: HOUSE OF CARDS :
PART FOUR : CORRUPTION
(12) - Sacrifice -
Forge was working on a new project.
Rogue knew this because whenever he was working on something new she wouldn't see him for days - he would be holed up in his workshop tinkering with his gadgets; the house would stink of solder for days, it would permeate your clothing and your nostrils, even the very pores of your skin. Rogue would often venture there, bringing him a spartan meal of either porridge, cereal or soup, which he would barely eat anyway. Sometimes, she would stay and watch him work, because it afforded her the peace and quiet she so often lacked with other members of the Brotherhood, and because she knew that with Forge, she would never need to speak.
That was why she was here now.
She was sitting in a corner, surrounded by the incomplete skeletons of gizmos and gadgets, watching the one-time Cheyenne warrior examining the elbow joint of a mechanical arm, a look of deep dissatisfaction on his face. His lunch, as usual, remained untouched. He hadn't even looked at it since she'd brought it in.
Forge's was a tired, lined face, and the first streaks of grey were showing in his thick, black crop of hair. Though he had aged greatly during the years, his was still a noble countenance, proud as the eagle, wise as the wolf. There was no particularly great affection between Rogue and the Cheyenne - yet nevertheless, she felt attached to him in a way that she did not feel attached to the others, because he was the only member of the Brotherhood that had once been an X-Man like herself. She knew he felt the same way about her too. Though she had never understood him, she had always greatly respected him, and likewise, whilst he felt no personal affinity with her, he treated her as an equal, as a fellow follower in Xavier's great dream. And so, while they spoke little in one another's company, they were entirely comfortable in maintaining this silence, and Rogue was perfectly happy to spend an hour or two in his workshop simply watching him.
She had never once asked him about their time with the X-Men. She had refrained from doing so because she knew that was a part of both their lives that was dead, a mutually buried past. And yet, ever since she had met Remy again, ever since discovering that some of the other X-Men were still alive, there had been times when she had considered reminiscing with him. Two years ago, thoughts of Xavier and the X-Men would have been too painful for her, yet now she found an odd sense of comfort in them. Perhaps he would think so too.
There was a clang of metal on metal as Forge decided his contraption was useless and threw it onto the already large pile of scrap that had gathered at his feet. Rogue sat on her stool by the door and watched thoughtfully as he picked up a small, black, box-shaped device from a drawer in a nearby work-table, and began to take it apart in a series of quick, deft yet delicate movements. She admired the way he used those worn hands, with the efficiency of a machine, yet with the grace of something feline. He had long, sensitive, artful fingers - the way they looked, the way they moved reminded her of that massage back in the safe house what must have been nearly a year ago… Had it really been that long ago?
Everything felt so long ago… …
"Forge?" she spoke into the silence very suddenly. She saw his eyes flash as he looked up at her briefly. He was surprised - at the best of times barely two words would be exchanged between them; mostly, they would exchange none.
"Yup?" he asked. There had been no break at all in the movement of his hands as he unscrewed the box, which fell apart into two separate pieces, like hard, black beetle wings.
"Do you ever think about them?" she asked. "The X-Men, Ah mean?"
He didn't once look up from his work; his smile was small. "Why? Would you be surprised if I did?"
She stared at him. Inside the black box was a complex circuit board made out of rudimentary materials, which he fell upon with a queer, animal greed.
"Ah don't know," she answered at last, still watching his fingers as they danced across the tiny board, pulling apart wires and putting them back together again. "Ah don't recall you ever talkin' about them."
"Likewise," he replied wryly. Without looking up, he reached for the soldering iron on the worktop beside him and set about fusing the rearranged wires onto the circuit board. "I guess I always thought… after what happened with your brother… it would be a touchy subject with you."
So that was the reason. Go figure.
"Ah see," she murmured. His eyes flashed over her once, then back again.
"Did I guess wrong?" he queried.
"No…Yes. Ah dunno." She took a deep breath. "Ah suppose Ah never really knew how Ah felt. Ah guess Ah thought you didn't want to talk about it either."
He half laughed.
"Me? No. What's done is done - and there isn't much use in dwelling on the past." He stopped soldering, considered his handiwork a moment. "That isn't to say that what happened didn't affect me deeply. Or that it wasn't a time of great sorrow. Or that I don't miss those that were lost. I don't think there's a day that goes by without me thinking about them. But…" and he smiled, faint, nostalgic, "I choose to honour their memories, rather than mourn them. Then the tragedy does not become so hard to bear. In many ways, it is a joy."
He finished, set aside the finished circuit board, and began to rifle through the scraps at his feet.
"But what if they're not dead?" she quizzed him eagerly. "There are still some out there, Ah know it. What if there's nothin' to mourn after all?"
"Then I'm sure Mystique will find a way to locate them, and free them," he returned matter-of-factly, sitting up with a few small fragments of metal in his hands. "The truth is, Rogue, we don't know how many of them are alive or what state of mind they may be in when and if we find them. If you believe things will return to the way they once were before any of this happened, you can think again. Nothing will be the same, even if the X-Men were reunited once more. Everything has changed - not just superficially, but profoundly. It isn't just our lifestyles that have been transformed, or our so-called inviolable rights as human beings. It's our way of thinking, Rogue, our ideologies, our convictions, our beliefs. Five years ago, neither of us would have thought we would be fighting on the side of the Brotherhood. Yet see what oppression has necessitated in us. We've had to reassess our morals, restructure our entire belief system in order to be 'free' once more. We've had to make sacrifices that, only a few years ago, we would've died rather than make."
