Author's note: this was written quite a while back - before "Get Mystique" and several other stories that got into Logan and Mystique's relationship. Deviations from both Marvel canon and current events are a result of that.
NO STRINGS ATTACHED
"Logan..." the voice coming over the phone was throaty and low, yet undeniably female. Logan had no problem recognizing it. He had heard it many times before, sometimes in life-or-death situations.
"Hi," Logan replied quietly.
"I'm passing through. Do you have some time?" continued the woman's voice.
Logan hesitated. Common-sense said he should say no. He really should...
"Same place?" Logan answered - as he knew he would.
"Yeah. Room twelve."
"Okay."
"Thanks."
Logan hung up the phone and stared at it, the expression on his face was somewhere between thoughtful and worried. It wasn't the kind of expression that those who knew him would expect.
"Logan, everything okay?" Kitty asked curiously. She was standing just outside the open door to Logan's room, wearing a fluffy yellow bathrobe and a pair of pink flip-flops.
A smile wandered onto Logan's face - and then vanished. Pete had taken up drawing again and Kitty modeled for him every night at about this time. Of course, whenever Kitty "modeled" for Pete, that usually involved five minutes of actual art followed by repeated bouts of enthusiastic and extremely noisy sex. There was a betting pool in the mansion as to when Pete would finally pop the question.
"It's okay, Kitty. Anyone asks, I'm heading to town," Logan replied as he grabbed his jacket and fished the keys to his bike from one of its pockets.
The Swan motel was built just after World War II. It's current condition could be described as "rundown and cheap, but clean". If you drove straight into Salem Center from the mansion, the Swan motel was the first place you encountered where you could rent a room.
The door to room number twelve opened almost immediately after Logan knocked. Logan didn't recognize the girl who answered. She was a young, slender, pretty redhead who was wearing nothing but lipstick, nail polish, and an inviting smile. After stepping inside the motel room, Logan and the girl embraced, their lips colliding in a long, hungry kiss. Wrapped up in the girl, Logan used his foot to nudge the door shut behind him. Eventually, they finally broke apart and Logan stepped back to admire the view.
"Okay," he finally said with a shake of his head, "I give. Who is she?"
The girl laughed. And as she laughed her voice changed unnaturally - shifting up and down several octaves in a manner that definitely didn't sound right.
"Her name's Alyson Hannigan," the redhead finally replied, cupping her small breasts and looking down at them critically. "She's an actress who mostly does TV. She's best known for a show called 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' - it was fairly popular a few years ago. She's on some sitcom nowadays."
"A little young, isn't she?" Logan said off-handedly as he deposited a bottle of Jack Daniels on a dresser right next to the door. There was a liquor store just down the street and he had stopped there before coming to the motel.
The girl shrugged, "She's one of those people who'll always look younger than she really is. Actually, I recall reading that she turned thirty a couple of years ago. This look is from when she was in her mid-twenties - I met her at a party in LA back in '99."
And suddenly, the redheaded actress was gone. In her place, stood an equally naked Jubilation Lee. But it wasn't the current Jubilation. It was the one from when Mystique first encountered her. She was maybe fourteen years old.
"C'mon, Logan," Jubilation said in a low purr and with a hungry look in her bright blue eyes that definitely wasn't normal. "Isn't it time you got that 'too young' thing out of your system?"
Logan didn't say anything. He simply looked Jubilation in the eye - refusing to look anywhere else.
With a sigh, Jubilation was gone. In her place was Rachel Summers.
"Okay. I know you like this one," Rachel said resignedly. "So what do you say? How about we start off with a quick shower? I promise I'll even shampoo your back hair."
The tension seemed to leak out of Logan. Grabbing him by the hand, Rachel led Logan into the bathroom.
The warm water of the shower cascaded over their soapy bodies. Rachel had her legs locked around Logan's hips and her arms around his neck. For his part, Logan had her pinned against the tiled back wall of the shower.
The first time never took very long for either one of them. Rachel screamed into Logan's mouth as she climaxed. The chemical indicators of orgasm that suddenly suffused Rachel's skin and saliva hit Logan like a club, and it only took a few seconds for him to join her.
Gasping for breath, they stood frozen in place. Rachel was still wrapped around Logan's body and their foreheads were touching.
Logan eventually looked up into Rachel's eyes. There was now a touch of yellow in them. Raven always lost a bit of control when she came - and it was usually in her eyes. Logan had never mentioned that to her. Someday, it might be a handy thing to know.
"Rachel" kissed Logan on the forehead and agilely climbed down off of him. As she did, her skin-color shifted from a mixture of pale white and light pink to several subtly different shades of blue. Then Raven Darkholme smiled at Logan and they kissed again.
