He held his finger to his mouth, indicating that she shouldn't talk too loud. She wanted to scream. What was this strange man doing here? She remembered that in the cave he had spoken to her in Greek and acted as if she should know him. As usual, as when other unexplainable things had happened in her life, she had just ignored him. There were some things that if you thought about . . .

"I know. I should have waited." He was whispering softly, in English. "It's just, you can't imagine how much I missed you. How long I have waited. I haven't made love to any woman in ten years. I haven't made love to you in almost two thousand years. I can't wait."

The man was crazy and he was going to rape her. A Kapitan in the Russian army was going to be raped on a U.S. Naval vessel. A woman who had transversed Afghanistan and suffered only dehydration was going to be raped by a mad man once she had reached safety. She reached for her weapon. His hand was even quicker. There was really no space in the room to fight hand-to-hand. He seemed to sense something and backed off.

"I'm sorry. I assumed you knew. I'm really sorry." His eyes were huge and black and filled with tears.

"I guess I am going to have to explain it to you, but I need to touch you. Can I just sit down beside you and explain. I promise. I'm not going to hurt you."

She nodded her head. He sat beside her and took her hand in his. It was large and callused. He smelled like leather and strangely a little like lilacs.

"What should I call you?" He asked.

"My name is Olga, Olga Fedorov. Kapitan Olga Fedorov."

"So should I call you Kapitan, Olga or Fedorov?" He asked.

"What do you think you should call me?"

"Olga, I guess." He wanted to call her Xena. "And you have absolutely no idea who I am?"

"Well if the intelligence we received is correct your name is Ari Sadam and you were, until September 16^th a rather high ranking member of the al-Qaeda forces. Some sort of strategic planner, but battles mainly, not terrorist activities. Or else you would be dead and not here on this ship. On that date. . " She switched to Greek in case the room was being monitored by someone who would surely speak both English and Russian "you accomplished a major goal of the current fighting and decapitated Osama bin Laden. We can't make that public yet or people might think that the war is over. It isn't and won't be for a long time."

He looked into her eyes. It was almost as if he was trying to crawl into her mind, to touch her soul. "You have absolutely no idea who I am, do you." He bent over and took her face in his hands and gently kissed her. His lips were firm and his tongue probing. She suddenly had no fear of rape, but welcomed his advances. She welcomed his removing the towel, she welcomed his hands on her breasts, and the soft firm strokes down her torso. He broke off the kiss and began it again, this time lower and more personal. It had been a long time since she had been made love to, even longer since it had been by a man.

It was so very strange. He claimed he hadn't made love for ten years, yet he seemed in no hurry. He seemed only to be concerned with her pleasure, her feelings. She ran her fingers though his long dark hair and pulled him more tightly into her groin. He held her firmly and seemed almost to be trying to crawl inside her. He made no effort to remove his clothing, to enter her, or to even get her to touch his penis. He seemed content.

She felt her body stiffen and the pangs of orgasm begin to rise. She tried to stifle them, as you did a sneeze when you were in hiding. It made it worse. She thought of knitting -- men thought of baseball. She thought of her grandfather. She thought of headless corpses. 'Damn, nothing was working. This was not a problem women often had with men. Usually they had to fake it. '

When the inevitable happened, she closed her eyes. Her entire body began to convulse. He held her softly until it ended, and when she opened them he was gone. It had to have been some sort of hallucination. She found herself wondering if there had been some sort of sedative in the IV that she had received. Some sort of opiate that had brought on . . . she remembered whisperings, rambling words that he had said as he held her. "I love you. You have absolutely no idea who I am do you? I love you, Xena." Someone and something on this ship was really messing with her mind.

* * * *

In retrospect, and to protect her sanity, Olga decided it was just a dream. She found a hairdryer blew out her hair. The friendly ensign had returned with clean US officer whites that fit her perfectly. She dressed and found her way outside the cabin area. Lt. Paxon was standing, looking out at the sea. She wondered if she should comment on the contents or the IV, but in the interest of diplomacy she decided to let it ride until she had more information.

"The stars are different here than they are in Wisconsin." The young nurse commented.

"Everything seems so 'overhead' and north so far away."

