Bastard. Don’t do it. Don’t picture her face.

He was in a dark motel room, the cheap bedding scratchy against his skin. He couldn’t sleep, started touching himself before he really even knew what he was doing.

He was in a strange mood after recovering a body from a backroad ditch. Got on his laptop as soon as he finished with the police, searched Xavier’s carefully maintained mutant database. Changed the victim’s status from ‘Missing’ to ‘Deceased’, uploaded the crime scene photos, and wrote his report.

Daryl McGee a.k.a. Verdigris . . . Beta-level mutation resulting in unusual skin color . . . Last seen leaving his place of employment at . . . indicates he was dragged behind a vehicle for a distance of at least two miles . . . signs of blunt trauma consistent with blows from a tire iron . . . multiple brand wounds, symbols matching local FoH gang . . .

His usual fantasies just weren’t doing it, weren’t erasing the brand marks from the insides of his eyelids, the burnt flesh smell from his nostrils. He didn’t want it rough this time, not from behind or up against a wall. Didn’t want to use or be used.

He didn’t even want the carefully practiced passion, the skillful art and science, the perfect physicality that he always imagined would be sex with Jean.

He wanted something deeper, not perfect but completely real, for the first time in a long time. Comfort. Love. Wanted soft dark heat, to bond himself with someone sweet and good and pure. God, you’re sick. It’s wrong. She’s seventeen. She’s . . . unghhhh, Marie. So tight. Too tight. I’ll be gentle. I can make you feel good, baby. I can be good for you. Nice and slow. You like that, don’t you?

It was the first time he let himself get off to the thought of her. It wasn’t the last.