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Author: Bennie
Rating: NC17
Disclaimer: I own nothing Roswell.
Spoilers: Nope. In fact, this was written before WDaMYK, so it's pretty much AU now.
Character Focus: Mi/L, though there's some nominal CC-ness.
Author's Note: Futurefic. Um ... this isn't the nicest thing I've ever written, I don't think. In fact, I'd say the main characters aren't exactly sympathetic types. But, you know how it goes, you get an idea, etc., etc. And to be honest, it was kind of fun to write. Thanks, Debbie and Len (who I now believe about the auras), for reading it over for me.
I don't know what it is, why I'm so weak.
I'm a pretty damn responsible person, all things considered. I love my family and I take care of them, no matter how bad it gets sometimes. And it does get bad, because sometimes it's dowright humiliating keeping the kids entertained and out of trouble.
I'm good at my job. I head a staff of forty and my paycheck is a good one.
I even have a secret identity. I'm no Spiderman, but I do protect alien royalty, from other aliens and from themselves.
I'm even -- and this was a huge shock, when I figured it out -- proud of myself. I like my life, and I like what I've done with it. Maybe I didn't go to some fancy college, but I read and I take classes and I can hold my own with people who did.
There's just one thing. One stupid, pathetic thing that reminds me that I can still be a screw-up, that I still know how to take a good thing and destroy it, just by being me. Me.
And I don't mean Michael Guerin; I mean the inner me, Mikey G.
Mikey-frickin-G. A Skin named Courtney named him, actually, about twenty years ago, but Maria is my guide to drawing the line between the man she loves and the man I hide from her.
Maria.
It has occurred to me that I'm not being fair to either of us. It has. For all I know she'd welcome this dark side of me with open arms. Maybe she'd revel in it. Maybe it'd make our marriage, our bond, stronger.
But I don't think so.
It's ironic, I know, that this -- thing -- probably keeps me from screwing up more. Instead of shouting at Maria when she drives me up the wall, I think about how much worse I deserve and I calm her down instead. Instead of smacking one of the kids when they whine or break something (god, it gives me nightmares, but at times I find my hand clenching, and I have to remind myself that I am not Hank, and I will never be Hank, and it's my job to protect my kids, even from myself), I take a deep breath and call a 'time out', just like Maria says to do.
Mikey G is the one who reminds me what could happen if I don't remember anniversaries and birthdays, if I don't go to school plays and parent-teacher meetings and my weekly 'adults only date' with Maria. He's the little voice in my head that doesn't let me relax enough to let her see behind the part of me that lives to love her. He protects her.
He's the one that reminds me how much I stand to lose if I ever let him loose around anyone except the one person who really can take him, who wants him, who screams for him until she's hoarse.
He's the one who fucks Liz Evans on a regular basis. Not me, not Michael Guerin, upstanding citizen and Antarian ex-patriot. It's all him.
I'm just along for the ride.
XXX
It started innocently enough. It really did.
Max was off on one of his quests. He learned years ago to leave Liz out of them, because she loves him (she does; she's always loved him, there's no doubt of it, and that never stopped) but she couldn't take it any more. His obsession with finding his son got to be too much for her, and for the sake of their marriage and their mutual happiness, Max started going alone. Sure, he called every day while he was away, sometimes more, and they missed each other, but that way she didn't feel like she was risking her professional future at the lab for his holy grail.
That would be her lab at MetaChem, by the way. I always thought that was funny, her in the lab and me in security. Both of us working for the company that had killed Max and Monk and almost got Jim and Isabel ... it was so wrong, and maybe I should've seen that for a bad omen.
Anyway, that's when I started watching her. She looked so intent, and it was obvious how involved she was in her experiments. It was fascinating to watch her work. The best was when everyone else left, when she was the only one in the lab. If Max was off on one of his crusades, she'd work late, tackling some extra projects or just taking the time to organize things to her satisfaction. She'd take off her lab coat, so I'd get a perfect view every time she bent down or put her feet up on her desk. And I guess she forgot about the security cameras, because I'd also catch her scratching places you don't normally scratch in public, or adjusting her pantyhose if she was wearing any, or taking off her jacket and undoing the top buttons of her shirt.
I'd do that too, after rounds. The jacket thing and the shirt thing, I mean. As far as I know no one was watching me. And I didn't wear lacy underthings. How did I know she did? Because I saw them every time she slouched in her chair, or bent down, or reached up, or ... well, you get the picture.
It went on like that for months.
