TITLE: Hitchcock Blonde
AUTHOR: Shahara Zade
FEEDBACK/EMAIL: shahara_zade@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: S,A,C,AU
SPOILERS: Through S8 to be safe (XF) and the happier version 
of Endgame (OAT)
RATING: R-ish (contains slash f/f, m/m/f, m/f, and a bit of animal 
sacrifice)
KEYWORDS: Marita Covarrubias/Monica Reyes/Alex 
Krycek/Victor Mansfield
DISCLAIMER: The intellectual properties of Chris Carter, John 
Woo, and Alfred 
Hitchcock and Truman Capote are not mine. No harm was 
intended and no revenue is being collected. Thank you, brave 
betas: Sue, Shadowfox, Callie, Mary, and Deslea - who suffered 
through multiple versions of this piece.
SUMMARY: The road to hell is paved with murky 
intentions and mysterious women. A convoluted post-ep for 
TINH.

(Vancouver)
Victor:

"Hang on, Lucy."

Blood flowed from her mouth and it was all wrong. Not that she 
was dying, but that she was dying like this. A stupid accident. 
Friendly fire. 

She couldn't die like this, looking like some suburban housewife 
in faded jeans. Her sweater had ridden up over her stomach as I 
caught her; and there on the pavement, it suddenly seemed far 
more immodest than the most revealing of her leather outfits. I 
covered her body with my jacket and knelt beside her, listening to 
her try to breathe through the holes in her chest.

"Lucy..."

"Don't call me Lucy. Victor..." She struggled to sit up. "Marita 
Kendall...she isn't-" she closed her eyes, as if trying to think of 
the correct term or phrase and sighed. And then she was gone. 

Marita Kendall. I hadn't thought of that name in years, but 
suddenly I was 
expecting to see her out of the corner of my eye, smell her 
perfume, hear her heels clicking on the sidewalk. Sirens 
overwhelmed the phantom clicking in my head, and then my 
partners were gently pulling me away.
************************************************
(San Francisco)
Monica:

When you get down to the bottom of the bottle, as Mama used to 
say, the problem is that I'm a nice girl and a born sucker. 

You grow up Latina in Slidell, Louisiana, and you learn to be a 
real nice girl. You learn to smile like your mouth is full of 
Vaseline. Smile till your jaw aches and maybe, just maybe, the 
lynch mob passes by your house after all. You learn to smile 
when your softball teammates ask if your mother really reads the 
future and worships the devil. You give up trying to explain how 
your mother is not Marie Laveau, and how Santeria isn't 
Satanism. You learn to adapt. To stay open. To smile and try very 
hard not to get your ass kicked. Smile to placate, to please. Keep 
smiling because if you stop, even for a second, you'll start 
screaming.

I didn't want to think about Mama. I didn't want to think at all. I
was 
trying to drown my memories in Jim Beam and melted ice. 
Recent horrors contrasted starkly with the opulent marbled 
columns and Persian carpets. 

If you must sulk, you might as well sulk in splendor. 

Dead boys and their broken fathers. Dead men and their broken 
women. I'm not Mama, but sometimes I get a sense of 
things...just a feeling...little more than good observation. Except 
that it hurts more. Show me a good empath and I'll show you a 
twelve - step junkie.

I had been stood up yet again by an acquaintance who was far 
too hip to be seen north of Market Street anyway; and I was too 
far gone to care. I was preparing to pay my tab and head back to 
my room to sulk in private, when I was distracted by beige silk 
crepe and Chanel Number Five.

"Is it as bad as all that?" 

I didn't know what to say. She ran cool fingertips over the back of 
my hand. 

"I'm Marita Freemont."

Freemont? Was she serious? Un-freakin' believable. Or maybe 
she just had a wonderfully dry sense of humor. 

Okay, so I'm a slut. A loose and easy woman. No Pants Reyes, 
drooling over some ultra-femme she picked up in a hotel bar. 
Well, I probably have more fun than most government 
employees. I was a mess and she was exquisite - is there any 
other excuse?
***********************************************

Victor:

I didn't know what else to do. They had both lost so much. She 
had become a sort of vicious surrogate mother to them and they 
seemed too numb, too lost, and I did what she would have done. 
Shellshock became aphrodisiac; and unshed tears, Spanish Fly. 
I had been with both of them at different times, and we are 
nothing if not physical people. 

