House grabbed a Kleenex to wipe up the mess. He stood up and hobbled into his bathroom to wash up. That was hotter than I thought it would be. She's not bad. I wonder if she looks anything like the photo. Ahhh, it doesn't matter, I don't have to look at her anyway.

House brushed his teeth, grabbed some water and went back to bed. Within minutes he felt his brain becoming cotton candy and his body slipping into a deep slumber. House slept well, not waking until 8:00 am the next morning. He got up, showered and, for the first time in a long time, felt like doing something.

He called a very shocked Wilson and arranged to go out for lunch and a movie.

Wilson narrowed his eyes, "So…you decided to get out today?"

He nodded, "You complaining?"

Wilson quickly shook his head, "No, not at all. I'm glad you called. You look rested--like you got a good night's sleep."

"Yeah. I got a full eight last night."

"Ambian?"

"A new drug."

"Yeah?"

He snickered, "Cali."

"Is it new on the market?"

"Yeah, I just found out about it."

"Well, it looks like it works."

Chapter 2

Jonesing

"I think Cameron still wants me."

Wilson frowned, his forehead knitted into wrinkles, "She's with Chase, they're engaged."

House flinched; he had to control his reaction. He took a breath, "When did they get engaged?"

"Saturday. And why do you think Cameron still wants you?"

"The way she licks her lips whenever I get near her. Chase must not be bringing the bacon home…if you know what I mean." He smiled broadly and wiggled his eyebrows.

"House, that ship sailed two years ago, which is probably a good thing. It wouldn't be a good fit between the two of you. She'd obsess over every move you made. Between her and me monitoring your behavior, you'd never have to feel for yourself. We'd let you know what you're feeling 24/7. You'd be too in touch with yourself, you'd implode."

House didn't really want Cameron, but he didn't want her to not want him. He wanted to know that there was someone, a woman, that found him desirable, wanted contact with him. Plus, it was nice that a hot young woman found him attractive.

Wilson smiled at the obvious disappointment in House's face, "Ewww. It hurts huh?" Wilson laughed and started singing, " Who's going to drive you home tonight… Who's gonna pay attention, to your dreams? And who's gonna plug their ears, when you scream? You can't go on, thinkin' nothin's wrong…"

House sneered, "Shut up!"

House sat at his desk the rest of the day reading journals. He'd read an article a few months ago on a new outbreak of Marburg in Angola, so he was trying to find it. House's patient had just returned from Angola the week before. He realized that he might just have a case of Marburg on his hand. He called his friend, Maggie, at the CDC.

Her perky voice, laughing came on the line, "I don't believe it! They said Greg House was calling me. I figure the climate changes have finally taken effect. Hell has frozen over."

"Mags, Mags, Mags…you know you love me. When are you going to come to your senses and get back in my bed?"

"When hell unthaws. Honey, that bed of yours is just too hot. If I could figure a way for us to get together without a nuclear event, I'd be up to Princeton before you could hobble your little ass home from the hospital."

House chuckled, but inside of him he felt pangs of longing. There had always been something between him and Maggie. They'd had it for fifteen years now. Years ago they'd been together, but it was too hot, too passionate. They had loved each other too much. They were both volatile and often ended up saying things they wished they hadn't. Life with Maggie had never been boring and more often had been ecstasy. But the pain they inflicted on each other when they were angry was too much to bear. House left Maggie after one of their fights and just before she went to Washington, D. C. It had been a cold night, sleet coming down, icing up the road. He drove twenty miles, slipping and sliding to his friend's apartment and crashed on his couch for the next six weeks before being kicked out. He went back to the little house he share with Maggie, but she had moved to Washington D.C. to take up her post with the CDC. It was over.

"I don't know; I hobble pretty fast."

"Well handsome, what can I do for you?"

"I want you to come up Maggie."

She turned serious, knowing he wasn't inviting her up for a rendezvous. "What is it Greg?"

"Marburg."

She gasped. "You are joking aren't you?"

"My patient is just back from Angola and they thought he had typhoid fever. He's got the rash and hepatitis."

He heard the pause and could imagine her thinking. He knew exactly what she was doing, her gray eyes flashing, her hand running through her reddish-blonde hair. She'd bite her lower lip and then sigh. When he heard the sigh he smiled to himself. He knew she had come to a conclusion. "I have to send Ken up. I'm leaving for Europe the day after tomorrow. I'm taking a post in Switzerland. Sorry."