I never said anything, of course, because it gave me something to look forward to on an otherwise dull shift. It got even better when we started carpooling on nights when we were both working, so I was practically promised a show throughout my entire shift. But soon it occurred to me that sometimes she stayed here on nights when I wasn't working, and the thought of some other security guy ogling her bugged me. So I arranged my schedule to coincide with hers when possible. I could do that because I had seniority, and one of my duties was to make up the roster every week.
Maria loved me for it, pleased as anything that I was taking care of Liz for her while Max was away.
I just shrugged it off, like it was no big thing, but inside I'd be listening to the mocking sound of Mikey G laughing at her and at me.
I hated that sound. Because it was true; I really was taking care of Liz while Max was away.
And somewhere along the way it stopped being anywhere near innocent.
XXX
She talked to me. Really talked to me. Not so much on the way to work, but afterwards. And she knew how to relax, which was a total surprise.
She'd even have a drink or two, which was where it all went a little wrong. She never drank alcohol around Max because, you know, no tolerance. And since Maria was either pregnant or breastfeeding most of the time back then, I doubted Liz would go near her with the stuff. But at some point she asked if Maria would miss me for a few more minutes, and I said no. She wouldn't be waking up for another two hours, since it was my job to get the kids ready for school before I went to bed.
Liz asked if I wanted to join her for a drink. I shrugged and took a Coke. I figured, why not?
She gave me a Coke and then she pulled out a bottle of something was most definitely not soda. I was more than a little shocked at how easily she threw back her vodka, like she'd had practice, but I didn't say anything. Mostly because when she did, I caught a perfect glimpse of a dark nipple straining against a bra that was just a little too flimsy for a blouse that was just a little too sheer.
It was barely a shadow, really. Most people wouldn't have noticed a thing. And under her jacket and lab coat, it wouldn't be a big deal. But I saw it. And once I did, I couldn't take my eyes off it.
She caught me staring and I looked away, mumbling an apology. It was funny, though. She didn't get that upset. Her eyebrows went up but that was about it. I realized, then, that she just thought I was staring at her chest. She didn't know what had caught my attention, so she didn't know to cover it up.
I went home pretty soon after that, listening to Mikey G howling with laughter as I made my kids breakfast and crawled into bed with my own beautiful wife, who sure as hell deserved a lot better.
XXX
It turned her on. Catching me staring, I mean.
Max was on the road at least a week out of every month then, sometimes two, and I think she'd been feeling a little second-best for a while.
She didn't flirt with me or anything like that. I'm not sure she even knew what she was doing. But gradually I noticed that she was wearing more feminine clothing. Sleeveless shirts, shirts with lower necklines, skirts with higher hemlines, skirts with side slits, tighter pants, low heels. Hair up. That sort of thing. Not all together, and nothing obvious or slutty or even openly provocative, but she started to walk with her shoulders back and a bit of a ... I don't know how to describe it. A slinky strut? Something like that. But not, you know, obvious. She didn't have the hips to be obvious. On her, it was subtle.I had to laugh at the guys in her department. They didn't know what hit them. Really, they didn't. I'd watch the way they'd watch her when she wasn't looking, and everything about them screamed confusion, like they didn't know what was different, or why they were noticing whatever it was. Geeks.
Later she told me what it was for her, what turned her on about me. It was the lust. I remember laughing at her until she turned away, and then I realized that she was telling the truth, and started listening.
Before that day -- that night, morning, whatever -- she'd never felt anyone lust after her. Not Max, who revered her body as the temple that held his soulmate; to him lust was a concept wrapped up in busty blondes with blue eyes, and he was determined never to make that mistake again. Not Kyle, who liked that she was sweet and smart and his dad approved of her, and not even Sean, who liked her innocence, said it made him feel happy that there was still innocence in the world. He was interested in her but not in exploring her.
It was a crucial difference, she said, and I believed her. And I couldn't deny the thrill of knowing that in some obscure way, I was her first. Her first what, precisely, I had no idea. But she liked it, and I liked it, and I showed her just how much lust she inspired in me after all.
And it was just lust. Let me make that absolutely clear. I didn't love her, not the way I loved Maria; I didn't want to make a life with her, I didn't want to have a family with her, I didn't want to go out on romantic dates with her. She knew this, and she agreed, which worked out nicely. She just lusted after me too, and don't think that wasn't a major turn-on.