Just as a side note, How to Get Even When Your Fiancée 
Dumps You, In Three Easy 
Steps: Sleep with her ex. Stay friends with her in the process. Be 
so neurotic about it that said ex is driven back into her arms. 
Repeat as necessary. Damned Continental minds, those two.

As they lay entwined in my arms like naked kittens, I recognized 
the polite fiction of the situation. They had taken me to bed, not 
the other way around. I had been ambushed by the Day Boy and 
the Night Girl. Li Ann would have laughed at the references, that I 
even knew the analogies. She's smarter than me; they both are. 

My fondness for ancient literature began after I followed Mac out 
a window, four stories up. He hit the trash bags in the dumpster. 
I took mostly concrete. Our gentle, if slightly deranged Agency 
librarian took pity on my convalescence and brought me Virgil 
and Homer in addition to all the Machivelli and Sun Yat-sen. 
Everyone has an agenda.

My overnight guests began to stir and squirm.

"We have to talk to you."

"Yeah, how long have you known?"

"About what?" I asked. 

"Her name was Lucy?"

"And who is Marita Kendall?"

How could they think my loyalties so fragmented?
"Lucy was my own name for her. You can't work with someone 
for years and years and never have something to call them by. 
Something to curse them by."

"Why Lucy?"

"She was bossy. Like in Charlie Brown, you know. Lucy." They 
stared at me, blinking. "Say what you will about Western pop 
culture, but I think Charles Schultz deprivation is just sad." 

I found myself pinned to the mattress, ears and neck and chest 
bathed by warm tongues and breath. I could tell them about 
Marita later.

Weary soreness seeped though my bones. Soreness for the 
best possible reasons of course. There are advantages to 
sleeping with gymnastically inclined ex-thieves, but this was 
absolutely the last time. Tonight anyway. I was not as young as I 
used to be. Thrusting into him in long deliberate strokes, I 
watched his shoulders tremble. 

Mac reclined against Li Ann's breasts, eyes squeezed shut, and 
she cradled him from behind. She held one of his hands, 
sucking the knuckles, and her other hand worked his cock. She 
devoted intense concentration to matching my rhythm precisely. 
She had some strange tantra theory about simultaneous 
orgasm and spiritual transcendence. Whatever. She was 
fascinating to watch though, brow furrowed, and then Mac was 
coming and I was coming and it took everything I had.

* * * 

"So you never did her?" Trust Mac to get to the point.

"Only once. And not until the end."

"Hey Li Ann, I think we're about to hear yet another helpless chick 
in distress story."

I spent about six sputtering seconds hating him again. Crass. 
Childish. "You really never know when to stop, do you?"

"Shut up, Mac. Marita Kendall was in the Director's last 
thoughts...her last words. We need to now why," said Li Ann.

"The Dir-excuse me, *Lucy's* death was an accident. Not 
related," he countered.

Actually, I agreed with Mac. "I can't imagine why she said it. 
Maybe it was just something she carried around with her. 
Something unresolved."

"You mean like her life was flashing before her eyes, and that's 
where she ran out of-"

Li Ann shoved him hard enough that he rolled off the bed.

"Sorry." He lay down between us, resting his head on her 
stomach. "Go on, Vic. I'll behave, I promise."

"There is a building down in New Westminster," I began, "where, 
when I initially went to work for Lucy, I had my first Agency 
apartment. Marita lived there too, four doors down. She was out 
of town a lot, and we didn't meet for a long time. Occasionally, we 
ran into each other, in the elevator, on the street. 

"She always wore sunglasses, dressed in black suits, a distant 
presence, murmuring into her cell phone. She could have been 
a model or an actress or something...if it hadn't been an Agency 
building. 

"One time, on a surveillance assignment, some place with 
redwood paneling and Cuban cigars, I thought I saw her at a 
baccarat table in a white gown, diamonds at her throat, sparkling 
in the haze of smoke. She was surrounded by anonymous old 
men. Another night, she was climbing into a limousine outside 
the Tunisian Consulate. When I asked the Director, she shook 
her head. Typical Director - right? Only then, she kissed my 
cheek and then looked me in the eye and said, 'Please, don't 
ask.'"

