The last 2 weeks have been a living hell. In fact, since the kitchen incident, my entire life has been a living hell. Because of one man. Because of Niles Crane.

I can't seem to think about anybody else but him. He's like the forbidden fruit : once you taste it you can't go back. You're addicted.

The odd thing is that he acts like nothing happened that afternoon in the kitchen. And it bugs me. No, it disturbs me. It's impossible that I am the only one who felt the electricity, the tension, the desire arising from this innocent gesture. From the touch of our hands. Or maybe what disturbs me the most is the thought that he might be over me. I am going to marry a man and I am hoping that another one still is in love with me. Typical me. I'm experiencing for the first time what he must have been living for the past 7 years. The anticipation of a touch, the daydreaming, the dreams that you wish were never ending, because when they end you wake up next to someone who you wish to be somebody else. And for the first time in ages I am falling in love. The more I see him, the more I think about him as a man instead of a friend. And I am going to marry someone else. Someone that I like but don't love. And the strange thing is that since I see Niles instead of Dr. Crane, my visions stopped. I don't have these images tormenting me anymore. Could it be that I finally found the one for me?

What am I saying? I can't think about him that way! I'm getting married for God's sake! I can't have second thoughts now! And he's dating someone. Someone who isn't right for him, but someone. I should just forget about it and come back to reality. I agreed to marry Donny, and I'll go all the way. But still...

My thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. As usual, Donny looked at me but didn't move. That was my task. Mister Big Lawyer was too lazy to open the door. I can't believe I'll be the one doing everything Mister Big Lawyer doesn't want to do. When I saw who was there, however, my anger left me. And my heart began beating faster.

It was Niles. And he looked amazing. He was wearing an half open white shirt and white pants. The same clothes he was wearing that night where Sherry made me mad. That night where we came so close to sleep together. That hot summer night. And again I felt desire arise in me. This feeling has been way too familiar lately, and confuses me more every time. You know why? Because I'll have to go home with Donny tonight instead of Niles. And that I'll have to try to forget that a man named Niles Crane blew up my whole life by being in love with me for the past 7 years.

I opened the door, trying to hide my confusion the best I could, but without any success, according to the way he looked at me. I was blushing, looking at everything but him, playing nervously with my hands. I invited him in, and decided to play the amorous fiancée with Donny. This ended up with Donny looking at me like I was going out of my mind, and Niles looking very embarrassed. I regretted that one already.

Then Donny started making conversation, asking how was Mel, to which Niles answered that she had been driving him crazy for a couple of days. She was criticizing everything he was doing, saying things under her breath. She was turning into Maris. He said he was so tense he didn't sleep for the last two days now. And then Donny said it.

"Well, then maybe Daphne could give you a massage. She's fabulous. They'll be no more tension after that, I swear to God."

Maybe after that there would not be any tension, but for the moment there was plenty of it. I just looked at Niles, way embarrassed , and I think he saw it. He tried to excuse himself, saying that it wasn't that bad and that he would probably sleep better tonight, but Donny insisted, saying it was no trouble at all. And, after putting me in this mess, he asked a "Right, honey?". I just wanted to kill him. If we would have been alone he would be dead by now. But instead, I put on a fake smile and answered "Sure, sweety. No problem at all." I stood up, asking Dr. Crane to come in my room. He was as embarrassed as I was, but he followed me. Then I turned around and I sent a 'I'll kill you for this' look to Donny, to which he answered by a distant smile and by opening the TV. God, what a pain in the ass he was.

I closed the door behind us. When I turned around, he was looking all over my room, saying that he liked the way I decorated it. Saying that it was a reflection of me. Warm, simple and beautiful. When I looked at him and saw him blush, two things came to my mind. First, it was now obvious he wasn't over me, and second, it was a very bad idea for us to be alone in a room with a bed in it. Not because he would not behave himself, but because I wasn't sure of my actions. Because I already lost control two times before. But I couldn't back out now. After an embarrassed silence, I told him that as long as we were in here I might as well give him that massage. Then he looked at me, a very shy smile on his face, to which I answered with a wide smile. I loved his boyish manners. "Dr. Crane, then maybe you should take your shirt off." was all I was able to answer. He did it. And then I was the one embarrassed. I never gave a massage to someone I have feelings for before. Or I'd seen him naked before I massaged them. I gave Donny a massage only after we slept together. This way, you avoid the surprise of seeing the other's body for the first time during it. That was my policy. But now...

He unbuttoned his shirt, and he took it off. I didn't look, but I could imagine it. I was trying to imagine the body I would discover when turning around. I was used to Donny's body, which was as far away from perfection as I could imagine. When he told me he was ready, I turned around. And we both blushed. Him probably because he lived this moment over and over again in his mind. Me because I forgot what a beautiful body looked like. I told him to lay on the bed, but I didn't look him in the eyes. I couldn't. I can't explain it but I couldn't. And my imagination was pretty good. He WAS handsome!