She gazed down into her palms.
"You can say that again…" she whispered bitterly. Still, it was something of a comfort to hear him speak like this, to know that she was not the only one who had felt uneasy 'defecting'. What would have been totally unacceptable a relatively short while ago was now par for the course, and simply because mutant life had been so devalued that even crime and murder was a means to an end, a means to equality. It was ironic, paradoxical, almost hypocritical, but she saw now that it was either live this way, be downtrodden, or dead.
For the next couple of minutes, she continued to observe his work as he made some additions to the circuit board. His movements were so fast she could barely keep up with his progress, let alone understand what he was making.
It was an effort to get the next question out, but it had been plaguing her for so long now that she couldn't hold it back any longer.
"Do you… do you miss Storm?" she blurted uncertainly. He actually paused then, for the first time; she saw his hand tremble.
"Every day," he returned quietly. Before she knew it, he was at work again, but his jaw was taut, and the line of his mouth was bitter.
"Ah'm sorry, Ah didn't mean -" she hastened, but he interrupted her quickly.
"There's no need to apologise. You asked a question in good faith. I replied honestly." He paused again, and this time he looked up and directly at her. "I do miss her, Rogue. Every day. But she is there, and that's what matters. Not merely as a memory, but as a continuing constant in my life. I see her in the sunshine, I feel her in the wind, and I taste her in the rain. When I leave this workshop, when I go outside and walk the land, I miss her a little less." He smiled, lopsided. "She was my Windrider, and I was her Maker. It is for her that I still make, even though there is very little left to make that can give me any satisfaction."
So saying, he went back to his task, his demeanour calm and stolid as ever. It had always made him seem mysterious to her, but it was only now that Rogue realised that it was not so much an air of mystery as temperance towards the world and everything in it.
"Ah envy you," she stated softly. "Bein' able t' do that… See the one you love, in so many different things… Ah wish… Ah wish that Ah could do the same."
"And who do you miss?" he asked lightly. "Gambit?"
The words were natural, uncontrived, and yet they startled her for their unexpected closeness to the truth.
"Gambit?" she repeated on a breath.
"You were close to him," he observed. "Weren't you?"
"Ah… No, Ah wasn't… Ah never really knew a thing about him. We only knew each other for a year. He never told me anythin' about himself."
"Being close to someone doesn't always mean you know them," he remarked softly. "Especially someone like him." He laughed. "It's funny - I always used to get jealous of the way he used to hang around Ororo, but now that I think about it, the way he used to look at you… It was always so obvious that it was you he was interested in."
He had finished modifying the circuit board, and was covering it again with the two black beetle wings.
"Yah think?" she whispered.
"You mean you're going to pretend that there wasn't anything between the two of you?" he commented sardonically.
"There wasn't. Not really. We kinda liked each other, for a while. At least, Ah liked him."
Not that it matters anymore. Ah'm probably never gonna see him again…
"And you think he didn't like you?"
She gazed down at the floor. "Ah don't know. He always made me feel special; but then, Ah guess he made a lot of women feel special." Why was she speaking like this? Why was she pushing him away, even in memory? She bit her lip and continued. "But… those few times when Ah was with him…when Ah was close to him… Ah guess you could say they were the happiest moments of my life." She paused, finally making up her mind. "Yeah - Ah miss him."
Forge set aside his work slowly and looked at her. There was nothing between them now.
"It hurts," he stated softly, knowingly.
She swallowed, nodded.
"Ah was never that close to anyone else, not in the way Ah was close to him. Ah haven't been that close to anyone else since. Ah guess you could say that hurts."
His expression was sympathetic. In his eyes, she was a girl that had never known real closeness - she had never been able to touch, and by the time she had, it had been too late to be close to anyone anymore.
"Mystique did you a disservice," he muttered, his eyes distant. "When you first came to us, when she first decided to recruit you as a full-time member of the Brotherhood, I didn't want her to do it. You were too young, too innocent." His gaze returned to rest on her fully. "Believe me, Rogue, when I say that. I saw what Mystique did, the way she tried to twist the death of the X-Men into an excuse for revenge. She shouldn't have done that."
"She did what she thought was right," Rogue murmured.
"Perhaps she did. But you were still young, still immature. And when you woke up from that coma, your mind wasn't right."
"What are you tryin' to say?" she whispered. "That Ah was crazy? That Ah still am?"
"No," he replied patiently. "Merely that you're still mourning, not only for them, but for yourself." She stared at him sharply, surprised. "Rogue, I saw how things were for you that last year before Xavier was killed," he continued soberly. "Suddenly, someone wanted a part of your life, and for the first time you were learning to share it. You were becoming a woman, you were learning to care for someone. None of us had ever seen you looking so happy. To have that so cruelly cut short -"
"Ah didn't love him," she interrupted in a whisper, looking away. "Not back then."