"Weird."

"Definitely weird."

"Right. So eventually, I came home late and found her lying on 
my couch. It was dark and I couldn't see who it was first. She 
said, 'I'm unarmed, Mr. Mansfield. I just need to not be at my 
place for a little while. I'm sorry to disturb you this way.'

'Why me?'

'You...you remind me of someone I knew once.'

"I offered her a beer, thinking it should have been brandy.

"So a fellow agent comes to you for help and you seduce her?" 
Mac grinned. "Vic, I'm shocked. And appalled. And very proud of 
you..."

"I thought you said you were going to behave. Anyway, we just 
talked. Talked all night...about nothing. Old movies, Etta James, 
and when the sun came up she was still going on about some 
safe topic - Kansas City Blues verses Bayou Blues maybe. The 
light seemed refracted though her. She pulled the blanket I gave 
her up to her chin and my chest contracted...that impossible 
perfection. I let my eyelids drift shut, listening to the measured 
vowels and consonants of her speech. At some point, I became 
aware of her, close to me.

'Poor Alexei,' she whispered. It seemed she was speaking to 
me, but she was not. 'Where are you?' Her cheek came to rest 
against my shoulder, a warm damp weight.

"I reached up, see if she was ok, and she pulled back like I had 
slapped her.

'I'm keeping you awake, Mr. Mansfield. I'll go. It will be all right 
now.'

"The next day, I found a card inscribed in retro Palmer Method:

'Mr. Mansfield, my humblest thanks for your hospitality 
Wednesday evening. I won't bother you again. M. Kendall.'

"Harsh. So you didn't-"

"Li Ann, gag him. Please." She scooped up the bowl of frozen 
grapes we had been playing with earlier that night and began 
pushing them between Mac's lips until he resembled a 
chipmunk.

"Continue," she said, popping a grape into her own mouth.

"I wrote on the back of the card: 'Please do. Any time,' and 
slipped the card back under the door. Apparently she meant 
what she said though, because I didn't see her around for 
months. I assumed the Agency had sent her on some long-term 
gig, and I had my own problems, with the Director's constant 
tests of faith and loyalty. 

"I didn't know she was even back until I heard her screaming. I 
charged down the hall, and her place was wrecked. Velvet 
armchairs lay on their sides like vanquished virgins, damask 
curtains hung, half ripped from the window. Her laptop flickered 
forlornly amid spilled ferns and shattered lamps. She crouched 
on the floor, scratching at her bare face and arms, leaving bloody 
tracks. I stepped on her sunglasses in my haste to get to her, to 
make her stop hurting herself. I don't think she noticed. I don't 
think she even saw me first. She moaned, half in Russian. 
"Alexei, God! God! Nyet..."

"I grabbed her arms and held her. She flailed weakly, and at first 
I thought she had wrapped yellow string around her fingers. But 
it was hair. Eventually, she seemed to realize where she was. 
Who I was. As if it explained everything, she said:

'He's afraid of the dark. They left him there in the dark.'

"I figured that she had received bad news via email, and it 
involved a mission gone wrong, but she wouldn't tell me 
anything more. I asked the Director again about Marita. If there 
was anything I could do. It was one of the only times I ever saw 
her waver. I mean really soften and hesitate. And then she said 
there was nothing anyone could do. That Marita's problems were 
universally out of my league. To stay away from her. Instead, I 
became her friend. Sort of. 

"I waited for the times the light was on in her window to show up. 
She didn't seem to mind. In her remote way, she made me feel 
welcome. Aside from me, she kept questionable company. I 
assumed she was working honeypot detail and tried not to think 
of it too much. I couldn't save her - I couldn't even save myself. 
Once, when the gray haired man who answered her door 
reeking of gun powder and stale cigarettes told me she was in 
the shower, I took great pleasure in throwing him out. He didn't 
get up off of the floor right away. He had a pinched expression, 
not so strange since he'd just taken a swift kick in the gut. But he 
looked at me...as if memorizing my face. Then he got up slowly 
and pulled a cigarette from his jacket and asked me for a light 
and there was something very smug in his question. As if he had 
discovered something dirty about me while he was on the floor. I 
slammed the door in his face. 

