johnny called Colin to find out where he was. She'd listened to them talking ... to them worrying and conjecturing over how Hando was and when he'd be back and what was going to happen now.

The only reason they left her place after that was to go to the pub, to be with others, to try to make sense of what made no sense. To gather, like people do at times like that. Strength in numbers, someone said.

More than that ... safety in a time when every stranger was a potential threat. When no one knew if another attack on their group was coming. When the only people they could rely on to stand with them were each other.

The kiss breaks. She hears his whispered entreaty. Yes, she says in response, let me hold you tonight.

Should she? Does she want this?

She leads him to her bedroom though he knows the way well enough.

They undress each other, going slowly, talking, saying what comes to mind.

When they are both shed of all clothes, they stretch out together on her bed. He wants to go at a glacial pace. She wonders if he is already planning ahead for he is that kind of man who does that, even when others would be only in the now.

She strokes his body, remembering languid times they have shared. He always felt good to her.

He pets and massages, no certain route, going wherever he feels inclined.

The response is genuine. There will always be affection on her part for him ... and he is a sensual, sexually expressive man.

He is experienced. He is the sort of man who can make a woman's heart race with his experienced hands and mouth ... and mind. But he is not that much into adventurous sex, more turned on by touch and caress than bondage or fetish. Except for one ... he has this turn on ... he loves to kiss and nip the curve on the underside of her feet, to watch as her toes curl in on themselves.

His languid tempo does not quicken until he enters her as she begs him, sweating beneath him, her hair sticking to her face in tendrils, the rest spread out, a halo of black hair against a pale blue silky sheet.

Her mouth opens, a long generous moan escapes.

Her lips are soft against his when he dips down, his body pressing into hers, her legs wrapping around his waist. His pace picks up, the thrusts more urgent, more ruthless. Until she comes, breathless, tears slipping out of closed eyelids, fingers clutching his neck and back. He rides her rhythm until he feels her give in to the first aftershock. And then he rolls with her, so he can watch her above him.

His eyes are open, intent on her. She would try to read his thoughts but he won't let her see anything but the need he has to be with someone who understands he is changing and doesn't know what he will be when the changes are at an end.

Does he know that when the changes happen, he will still be the man she loved once and still cares for now? He will not change his essence ... but he will make new choices in his life, pursue new options he never considered important. He will stop waiting for life to happen and remember who he is underneath ... a man who makes life do what he wants, a man who makes his own opportunities. A man quite capable of being ruthless in the pursuit of his own goals.

She moves above him, grinding, seeking another release ... knowing he is not yet ready for his own release. And when she comes this time, her body tenses before she collapses over him, letting him hold her.

He is a man who likes to hold a woman. To protect her, care for her as only a strong man can. But he gives his heart out like a little boy ... afraid to do it for fear it will come back tattered and no good to him anymore. So as a man, he has guarded against developing the nature to give love freely where it is freely offered. He never realized he was doing that until now.

As she cuddles into his hold, he feels the need to come overtake him. He rolls her to her back. She makes a crude comment about his manhood ... his eyebrow rises, he grins at her. And he thrusts in and pulls out ... and his rhythm now is unbreakable, building until he is coming inside her even as his thrusts die away and she is holding him.

This is not comfort sex or love sex or even exploratory sex. This is forgiveness, with sex as the medium of transfer.

When the group was all back from the battles, there was one of those uncomfortable periods of time. It felt to Michelle as if they waited for the next strike, the next threat. They licked their wounds, buried their dead, mourned their losses.

When they began to pick up the pieces, there were significant decisions made in the wake of what had happened that signaled to Michelle a new balance was being struck. They accepted the need for greater discretion and they appreciated the feeling of suspicion for strangers. They refused to cower but they kept their guard up. There were two new marriages that took place in the wake of Maximus' death and the uncertainty over the lingering Mephisto threat. A baby was born to Paul's sister. The new restaurant became a touchstone to them all and they absorbed updates on its progress whenever someone visited Melbourne and returned to the pub. Perhaps it was only an illusion or a band-aid, but the sense was pervasive: the restaurant was going to be their safe haven against the lingering threat and any new threat they had yet to discover.

Life reformed, shifted, altered. But it went on.

The new year beckoned through the turbulent time they were in.

At the spa, Michelle's employees took charge of planning the traditional night and day of ending and beginning a new year. They had always made it a special time for them and their regular clients. It was a time to cleanse the mind and body to prepare to close out the year, as if setting aside the dying year was necessary to enter the new one that should bring with it hope and new sunrises.

Most who participated in this ritualistic two-day event spent the night there, drowsing in between sessions of massage, wraps, yoga, bathing, meditation, treatments. There were group activities and there were always opportunities for solitary moments of meditation and rest. They toasted with champagne but they feasted on organic tributes to their health and solace.

It was on the first day of that new year that Michelle found herself meditating alone. It was focused meditation, seeking a path that may have been hidden. She sat alone in the back garden, before the meditation bell she brought back from Japan. She wore a heavy sweater and sat upon a solar blanket. Gloves covered her fingers. A scarf was draped over her head. The sun was warm even if the air around was frigid. But there was a balance to the temperature of the air around her body and she was neither cold nor hot.

The sun made a bright halo through her closed eyelids. Orange and red with bolts of yellow danced there.

When she opened her eyes, a man sat facing her. He leaned back on one arm and simply looked at her as she focused on him. One long leg was straight out. The other was crooked, an upright knee where his other arm rested upon it.

If you had asked who she least expected to see first on that day, it would have been him. And she is sure this was why he was the one who sought her out that day.

Many thoughts raced inside her. 

Colin was at her place, in his room, sleeping off a celebration with his gang of pub guys that had included Hando. She wouldn't be surprised to learn later that Hando had spent the night there as well.

The Come On Inn, she imagined, was closed today with everyone dealing with hangovers or simply too immobile to be out and about on this first day.

She wondered where Chili was ... if he had found out why it was he was still seeking but didn't quite know what he wanted yet.

And it was Vince who rose from where he sat ... who came to her with an outstretched hand to help her to her feet.

Perhaps his visit at that moment of her meditation meant that, after all, she had gained insight into her path only to find that it was destined to wander still ... and to roam along the outskirts of a group of people remarkable by any measure of the word.