"Perhaps. But who's to say what the two of you could have been, given time? Who's to say what Ororo and I could have been?" he added, and for the first time his voice and eyes were wistful.
Rogue sat silent. Who indeed? If that one fateful day had never occurred, if Xavier's death had been wiped from history, how then would have things turned out for her? Could it be possible that she could ever have loved him, that he could have loved her back, had they been given the time?
But we did have the time. We had the chance, and we blew it. He made it clear he didn't love me, that he could never love me, whatever the past between us…
Whatever more could have been said was cut off by a sudden, terse knock at the door; before Forge had time to reply, Mystique had already let herself in.
"Ah, there you are," she said, when she saw Rogue sitting there on her stool. "I thought you might be down here."
There was that same purposeful glimmer in Mystique's eyes that told Rogue she meant business.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"I need you for a new mission, Rogue," Raven said grimly. "A very significant one. If you could join me in my office when you're ready?"
She merely nodded in reply.
"Good," was all Raven said, before striding out once more.
There was a long silence.
"You should go see her," Forge commented absently; when Rogue looked back he was already working on the black box again. "I think it's important."
-oOo-
The sunlight that flooded Raven's office was always the colour of sour milk. Rogue never enjoyed coming here - there was never anything Raven had to say to her that brought her any joy. Nevertheless she sat across from Mystique's desk, unable to hide her curiosity. Forge's words had piqued her interest - he always knew about potential missions long before any of the others did, since he was the one who had to rustle up their equipment in advance. Still, her curiosity couldn't quite hide her sense of dread.
This was because, over the past two years, Rogue had gone from being one of Raven's minor operatives to one of her most invaluable ones - ever since the Art Rogers affair, Mystique considered Rogue to have proven herself in a way St. John, Dominic, and Forge had not. It wasn't a distinction Rogue cherished, but it made her feel good to know that in a perverse way, she was talented at something. Of course, not all this adulation was warranted. What had sealed the deal for Mystique was the fact that Rogue had killed Kincaid a year ago.
And of course, that had been Remy's act entirely.
Rogue would have had no problem in admitting that she was not, in fact, Kincaid's executioner. The reason why she'd taken the credit was because she didn't want to inform Raven of Remy's existence in her life. As far as Rogue was concerned, what she shared with Remy was her business and no one else's. That was why, the morning after he had killed Kincaid, she had gone home, walked right into Mystique's office and effectively taken the murder on her own shoulders.
She'd laid the gun on Mystique's desk, and announced: "It's done."
Raven had said nothing, but had calmly taken the gun, checked the amount of bullets left in the magazine, placed it back down again, and looked up at her foster-daughter.
"Well done," was all she'd said, as if congratulating her for some mundane, everyday task.
After that, Rogue had suddenly found she enjoyed the dubious distinction of being completely in Mystique's trust.
Now Mystique was sitting in that sour shaft of sunlight, staring at Rogue over the desk, studying her face with cold, clear eyes, just as she had done the day Rogue had laid that gun on that very table and declared: "It's done." She often did this, she often watched.
And Rogue, more often that not, remained silent.
"I've been thinking," Raven announced at last.
Rogue merely raised a questioning eyebrow.
"I've been thinking a great deal about what you told me," Raven continued, unfazed. "That some of the X-Men survived the attack on the mansion. I've been thinking that perhaps we should try and release some of them."
Silence. The old grandfather clock that Forge had so lovingly restored the very day they'd laid claim to this place ticked away patiently in the corner. Rogue's brow furrowed. She hadn't been expecting this.
"Of course, there was no love lost between the Brotherhood and the X-Men," Raven continued expressionlessly. "But now that Xavier is dead, and now that you and Forge are amongst our number, perhaps we can all get along, so to speak. There are certain of the X-Men whose abilities would suit our cause well."
Rogue linked her fingers together, laid them in her lap, waited.
"Naturally," Mystique stated, "there is the problem that we have little or no idea where the X-Men are located, or who of their number - apart from you and Forge, of course - are still alive."
"Hasn't Irene seen or predicted any of this?" Rogue questioned at last.
"Irene's visions have picked up on certain of the X-Men," Raven nodded keenly. "Ororo Munroe, for instance. And Wolverine." Her voice was laced with distaste as she said the name.
"Logan's still alive?" Rogue whispered half to herself. That fact alone gave rise to a real, powerful sense of hope in her. Wherever Logan was, he was always best at staying alive.
"It would appear so," Mystique's smile was twisted coldly. "But unfortunately, Irene's visions give little in the way of location."
"So how would we find them?" Rogue asked.
"There is a way." Mystique's smile was glacial as a Siberian winter. "Trask Technologies' database."
This suggestion surprised Rogue more than anything that had come before. She stared.
"You want me to break into Trask Technologies?"
Raven laughed.
"Such a thing, darling, would be nothing short of suicide. No - that particular part of the mission will be left to me. There is a simpler job for you to do."
She opened her desk drawer, pulled out something, and slid it across the table towards Rogue. Rogue looked at it. It was a photograph, shimmering coldly in the sunlight; when she moved slightly, she saw that it bore the face of a man. He was young, probably about thirty, blond-haired, blue-eyed, handsome - and giving the impression that he knew it.
