Fox Hunt Ch. 05

"What's wrong my darling?" fussed the Englishwoman, her bare hand on Regan's cheek.

"My whole life I've been so angry" said Regan wistfully. "Getting even with that selfish bitch was my reason for being, and now with that finished I don't know what to do. There's this large part of my life that was filled with nothing but hatred, and now...now there's just this empty hole inside me. Even with her gone, nothing will ever undo what she did." Regan's face soured as she felt bitter tears well up in her eyes. "I hate her!" she said ruefully as she spun away from Vanessa to rage at the darkness. "I hate her so much!"

Placing a hand on her paramour's shoulder, Vanessa tenderly rolled Regan back to face her, wrapping her arms around her body and soothingly running a slim hand over her fiery hair. "Regan" she said. "What you've done today is going to change the world. A lesser woman would have been greedy and killed her sister in cold blood just to satisfy her own vendetta. You rose above all of that and made a difference because you were big enough to love a world that didn't love you back. Because of you, no little girl will ever again grow up wishing she were pretty instead of smart. You are the strongest, bravest, cleverest most beautiful woman I have ever known..." Looking into Regan's cool blue eyes, Vanessa peered deeply into her partner's soul, and heard herself say the words "I love you."

The two women lay in silence for what seemed like an eternity as those three little words hung in the air. Vanessa had not meant to say what she did, but swept up in the moment, they just fell out. Not moving a muscle, not even breathing, Vanessa wished with all her heart that she could pluck those words out of the air and put them back in her mouth -- but the deed was done.

What attracted Regan to the brilliant Englishwoman was the fact that they shared the same pain. They were both of them jaded, their idealism crushed by a world that had hurt them too many times. And for this reason, Regan knew just how much it took for Vanessa to say those words.

"I...I love you" whispered Regan, her voice trembling with emotion. "I love you."

Vanessa and Regan's eager mouths found each other as a wellspring erupted within the two women, sending tears flowing freely down their cheeks. Their hearts beat in unison as their breasts pressed between them, the lovers holding each other tightly for fear that this dream would evaporate into the aether. And there, Scarlet Fox and Dr. Vanessa Payne entwined their bodies as passion took them both, their plans for the Institute and the new world order seeming worlds away, content in this moment to stay there forever -- safe and warm and loved.

Elsewhere, thousands of miles away, a shabby, run-down cabin sat at the end of a barren dirt road. Inside, amid the sticky heat of a muggy Arkansas night, a sad young woman dreamed fitfully in her baby tee and booty shorts, having cried herself to sleep beneath the fetid covers of her grimy cot. Certain her aunt Gina would visit her room tonight, she retired early, hoping as she always did that finding her asleep, Gina might leave her be. Subdued in her restless sleep, she did not hear the rusty doorknob squeak as it turned, nor did she see the obscurely feminine shadow in the doorway. Not until she felt the leathery skin of wrinkled fingers creep across her body did come to awareness. And somewhere, hidden inside that girl's pretty blonde head, somewhere deep within the labyrinth of her mind, Butterscotch Fox was screaming.

-THE END-