"I write about things I'll never know," -Michelle Branch "Where Are You Now"

1.
Marie smiled as her mother brushed her hair out of her face and kissed Marie's cheek. The older woman took the washrag from Marie's reddened fingers. "Let me take care of that, sweetie."

"Okay, Mom. Thanks," Marie said, and buried her face in the cat's fur.

4.
He blinked in the sudden burst of sunlight set free from the trees. Blinded for a moment, he put his arm solidly around Marie's waist to hold the two of them steady.

As the spots cleared and the breeze sent a thin cloud to dim the sun's dazzling light, he looked into Marie's eyes. /The color of melted chocolate,/ he thought, wanting to taste her.

Sensing his thoughts, Marie ducked into the shade of a sugar maple and felt like cotton candy as his lips met pliant with hers.

7.
Marie and her sister were holding hands as they crossed the street.

"Look both ways, now," Marie instructed, and waited impatiently as they walked at the toddler's pace to the other side.

Marie wrenched her hand free of the sticky remnants of raspberry jam on bread, and wrapped cautious fingers around the child's wrist instead.

10.
Marie smiled. There was a boy on her bed, lounging, looking handsomely interested as she pointed out places on her wall map she wanted to visit someday. For the adventure.

/This/ was an adventure. A boy on her bed. She dropped down next to him. He leaned close to her. She wasn't scared; he was going to kiss her now. This was why she had invited him over the day after her parents had dissolved the "no-boy-in-room" rule.

Marie leaned into his lips. It was nice; soft, nice, and the niceness didn't stop when he parted her lips with his nice, soft tongue.

They kissed for a while, then parted and smiled knowingly. Marie asked him if he wanted to listen to some music.

12.
She fell onto the feather bed, tiny feet kicking up in the air as Marie pounced on her baby cousin. "Here comes the monster!" Marie lowered her voice to a growl.

Her cousin burst into hysterical laughter and scampered across the bed. When she tripped on a pillow, Marie waggled her fingers and tickled her cousin until she collapsed from exhaustion and the giggles became a little more like sobs.

The two lay on the bed, motionless, for a few moments. When Marie's cousin caught her breath she taunted, "I'm a princess and you can't get me!" then squeaked as Marie sat up, and jumped off the bed and ran down the hall in playful chase.

16.
This spring the leaves were beautiful, and the air crisp and still cool carrying the faint taste of frost. Benny's smoothly connected muscled moved and pushed as Marie urged him faster with her knees. She was bareback, her hands tangled in Benny's mane. She gently patted him on the neck before whispering a soft "whoa…" She sat, relaxed now and gazed up through the leaves and branches at the gentle sunlight streaming down to warm her skin.

Marie slid off Benny and gave him a quick kiss.

20.
The rhythm thundered through Marie's veins. She could feel it traveling up from the floor, crawling up the walls and then launching itself at her mind. It was freeing. No one watched anyone else, caring only that the beat flowed in and out of them. If two bodies crashed into one another or flailing limbs became entwined, no one made a fuss about it.

For the first time, Marie wasn't just Marie. She was part of this being, this amorphous solid, this living, breathing thing. Everyone was connected, and everyone was the same. The music turned her skin to liquid and it melted together with the liquid skin of her friends.

They danced until they collapsed. And then they were separate again.

23.
Marie sat at her desk, pouting at the way the pen she held clicked and un-clicked when she pressed its tip to the paper. Hamlet. In an essay, analyze Hamlet's relationships citing varied examples, and the differences between them. She was supposed to be writing an essay for English class tomorrow- not scowling and contemplating all the scathing letters she would write to the pen company if she ever got the chance. Or another pen that worked...

A quiet knock at her door caused Marie to look up and smile. "Hey dad. You wouldn't happen to have an extra pen on you, would ya?" She unscrewed the cap of her own and spilled the contents on her desk for added dramatic flair. "This one's broke."

The man who shared her eyes, if not her youth selected a pen from his breast pocket and tossed it at his only daughter. She made an impish face and bent again over her paper. Her father approached her from behind, drawing forth old memories of a game the two of them had used to play. He rubbed the top of her head lightly, but purposefully mussing her hair. Marie laughed. "Okay, okay! Thanks for the pen, dad!"

He pretended to be annoyed. Sniffing, he made his way stiffly to the door. "What are you writing anyway?"

Marie rolled her eyes. "Hamlet. I gotta get started, so..."

"Started?"

"Uh. You know what I mean."

29.
"No way, where did you hear that, Marie?" Danielle wrinkled her nose in distaste.

"Jonnie and Sue were talking right behind me in Algebra. And, supposedly Jon was there... I thought Sue was going to have a heart attack or something she was laughing so hard." Marie held out two small bottles. "Which?" she asked, indicating that Danielle should choose something.

"Is that teal? That one then." Marie undid the lid of the nail polish bottle and swirled the brush around a few times. "Sue is such a freak."

"Dan, put your foot on my knee, I feel like my back is gonna give out or something the other way. Have you seriously not heard a thing?" Marie watched her work as she painted well-practiced strokes on her friend's toe nails.

"Only that... and I heard this on my bus on the way to school, so it like, doesn't mean anything. Just that, you know, there was more than pot being passed around."

Marie blew lightly on Danielle's foot, making her recoil and shiver. "Ashland's sickeningly older boyfriend 'donated' some heavy stuff, so yeah, actually true. Other foot." There was a pause as Marie got situated again. "Poor Shawn, though. I don't think he'll ever get a date again."

31.
It was one of those obscenely long drives across the southern United States that Marie's family seemed to take once a year and at that; far too often. The scenery was nice, but she saw the same things out of her window at home. Marie's head began to feel heavy, and she leaned it against the shuddering window-shuddering because of the poor roads and probably road kill as well.