"His name is Troy Rifkind," Raven told her, business-like. "Assistant Director of Trask Technologies. Quite a prodigy, they say - he has made his way up the ranks within a relatively short number of years. Fortunately he has a weakness that we can exploit." She paused and Rogue looked up into those chill, blue eyes, a chill of another kind filling her heart… "He has a certain predilection for pretty young women. Blondes, brunettes, redheads… any type will do."
No more words needed to be said. Rogue picked up the photo, sat back in her chair, and studied the face. The good-looking, angular features, the conceited smile. This was a face that had known no pain, no anguish. A face that had encountered no loss. This was the countenance of a person from another world, the world she had left behind so long ago, that she would never be able to return to. His was the face of someone who had taken that world away from her.
Even from that small sliver of glossy paper, she knew she hated him.
She threw the photo back down on the desk.
"Do you want me to kill him?" she inquired, ice in her throat.
"No," Mystique replied. "That would be too risky, would draw too much attention. To kill him would be superfluous." She stood, walked about the table, stopped beside Rogue, and looked at her; reaching out a hand, she touched her cheek with an almost motherly touch, her cold, grey eyes suddenly tender.
"But you may kill him, in a way," she said, silky soft. "Tempt him, tease him, destroy him, impale him upon his own ego. You are my Siren, Rogue; you are my belle dame sans merci. I knew God could not have made you so beautiful for nothing, my daughter."
The ice in Rogue's throat remained lodged there. From beginning to end, what she possessed, what she had been given… she knew with a stark certainty that God had had very little indeed to do with it.
-oOo-
"So tell me, Rogue. What do you think is worse? Doing Troy Rifkind, or offing Kincaid?"
She was in the kitchen, standing by the window and drinking juice, going over Mystique's extensive briefing in her head, psyching herself up for the upcoming mission. St. John wasn't helping - but then, he never did. He was behind her, picking up Rifkind's photo from the dinner table and perusing it with a sinister smile on his face. It was a look that didn't concern Rogue unduly. St. John often went around looking faintly sinister.
"Personally, I would've thought Kincaid," he remarked flippantly over her shoulder, "But, y'know, now that I think about it, I don't really know what it's like for you Sheilas when you do all that seedy femme fatale stuff. Mind you, that Rifkind ain't a bad-lookin' bloke, is he?"
Rogue stared out onto the narrow, weed-covered alley, the wall of irregular, brown stone that hemmed them in below ground level. She was used to Pyro's jibes, they didn't faze her.
"That doesn't make it any easier," she told him quietly.
"What?" he snorted gracelessly. "So you'd rather off Kincaid again than screw some playboy with a face to boot?"
Rogue said nothing.
She'd forgotten about Kincaid - sometimes, it was hard to believe that he was dead. Memory was a funny thing - what had seemed so vivid and detailed only a few months ago faded with the greatest alacrity, especially in a world so reliant on the media and printed matter to spread the word.
What was not recorded could, technically, never have existed.
Out of sight, out of mind.
In the space of a year, Kincaid had become just another statistic. After the furore over his murder - which had been splashed liberally all over the news - he had simply become forgotten; he was just never mentioned anymore. He was replaced, the Friends of Humanity went on, the same old anti-mutant rhetoric continued. When so little had been changed by his death, Rogue had wondered why Raven and Irene had deemed it so important to have him eliminated in the first place. But after a while, even these questions were forgotten, as she was slowly re-submerged into the cruel monotony of everyday life. For long stretches of time, she could believe it was as though he had never existed - that is, until he would slip, revenant-like, into her nightmares, and taunt her into wakefulness. Then she would be reminded that, however much the world chose to ignore him, as long as she lived he would exist in her mind. Until then, he would never truly be dead.
She would dream often of Remy too - he occupied both her dreams and her nightmares in equal measure. True to his word, over the span of a year he had never made an appearance, but that was not entirely a bad thing. While she pined for the comfort he gave her, she was also troubled by what he had done to Kincaid. The look on his face as he had shot the man still plagued her, still thrilled her.
Sometimes she would touch herself in the night and think of him, she'd torture her body with the sweet caresses he'd once tortured her with, she'd torture herself to orgasm with his memory, but it would never feel complete without him; she would always be empty, no matter how hard she tried or how hard she came.
Because she still saw him everywhere she went, even if he was never consciously at the front of her mind - just like she could see him now, staring back at her through that dirty windowpane with those dark, red eyes of his.
"Aw, c'mon, Roguey," St. John whined. "This job's gonna be a breeze, you know it. You get to dress up pretty, you get to book in at the Ritz, you even get to cosy up to one of New York's most eligible bachelors. Fuck, even Dom and I are jealous!"
He was starting to annoy her now.
"Then why the fuck don't you or Dom do it?" she hissed at him, swinging away from the eyes in the window and sneering at him. "If yah think it's so fuckin' easy, why don't you try fuckin' someone yah don't know!"
He grinned. He always found it amusing when she got angry.
"I could fuck any strange girl any time of the day," he commented candidly and she snarled, set her glass back down on the table with a sharp thud.
"You don't get it, do you!" she seethed. "What it is we haveta sacrifice, what it feels like for us. You men, y'all could do it with anyone and it wouldn't mean a thing to you, would it? Well, it means somethin' to me! It means somethin' to me when Ah know you're runnin' around like yah don't care, when you fuck all those other women and still have the nerve to come back and say that emotion is stupid and useless and -!"