"I was in South Africa once, you felt lost when you looked at the stars. No Ursa Major. No North Star." Kapitan Fedorov commented.

"No following the drinking gourd." Grace thought of the American folksong and how it related to the blacks of South Africa.

'Not the type of comment you would expect from a woman who had drugged you!' Olga thought. "I recognize that from an American Song."

"Always loved it. My mother had it on an old record. You know vinyl record. I think I played it until the needle wore out and we couldn't find another one. Wasn't the same on a CD."

"I mostly listen to classical music. I love Tchaikovsky, don't you."

"The Nutcracker?" The nurse wrinkled her nose. "Sorry that's all I think of. The Waltz of the Flowers. Having to get dressed up at Christmas and go to the ballet while you could be playing in the snow with your friends. People thought I was odd enough in Appleton listening to folk music, never thought of listening to that classical stuff."

"You really should you know. The emotions it brings out . . ." Suddenly her mind was back to that man in her room, in the cave, the man with those black eyes.

"You seem far away." Grace looked up and into her eyes. "That must be some emotion you are feeling." She reached out to take Olga's hand.

'She's coming on to me. That's it. She must have slipped some sort of aphrodisiac into that IV and is waiting for it to take effect.' Even after the cold war ended, tales of what the American's might do if they got their hands on a strong Russian mind still circulated. 'She is going to seduce me and try to find out -- she probably doesn't know about bin Laden.' It was time to put an end to this right now. She looked down at the Lieutenant and pulled her hand back. "Don't ask, don't tell." She whispered. The Lieutenant shuddered and walked away.

Kapitan Fedorov returned to her room. Here she was on a US Naval vessel trapped between an irritating, and horny, blonde Lieutenant and a disappearing dark man who wants to rape her. Given her druthers, she would return to Afghanistan tomorrow, where the enemies she faced would be real and identifiable. Sleep would be a relief, as long as she didn't dream.

* * * *

Kapitan Fedorov awoke refreshed. No men or women had entered her dreams, not even Afghani terrorists. She had had peaceful dreams of flying over Africa watching giraffes, zebras and elephants. She dreamed of swimming in the Black Sea and climbing mountains. She was ready to eat a hearty breakfast and get back to fighting.

Unfortunately the ship's mess was serving that soft, cottony American bread. The hardtack she carried in her pack was better than that stuff. They did have fresh bananas, which she always enjoyed and orange juice. Lieutenant Paxon had been there too. Chirping around from table to table. Always smiling, always friendly. She hid her face behind a large mug of weak American coffee when she danced by her table. Becoming involved with an American nurse was the last thing she needed right now.

The information she received about when she was returning was inconclusive. It seemed all of those airlifted were responding well, however, unless there was a call to return to the mainland to pick up wounded, they were going to remain on the ship another 24 hours for observation. If the choppers had to go back, they would return, so they should remain ready to go on just a few minutes notice. She decided it was best to return to her quarters and pack up the few things that she had brought with her. She planned to remain dressed in her clean clothes until the last notice arrived.

He was sitting in her room when she arrived. He was definitely not a dream or a hallucination.

"Have you figured out who I am yet? Have you even thought about it?" He had an evil smile, yet at the same time projected the aura that he was not going to hurt her.

"I thought.. " she stammered "That you were a hallucination."

"Well, I'm not am I, Olga?"

"Kapitan Fedorov."

"I thought you said I could call you whatever I wanted."

"That was before…"

"You still haven't answered my question. Do you know who I am?"

"I am sorry. I would give you the exact same answer I gave you yesterday, which I feel was not the one you were looking for."

They had stood there, toe to toe, looking in each other's eyes, searching. She had no idea what either of them would have been searching for. He reached out, put his hand on her shoulder, and pulled her into a kiss. Although she kissed him back for a few seconds, she pulled back.

"I have absolutely no interest in a repeat performance of what happened yesterday afternoon." She said sternly.

"Why, I thought you rather liked it."

"I loved it." Why had she said that? Because she had, but then she shouldn't have told him.

"And you still . .

"Have no idea who you are, or at least no idea who you think I should think you are."