It was jarring her thoughts, and Marie began to question whether she might get more rest sitting up like normal. Darren, her brother younger by just a year and a half nudged her elbow with his own.

"You can sleep on my shoulder. Unless you want your brains to drip out of your ears." Darren grinned, and shifted a little so Marie could rest against soft skin instead of the bones of Darren's shoulder.

"Thanks, Dare," and Marie lowered her cheek. Darren's neck was warm, and Marie quickly fell into a deep sleep.

38.
Marie shivered as a chill raced up her spine even though the car was stopped and the windows were up and the air was becoming warmer and more stifling as the minutes passed.

Oddly, her mother's voice kept circling in her head: "You aren't acting like yourself today, hon. What's wrong?"

Nothing was wrong, Marie felt the world slip away, leaving the car, the heat, herself, Andrew, alone in a protected bubble. She wasn't acting like herself, and it was marvelous. This was nothing like when Aaron had pecked a dry, hard kiss to Marie's innocent, unready cheek.

This was… god! Andrew's firm hands clasped around Marie's waist to pull her impossibly closer as she had already straddled the boy and felt as though she was melting into him.

The muffled noises that their kisses made and called forth only pushed them to a more desperate closeness. All of Marie's senses were on full power, making the slide of Andrew's hands up under her shirt all at once agonizing and ecstasy. The pads of his fingers reached the clasp of her bra, and he grunted, trying to maintain a gentlemanly attitude. Marie groaned in a way that he would have mistaken for pain except that it was accompanied by a movement of her hips and her fingers lacing in his pale hair.

He undid the garment, strapless so it fell easily to the seat next to them, and in the same cautious but desperate feeling with which he had first kissed Marie, his hands firmly cupped her slightly damp breasts. He startled, momentarily drawing his hands away, but quickly pressing them to her once again, his calluses serving to insight Marie to drive her fingernails to crevices in his back through his shirt. When she settled, she dragged her nails across skin that still goose-bumped even in the heat to halt her hands on the gap between Andrew's stomach and the top of his belt buckle.

His muscles jumped, and the kiss was broken. Their mouths were red and swollen, eyes dark with passion. Marie tilted her head in question, letting her eyes unfocus and mouth slide into a lazy smile.

His eyes were clearing, the intensity withdrawn. "I… I can't." He leaned forward to kiss her once again, but with none of the heat of the moments before. A kiss from a statue it felt so cold and empty.

Marie nodded slightly, and bent to locate her bra to disguise the way her face had transformed from heat and rapture to messy hair and black-stained tears from mascara. "Guess it's time for me to go then."

39.
Marie watched in amazement as her body flushed pink, her heart quickened and her scarlet mouth hung open because all of her concentration vibrated from where blue hair tickled her stomach. Skin flush to hers reduced her to silence and the wonder that two could be so different, but fit. So completely was Marie dazed in fixation that she flinched violently when warm lips found her breast.

"Oh! I keep forgetting it's your first time," the girl moved in laughter and slid her leg across Marie, causing all else but feeling to plummet and spin away. Kai laced one hand in mahogany tresses and used the other to lift Marie's hand which was dumb with over-stimulation.

"I think you're trying to kill me," Marie whimpered.

"I will if you don't help out!" Kai mock-threatened. "Hand," she skimmed it across where their bodies were joined, then lower. "You told me a long time ago that you wanted your first to be epic, fireworks in your eyelids and all," she paused to lick and tease at the tender skin on Marie's breast, smiling when it darkened and wanted more, "Well, I can't do everything at once. Don't be afraid to lose control- if I drag this out too long I think you will explode. So, touch."

Marie no longer hesitated to work at her center, her core, which was throbbing with need that increased moment by moment. "Kai?" Marie turned quickly to the other's face, and when lips met, her body arched as waves crashed to the sounds of breath and moan. Kai held her close as Marie melted onto the bed.

"Kai? You're not…? Are you?"

A kiss calmed and Kai whispered even as Marie drifted to sleep "Don't worry. We have forever, and you're worth it."

--
She had a feeling; something stirred her from her desk, from her dimly lit room. It was so strong that she even forgot to wrap a scarf double around her neck, and she forgot to put her gloves back on. She had a feeling that her hair was a mess, but before she had any thought of running anxiously back to her room, she heard the somewhat familiar sound of Scott's motorcycle coming up the drive and she was plastered to the window.

She couldn't take her eyes off him. She strained to get the clearest view and she pressed her bare hands to the glass, gloves and scarf long forgotten.

He stared straight ahead as he swaggered up the path to the front door of the mansion. He raised his hand to knock, feeling a vague urge to just forget the niceties and pop a claw to undo the lock. But before he did anything rash, there she was, opening the door.

And there he was; mouth slightly open and eyes full of keen interest. Her throat seemed to be clamped off.

"Hey," Wolverine said softly. He gestured lazily with his left hand, "Found that switch Xavier's always talking about?"

She blushed. "Nah… just got distracted and forgot `em. Welcome back, Logan." She couldn't stop the step she made towards him. He touched her hair as she carefully wrapped her arms around his middle. "Missed you," she mumbled into his jacket, thinking in wonder at the strong arms holding her there.

The hug ended after a moment, and with each other at arms length again, Wolverine gently placed his gloved hand against the side of Rogue's face. "Guess it's about time I called you Rogue, huh?" She smiled up at him and he returned the expression. "Missed you too." --

1.
There's a story about a girl named Rogue. It hasn't been written because what she touches she destroys. She was untouchable; when she touched people she hurt them. Touch was impossible, and she forgot to remember herself.

She found another way, secluded and alone. She couldn't touch, and yet, she touched anyway. And it was perfect because he touched her in return. So perfect, she could no longer find the words.

Fin