"That night she wanted to hear about my childhood, and she 
spoke of her own. But it was elusive. Nameless. Placeless. An 
impressionistic recital, not what I expected. A life of swimming 
and summer, Christmas trees, family and parties...happy. Not 
her. I called her on it, and she smiled.

'Of course I'm lying, dear. You make such a tragedy out of your 
childhood, I didn't feel I should compete.'

'Seriously,' I said. 'I want to know.'

'No. You don't, Mr. Mansfield. It's all the mean reds."

'I have a first name, you know. You mean like communists? Or 
like the blues?'

"She laughed, silvery and unattainable. 'Both, I suppose. You're 
afraid and you sweat like hell and you're not even sure what 
you're afraid of. Except that something bad is going to happen, a 
constant sense of impending doom.'

'Some people call it angst. Comes with the territory in this line of 
work - don't you think?' 

"My insinuated question was out of bounds. I wasn't supposed to 
acknowledge what we were, what we did. She let me know I had 
screwed up by rising quickly from her chair. 

'I have reports to finish, Mr. Mansfield.'

"I was feeling bold.

'Who was he?'

'The older gentleman?'

'No. My- uh.evil twin. Was he one of ours? A Company man...or 
KGB maybe?'

'All of the above, among other things. But it doesn't matter 
anymore-' She stopped, not looking at me. 'I really need to finish 
those reports. Goodnight.'"

"This is a really depressing story so far, Vic."

"Mac is right. My God, I had no idea. You really cared for her. Did 
you ever find out what she was involved in?" Li Ann drew her 
knees up to her chest, resting her hands on her ankles.

"Not exactly. The last night I saw her-"

"You had sex! Finally!"

"Uh, are you going to let me finish, Mac?" I knew he wasn't being 
deliberately crude. He is young enough that he doesn't yet 
understand how tact and courtesy can be even more necessary 
as lubricants between loved ones than between strangers. I 
counted backwards from twenty, waiting.

Mac rolled onto his back. Li Ann absently reached down to 
scratch his belly as he stretched. "Yeah. Go for it."

"I was sitting on the edge of her bathtub, watching her get ready 
to go out. It was a casual thing, on her part anyway. She stood on 
her tiptoes, in her slip, and leaned over the sink, applying various 
creams and powders. 
I was trying to be cool. Trying not to notice the strap slipping 
down over one pale shoulder. 

Our eyes met in the mirror and she dropped a brush in the sink 
and the clink echoed. There was no other sound in the 
apartment. Keeping her eyes locked on mine, she reached into a 
side cabinet and pulled out one of those little pink plastic razors. 
She hopped onto the counter top. I stood on shaking legs and 
went to her, and she reached behind her and turned on the tap. 
She didn't ask permission, I think she knew she didn't need to.

"She dabbed the top of my lip with shaving cream. It was the 
most intimate thing she could have done. We didn't touch often. 
She never touched me at all on purpose if she could help it. Her 
left hand cupped my chin. With her right, she dragged the razor 
over and over my skin. When I couldn't look into her eyes another 
second she set the razor down. I couldn't see myself, the mirror 
was steamed over, but I felt naked. I had worn a mustache from 
the time I was seventeen. She unfastened my earring and I knew 
what she was doing. I knew it was wrong, for her and for me." 

I memorized the pattern in the sheets as I spoke. Following the 
path of paisleys with my fingers, knowing if I faltered, even for a 
moment, I wouldn't be able to tell them. 

"I didn't stop her...I wanted to, but everything seemed to happen 
in slow motion. She dropped my earring and we both bent for it 
at the same time. Our noses bumped, and then she was kissing 
me. Hard. Violent, and crying too I think. She pulled frantically at 
my fly and I was sliding black lace up around her waist, the 
whole time thinking; no, not like this...but it was too late. She 
pulled me deep into her and she was so hot and so slick and I 
remember listening to the hiss of the tap instead of her, because 
even though I never learned Russian, I knew she wasn't 
speaking to me. Then there was nothing but her arms around 
me, her mouth on me, her flesh surrounding me..."

They were mercifully silent. Wide-eyed. I had allowed myself to 
trail off. I was never any good at talking about sex. Through some 
act of will I didn't know I had, I managed to stop fumbling and 
make an end of it.

"When it was over, she turned smooth and impassive as marble 
again.