She stopped mid-sentence, inwardly fuming, knowing she'd said too much, but Pyro merely put his hands up in self-defence, his eyes wide.
"Strewth, Rogue, simmer down girl! Why the hell are you takin' this so personally? I was only kiddin' with you! And anyway, I didn't know you were so bothered that I was seeing anyone else… I didn't even know you liked me… Fuck, if you're so bothered, all you have to do is say the word and we can get together sometime…"
"Ugh, please," she spat in disgust. "Like you? St. John, Ah hate you. But you're right. Fuckin' someone is easy, it doesn't mean a thing, and just for once…" she lowered her voice to barely a whisper, "Just for once, Ah'd like for it to matter. Ah'd give anythin' for it to matter." She paused; a cold laugh suddenly escaped from her lips. "But who am Ah kiddin'? Ah've never been with anybody who gave a shit about any of this. Ah never will."
She walked to the door, still feeling the eyes in the window watching her, the eyes that her outburst had been directed at. She opened the door.
"Well, if you ever wanted anybody…" Pyro suggested in a wheedling tone from the kitchen table.
She slammed the door shut behind her.
-oOo-
New York, London, Tokyo, Sydney, Rome, Paris.
The clocks behind the reception desk each told a different time.
Rogue looked up over the empty, fair head of the check-in girl, at the New York clock that read 7:03 p.m. Beside her, a stout, sweaty businessman with skin the consistency of suet was studying the Tokyo clock, checking the time against the 'To Do' list on his high-tech cell phone. She had the vague feeling that time had absolutely no meaning whatsoever, and that if anyone decided it was 6:47 a.m. in Timbuktu right now, it would actually be of negligible significance. The core fact still remained - somewhere, in another place and far out of sight, the one you loved would still be under the same sky, the same stars, the same moon - and it would still be the same time, no matter what you happened to call it.
"Ms. Wagner?" The blonde-haired receptionist's voice held the sickly sweet quality of treacle. "Your room is ready. Number 622. Here is your key."
She slid a keycard over the desk and Rogue reluctantly moved her eyes from the clocks, slid the card towards her and slipped it into her purse. The receptionist smiled. Her face gave the peculiar impression of belonging to a marionette.
"If you'd like to order dinner from the menu," she beamed, "we can place your order now and have it brought to your room by 7:30."
"No thanks," Rogue murmured, staring at the clock again. She wouldn't be eating here anyway.
"Very well, then," the woman smiled. "Enjoy your stay, and if you have any queries, please feel free to ask at reception anytime."
"Thanks," Rogue muttered, turned and left.
She was not here for pleasure, or even for business in the normal sense; and yet she could not help but admire the opulence and grandeur of the Ritz as she crossed the lobby and stepped into the streamlined glass elevators. As luck would have it, she was sharing the lift with a young couple who pawed each other all the way up to their floor - the man, however, kept glancing at her over his girlfriend's shoulder, and after a while, irritated, Rogue turned away and glanced out of the window onto the lobby below. Behind the reception desk, the clocks were still heedlessly, needlessly ticking away.
The couple got off on the fifth floor, for which Rogue was thankful for more than just one reason - the less people that saw her and knew where she was staying the better. Her room was a relatively functional one, compared to many rooms in the Ritz, but none of this mattered to her. When she entered, she didn't waste time appreciating either the view or the surroundings. Instead she went straight to the bed, dumped her carryall on it, and unzipped it. There was only one thing inside - the outfit she'd bought especially for the occasion. Unhurried and methodical, she unpacked each item from the bag - dress, stockings and sandals - and laid them out on the bed. Then she stepped out of the mundane civilian clothing she'd chosen to wear, and placed all these in the carryall instead. Having done this, she folded the bag, and placed it in the wastebasket. By tomorrow it'd be taken out with the rest of the trash, and she would be long gone.
Calm, collected, she pulled on the stockings, slipped on the dress, and put on the sandals. Then she went to the mirror, opened up her purse, and took out her makeup. She rouged her cheeks, reddened her lips, mascared and kohled her eyes. When she stood in front of the full-length mirror, she didn't recognise herself. She looked classy, she looked elegant, she looked like all the classic Hollywood starlets that had occupied every movie she'd ever worshiped as a child. Rita Hayworth, Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor. Sirens of a bygone era, an era she couldn't even touch anymore.
Maybe time did have its own significance after all.
Rogue ran a hand over the front of her dress contemplatively. It was a dress Mystique had chosen - a strapless, satin sheath dress of dark green that complemented the colour of her eyes, that clung to her figure in all the right places, that gave her an equal amount of sex appeal and sophistication. She looked beautiful. And it was dangerous, dangerous for her to see this side of herself, to see the woman she could have become if things had not gone so terribly wrong.
It was ironic - if this was another time and another place, she'd be dressed like this for a man she cared about. And now, in this time, in this place, her appearance was nothing more than a cynical ploy to seduce a man she had never met before.
There was no time, no reason left to sigh. There was not even any regret on her face as she turned away from her reflection, her green eyes hard.
There can be no emotion, there can be no feeling.