"I'm sorry. I'd hoped it wouldn't come to this." His look was distant, almost cruel. He lunged toward her and grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back. He was much stronger than she was and seemed to anticipate her every move. He was definitely going to rape her, or beat her up, or kill her. Maybe all three. He pulled his arm back and made a fist. He was going to hit her in the face. She wondered where the security was on this ship.

"No, can't do it. I thought . . . I've fought you a lot more times than I've fucked you. Maybe you'd remember that. . . but I can't do it."

She was totally confused.

"Sit down. Just stop me when you remember something. OK. Long, long time ago. Thrace. Small farmhouse, belonged to your grandparents. I was a farmer. Big ugly dog, Horace. Used to take things and bury them. Anything? Does anything sound familiar?"

"Dog maybe, but my grandparents lived in Kiev. Never been to Bulgaria. Too depressing. Are you sure you haven't got me confused."

"You'd gone to the village with your friend. The bard. Little blonde."

"Grace?"

"No, Gabrielle. I can't believe it. You really, honestly don't remember."

A knock on the door. She turned to look that way and when she looked back he was gone. She realized that she had been sitting talking to a hallucination again. It was the ensign telling her that she needed to go back to the hospital for a few more tests, nothing serious, the doctors had just decided to test all those who came from the mainland.

Of course Lt. Grace was waiting blood kit in hand for her to come in and get vampirised.

"Well it looks as if your wish has come true." She smiled at the nurse. If you can't beat her, the least you can do is torment her.

"They just decided that while you were here we'd do some tests for exposure to chemical and biological contaminants. Nothing to be worried about. Pump your fist. Now a little stick."

"Shut up and take the blood. I know the drill."

She watched as the tube filled with blood. The nurse changed tubes and took another.

"Now relax."

"I said I knew the drill."

"You know, they teach nurses what to do with patients like you. Just a little slip and you have a nasty hematoma deal with for the next two weeks."

"Even if they outrank you."

"Especially if they outrank you. You should see what we can do with men!"

Kapitan Fedorov could think of one man, somewhere on this ship perhaps, that she would love to see this little nurse get her hands on. 'What a delightful match that would be.' Her smile, while appropriate to her thoughts, was totally out of line with the needle being removed from her arm and the nurse placing a cotton ball and a band aide over the puncture. "Thank you. I trust you will find something interesting."

Olga Fedorov stared out at the Indian Ocean. The strange memories that she had dealt with all her life by ignoring had followed her here. Followed her here, and magnified. She'd never hallucinated like this before, she was sure of it. Maybe she had been exposed to something on the mainland. Maybe al-Qaeda had developed a new weapon and had tested it on the allied ground forces. If that was the case, the war was going to be a long one, a very long one.

* * *

Olga Fedorov couldn't believe it. Kat had moved to Prague. The woman she loved, the woman she had expected to spend the rest of her life with, had taken a job with an American law firm in Prague. She hadn't even written to tell her, but just left a message with her landlord in Moscow. The hairy old man was only too delighted to deliver the message when she stopped to pick up her key. She wanted to throw her fist through the wall. All that time, thinking about coming home. She turned her back and started up the stairs.

"Kapitan Fedorov, wait, I've got something else for you."

She spun around. He threw an audiocassette with a note wrapped around it at her. She caught it with one hand and continued up the stairs. She knew who had sent it, but wondered what the note would say.

Still wondering if you remembered. Got tired of waiting in your empty apartment. Remember I do love you. If you need me just call. Ari.

She had come home for a three-week vacation -- R & R as the American's called it -- from the war. Now she finds out that her lover has moved and some crazy man has been hanging out in her apartment. She went into her bedroom expecting to see her civilian underwear spread all over the room. She worried that he might be stalking her, waiting outside for her to leave her apartment, or worse yet, hiding in the shadows like he did on the ship, convinced that she really did love him, as he kept saying he loved her. To her surprise, the apartment was as she left it and empty.

She awoke the next morning and went to the gym before breakfast. For the first time in seven months she worked out with heavy weights and found that she if anything had gotten stronger. She had lost five kilos but felt fit.

"I hear your girlfriend left for Prague." A short bald man working out at the next bench said to her.