Courtney wanted a hero. Maria wanted a rock, someone she could depend on and could give her life focus. Isabel ... the only way Isabel ever wanted me was as a brother or, for a few seconds, as someone who could give her a family. Liz was the first person -- woman -- who didn't want anything from me except what I was willing to give, and to feel wanted.
That I could do for her.
Somewhere along the line I told her about watching her in the cameras, and she blushed for about an hour straight before admitting to me that she'd fantasized about being watched like that. Of course, there was nothing after that but to watch as she did a few things out of both of our fantasies. Just watch, no touching. Man, I was seriously hurting for some release when she was done.
The best part was that she didn't stiffen up under the cameras after that. I mean, she didn't start stripping or anything - these tapes are recorded and stored for possible review. Although no one ever does, the potential's always there. It could happen. And neither of us had any intention of having to explain being fired because of this. But ... after hours, she put her feet up. And she loosened her clothing, and she bent at the waist to pick things up.
You know that cheesy saying about women, how they "blossom"? I never believed in it before, I always just figured it was a euphemism for puberty. But damned if she didn't. I congratulate myself that I had something to do with it, but it was all her.
It was all her. She'd come alive.I didn't start neglecting my family or my job to go screwing around, by the way. Most of the time, we didn't screw anyway. We'd talk, or play card games, or go dancing at a late night bar that stopped serving drinks at one but didn't close 'til the sun came up. It was ... friendly. We didn't even dance that close, or that well, or slow dances. We did it so well that not one person who saw us suspected that we were anything but friends and even family. I knew this because I'd finally tuned into that aura thing Isabel had been trying to teach me how to read, and no one around us showed that sickly green-mixing-with-red colour.
I knew for a fact that Maria heard all about our outings, from friends who knew she'd get a kick out of it. She never once thought anything wrong was going on, though. Not once. That floored me, and at first I was a little upset about that. Was it me? Did she think I wasn't worth being jealous over, or that no one else could ever want me? I asked her that once, and she just laughed. It wasn't anything like that, she said fondly. Any other woman, and she'd have my head on a plate -- and not the head over my neck.
No, it was because the other woman was Liz. And as I watched and listened to my wife explain this, I started to understand what Liz had been trying to tell me before. See, Maria wasn't saying this out of trust, although I'm sure that's how she put it to herself, in her own mind. No, I knew from her aura that she just didn't think of Liz as a sexual person, not really, not outside of her 'soulmate bond' thing with Max. Like she just turned off, or something, when he wasn't around.
Oh, I said. Nothing else. What else could I say to that? But I have to admit that it made it that much easier to prove her and everyone else wrong, even if they would never know it.
Because when we did fuck, it was always hot. Without really discussing it, we both started living out a few fantasies that I'd always been too afraid to indulge in with Maria and that Max considered too different to be normal. And it was always different with us.
Like, once we played real rough when Liz showed up with leather and a few ideas from a movie she'd seen once. I was pretty glad I had some minor healing powers after that one; neither of us walked straight until I did something about it. We laughed a lot afterwards, though. Mostly at each other. Leather is squeaky when it gets wet.
I found out that being gentle could be kinky too. I made sure that she came a good three times before taking her up the ass, and she was so relaxed, practically high, that it didn't hurt her and I could just dig in and enjoy myself. I loved the way I could actually see her ass stretching to accommodate me inside.
She said the same when I let her take her vibrator to me. I didn't mind; it was a bit uncomfortable at first, but I think I actually got the better part of the deal. She was really gentle too, which helped, and she never stopped running her other hand over the rest of me as she used it, and frankly, I think I have more nerve endings or something back there than she did, because when she held it a certain way ... holy shit.
She enjoyed oral, too. Both ways. I wasn't sure women did; Maria does it on me every now and then because she knows I like it, but she's always happy to get to the "real" loving, and she likes my hand below her waist rather than my mouth. She likes to kiss when we make love.
For Liz, it's an opportunity to explore, to discover new things. Like that little area behind my balls; I had no idea how sensitive it was before she took a careful finger to it. None. She never said, exactly, but I got the feeling that Max is more of a missionary position kind of guy. He's very good at it, apparently, but he can't just let go, he can't just lose himself in the physical.
Which is what it was for us. We never gave each other flashes, and we never wanted them. It was all about lust and sensation and -- well, and scratching the itch, as cliché and stupid as that sounds.
More than anything, though, I'd stare. When there was no one to catch us, I made a point of staring, at her breasts, at her neck, at her hand, at her ass. I always knew when she felt my eyes on her, because I could see the blush creeping up her face, and I could see her hand shake slightly, and she might get a hitch in her breath. Even on camera. And off camera, if she was close enough, I could smell her.