They were both sorry. For the last fifteen years their timing had been off. Maggie had been living with Edgar the first time House showed up on her doorstep in Washington two years after they broke up. House was living with Stacy the next time they saw each other. When Stacy left him, Maggie went up to Princeton to see him, but she was engaged to Edgar, and, despite House's tugging on her heart, she remained faithful. But her fiancé didn't. When she was in Princeton, he took the opportunity to screw her best friend. The friend, who had wanted Edgar for years, immediately confessed to Maggie upon her return. Devastated, she took a post in Africa and was stationed overseas for five years, returning a year ago. She had assumed that House must be in a relationship. He hadn't returned her emails since she'd returned. She didn't think there was a reason to stay in the States, so when she was offered the post as European liaison with the WHO, she accepted it. Now he was calling. Maggie shook her head, once again, their timing was crap.

"Are you sure you don't want to come up to take care of this yourself?" he asked.

She knew he was really asking if she wanted to see him, be with him. She felt terribly sad. Everything she owned was on a ship headed towards Geneva, Switzerland.She was committed to going. "I can't. I'll send Ken." There was a pause, a heavy silence. "Greg, I'm so sorry." Her voice was heavy.

"No, I understand. Geneva, huh?"

"I'll be the WHO liaison."

"How long?"

"Two years."

He snickered, "You know, someday we'll be in the same universe at the same time."

"I believe that would be like matter sharing the same space at the same time, the universe would implode."

"At least I'd go out with a smile on my face."

Maggie laughed heartily, "Yeah, it does have a certain appeal to it."

House got home that evening and crashed on his sofa with a glass of Maker's Mark. He tried to watch television, but he kept thinking about Maggie and her talented body. He wondered if it was still as talented. God I really miss her. The passion, the highs and lows of living with someone I didn't think I could live without. He remembered her smell, it was the herbal shampoo that everyone used back then. He remembered the shampoo and the sex in the shower, how he'd wash her hair and then her body while he screwed her from behind. House could feel things stir beneath his zipper. He reached over and pulled the phone out of cradle, got up and went over to his desk. He grabbed the phone bill and found the 900 number.

May 5th, 10:39 pm

"Hello?"

He lay back down on the sofa, "Hi."

"My name is Cali, what's your name?"

"G-man."

"G-man?" There was a short pause, "It's great to hear from you G-Man. I'm glad you called back. It may seem stupid, but I still have to inform you that this phone call is being recorded until we get the terms out of the way. It will cost you $3.95 a minute, which I'll start charging you once you agree to pay. If you agree, hit the star button."

"Oh, for Christ's sake. I agree."

She heard the star button.

"G, how have you been?"

"Nostalgic for some shower sex."

"With a specific someone, or just me? Because I can be someone else if it helps."

"You look hot. You'll do."

Maggie looked down at the flannel nightgown, a little frayed at the edge. She reached up and ran a hand through her hair, which, unlike the long brunette hair in Jennifer's photo, was cut short and choppy. "I love shower sex. I like it best in the morning. You wake up after making love the night before…" Damn, I forgot, never call it making love, it's 'hot sex' "… and we wake up, laying around for an hour or so. I make a move to go get cleaned up, but you stay in bed, not wanting to get up just yet. But when I turn on the shower, you keep imagining me standing in the warm shower, the water running down between my breasts, across my abdomen, between my legs, over my thighs and calves. Your dick starts to get hard just thinking about it so you get out of bed and walk into the bathroom. You can see my shadow behind the shower curtain, the outline of my breasts and nipples make you even harder.

I hear you come in and I know by your silence that you want me again. I peek around the shower curtain and you're standing there with a glorious boner, pink with lovely blue veins as it throbs, wanting me. I open the curtain and you step into the tub, rubbing your penis up against me as you pin me against the tile. You kiss me with your slightly open mouth, your warm tongue slipping through my teeth and into meet my warm, receptive tongue.

I turn around, leaning back against you. You want to spread my legs and take me right then, but you hold off. You pull the shampoo from the basket and start to wash my hair, pulling the foam from the shampoo from my head and rubbing it down my body, over my wet breasts and nipples. You pinch them lightly and rub against my ass over and over, getting hotter and hotter. You turn me and dunk my head under the shower and rinse my hair. While I'm bent slightly back you lick my nipples and then suck them hard—" Maia heard House gasp slightly in short breaths. He was either coming or close to it, "—you whip me around again, bending me over and spreading my legs. You screw me doggy style. I'm braced up against the tile, taking all of you up inside of me as far as you can thrust. It's hard, it's rough and you're pounding –"she heard the unmistakable grunts of a man coming, "—I'm bouncing forward with you inside of me. I scream out from the orgasm racing through my body. It clamps down on you over and over as we rock back and forth. Neither of us can take it anymore. You collapse on my back, but you don't slip out, not just yet. We just stay like that for a few minutes, enjoying the feel of each other."