"What is this, dump on Olga week. Even my gym friends welcome me back with bad news."

"Sorry. She wasn't good for you, you know. Just liked the idea you were a military hero. She wasn't going to wait."

"I thought she was. Good and willing to wait."

"Well, even Kapitan Olga Fedorov can be wrong sometimes."

"By the way, have you seen a strange man around here. Tall, very well built, long black hair, black eyes."

"Olga, you just described half the men in this gym."

"Names Ari, or Ares or something like that." She had no idea where the name Ares had come from after she said it.

"Arum. Arum Tchaikovsky. Says he's related to the composer. Started coming in about five months ago. Works out three-four hours a day. No idea what he does, but he usually comes in about ten. Do you want me to tell him you asked."

"Don't you dare say a word to him. Arum you say. I can't believe the bastard is calling himself Tchaikovsky. Don't you ask for identification when someone joins this gym."

"I did, he had it, Olga. I.D. card, passport, everything."

She muttered under her breath. She was only going to be in town for three weeks. If she got here early and was gone by 9:30, she probably wouldn't run into him. That is if she could trust the weasel that ran this gym not to tell him that she was here in the morning.

"What was it like there, Olga?" Her work out friend asked.

"You know, cold, dry, ugly. Bad food. Lots of blood. The usual."

"Sounds like it."

"Yah, but you know what the worst thing about Afghanistan is?"

"No, what."

"Worst place on earth to try to pick up women."

He laughed. It was too bad that this gorgeous woman had absolutely no interest in men. But then, if she wasn't interested in men, why had she asked about Arum Tchaikovsky. He wondered.

* * *

"Grace. Lt. Commander Harris wants to see you." Jeff had a concerned look on his face. "Says it is important."

"Lt. Paxon," the Major asked, "How is your Russian?"

"Totally non-existent. I don't even know how to say hello. I know 'nyet' or is it 'neyt'. That's about the extent of it."

"What if I were going to tell you that you were going to spend the next three weeks in Moscow."

"I'd say 'nyet.'"

"And I'd say what you say has nothing to do with it. Our friends the Russian's have developed a new way of taking blood. It doesn't involve needles, some sort of ultrasonic beam that inserts a cannula. Really cuts down the risk of blood born contamination. We're sending you to learn about it.."

"Shouldn't you send a doctor?"

"Can't spare a doctor. Never know when a battle is going to turn ugly. This is really a skill for nurses, you're the ones who insert most of the needles, and you Lt. Paxon are our best vampire."

"I guess I could stand a change of scenery. " Six plus months of ocean had gotten a little old, even to someone from Wisconsin.

"Go pack your things. You leave in two hours. "

"Thanks. I'll get you a Faberge egg or something. They do come in chocolate, don't they?"

"I thank you in advance Lt. Paxon. Now get going."

She couldn't believe it. She had been picked to go to Moscow to learn about this new procedure. Three whole weeks away from this cussed gray ship, that cussed blue ocean, and that cussed red blood. No! There was still going to be blood, lots of it. She wondered if she might run into Kapitan Fedorov, but convinced herself that the blue-eyed Russian was still killing men in caves in Afghanistan, if she hadn't been killed herself.

* * * *

Olga had been home less than a day and already she was bored. After a hearty breakfast, she had no idea what to do next. She had not made plans to fill her downtime, expecting to spend it with Kat. Now with her lover gone she had absolutely no interest in going out to try to find someone else. Not with her leaving again in three weeks. She walked silently in the cold rain; it wasn't spring yet, even though the calendar said April.

He was walking silently beside her. Matching strides. She could sense his presence before she saw him. Again he appeared out of nowhere. It was beginning to get frightening. After not bothering her for six months, she was certain he was not a hallucination, but wasn't sure what he could be.

"I hear you have a new name. Complete with I.D." She looked him square in the eye and told him.

"Creative aren't I? Don't you just love it?"

"Why are you stalking me?"

"I'm not stalking you. I just heard that you might be a little lonely the next few weeks. Girlfriend left you. Those guys in the gym were sure excited about it."

"Damn them, always talking behind my back."

"You should hear what they say, or maybe you shouldn't. You've killed men for less than that."