Logan could feel Raven's body shift yet again as he kissed her. When Logan opened his eyes, Katherine Hepburn was in his arms. Raven liked that particular form, and Logan was one of the few men in the modern era who had an appreciation for her as well.
Gently pushing Logan back a step, Raven-Katherine dropped to her knees before Logan. She knew that he had phenomenal endurance. It generally didn't take much effort to get him aroused again.
It was just before 10 P.M. and the bottle of Jack Daniels was now almost half empty. Logan and Raven were in bed together, quietly talking as they sipped whiskey from the crappy plastic cups that you find in modern hotel rooms. Logan made a mental note to bring a couple of shot glasses next time.
"So who's this?" Logan asked idly as he reached for the bottle and splashed some whiskey into Raven's glass and then into his own. Raven was wearing the shape of yet another actress. It was a form that Logan didn't recognize, but he had to admit that the girl in question had a phenomenal body.
"Jerri Ryan," Raven replied. "She was in one of the Star Trek TV series - I don't remember which one, I can't keep track of them all."
Shaking his head as he put the bottle back on the nightstand, Logan said, "Raven, you watch too much TV."
Raven-Jeri smiled, "I noticed that you didn't have a problem recognizing Lucy Lawless."
"Special case," Logan replied with a seemingly unconcerned shrug. "She stands out in a crowd."
Raven shifted forms to someone shorter and with more curves, "How about this one? You know who she is?"
Logan rolled his eyes, "Scully... what's her real name? Jenny Anderson or something like that? Rogue is really deep into the X-Files. She's says it's the best show of the nineties."
Still in her Gillian Anderson form, Raven took a long drink from her glass. Her eyes were now suddenly distant. Logan went silent as he mentally kicked himself. The subject of Rogue and Kurt usually came up sooner or later, but Logan normally left it to Raven to bring it up. It was an awkward subject that she had to approach in her own way and in her own time.
"So how are they doing?" Raven finally asked.
"They're okay," Logan replied as neutrally as possible. "Rogue is still running a team and she's doing a good job. She and Remy are still together, but have put the melodrama on pause for now - which is a frigging relief. Oh, and Kurt's got something going with a girl he met in New York city a couple of weeks ago. She's a model or an actress or something like that."
Raven snorted and shook her head, "Another one? That's something like - what? - four girls he's seeing?"
Logan considered defending Kurt's love-life, but then decided there was no real way he could reasonably do that while he was in bed with Kurt's mother.
"Let's see..." Logan mused, "there's the one we were just talking about... and then the accountant, the lawyer, the cop, and the stripper - so that's five. I'm telling you, the man has a talent. I heard one of the kids say that, 'the chicks really seem to dig the fuzzy dude'. That pretty much covers it."
Raven sighed and put her glass down on the floor beside the bed. Then she turned into Ororo and rolled on top of Logan, straddling him. That position was the most practical way to bridge the differences in their heights when she was in one of her taller forms.
That was how Raven always ended the discussion about Rogue and Kurt - with sex. It was her way of making sure that the conversation ended on her terms. Logan quickly grew hard and there was no awkwardness or hesitation as he slid inside of Raven-Ororo. They had done this many times before.
It was just after three in the morning when Raven woke Logan. For a surreal moment, he couldn't separate the dream he'd been having from the wet reality of Raven's mouth.
"Christ, Raven..." Logan half-growled and half-moaned as he shook his head in mock exasperation. To say that Raven liked sex was a bit like saying that a fish needed water.
Raven drew away from Logan and looked up at him expectantly. Moving carefully, Logan gently rolled Raven onto her back. After all, it was his turn to be on top.
Then, almost as an afterthought, Raven changed into a Dutch actress named Famke Janssen. A few months back, Logan had seen her in a stupid-but-fun movie called "Deep Rising" and later asked Raven to add the actress to her repertoire. For some reason, Janssen was a favorite of Logan's. Personally, Raven couldn't quite see why - yeah, she had the red-hair thing going for her that Logan liked so much, but otherwise she seemed too modern-pretty for what she knew of his tastes.
"No," Logan said softly as he stroked Raven-Famke's face. He was poised over her body.
"Who do you want?" Raven-Famke asked huskily. She was pretty sure that he wanted either Jean or Mariko, but those were touchy subjects with Logan. Raven usually waited until Logan specifically asked for them in order to avoid any problems.
"Be yourself. Just be yourself," Logan said intently, his eyes locked with Raven's.
Raven-Famke blinked in surprise. That was a first.
"I... okay," she said hesitantly. And then Raven - just Raven - was lying beneath Logan. Logan smiled... and then he stopped. The body language and scent indicators from Raven were all wrong. She wasn't into this.