I took out my massage oil and placed myself next to him. I rubbed some in my hands and started massaging his shoulders. He smelled heavenly. His hair smelled like peach. His skin was amazingly soft; it was the first time I was massaging a man with such perfect skin. The whole experience was very sensual. The feeling of our skins touching was kind of erotic. Instead of staying beside him, like I always do, I decided to sit down on him. When my hands went a little further down his back, the strangest thing happened: I saw all the little hair on the back of his neck stand up. It was the first time I saw something like this happen, and I was the one doing this to him. And my massage looked less and less like one. I poured some massage oil in the middle of his back, and I started rubbing it all over it. I wasn't massaging him anymore, I was caressing him. Very slowly. Drawing things with my fingers on his back, and feeling him struggling between letting himself go to it or getting out of here as fast as he could. And I heard him whisper my name very slowly, with a very confused voice. I didn't answer. I simply did what I wanted to do in the kitchen that afternoon where he burned his hand. When Martin walked in on us. I kissed the back of his neck. With all the sensuality I had in me. And when he turned around, I took his hands, laid him back on the bed, and this time he kissed me. In a way I never thought Niles Crane was capable of. So passionately that I let my grip go. He took my head in his hands, as if he feared that he would wake up and find out that nothing of this ever happened. But I had no intention of going anywhere. We were there, and this time he wouldn't escape. I wanted him. He wanted me. And nothing was going to stop us now.

Nothing except Donny entering the room.

* * * * * * *

It is said, by some, that lightning never strikes the same location twice.

She had proved that claim to be utterly false, lightning from the depths of a passionate hurricane, blinding in light and with intense heat struck me again just now.

Mel was being, for the lack of a better word, bitchy, and I sought refuge at Frasier's apartment from her constant nit-picking and shredding me up and down.

Little did I know I had jumped out of the frying pan and into a much bigger fire.

I rang the doorbell, and was greeted by none other than Daphne herself, and she, upon sight of me, became rather visibly uncomfortable, blushing and fidgeting with her hands, as if I were some harbinger of tension.

As I made my way into the living room, I was greeted by the now-familiar Donny Douglas, who asked how I was doing, and for some unknown reason I stumbled into telling him about how Mel had been driving me nuts as of late, and how I had been so tense and unnerved I had suffered 2 days deprived of sleep. Some things, it turned out, are better left unsaid, for Donny, obviously ignorant of what had transpired Daphne and I earlier, suggested that Daphne give me a massage.

It was then that I saw Daphne turn literally scarlet. I decided at this point it would be in the mutual interest of all three of us if I were to make my exit, but Donny insisted, and feeling helpless to resist, I acceded.

Daphne responded by giving her fiancee a smile, the fakeness of which was utterly transparent. and asked me to come into her room.

I was horribly embarrassed by the invitation, something in the way she said it didn't sound at all right, but I followed her into the eye of the storm, which turned out to be her bedroom.

I attempted to relax the tension that seemed to saturate the air around us by commenting on the decor of the room, but that did little good, as I said it was "warm, simple, and beautiful," which, I added was a reflection of its occupant. She looked at me and I blushed in realization of what I had said, which certainly did not help matters in the slightest.

I had tried everything in my power to suppress my feelings for Daphne, but some things are, in truth, too powerful to be denied. 7 years was not going away in 2 weeks. It was then that I noticed that we were alone, in her room, and her bed seemed to loom ominously in my vision, several times normal size. I couldn't help looking at her and thinking about just sweeping her into my arms and lying her down on that bed, and slowly undressing her...I fought against my impulse with every ounce of self control I possessed, tried to think about anything and everything that wasn't Daphne, and was not having much luck, when she spoke.

She said that, as long as we were in here, she might as well give me that massage, and then she asked:

"Dr. Crane, maybe you should take your shirt off."

That was NOT something that was helping my self control in the slightest, but I complied, slowly, trying not to think that I was in Daphne's bedroom, removing a rather significant piece of my clothing, no less, when I realized this had been the very same outfit the night she had come to the Montana, angry at Sherry and practically asking me to sleep with her. I did not find the coincidence amusing.

It did not help things either when she was, well, staring down at me, looking at me like I would have looked at her if she had removed HER shirt, and then she told me to lie down on the bed.

I closed my eyes, trying to think of my morning appointments, a favorite aria, anything to get my mind from HER, but to little effect.

She rubbed some massage oil on her hands, and started with my shoulders, the feeling of the perfect skin of her hands and the oil was quite simply heavenly, and I gave up trying to take my mind off her and imagining what it would be like to be the one rubbing oil all over her body, and inhaling the delectable variety of beautiful smells which abounded in her room, slipping into a wonderful daydream.

It was then that she sat down on me, and slid her hands further down my back, and I felt each individual hair on the back of my neck stand straight on end. And then she poured some massage oil all over the exposed portion of my body. And I felt her touch transform from a massage into a wonderful caress. I had never before experienced a feeling so deeply sensual, or arousing, , or wonderful, and I knew where she wanted it to lead, and for the first time in 7 years our desires ran parallel. The desire to leave before we got into some real trouble gradually faded, and I, almost in a voice beyond my control, slowly whispered her name.

It was then that I felt the spine-tingling sensation of her hair brushing my shoulders, and I felt the hot kiss of her breath on the back of my neck, followed by the delicious warm, velvet wetness of her lips.

I had totally lost all sense of propriety or reason, my grip on reality had been blissfully relinquished, as I felt the sensation of my most delicious fantasies of the past 7 years about to come to life, and I turned around to face her.

It was then that she slipped her hands into my won, and gently laid me back on her bed, and, as I looked into her eyes and her frighteningly beautiful face, I felt the last of my willpower blissfully fly out the window, and I kissed her.

I kissed her, with all the force of 7 years of unrequited love and unrealized passion, like I always wanted to kiss Daphne, as I had always dreamed it happening. I didn't at that point know who in the hell Donny, Mel, Frasier, or anyone else was, I nearly forgot my own name, but I didn't care.

It was surreal. It was perfection. It was HER. And I knew, with no words needing to be exchanged between us, that she wanted me as badly as I wanted her every day of my life since we had met. The unstoppable chain reaction had begun.

And then the door opened, revealing an absolutely stunned Donny Douglas.

End of Part 2