"If there is a man I should kill, it would be you. Mr. Sadam or Mr. Tchaikovsky, or whatever you think I should KNOW your name is."

"Still don't remember do you?" He asked again.

"I know, maybe it's Rumplestiltskin."

He laughed. "Not quite, but a good guess. Going to have to give you style points on that."

'Damn' she thought to herself. 'Why does this stalker have to be so good looking? Why is he so tempting? Why do I want to take him home with me.'

'That's it, Xena.' He thought to himself. 'Go with it. Just let it run and you'll remember who I am.' "Let's get out of the rain. Get a cup of coffee or something. How about coming back to my apartment. It's just a couple of blocks from here."

'Damn it, why did I just say "yes:' she thought to herself.

* * * *

He made Greek coffee, replete with sugar, in a small copper pot, and poured it into small white cups.

"Why do you insist that I am Greek? I was born here in Moscow. My family is from Kiev. Never been to Greece in my life." She said.

He answered her in Greek. "That is where your spirit is. Why do you speak the language of a country where you have never been?"

"In case you haven't noticed. I am speaking Classical Greek. I learned it in college. A modern Athenian would understand about every third world. Why do you understand me?"

"Haven't you wondered that, too, Olga? My Greek is the same as yours. Does that mean anything?"

She hadn't. Now she did. "All Greek to me. .Sorry. I couldn't resist."

"Quite honestly, it doesn't matter what language you speak. I know them all. Any language where a war has ever been fought." He wondered if he was giving anything away. He had so wanted her to figure it out for herself. He was fairly sure now that he hadn't resurrected her from the ashes in that cave, but instead caused her spirit, alive and well and living in the twenty-first century to come to him. It was his Xena; she just didn't know it. He wanted her to figure it out for herself.

"Think someone told me that once, when I got the orders to go find you in that cave. Didn't know what it meant then, still don't. You are the most mysterious man I have ever known."

"And you have known me for a long, long time."

"You keep telling me that. How long? Didn't you say two-thousand years."

"You have a good memory, Kapitan Fedorov. Short term anyway. It's that long term stuff that seems to have slipped a bit."

"Well, if I have two-thousand years of memories, sorting through them is going a while. I'm only back home for three weeks, so I'd rather not bother."

"Not bother!" He seemed somewhat upset.

"Yes, why do we not make that the operative phrase for the next three weeks -- You will NOT BOTHER me and I will NOT BOTHER trying to figure out who you are."

"And if I don't"

"I have friends on the police. I can have your good looking ass thrown in jail and I am sure that the GUYS there will have a lot of interesting ways of making you feel right at home."

She turned and walked out the door. Once again he stood there alone and confused, wondering where he had gone wrong this time again.

* * * *

Grace Paxon sat in the classroom and looked around. There were about thirty people, ten of them women, five of them very attractive, in the seminar. The speaker would talk, three to five minutes, in Russian and then a voice would come in her earphones translating it into English. It gave her a lot of time to look around and look at the people, check out her "gay-dar" which was rusty from the ship. 'Shit, it was rusty from Appleton, Wisconsin, too,' she thought. She probably wouldn't know a gay woman if she came up and kissed her.

'Kissed her,' she thought above the translation, 'I should have kissed her. That night on the ship. I wanted to kiss her. She was so beautiful there with the wind in her hair. She was . . .

The program ended without an English translation. The final few minutes had to have been banal platitudes that the presenters deemed unworthy of translation, or else they were government secrets. She would never know. She thought about all those years in high school in college she had struggled with French, then changed to Spanish because it was supposed to be easier, how could she have known that what she really should have been studying was Russian.

Her hotel was a short two-block walk from the hospital where the classes were being held. It would be easy to not venture further into this city that seemed to alien. She walked with her head down carrying the heavy bad of materials they had been given for the course and ran into . . . Olga Fedorov.

'Was it proper to hug a Russian military officer on the streets of Moscow? Hell, she didn't care.' She grabbed the taller woman and pressed her body against hers.

Olga Fedorov seemed somewhat surprised at the nature of the hug. With another woman it would be breast to breast, groin to groin, but Olga was so much taller that the two women's body parts just seemed to spoon into convenient hollows. Grace loved the way Olga smelled and didn't want to let go.

