Logan didn't know a lot of people in Westchester County, but he'd managed to scrape together six other guys for a poker game that took place every Thursday night in the dingy backroom of his favorite bar. The group consisted of the bar's owner, a couple of construction workers, a pair of brothers who ran a hardware store in Rye, and the plumber who regularly fixed the pipes at Xavier's School for the Gifted. They were the kind of guys that Logan could stand: hard drinkers and big betters who didn't talk too much. If they talked at all, they talked about women, in terms that were strictly forbidden at the mansion. After four years among the X-geeks, Logan was used to holding himself to all their square rules, but he needed to let himself loose every once in a while, and the weekly all-night poker game was one way that he did it.
On one hot Thursday night in July, Logan was in his sleeveless undershirt at the card table and the other guys were in short sleeves, half of them smoking cigars and all of them throwing back the whiskey, and the usual topic of conversation – women – came up in an unusual way. Usually, the men just talked about their sexual conquests, describing various unnamed women in various exotic positions and trying to beat each other out for who could be the most crude and lewd. But this night, Pete the plumber asked a question.
"Hey," Pete barked out, after winning a small pot with an Ace high, "who's the best you could ever have?"
Joe, the older of the two hardware store brothers, took the cigar out of his mouth. "Dontcha mean, who's the best you ever *had*?"
"Nope," said Pete, "I said what I meant. Who's the best you ever *could* have, a real-live woman, one that you haven't had but maybe could someday?"
"That's the dumbest-ass question I ever heard," said Bill, the bar owner. "If you know a woman, and you think she'd be a good lay, then why the hell wouldn't you have had her already? Shit, when I see a good piece of tail, I don't pussyfoot around like some goddamn pansy."
"Nah, it's a good question," jumped in Vic, one of the construction workers. "There're some women you *can't* have at first. The ones that already have a man and don't wanna go behind their backs. The ones that are headin' out the door just when you're walkin' in, the first time you see `em. The ones who don't think you're worth a go, and need some convincin'."
Vic's buddy Jimmy, the other construction worker, said, "Yeah, and then there's some that're too young when you first meet `em."
Jimmy said it with a wicked grin and the other men laughed, except for Logan. At Jimmy's casual joke, Logan went dead serious, and completely still. The whiskey glass stopped just short of his mouth, and the cigar stilled in mid -air.
"Well, as for me," said Nate, the younger of the hardware store brothers, "the best I ever could have would be Grady Collins' wife, Bette." Joe and Bill, who obviously had seen Bette, let out whistles at the mention of her name. Nate shook his head and said, "I catch her givin' me looks sometimes, when I'm out in the front yard workin' on a hot day, but she ain't never said anything to me about gettin' together. But I tell you, if that fine woman ever leaves Grady, she won't be lonely for long!"
Joe and Bill chuckled. Vic began dealing out another hand, and as the other men threw in their antes, he spoke up. "For me, it would be my high school girl, Nancy. She moved away before we got a chance to get it on, but I bet she's still got a mighty fine pair on her. Yup, no question, she'd be the best I could ever have."
Pete called and raised Jimmy's bet, and said, "I'd love to do Morris Everden's sister, Helen, but Morris'd take a bat to my brain if I ever tried."
"You are such a fuckin' chicken, Pete," Bill said, rolling his eyes and laughing at his friend. "Are you tellin' me the only reason you ain't gotten inta Helen Everden's pants yet is `cause of Morris? Shit, boy, if you like her that much, just elope with her and tell Morris after she's got a ring on her finger and a baby in her belly. That'll shut him up fer good!"
The other men nodded and mumbled their approval of that plan, and Pete said, "Shit, I never thought of that. Thanks, Bill. You're an asshole, but sometimes, you put half of that fat head of yours to work!" Bill cuffed the back of Pete's head, but not hard, and everyone, including Pete and Bill, laughed.
Logan was the only one who seemed to be more interested in the hand of five-card stud then in the conversation. He stayed serious when the others were ribbing each other about their dream girls. Finally, Jimmy said, "How `bout you, Logan? Who's the best *you* could ever have?"
Logan frowned. That was his whole fuckin' problem with this conversation. When the question had come up, he'd immediately thought of Jean. After all, she was what he'd always thought of as his fantasy, the one he'd always wanted but could never have. Jean would be great to have in the sack, no doubt about it. But when he let the word "best" take root in him, a woman other than Jean, and a different set of dreams, came to mind.