If we allow ourselves to feel, then we might as well die.
She switched off the light to her room, leaving it as cold and untouched as it had been when she'd first entered it. In the space of time that it took her to change into the sexy green dress, she had become a different person, a woman who made the journey to the bar down on the first floor with a confident, sassy swing in her step. She was the old Rogue, teasing men, making them turn their heads as she walked past them, making them hold their breaths and stare at her, making them lust after her. Yet, unlike the old Rogue, she promised sex to them with every iota of her body, she didn't just dangle it in front of their faces. She was experienced, self-possessed, she was a femme fatale.
She sashayed through the double doors at the back of the lobby and into the bar. It was sleek and ultra-modern, all streamlined chrome and curvy glass, liberally highlighted with panels of black and white marble. At present it was relatively empty, since most people would be eating dinner. That was good. That meant that there was less people to distract, and less people to distract her target. She took her place at the bar and ordered a cocktail before taking time to scan the room.
It didn't take long to find Troy Rifkind, who was sitting in a corner sandwiched between two busty, fawning blondes, while three men, obviously his sycophants, hovered nearby. She was a little surprised to find that he was more handsome than his picture had suggested - his face was chiselled and clean-shaven, though a little too perfect for her taste; his hair a sandy blond, his mouth full and passionate. He had impeccable dress sense, wearing a well-cut, gunmetal grey Gucci suit and a purple dress shirt. No doubt he was well-moneyed and well-connected, though she suspected he lavished most of his salary on clothes, parties, wine, women, and, according to her file, drugs.
Here was the man she had to seduce, the man that St. John had mockingly insinuated should make her job easy this time round. If she had been a different person, maybe she would have agreed. Rifkind was young, he was attractive, he even looked quite open and friendly.
But she still had to whore herself to him, she still had to give herself unwillingly to him, and somehow, when she looked across that room at him, she knew that he wouldn't refuse her advances.
Her drink had arrived. She sipped at it half-heartedly, knowing to get intoxicated would be fatal to the mission. She had to go into this clear-headed, much as she would have preferred to do this drunk and not remember it the next morning. Her priority was to make contact, and since his sycophants were buying all the drinks for him, she wasn't going to get any closer to him at the bar. She had to think of another line of attack. She continued to watch him out of the corner of her eye, seeing him chat with the blondes, grope them, kiss them. They flirted and giggled a lot, fondled him back. Rogue knew she was going to have to do a lot to get him to avert his attention from them to her. Good-looking men were harder to ensnare than ordinary-looking men - they were used to having beautiful women around them, finding another one didn't matter so much. She had to have something better than all those other women had, and over the months, Rogue had found she possessed a weapon not many other women possessed - mystique.
Tonight, it was a weapon she would have to exercise to her utmost.
She began to watch the small group more overtly, studying his smile, his laugh, what he enjoyed, what he responded to. And then, the moment came, quite by chance. Suddenly he looked up, towards the bar, straight at her. Instinctively she knew it was an opportunity not to be missed; she knew exactly what to do. She simply stared back at him, holding his blue-eyed gaze, not once wavering.
He was the one to break eye contact first, and when he turned back to the blonde on his right, there was a small frown on his face.
She swivelled round in her seat, turning her back on him. She knew the contract had been sealed in that one gaze, she knew now that he would be hers.
It was a couple of minutes later that she felt someone sidle up beside her, and she tilted her head slightly, expecting him; but somewhat to her surprise she saw one of his flunkeys standing beside her, his face utterly devoid of expression.
"Excuse me, ma'am," his voice was oddly toneless, "but I've been obliged to ask if you would join Mr. Rifkind at his table." He indicated towards the corner table, to Rifkind who was still sandwiched between the blondes, but whose eyes were now totally focused on her. She darted her eyes back to the expressionless flunkey, who was now holding out Rifkind's card to her. She took it, perfunctorily, gave it a cursory glance. There, on glossy cream paper, was his name, embossed in elegant gold calligraphy. 'Assistant Director, Trask Technologies Inc.' it read in the corner. "He wishes to have the pleasure of your company," the man added by way of explanation.
This was not what she wanted. She had no intention of joining him on the couch with his dumb blondes, her every move watched by his yes-men. She needed to come into contact with as few people as possible. She needed him to come to her.
With an apologetic expression, Rogue handed the card back.
"Ah'm terribly sorry," she returned, exaggerating her Southern accent just enough for the sex appeal effect. "But Ah've made a prior engagement and Ah'm waitin' for someone. But please could you thank Mr. Rifkind for his kind invitation."
The man neither spoke nor smiled, but inclined his head briefly, took the card and walked back. Rogue watched him depart, casting a glance over at Rifkind, who was frowning even more deeply than before. She turned a little, continuing to watch the scene from the corner of her eye as the flunkey bent over beside his superior, murmuring softly in his ear. Rifkind was staring at her, his expression now intense. Rogue quickly turned back to the bar. She'd seen enough, enough to know he was now completely under her sway. Despite everything, a shot of triumph coursed through her.
She was not surprised when, a couple of moments later Troy Rifkind himself appeared beside her.