Suddenly, Raven roughly pushed Logan away. He went with the push and ended up sitting on the bottom edge of the bed as Raven scrambled away until she was all the way on the other side of the room. She was breathing hard and had an angry look on her face that Logan could tell was an attempt to cover near-panic. For a second, Logan wondered if he was going to be forced to fight her.
"I'll make you a deal," Raven said coldly. "I'll stop bringing up Jubilation and Kitty - and you don't ask for that again."
Logan nodded wordlessly.
Raven calmed down as best she could. Then she walked back to the bed and sat down next to Logan.
"Sorry," she continued tensely, but clearly trying to find some kind of common ground without having to explain too much. "I should've let you know that I don't like that."
"Okay," Logan calmly replied.
After taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Raven said, "Tell you what, why don't we take it easy for a while and then try again?"
"Sure," Logan answered. They lay down together and Logan pulled the covers up over their bodies. After a moment's hesitation, Raven leaned against Logan and he responded by putting an arm around her.
Eventually, they made love again. It was tentative at first, but they quickly fell into the experience. This time, Raven was the Kwannon version of Betsy Braddock.
It occurred to Logan that he was making love to someone who was shape-shifted into the form of a woman who was not in her original body. And normal people wondered why mutants often seemed to be at least a little crazy.
A bright beam of morning sunlight was breaching a crack in the window blinds. The light splashed across the bed that Logan and Raven shared. On the nightstand next to the bed, the whisky bottle and both cups were empty.
Logan was sitting up in bed while Raven was still curled up under the covers. One foot was protruding from underneath the blanket. Logan noted that the sole of Raven's foot was a slightly lighter shade of blue than the rest of her skin - he tended to catalog facts like that about Raven. Someday, somehow, they might save his life. Or the life of someone else.
Smiling, Logan leaned forward and traced his forefinger around the ball of Raven's foot. Her toes twitched in response. Then he did it again and she wiggled her foot irritably.
Now grinning, Logan ran his finger lightly down the line of Raven's toes.
"Goddammit, Logan!" came a sleepy response.
"You said you had to get up early," Logan chuckled.
Raven opened her eyes and squinted up at the ceiling. Then she glanced over at Logan. As always, he had gotten up before her - and for some reason that always annoyed her.
"Morning," Raven grumped.
Then a gloriously young Sophia Loren stretched luxuriously and sat up in bed - exposing a pair of magnificent breasts that Logan had once described to Raven as "God's gift to mankind". In addition to the young Sophia Loren, Raven also did Sophia Loren in her early forties. As a matter of fact, that was the form she preferred for a more mature kind of sex - the slow, languid kind that was done without any wasted energy or motion.
They had sex in the shower again. This time, Raven was Emma - which added an entertainingly hostile edge for both of them. There was a trickle of blood leaking out of the side of Raven's mouth, and Logan had a few quickly-healing bite marks on his shoulders and face, after they got out of the shower. Afterwards, they got dressed and made ready to leave the room. It wasn't quite 10 A.M. yet, but Raven had some carefully unspecified business in Washington D.C.
As Logan reached for the doorknob, Raven suddenly said, "Hey, wait..."
Logan turned his head to look at her. Raven seemed to consider her words carefully before she finally spoke again.
"Why do you go along with this, Logan? I can tell that it bothers you."
Turning fully around, Logan leaned back against the door and thought about his answer.
"No bullshit? The whole truth?" he asked Raven.
Raven nodded slowly.
"Okay, but it goes both ways."
Raven paused and then nodded again.
Logan looked Raven dead in the eye, "There's lots of reasons. You're an incredible lay. This is a good way of keeping tabs on you. I like all of the kinky shape-shifting stuff. You smell good. This is a chance to pick up things about you that might be useful someday. In your own way, you care about Kurt and Rogue and I think you deserve to know how they're doing. You give great head and get the automatic plus two for swallowing. You never have to fake an orgasm. And if sleeping with me doubles back on you because someone wants to get at me... well, you can definitely take care of yourself."
Then Logan stopped and looked expectantly at Raven.
"You're also a damn good fuck," she replied calmly. "And you always tell me how Rogue and Kurt are doing - thanks for that, by the way. I like all of the body hair. This is a good way to get an idea of what you and the X-Men are doing. You aren't scared of me. In private, you can be weirdly kind and I get a kick out of seeing that part of you. And maybe - just maybe - this will someday make you hesitate when you should just kill me instead. Like most men, you're a bit of a romantic that way."
After Raven fell silent, they contemplated one another for several long seconds. And then they both began to laugh. It died off quickly, but it was genuine.
"Hey, darlin', I love you, too," Logan said amusedly. Raven just smiled mysteriously as Logan turned around and threw open the door.
It was late autumn. Outside it was a cool, bleak, but oddly beautiful morning.