'I'm sorry. Go home, Mr. Mansfield. For God sakes, go home 
before you really get hurt!'

"I had been dismissed, and I guess the Director knew because 
the Agency upgraded me to this place the next day."

Li Ann had gone very still. Her question barely registered above a 
whisper. "And you never saw her again?"

"No." My voice quavered only a little.

"We should find out what happened. I'm going over that office 
with a fine tooth comb tomorrow...oh." Li Ann looked up at me. 
Tentative. "Vic? Um- they offered me her position. I accepted."

"You're the new Director? Our new boss?" Mac sat up. 

She ignored him, rushing on. "I know you have seniority, Vic. I'll 
step aside if you want it, of course. They only came to me 
because you've been so vocal about wanting to retire."

She seemed genuinely worried about my reaction. Relief 
washed over me. I felt light. I didn't want the Directorship, but you 
didn't refuse if you were asked. Li Ann wanted it. Lucy had 
groomed her for it. Thank God. I took her hand and kissed the 
inside of her palm. "Congratulations. You've earned this."

"What about me?"

"You've got friends in high places now, Mac. What tropical 
assignment would you like? What kind of partners? In what 
flavors?" She stopped, and then in a quieter tone said, "or do you 
want out, too?"

* * * 

So I got early retirement. A generous pension. I lay around my 
apartment for weeks, seeing them intermittently. Sometimes 
together, sometimes apart. It was always pleasant...friendly 
faces, familiar bodies. Mac grew tan and returned bursting with 
tales of action and conquest down south. Li Ann practiced her 
Directorial dominatrix routine, so that she could write off the time 
in the manner of her predecessor, but we always ended up on 
the floor. Laughing. 

I told myself I was just trying to figure out my next step. I 
considered buying the diner down the street. Recruiting 
waitresses from the local women's' shelter, providing child care 
and college scholarships. Really doing something to help the 
community that didn't involve gunfire and mayhem. I was kidding 
myself. I was waiting for my last assignment from Lucy. I was 
waiting for the phone to ring. When the call finally came, I knew 
who it was even before I picked up, and as I heard her cultivated 
tones and time collapsed in on itself, I remember thinking that 
the problem with the past is that there's always more where that 
came from.
************************************************

(San Francisco)
Monica:

"You seem so sad," she said. "I just want to know you." She 
cradled my face between her hands and kissed me gently. I 
sighed and opened my mouth to her and let my fingers run over 
her collarbone. She pulled back.
"We're drawing attention. Are you staying here?"

The swift alchemy in her manner change was jolting. I had the 
sense of being underwater, and rising too fast. Since when was 
my life a porn film? At that moment, I didn't care. I pulled her into 
the polished bronze elevator. Her mouth was soft on mine, 
smearing reddish lipstick. I felt a rushing in my chest. My legs 
began to buckle. At the door to my room I dropped the key card 
twice as her hands roamed over my back. 

I got the door shut somehow and backed her against it, grasping 
her wrists, trying to recover my senses.

"This is crazy. We should stop."

"Mmm. Yes. Immediately," she answered. I was using my thigh 
to hold her back and she ground against it, impossibly hot.

"I don't know you. You could be anybody." 

"That's right." She freed one hand with a quick motion and pulled 
me into another liquid kiss, fingers caressing the back of my 
neck in circles. It almost hurt to break away from her.

"How do I know you're not a criminal, dragging me up here for 
some nefarious purpose?" I turned my head so that her lips fell 
along my jaw bone. She kissed her way up to my ear, insistent. 
Inflaming. 

My nerve endings were firing wildly and she whispered, "You 
don't." 

Then I had to press my mouth over the silk of her blouse, feeling 
the fluttering of her heart as I found a nipple with my teeth. I had 
been trying so hard to forget, but I couldn't keep the edges from 
peeling back inside me, slicing through skin and bone. I rested 
my head on her shoulder. "How do I know 
you're not planning to do something terrible to me right here, 
tonight?"

Her voice came low. Luxurious. "Shall I?"

"Please do." 

The pressure of her form against my own became too much. 
She was going to kill me after all. Dizzy with arousal, I wanted to 
ask her what she liked, but I had forgotten how to talk. Silently, I 
urged her to the bed. She lay back with her legs dangling over 
the edge, and I knelt, found the zipper of her skirt. All beige. 
Beige skirt, sheer beige stockings, beige shoes. I stripped off 
the shoes and stockings, leaving them in a heap beside the 
skirt.