"I thought you were in Afghanistan rescuing men in caves!"

"And I thought you were on the Indian Ocean, sewing up the men I rescue."

"R & R."

"Vampire training."

They both laughed.

"Do you need a drink. We Russians drink too much. I know a nice place down the street."

Grace thought, 'You need a drink. There isn't enough vodka in Russia to cover what I am going to do to you tonight.'

They were the only two women in the bar, yet none of the men seemed to bother looking at them. In fact, most of them didn't look beyond their personal glasses of vodka. Grace found it hard to visualize another place where Olga Fedorov could have walked into where the men present would not have stopped dead in their tracks and stared at her. It were Russian men that dead and uninterested, or was this a gay bar?

They sat, talked and drank. At first they talked about meaningless things. Then Olga allowed her to babble about the course she was talking, the details of drawing blood, things she couldn't have cared about. She remembered taking her hand and demonstrating the finger prick, and not letting go. She had rolled up the Kapitan's sleeve and traced the veins on the inside of her elbow with her finger. She wanted to trace the veins on the inside of her neck. She had not removed her hand as Olga told tales of Afghani caves.

Grace was still nursing her second drink while Olga seemed to have had four, or was it five. A few slices of hard, dense, dark bread had appeared, with sweet white butter. They had filled her stomach and produced the same feeling as dark chocolate. No wonder the Russians had always complained about the bread on the ship.

"It's getting late. I should be getting back to the hotel."

"I'll walk you back. It's not safe to walk the streets alone."

"But you will be walking back to your apartment alone."

"First of all, I am a Kapitan in the Russian army. I can take care of myself."

"First?" She looked up at the taller woman.

"And second, who said, I am going home?" Olga took her face in her hands and softly kissed her. Obviously "don't ask, don't tell" was not the rule in the Russian army. Here was an officer kissing another woman in the dark, but still rather public, bar. Perhaps else the men in this bar had secrets of their own not to ask or tell.

She could not walk close enough to Olga as they navigated the two blocks to the hotel. Her steps came with irregular rhythm as if she were the one who had had the five glasses of vodka. She didn't remember when she had been so excited. She was surprised she could walk at all. They separated as she retrieved the key to her room and walked up the three flights of stairs, but as soon as the door opened, they were in each other's arms again.

There was no time for ritual undressing; neither of them wanted to wait for the other to take the lead. Grace removed her own blouse and folded it neatly; Olga peeled off her T-shirt.

"Stop. Let me look at you this way," Olga said when Grace had removed her trousers. She was wearing a floral patterned bra and matching bikini panties. "I've always had a thing about western underwear. Leave it on for a while, please." Strangely enough Grace had thought the exact same thing about Olga's ribbed knit, seriously covering, underwear.

'Tidy whities' she had said to herself.

Olga kissed her and held her tightly. The bodies, undressed, seemed to fit a little better. In fact, undressed, it didn't seem to matter how the bodies fit. Grace reached under Olga's shirt and fondled her huge breasts. She had never made love to a woman with breasts like that. Olga had breasts like the women in men's magazines, except they were real.

"Lie down, and let me undress you. I've always wanted to untie those little strings that hold on woman's panties. Too bad yours are elastic."

"If I'd known, I would have worn my tie-on ones this morning. Maybe tomorrow."

"If, I'd known, I would have checked for holes," Olga laughed. Grace's finger had found a hole in her underwear and had sneaked inside.

"Are there more? I hope."

"That tickles!"

"It's supposed to."

"Shut up girl, and let me fuck you."

"Make me." She did.

Although Grace had always known she was gay, the sex she was having with Olga was different than any she had had with a woman. She was more powerful, in control, and yet at the same time totally uninhibited. It seemed totally natural, as if the things they were doing what female bodies had been designed to do. Olga seemed to sense and do things that Grace had only done to herself, but with the feeling of unexpected pleasure that comes from someone else's hand. 'Well, Grace, you're not in Wisconsin anymore' was all she could think.

She didn't remember drifting off to sleep. She only remembered waking up, looking at the clock and realizing she was already late for the first morning session. Instead of awakening Olga with the same pleasures with which the Kapitan had put her to sleep the night before, she had to dress quickly and run to her classes.