"May I buy you another drink?" he asked casually, without greeting, without any other introduction. His tone, though suave, was polite, very polite - despite the fact that she didn't believe for a second that he'd been using the same tone with the blondes back at his table. She looked up at him, searched his face as if seeing him for the first time. He was handsomer up close, she decided. She smiled, a small, slight smile.
"Sure."
Instantly he clicked his fingers, alerting the barman - he pointed to her cocktail glass, then ordered a vodka on the rocks, and while the bartender was mixing their drinks, he turned to her with a courteous smile and said: "Perhaps I should introduce myself. I'm Troy Rifkind, Assistant Director at Trask Technologies. You spoke to my man just a minute ago-" he pointed to the table in the corner, where she was interested to notice the blondes were no longer sitting, and where the three flunkeys were now dawdling, looking rather out of their collective depth "-but it seems you were otherwise occupied, Miss…"
She didn't even hesitate.
"Anna. Anna Wagner."
"Miss. Wagner." He smiled, offered his hand, and she shook it. At this point the bartender arrived with their drinks, and Rifkind made a point of tipping very generously indeed. When he had done this he turned back to her.
"Miss. Wagner," he began in a very serious tone, "my man informed me that you're waiting for someone. I'd like to apologise if my invitation a little while ago offended you."
She found his conversation quite charming, and if she had been any other woman she might have been captivated by his sophistication and turn of phrase, but instead she felt nothing but a cold sense of detachment towards this spoilt, rich and handsome playboy.
"Not at all." She gave a low, brief laugh. "Ah was quite flattered by your invitation, Mr. Rifkind -"
"Troy," he interrupted her in a soft, intimate undertone.
"-Troy," she allowed herself to be corrected. "But Ah've already made plans t' meet somebody t'night." She made a point of looking at her watch then, an absent look on her face. He saw the action, commented sympathetically:
"It seems your date is a little late, Miss. Wagner."
She met his gaze, frowning slightly. "We did make arrangements to meet at seven," she explained, "but it seems Ah might have been stood up."
He smiled, raised an eyebrow. "Forgive me for being so bold, but any man willing to leave a woman as beautiful as yourself unattended must be a fool."
She averted her eyes, suddenly coquettish, allowing herself to blush.
"It's very kind of you t' say so, Mr. Rifkind - Troy -" she returned in her best magnolias accent, "but Ah'm a little afraid Ah must've deserved it. Y' see, Ah'm kinda new in town and Ah didn't really know mah way around… And this man Ah met at the gas station was kind enough to point out directions towards the hotel, and asked meh whether Ah'd like for him t' come up and see meh, and like a fool Ah said yes… Ah've made such an idiot of myself by acceptin' his offer…"
She paused and stared up at him, seeing the subtle change in his expression, the spark of lustful interest now in his eyes. She'd given him exactly the kind of story he needed to hear - a woman who was new in town, out all by herself, willing to invite a man she didn't even know into her space - suddenly the exaggerated courtesy had gone out of him, though the charming politeness remained. He leaned in a little closer, took the liberty of brushing a stray lock of white hair from her face - which she let him do - and smiled at her.
"He's the fool," he assured her in a low, seductive tone.
Inside her heart had grown a little colder, but she ignored it the way Mystique had taught her to and smiled.
"You're too kind, Troy," she murmured, making her voice as low and seductive as he had. He waved a hand, brushing aside her thanks, and sipped from his glass, never taking his eyes off hers. Then he set the glass back down on the bar and addressed her once more.
"So, Anna… May I call you Anna?" (She nodded) "You're new in town. Let me guess. You're from the South?"
As if he couldn't tell. Still she smiled.
"Mississippi."
His smile widened.
"I just love Southern girls. So fiery, so passionate - if you don't mind me saying so, Anna."
She could somehow tell that the conversation was going to degenerate from here on in.
"Ah don't mind. Ah just love Yankee men - so cultured and refined…"
They both laughed. He hadn't even noticed that she hadn't touched her drink. Afterwards they spent a few moments in silence, and she thought she could afford to take a single sip from her glass. He watched her while she did so, and then asked quickly, in a different tone of voice: "Anna…Perhaps you'd like to continue waiting for your date at my table?"
This time she agreed without any further prompting. He helped her off her barstool in a display of gentlemanly extravagance, then led her to his table, which was now devoid of blonde bimbos. She settled in next to him on the couch, ignoring the three underlings that still skulked around the table; for the next half an hour or so, she chatted to Rifkind about various unimportant things, who offered intelligent enough conversation - he paused only halfway through to send his three sycophants away, and they dispersed a little resentfully, leaving Rogue alone with her quarry.
Finally, she was in a situation to completely hold the upper hand. With his bodyguards gone, it was imperative she push forward with the mission. She had no doubt that Rifkind was by now completely in her thrall. His eyes never left her, not even when other tempting morsels presented themselves in the form of other pretty girls who passed his table. Rogue batted her eyelids, toyed with her hair and showed as much cleavage as she could. By the time eight O'clock had come round, it finally became clear to Rifkind that her so-called date had no intention of showing up. At this point, the conversation became more suggestive, and she wasn't surprised to feel him surreptitiously move a hand to rest upon her knee.
