Ashes to Ashes - Prt 03

Zone 21

The Body Shop

Day 08 - 0100L

The sex was good but than with Ander's it had always been. He didn't tend to have the emotional hang-up's or performance anxiety that most of the men she'd slept with before him had. For Ander's it was always a raw and primitive expression of the biological urge. When he wanted it there wasn't a woman she could think of that wouldn't just let him have it.

Honestly she couldn't think of a time in the nearly two years they had been going at it that she herself hadn't given in to him each and every time he showed up at her door with that smile on his lips and that villainous look in his eye.

Hell It was probably the very same reason Jenny, his wife and mother of his three children all but ignored his frequent trysts with her. It only got stranger from there because once Jenny found out about the two of them she had made it a point to meet and soon they became fast friends or at least as friendly as Mei was emotionally able to be and Jenny for her part was comfortable enough with Mei to ask her to look after the kids from time to time when she felt that she and her husband needed quality time together.

Theirs was not the normal wife/mistress dynamic that played out on the popular entertainment Vids.

When this was all over Mei was certain she going to miss Jenny and the kids almost as much as she'd miss Ander's, perhaps more if she really thought about it.

--

Untangling herself from Ander's she push herself up from the bed collecting a bed shirt and a box of sticks from the bedstand lighting one as she stared out the windows wondering briefly how all the cracks from two days before had mended themselves before than turning her attentions to the bed once again.

"This has to be the last time." She said simply.

Ander's for his part opened his eyes offering something of a confused look regarding her statement. His expression that of a man trying to work out the why and uncertain if he had done something to merit the declaration.

" It's kind of sudden isn't it ?" He said after a moment. " I mean shouldn't we talk about this first."

"We are talking..." She countered plainly. " I think what you mean to say is that you would like the opportunity to talking me out of it."

Ander's nodded clearly more confused than before. " Yeah, I guess... "

Leaning against the glass she took a long drag off her stick blowing the cloud of scent vapor into the air between them.

" We can't keep doing this. I can't continue to be the other woman in your life and honestly I like Jenny far to much to even consider having you make a choice between us."

She paused than feeling anger regarding the situation she had never thought to acknowledge before.

"... And honestly why should bother. You and I both know that you will always choose her over me anyways. I'm the replaceable one in this little game aren't I. Not her ... never her?"

" Wait, No, whats changed ? " Ander's pressed still trying to work out the why.

"What's changed, what's changed ..." Mei found herself echoing." Nothing's changed Ander's. Nothing ever changes..."

Mei cut herself short before the urge to start screaming at the man overwhelmed her. Pushing the stick back between her lips she inhaled deeply. The truth was that her anger wasn't really directed at Ander's as it was at a history of bad call's and poor choices on her part, and then there was that deep seeded fear inside her that her choice to accept Robin's offer was just another bad call on her part.

" Someone's proposed to me. " She acknowledged finally. " ... and I said yes. "

It was an odd thing really seeing recognition register on mans features. That sudden sense of being exposed as he realized that he was seated naked before her. The once familiar and comfortable feeling they shared replaced in an instant by a wrong and totally unnatural feeling of suddenly being naked in front of a stranger.

" Congratulations. "Ander's offered collecting the bed sheet to cover himself. " Anyone I know ? "

Mei nodded finding some humor in the question.

"Very likely."

"Someone in the unit... within OSEC or OCOM maybe ? " Ander's pressed scanning the floor for his uniform. " Does he have a name ? "

" His name is Travis ...." She said as she extinguished her stick against the glass tossing it into the trash can next to the bed. " Travis Robins."