Maia waited a few minutes. "Like I said, I love shower sex." I love it, but I don't get any. Phil likes sex in bed and that's it. Shower sex is too awkward for him. "Do you like shower sex?"

There was a pause, House took the phone with him into the bathroom as he cleaned up, "Yeah, it can be hot."

"Was that shower hot enough? Because I might still be a little dirty."

There was a chuckle, "I like my girls a little dirty."

Maia laughed back. "I bet you do. What made you want shower sex?"

He wasn't going to answer, but then it didn't seem like it really mattered. "I heard from an old girlfriend today. "

"And you two were good in the shower?"

"We were both very dirty."

They both laughed.

"Isn't it funny how we associate certain things with one person? When I fly, I always think of this one guy. We joined the mile high club together. I met him when there was a three hour delay in the airport, we had great sex on the plane and then parted in Berlin. I always think of him when I fly, no matter who I'm with."

"I know what you mean. I may take showers with others, but I always think of her – well at least for a few seconds."

"Why aren't you with her?"

There was a pause, "Internal combustion. We had great energy, but we consumed everything around us creating it."

Maia looked up at the ceiling. She was laying in bed, Phil snoring softly next to her. She understood completely. "Yeah, I lived with a guy for six months. I worshipped him, but we just ripped each other's hearts out. It was a painful existence, no matter how much we loved each other, the pain together was worse than the pain of parting.

House looked at the empty Maker's Mark glass; he got up and grabbed the bottle, pouring another drink. "Wow, only six months?"

"Pathetic, huh?" she got up out of bed and went out to the living room, climbed on the sofa and tucked her legs under her body.

House sat down on the couch, "I keep thinking that it's always possible that we might get back together."

"Have you mentioned this to her?" Maia asked, as she shuffled through her bills. She realized she hadn't paid for her ad in the local Princeton free entertainment magazine.

House was thinking about Maggie, "What's the use? She's moving to Geneva in two days. I'm not even a flicker in her thought process anymore."

"How long will she be gone?"

"Two years."

Maia's eyes flew open, "Oh G. I am sorry. That is a long time."

"It doesn't matter; when we were together we always fought like cats and dogs. I suspect that nothing has changed. We're both pretty stubborn."

"Ah, been there…the same man I lived with for six months? I see him occasionally on the street and I feel twitches in my heart. Funny, we haven't been together in years and I feel these guttural reactions."

House laughed to himself, "Years? You couldn't be more than twenty-five in your photo." House fished for a response, knowing that if it really was a picture of her, it might be an old one.

Maia had let her guard slip, had become herself for a moment. She quickly backtracked, "Okay, so it may have only been two years ago, but it seems like a long time to me."

"Have you always lived in Princeton?"

"More or less. I keep coming back. My father was a professor at the university."

"Does he approve of your new vocation? Or is this something you do to work your way through college?"

"My father is dead…has been for quite awhile. Do you see your father?"

House snickered, "My Dad and I aren't exactly bosom buddies. My parents live in California."

"California? Then you don't get to see them very often do you?"

"That's a good thing. My Mom tends to bear most of the pain when we all get together. She hates seeing my Dad and I fight."

"Do you fight because you're so much alike or because you're so different?"

"I used to think we were so different; I'm not so sure now. We both want our own ways and won't give an inch. I can't forgive him the past and he won't forgive me the lack of a future."

Maia felt her heart pinch for this stranger. What is so bad about his life that he doesn't think he has a future? "You sound young enough to still have a future."

"Not really. I'm older than you."

Maia smiled to herself. I'm not so sure. "That doesn't mean you're too old for a future."

House was tired of feeling, "Well, I won't have a future if I keep paying for this phone call."

Maia giggled, "I get the hint. Well, call if you get dirty." Her voice grew soft and kind, "Good night G man."

"Good night Cali."

End - 11:21 pm 42 minutes

Maia stared at the phone for a few minutes, wondering what the man looked like on the other end. Probably pretty ugly. Gorgeous men don't call me, they can pull anyone they want for the real thing. Maia got up and went back to bed, looked over at Phil, his mouth open, snoring and grinned. Phil had been good to her, sticking by her when her life got ugly. He never gave up on her, not once. One thing about Phil, he was well into his fifties, but he believed in a future, he always thought there was one.