Yeah, that definitely turned her on.
Me too. Hell, Mikey G thought it was better than the porn the guys stashed under the security desk for those really long shifts.
XXX
Once she asked if I didn't feel guilty.
She just asked casually, like she'd just accept the answer one way or the other. I knew she'd thought about it, and the way she saw it, Max's alien obsessions were the mistress in their marriage. In her mind, he'd been cheating on her since day one. And she and Maria were more like sisters than friends by then. They dearly loved each other, but they had very little in common to talk about, and they weren't as close as they used to be. She saw me more often than she saw Maria or her godkids.
It wasn't just a rationalization, she assured me. It had nothing to do with justifying her illicit behaviour; that was all on her. She was in the wrong, we both were, and she knew it. It was just ... well, it was how she felt, and there was no rhyme or reason to that, only gut reaction.
I never told her, but I thought her take on things was more accurate than she knew. I used to watch Max sometimes, and I'd noticed that when he talked about Liz, he went all misty, like he was remembering a nice, hazy daydream, but when he talked about his latest findings, he woke up. His eyes got all bright, he spoke quickly and excitedly, and once or twice I could swear he adjusted his pants because they got a little snug.
He lived with Liz, but he lived for the chase. Not that it's an excuse. It's not. Like she said, there was no excuse for what we were doing. But there was motivation.
I didn't answer her right away that night. But I thought about it. And later, I told her the truth. I told her about Mikey G, and that he was the one screwing around and keeping Michael Guerin in check.
It sounded kind of lame when I said it out loud, when I tried to describe what it was like having two people in my head, and how I spent every day trying to keep them in balance. But she didn't laugh. She nodded, thoughtfully.
After that, when we were alone and doing things that Liz and Michael were not supposed to be doing according to all that was moral and decent and right, she called me Mikey. Over and over and over.
And he liked hearing it. He liked it a lot.
XXX
He still does. It's been about fifteen years since Liz took her first job at MetaChem, and the affair's lasted almost as long.
Looking back, I'm amazed at how shallow, how incredibly superficial it truly is. I'm as deeply in love with Maria and our kids as ever, and Liz has never wavered in her faith that one day, Max would finally be hers, totally and completely.
Does that make it okay? No. But it makes it easier.
XXX
Once or twice I wondered if Liz felt more than I did, but then I had this talk with Isabel that cleared things up for me. For some reason we got on the subject of guilt, and of course that made me think of Liz and what she said. So I worked the conversation around to her, and Isabel told me that one of the reasons she never really understood Liz was because the girl -- okay, woman, sorry, it's habit -- led an almost guiltless life.
I thought about that. And the next time I saw Liz, I thought to do the aura-reading thing again, and I realized that Isabel was right. Liz did have a few swirls of shame going on, but it was for little things, like taking a sick day because the weather was just too perfect and she needed a break, or taking the money when a vending machine gave her too much change back. That sort of thing.
As far as I could tell, she felt absolutely no guilt over what she did with me.
I wondered about that, and I wondered why she didn't and for that matter, why I didn't. We should've, I was pretty sure, but it was like there was some void in our lives that we satisfied for each other.
So then something else occurred to me. I asked her what she would do if I called it off, if I said I didn't want to do this anymore. She thought about it for a bit, and while she did she played with the little bit of hair on my chest. And then she looked at me, and she said that she'd miss it, but she wouldn't make a big deal out of it. No obligations, remember?
I nodded, knowing she was being completely honest with me.
Then she sat up and straddled me, not quite taking me in, but ready. I was already half-hard and the feel of her cunt rubbing against me was enough to get me the rest of the way.She looked at me, and asked if that's what I was doing, if I was calling things off. She eased down on me as she asked, and it was incredible, the things she could do with me between her legs.
Was I calling it off?
I was at a crossroads, I knew. I could stop here, and I go to my wife, and I could be honest with her or not, but either way I could stop doing this behind her back and be the husband she deserved and thought she had.
Or I could get over it and reach for the woman on top of me, running my thumbs over her nipples, first hard and then soft, over and over, while she squeezed me in the most pleasurable way possible.
Call this off? Not a chance in hell.
Call me Mikey, I told her instead, and she did. Loudly. Repeatedly.
Somewhere deep inside, he heard and he laughed. And this time, I think I heard Michael Guerin laughing along too.
It was hard to tell. They kind of sounded a lot alike.
The End
