I'm a pretty simple man. Most men are, I've come to find out. When it comes down to my wants, my needs, I'm not so one in a million. I'll be honest with you. I, like most men I'm sure, think about three basic things. Food, sleep, and sex, and not always in that order.

Food is easy enough to explain. For me, anything will do, except for all that rabbit food 'Ro used to try and force on me. No, despite that, any food is good, and I am especially impartial to meat (I usually take mine extra rare) and an ice-cold Molson's to wash it all down. I used to have to abstain from the latter because of all the little punk kids running around the mansion that would just love to get their hands on some, but I digress. Anyway, as I was saying, I used to have to abstain from the latter, but you know me. I had to go run off again. I can't help it or explain it really, and saying that it's just my nature sounds like I'm trying to justify it.

Never have I met a man that didn't enjoy sleep. Of course, when you're younger, you try to do as little of it as you can, but at my age it's such a brilliant luxury that I enjoy it whenever I can, hour by hour. I must say though, when you're me, plagued by dreams of a life you can't remember, you begin to stop taking a few hours rest for granted. For God's sake, with the company I keep some nights, it's a miracle I ever get to sleep at all.

Which brings me, unavoidably, to sex. I can live without it, but I'd really rather not. It's not about having a warm body, companionship, or someone to talk to. What it's really about, at least for me, is the sex. The raw, hot, sweaty, shaking, delicious, feral sex. I don't do it to find a mate, I don't so it because I'm looking for love. I do it because, above all, it feels good. And damn it, I hate to admit it, but part of me uses these women as some sort of substitute for the woman I do love. Christ, I've never admitted that before, not even to myself. I guess, in actuality, it's not really love. Not yet. I think it could be though.

I remember when I first met Marie. Just a kid, trying to make it on her own. She hid away in the back of my trailer because she saw the compassion in me that I, nor anyone else had. She knew all along that I'd help her. So I did, ended up skewering her, then saving her life twice, at the aid of my healing factor and her absorption abilities. Then, I had to leave, and I found no more that I had wandering aimlessly for the fifteen years prior to Laughlin City, the cage fighting, Marie, everything.

When I came back, both my eyes and my dick immediately noticed she was less of a kid and more of a woman. Fuck if she helped the situation, walking around in those tight, low-cut tops, clutching her little Ice-Breath's hand. He wasn't a bad kid, not really, but I'd caught the little Popsicle staring at Marie a little less innocently than I would have liked. In fact, I could smell the arousal coming off the punk on several occasions, and if it weren't for the fact that he was a minor, I probably would have cut the little brat. You see, no one really is good enough for my Marie, especially not some horny teenager who'd had her filed away in his spank bank ever since she'd first come to the mansion.

So then, after the incident at Alkalai Lake, and Jean's death, I'd gone running again, just like I said. It's the way I deal with things. It's been two years since I've been gone. I want to go back, I do, if not for my sake and if only for Marie's. Although, at this second, returning to the mansion is one of the last things on my mind.

Did I mention that I'm particular to brunettes? I don't guess I have to tell you why. Of course, this one ain't no Marie. None of them are. They keep me satisfied enough, though, which is why I keep them in my company. I picked her up in some trashy little diner in the outskirts of this North Carolina beach town we're in. I know, the South isn't where I typically go when I'm on the run, but I guess I went this direction because I needed a change of scenery.

Anyway, she approached me in this diner, a Waffle House specifically, her hair stick-straight, wearing some kind of push-up bra thing, asking me right out if I wanted to head over to the Motel 6 across the street and rumple up some bed sheets. Her name was Joanne, she had said, and she wasn't interested in anything but a romp in the hay. She kind of reminded me of Marie in the face, had a similar little Southern accent, and I hadn't had a woman in weeks. A man can't rely on masturbation alone, now can he?

I paid for the room. I think she was expecting to until I pulled out my wallet and thrust cash at the clerk, who seemed pretty sure what me and this woman had planned with checking into a motel at two in the morning. He handed me the key, not even trying to hide his shit-eating smile. I snarled at him and his expression faded away rather quickly.

So here we are in room number twenty-eight, and she's taken off her top and crawled on top of me, grinding her ass into my dick. Joanne turns around, unfastens my pants, and pulls them down to my knees. I'm already hard and it makes her grin, and she presses her mouth to my cock. She swirls her tongue around me with the confidence of a woman who'd blown a thousand men, but never really took the time to learn technique. Even so, her tongue's a nice vacation for my hand, so her sucking and amateur ministrations with her hands have affected me more than I had expected.

I'm pretty close to coming when she takes the condom I'd placed on the nightstand and rolls it out onto my cock. She talks dirty to me and I sheath myself in her and it's getting damn near impossible to imagine it's Marie I'm fucking and not some chick I'd known for little less than an hour. Still, she's tight, giving me the illusion that she hadn't done this with hundreds of men, and I find myself coming pretty quickly, despite the fact that it's hard to get me off in under an hour. She even ignores the fact that I call her Marie instead of her own name, and out of etiquette I continue on, absently fingering her clit until she does finally have her orgasm.

Joanne didn't lie. She didn't want sweet talk or promises or anything other than the fuck she'd asked for, and no less than two minutes after we're finished, she's getting dressed again, kissing me chastely and walking out the door.

This is the moment that has spent two years in the making. I find myself sitting there in this uncomfortable bed at near three in the morning deciding I'm sick of running, sick of meaningless fucks, and so sick of trying to pretend that I don't want what I do. So right now I make my decision and now, I'm getting up out of the bed, pulling up my pants and heading home to Marie.