He sometimes imagined, late at night when he was alone in his bed, that a woman would come to his room, a twenty-one-year-old who had two streaks of white lightning in her chestnut hair. She would be wearing a black sheer bodysuit that protected her deadly skin. She would lean saucily against his windowsill, her streaks and skin gleaming in the moonlight, her full, ripe breasts jutting proudly through her transparent suit, her lush lips curving in an inviting smile, and she would say, "Take me, Logan. You know I'm yours."
He imagined how she'd kiss her way down his nude body using a bit of cloth so thin it was like a whisper of air against his skin. She'd take his hardened cock into her amazing mouth and suck him while he murmured words of want to her, his hand tangled in her long hair, holding her to him as he thrust his member between her lips. She'd slide her mouth up and down him until he came with a harsh groan. Then he'd drag her roughly up until she was on his bed, on her hands and knees under him, and he'd fumble for a condom and jerk it on and then plunge into her wet waiting heat, and fuck her from behind, his hands mauling her tits and her ass and her clit, his dick pummeling her pussy over and over again, until there was no room in either one of them for thoughts of anything else but the almost painful need between them. They'd come at the same time, shouting each other's names, and then he would slide out and enfold her in his arms, kissing the crown of her head and cradling her in his embrace, and then he would finally, finally tell her of his love.
Yeah, that would be it. No doubt about it. Deep in his never-wrong gut, he knew who would be the best.
"Logan?" Jimmy prompted, shaking Logan out of his thoughts.
"I know who it would be," Logan said, then folded his cards, passing on the latest round of bets. "But it'll never happen." He kept his expression one-hundred-percent stoic as he said that. Nope, no sadness or regret from the Wolverine.
Seeing that they wouldn't get anything else out of him, the men continued the card game. It lasted through the night and into the early morning, and in the end, everyone came out with just about the same amount of cash they'd gone in with, as usual.
Logan crept noiselessly into the mansion at three in the morning. The last thing he wanted was to be subjected to another of Scooter's lectures about setting a bad example and waking up the house after curfew. So he didn't make a sound as he entered his room, although he did turn the shower on so he could wash off the smoke and sweat. There was only one person who could hear his shower, and that was the person in the next room over: Rogue. And he didn't mind if he disturbed her sleep a little, because he intended to disturb it more before too long.
At twenty past three, Logan turned the knob on Rogue's door. He hadn't knocked. He was wearing a thin, long-sleeved white linen shirt without buttons and matching linen pants, and a pair of soft leather gloves and the thinnest socks he owned. He sat on the bed and looked at Rogue, her face and figure lit up by a stray shaft of moonlight. She'd kicked the sheet off her body sometime during the warm night. Logan's eyes traced her outline, shown off to perfection by her short silky slip of a nightgown. Then he lifted his gaze to her beloved face and stared for long moments.
Rogue roused slightly and touched his wrist where it was covered by his shirt. She sighed, a sound heavy and lazy and full of sleep, and asked, "Did you just get in?"
"Yeah," Logan said quietly.
"I thought I heard your shower." Rogue turned more fully towards him, still lying down, and asked, "You spendin' the night here?"
It was something that they had done, infrequently but without awkwardness, for the past two years. If one of them had nightmares, or was just having a hard time of it, they would sleep chastely next to each other. The first time had been when Rogue had killed an enemy on a mission. The second time had been after Logan had discovered some government documents that gave him unwelcome hints of his past life. There had been maybe a dozen times in two years that they'd sought each other out. The unspoken rule was that there would be no questions, just acceptance, and whatever innocent comfort they could give each other.
"I'm stayin'," Logan said.
"Then lie down," said Rogue.
Logan did as he was told. The air was only moderately cool – it was warmer than any other day at three-thirty in the morning – but Logan was so glad he was covered from neck to foot when he wrapped Rogue up in his arms and held her tightly to him. One of his hands rubbed the curve of her waist and the other wound itself up in her curling locks of hair, the thumb straying every now and then to her soft cheek.
Rogue cuddled trustingly into his large body. She nuzzled his smooth shirt and hugged his broad torso. He could tell she was already halfway back to being asleep when she murmured, "I'm sorry if you had a bad night."
"Not too bad." Logan breathed in the clean, flowery scent of her, and breathed it out again. "Just kinda tough to think about what I can't have."
Rogue yawned. "You deserve the best, Logan," she muttered. Then, Logan could tell by the space between her breaths and the relaxation of her body against him, that she slipped into her dreams, whatever they were. Logan wondered if some of them were about him.
"You're the best," Logan mouthed into Rogue's hair, too quietly even for him to hear, before he followed Rogue into slumber.
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