* * *

Olga awoke starving in the small hotel room. Grace was gone. Looked at the clock and realized it was almost ten-thirty am. Too late to go to the gym and not run into Arum or whatever he was calling himself that day. She wasn't sure she wanted to go into the gym smelling of sex -- female sex -- anyway. She walked in the bathroom, splashed some water on her face, and swirled some of Grace's mouthwash in her mouth. It was too early in the relationship to borrow her toothbrush.

She turned around and he was there. Standing right behind her leaning against the door jam to the bedroom. He was wearing a soft leather jacket, full cut black trousers, and a too tight black T-shirt with Paverotti printed in white on the front. The ever-present leering smile was there, too.

"What in the hell are you doing HERE?" She took two steps toward him.

He grabbed her, pulled her toward him, and kissed her full on the lips. He didn't stop. She was not used to kissing men while she was naked; she was not used to kissing men. His short beard brushed against her face. With such little time passed, the difference between being kissed by a man and a woman became apparent. It was definitely different.

"I tried to stay away," he said, "But as you can tell you still BOTHER ME."

Finally mustering enough courage to pull away, she glared at him.

"I assume, since you seem to be trailing me, that you realize that I have just spent the last twelve hours making love to a WOMAN. I am a lesbian. Do you understand me? I don't DO MEN!!"

He smiled at her softly. "If that is the case, Xena. Will you please take your hand off my butt."

She pulled it away, as if it was in a fire, but he grabbed her again. "You can put it back if you want, but I certainly would prefer it if you put it on the front of my pants." She missed her chance to comment on the name he had called her, there was no way she could respond now because she had parted her lips and allowed him to fill her mouth with his tongue. Her hands, to her total shock, were doing exactly what he had suggested.

She unfastened his belt, unbuttoned the top of his trousers and slowly unzipped. The pants fell unaided to the floor. He was not wearing underwear. She was not aware of his hands ever leaving her body, yet with a slight shrug, the jacket was gone. He lowered her to the bed -- Grace's bed -- and mounted her still wearing the T-shirt.

Although she had gladly welcomed an assortment of oversized, creatively engineered, and pseudo-realistic sex toys, that women like Kat sometimes used in lieu of fingers and tongues, it had been years -- since she had been a teenager-- that she had had a manís penis in her body. She had forgotten its natural warmth. No teenage boy she had fucked had been this large or this skilled. He kept her pinned to the bed in what she had always called "momma and papa" position, and refused to let her roll him over.

"Today, I am fucking you Xena. You can always fuck me later." It was that name again. It just rolled off his tongue so naturally, and he was talking to her in Greek again.

He came first, his sticky cum spilling out on the bed. "I'm sorry. I thought I had remarkable self control considering how long it has been," he whispered. His hand covered her hand on her crotch. "We'll work at this together, Xena. I love looking at you like this."

"That's the third time, you've called me that."

"You can still count. I must have lost my touch." He snuggled a kiss into her neck, laughing a little. "And I suppose you still don't even know who I am."

"I suppose you couldn't fuck me again."

"Why do you suppose that?" His cock was hard against her stomach.

"I'm not often wrong."

"This time you are." This time she was on top. This time she came.

"Your little nurse friend is going to be in for a real shock when she comes back. Hotel housekeeping is not going to be able to mask the smell of what went on after she left. She is going to know."

Olga glared at him. She hadn't thought about Grace for over an hour. With all honesty she wanted to grab him again, to feel his cock in her mouth, or maybe even in her ass. She couldn't imagine what had happened to her. She wasn't high. She wasn't drunk. She wasn't even hungry anymore.

He was gone. His clothes were gone, but the scent remained. Nothing she, or a legion of Russian housekeepers, could do would remove the smell of that man. She tossed her holey underwear in the wastebasket and put on her outside clothes. She had to get away. Somewhere far away. Somewhere safe. On the way back to her apartment to change, brush her teeth, and gather a few clothes, she stopped at the train station and bought a ticket to Kiev. She was going to spend the next two weeks with her grandfather.

PART TWO