Punishing

Mr. Winner had the most intense blue eyes that Trowa had ever seen.

As alluring as he found them to be, he didn\'t know how much longer he could sit for being the subject of their fixed attention. He tried not to shift around in his seat too much as he was seemingly appraised for an indetermineable amount of time.

Mr. Winner appeared to be completely humorless, his expression was slightly sour, almost a scowl.

Trowa returned the look, though, he imagined, with less bite. After all, it was him who was in charge of taking this man\'s money, and to say that he didn\'t feel at least a little bit guilty would be a gross understatement.

He\'d called Mr. Winner a few days after their first meeting, and they\'d arranged, rather coldly, to meet at a riverside club in the business district. The icy demeanor of his companion was so different from his first impression that it made Trowa want to either jump him from across the table or pay his half of the bill and leave.

They were sitting in a windowed off room almost floating over the water. Ducks and geese hobbled around on the clusters of rocks near the docks outside, and the dam a ways upstream spilled into the relatively serene slice of water the Black Swan occupied. It was a nice place with light wood floors, clean and waxed, and the heavy smell of food permeating the air, though it was far less noticeable in the \"booth\" Trowa and Mr. Winner were occupying, that aroma having been replaced with the scent of coffee and the early morning, though it was rather late into the evening at present.

Finally, Mr. Winner spoke, saying something Trowa least expected to hear at that moment, \"You\'re a good man.\" Then he took a sip of his heavily diluted coffee raising a brow at his understandably puzzled evening companion as if what he said hadn\'t been strange.

\"What?\" Trowa asked incredulously.

At long last, a smile graced Mr. Winner\'s face, a patient smile that softened him and commanded Trowa\'s immediate compulsion to sudden admiration. \"I can tell by looking at people,\" he began, \"whether or not I will like them. I like you.\"

He held his cup to his lips, a vaguely demure gesture, though his eyes shone with a sage-like brilliance that betrayed no feminimity. His business face? This was a person who knew when to act, who to become for certain people, and he was more-than-likely aware of the distress and enchantment it stirred in a person like Trowa.

\"Should I feel honored?\" Trowa retorted trying to maintain his aloofness.

Mr. Winner\'s smile became genuinely warm and amused as his head tipped to the side, \"I don\'t know. Do you?\"

\"Sure,\" Trowa mumbled muffling his voice in his glass of cola.

Mr. Winner looked satisfied and leaned back further into his seat, slipping back into silence.

\"So,\" Trowa began, \"are we here to discuss your divorce?\"

Mr. Winner\'s lip curled in a half smile, \"With my wife\'s attorney?\" He took a breath, \"No. I just wanted to see you.\"

It was quiet again.

Trowa\'s capacity for the atmosphere was eroding fast. There was so much sexual tension in the air (mostly the product of his own rampant thoughts) that he felt he could cut it with a knife. Mr. Winner wasn\'t making it any easier with his mecurial exressions and ambiguous words.

\"Mr. Winner...\" he began.

\"Quatre,\" Mr. Winner corrected him.

\"Mr...\"

\"We\'re not at work,\" Mr. Winner, er, Quatre said in a quiet commanding tone. \"Don\'t ruin the afterhours with those
damnable formalities.\"

Okay...\"Quatre,\" Trowa said, \"where\'s the charming young man that I met a few days ago?\"

Quatre smiled, \"I\'m sorry, this isn\'t charming?\"

\"This isn\'t charming,\" Trowa drew an invisible circle around his companion\'s face. \"That is,\" he pointed at the smile.

\"I\'m sorry; I\'ve just been thinking a little. My intent was not to make you feel ill at ease,\" Quatre replied maintaining his friendly composure.

\"Were you thinking about the divorce?\" Trowa asked feeling a slight too obvious afterwards.

\"Thinking, yes. Worried, no,\" Quatre said. \"I don\'t want to think about it anymore, though.\" His smile grew into a vivacious grin. \"Distract me?\" he suggested.

Was that an invite?

Trowa shifted in his seat unsure of what to make of it.

Quatre appeared to him, at that moment, as an exotic fruit flush with color and his soul stretched taut by the energy of life, the nectar of the universe. He exuded a heady fragrance that recounted tales of midnight gardens, wild-grown rose labriynths, sun-kissed oceans and future whispered promises.

\"Whatever you\'re thinking,\" Quatre said turning his gaze out towards the life in the running water beyond the glass, \"it\'s not true.\"

\"What do you mean?\" Trowa said defensively.

Quatre\'s eyes hardened a moment, then regained their deceptive translucency, \"Nothing.\" Before Trowa could respond, Quatre was back on the offensive, \"Do you dream often?\"

\"No,\" Trowa lied.

Quatre raised a brow that Trowa didn\'t know whether to interperet as interest or skepticism.

\"I dream quite often,\" Quatre informed him quietly.

Trowa nodded, not quite sure where the conversation was going.

\"Know what I dream about?\" Quatre asked.

Trowa shook his head.

A cynical smile traced the contours of Quatre\'s lips, \"There is a small cottage with a white picket fence and a garden surrounded by woods and flowers, and inside that house, it\'s very warm and smells sweet like baked goods...\"

Trowa was lost.

Quatre continued, \"There is a fireplace and a comfortable knit rug. I\'m sitting on that rug reading a book, then my husband comes to tell me that it\'s time to eat.\" He paused there.

Husband?

\"And then?\"

\"And what?\"

\"What happens?\"

Quatre shrugged, \"I wake up.\"

\"That was the biggest let-down of my life,\" Trowa muttered, drowning his words in coke.