She had incredible legs, smooth and pale, waxed. 
I kissed the insides of her thighs, running my tongue over the 
hairless folds of her sex. This brought an immediate response 
from her, a sharp intake of breath. I made a hard point with the 
tip of my tongue and rubbed it across her clit. She swelled under 
my tongue, and as she neared climax, she rocked, side to side. I 
sucked at her until the tremors in her body stopped and she 
pulled at me.

"Come here."

"Oh yeah, my name is Monica." I crawled up on the bed beside 
her and kissed her, and she pushed me onto my back. 

"You're wearing too many clothes, Monica." She straddled me 
and began working the buttons of my blouse.

It isn't that I don't love men. Men like John Doggett, the proverbial 
white knight. Good men. Men, women...to love one you have to 
love them all a little bit. Sometimes I think that, given time and 
resources, you could love everyone in this world who is good 
and just. I don't cast love spells like Mama, but I have this 
probably unhealthy fuck-it-all-better approach to pain 
management. I lay on my back, waiting for my heart to resume its 
normal beat, still throbbing. My back stung with sharp cuts from 
her French manicured nails. 

I passed the cigarette to her. "Tell me about him."

"Who?" She asked.

"The guy you're trying to forget. It isn't working, you know. He's 
sitting here on the bed beside us...or might as well be. So, go 
ahead and talk about it, you'll feel better. It's okay, I've been a 
depressed straight girl magnet my whole life. I'm a good sport, 
you can tell me anything."

She passed the cigarette back. "It isn't that simple."

"Oh. Now I get it. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." I picked up 
Marita's arm, pretending to inspect it.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for the tattoo."

"What?" The planes of her face smoothed out, tranquil 
expression deliberate. There was a sudden, cold wariness 
beneath the soft fantasy surface.

"You know, the one that says Fag Hag in big purple letters."

She smiled and it was beautiful. Some people do not appreciate 
my bluntness.

"Perceptive, but not for the reasons you think. He is obsessed 
with a man though. A man who died recently."

"What are you doing here then?"

"Hedging my bets probably." She turned her head away. I took 
one last long drag and pressed the butt in the ashtray on the 
nightstand.

"I've been there."

She rose and began pulling on her clothes. I wanted to hold her 
again, to feel her arms and legs wrapped around me, to chase 
away the night with her. Maybe she preferred to sleep alone. She 
began to walk towards the door, then turned back to face me.

"I have this recurring dream," she said. "I'm standing at the edge 
of the Black Sea, in Varna, and a man I don't know comes to me 
in a great ship with crimson sails. Get in, he says, and you will 
be prosperous and never suffer again. I want to go with him, but 
somehow I can't, and the tides carry him away. Then Alex comes 
to me in a leaking rowboat, and he says, get in and you will 
regret it. In fact, you will probably die and it will take eons and
it 
will hurt. And you know, I get in that boat every damned time." 

She chuckled, a tortured sound that I didn't know how to answer. 
She turned back to me, and said lightly, "Come with me up the 
coast tomorrow?" 

* * * 

I waited beside the doorman, awkward, not really expecting her 
to show. When she did, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or swoon. 
The roadster was an unlikely shade of sky blue, top down. 
Italian. Fast. Her buttery white leather jacket matched the interior. 
I remembered to breathe.

"Aw...damn. Thank you God. Goddess. Whatever."

The corner of her mouth twitched at my reaction. She handed me 
a pair of sunglasses. Great. What I needed was another shower. 
A cold one. Even behind the darkened lenses, the bright 
optimism of that morning blinded me. We rode past Easter egg 
houses, past old men playing bocce ball in the park, over the 
bridge, following the highway to the sea. The wind roared in my 
ears, and as she drove, I caught her occasional side-glance. 
There was nothing to say. Nothing worthy of breaking the 
perfection of riding in that sunlight and watching the wind work 
loose strands of her hair from its tortoise-shell clip. We passed 
between redwood and eucalyptus trees, whipping around 
curves, tires screeching. When the needle crossed the 100-mph 
mark, I closed my eyes.

* * *