Rogue was repulsed by his touch, but made no effort to stop him. On the contrary, this was the action she had been waiting for. They continued to talk, and with every minute his hand rode higher, and she continued to make no protest. By now his hand was almost caressing the top of her stocking, and she was getting impatient, not knowing what was taking him so long. It seemed she had gone through an extraordinarily long ordeal before he finally murmured in her ear: "Why don't I show you my room? It's got a great view of the city, I could show you some of the sights."
Smooth, she thought sardonically to herself. Very smooth. The look she gave him from beneath her lashes was knowing, smouldering as she answered in a soft, coy voice: "Okay."
-oOo-
Naturally his room was the penthouse suite, and she had to endure the longest elevator ride of petting and pawing before she finally got to her destination. The view from the room was indeed magnificent - the room itself would have been a sight to see, if she'd even got the chance to see it at all. The moment the door had closed behind them he'd pinned her up against it, invading her mouth in a rough kiss that had made her instinctively want to gag - somehow she managed to kiss him back with as much fervour as she could muster. His kiss was a form of attack, oddly inelegant compared with his so-far exquisite manners - she didn't like it, found it repellent. She would have to slow him down, otherwise she'd end up pushing him away and ruining the whole mission. Softly, gently as she could she cupped his face in her palms, massaged the back of his head with her fingers, hoping to ease him, calm him down. It worked. He slowed a little, and she encouraged him, changing the kiss, brushing her tongue against his, trying to get him to mimic her. He cottoned on, and now that the kiss was more bearable she could get to work on other things.
Reaching downward she found his crotch, rubbed him experimentally, feeling him moan into their kiss. He was already partly aroused. Hopefully this wouldn't take longer than it had to.
While his kiss left something to be desired, she had to admit that he was rather artful in his caresses. His left hand was underneath her dress, running over her thighs and buttocks with a pleasurable cadence. She tried to focus on this, rubbing her body against his with the same slow rhythm; thankfully at this point he stopped kissing her, leaving her lips to concentrate on her neck, her shoulders. She came up for some much-needed air, taking long slow lungfuls, her expression set, determined. Despite her disgust, despite her dislike of this man, she felt her body begin to respond to him - she hated it when she became truly aroused, but she had to accept that sometimes it would happen and she would have to live with it. His fingers had already reached the waistband of her panties and she knew what he would do next. She felt his finger slip in under the lacy material, and was surprised by her own reaction when he tested her flesh. She couldn't help the short, sharp gasp that came from between her lips, betraying her. She instantly regretted it when he surfaced once more, smiling - a second later, he was kissing her again.
She needed to get him to the bed and get this over and done with. She desperately needed it. This was taking far too long. At the end of her tether, she pulled away from his kiss, grasped his face with her hands, keeping him away from further kisses and whispered: "Let's get to it, sugah, Ah can't wait…"
His grin was enough to tell her he thoroughly agreed.
He pushed himself away from the door and walked towards the bed, taking his clothes off as he went. She followed him, quickly slipping out of her dress, her underwear and stockings. He was still undressing when she lay on the bed, naked; he hurried up when he saw she was already waiting for him, and when he was finally unclothed he joined her on the bed with gleeful impatience.
She'd been with many men who found her body somehow exotic. Rifkind was no exception. He took a long time studying her and running his hands over her - there was a light in his eyes while he did this, lust, yet something more. Again she made no move to push him away, accepting everything he did to her, letting him touch her all over. At last she felt the weight of him on her and she closed her eyes, not wanting to see his face up close; he kissed her mouth, and then her breasts, and then between kisses he declared: "Anna… you're so beautiful…"
The words made her detest him all the more. He had no right to think her beautiful - she didn't want him to think her beautiful. There was only one man who'd ever told her she was beautiful, and she had wanted him to be the only one to say that; she had wanted the words, the thought, to belong only to him…
But Rifkind was gentle with her, almost worshipful - and yet his attentiveness was even more repulsive to her. She wanted this to be as quick and painless as possible. Anything more was a parody of lovemaking, and she didn't want it. But he was being too deferential, too delicate with her body, and she couldn't stop him without risking the mission. He was lavishing kisses all over her, making her body turn cold, and suddenly his lips were on her inner thighs and she knew, she knew…
She tensed, her body freezing when he put his mouth on her core - until that moment nothing in her life had horrified her more. Somehow this was worse, than anything else he could have done to her; it was an invasion, it was too intimate, and suddenly she wanted more than anything to push him away from her; but somehow she found the strength to grit her teeth and hold on, hold on… Nevertheless, he was good at this, too good - again she felt herself becoming aroused despite herself, and her breath was coming hard, fast… She tried vainly to hold the tide back, to ignore the tongue of flame growing steadily inside her, but involuntarily her hand suddenly moved to his head, to press him against her, and in that one traitorous act of self-betrayal a kind of cold agony washed over her, an anguish she'd never felt before, because she couldn't give him her pleasure, she couldn't give him her orgasm, she couldn't give him that secret, sacred part of her, because he didn't deserve it… because no one did but him…
She felt it, pressing against the dam, heaving against it, and all the will in the world couldn't push it back. She was powerless to stop it. The next moment the orgasm had taken her, ripped her away on its tide, and when she cried out it was not a cry of ecstasy but of resignation, of defeat, of pure, all-consuming anguish.
-oOo-