\"Was it?\" Quatre laughed.

\"No,\" Trowa admitted.

\"What was?\" Quatre prodded.

\"Honestly?\"

\"Honestly.\"

Trowa took a moment to himself, then replied, \"Having your wife as my client.\"

Quatre nodded. \"You know what I find the most ironic about this?\"

\"What?\"

The smile was gone from his face again as he folded his arms across his chest, staring Trowa dead-center in the eyes, \"At the end of the day, your paycheck is signed by me. So,\" he leaned forward a little placing palmpalms delicately on the table, \"in essence, I\'m paying you to take my money.\" He leaned further so that his breath ghosted Trowa\'s ear, and he whispered hauntingly, \"I find that very funny.\"

He drew back a little so that their foreheads were almost touching. Trowa didn\'t know whether to brace himself for a kiss or a bite; so he just sat there, quite still and inhaled their comingled breaths.

He couldn\'t put into words how disappointed and glad he was when Quatre drew away completely, the clean sweet smell of his personage hanging in the air in front of Trowa\'s nose.

Trowa breathed through his mouth, as if trying to taste the air for an indirect kiss.

He needed to regain some semblance of control.

He cleared his throat, \"What was your biggest let-down?\"

Quatre looked pensive a moment, running a finger along the rim of his cup as if in divination, for an answer to strike him from above. Then he managed a wry smile, \"That, Mr. Barton, is my own business.\"

Trowa moved to protest the double standard Quatre was setting, but was stopped short by his eyes.

For the first time that entire evening, he looked unguarded, and very sad. His countenance was so isolating, that Trowa couldn\'t find himself in his eyes. He looked too slight for the suit he was wearing, too burdened for his age, and too young for his eyes.

Hurriedly, Quatre took out his wallet, \"I apologize Mr. Barton,\" he said pressing a few crisp bills to the table, \"I shouldn\'t have...I shouldn\'t be here.\"

Before Trowa could say a word, he was out the door walking with a clipped stride through the restaurant.

Trowa watched him go tempted to run after him, but knowing that it would do no good.

\"What would you do if you actually caught up to him?\" he asked himself scornfully. \"Back him up against some random car and...\" He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. His imagination was getting ahead of him.

To distract himself, he counted the money Quatre left.

It was enough to pay for a full-course meal plus tip.

\"Shit...\" he said setting it back down on the table.

++

At the firm, he begged his boss to have Trixie\'s case reassigned.

With Trixie out of his face, he could more properly pursue his growing interest in her husband. After pointing out all the reasons that he shouldn\'t be her attorney, the main point involving her embarrassing infatuation with him, all he could secure was an, \"I\'ll see what I can do.\"

++

He tried to call Quatre, but never recieved an answer.

It didn\'t matter much in the way of seeing him, they would have to see each other Tuesday the following week, but it meant a lot to Trowa in that Quatre\'s responsiveness to his calls indicated to him just how interested or repulsed he was by him.

++

Monday morning, his boss sent him a notice.

The new attorney handling Trixie\'s case would be present at Tuesday\'s meeting.

Trowa would have kissed his boss if he didn\'t feel so violated by the idea. The prospect of ridding himself of that woman and her two tankers made him extremely happy. No more \"accidentaly\" dropping pencils in his lap, fake weeping on his shoulder, lipstick smudges, or undesireable invites.

He felt almost brazen enough to saunter into Tuesday\'s meeting with a bouquet of roses; Quatre R. Winner inscribed on each stem if not for his own shock value gratification, to rub it in Trixie\'s face.

++

Tuesday, around midday, Trowa was sitting in a conference room with Trixie much in the same fashion of his first encounter with Mr. Winner.

She was ogling him, and he has less patience for it than ever before. The knowledge of his impending freedom fired his desire for immediate emancipation.

She\'d been repeating his name for the past five minutes and he\'d been biting his tongue for an appropriate response to her needy tone, but couldn\'t think of one that didn\'t involve either him or her never leaving that room alive.

\"Yes, Ms. Trixie?\" he forced the words out quietly.

\"Your people told me that you\'re not my lawyer anymore,\" she grabbed for his hand under the table. \"So, you\'re free now.\"

\"Yes, I\'m free,\" he said with a whole different meaning to his own words, prying his frs ors out of her succubus grip.

By either not listening to him or choosing to completely ignore his feelings, she leaned into the space between them trying to get her lips level to his ear, which he moved with a turn of his head.

She gave up content with his neck, \"I was thinking...after this meeting...we could...\"

Trowa rolled his eyes and took the bait, \"We could what?\"

\"We could go into a copy room or something and-\"

\"I don\'t think I like where this is going, Ms.,\" he said leaping out of his chair and leaving her hanging and fumbling for balance since she\'d been using his knee to support her forward thrust body.

Then, the door opened.

\"I hope I\'m not disturbing anything,\" a particularly weasly looking guy, in Trowa\'s opinion, stuck his head into the room.

He resembled something akin to a thirty-something-year old Calvin Klein model with all the trimmings of businessman excess. If he drove a porsche, Trowa\'s comedic life would be complete.

Without wasting any time, the new counsel was setting Trixie upright and introducing himself, \"Ah, so this must be the lovely Ms. Titiana Winner?\" He stuck a card between her fingers, \"I\'m your new attorney, Taylor Schapery. It\'s a *real* pleasure to meet you.\"

With her signature charm, Trixie batted her adhesive lashes and corrected Mr. Schapery, \"It\'s Trixie.\"

\"Oh, I\'m so sorry, Ms. Trixie,\" he said no longer looking at her but casting a raping stare in Trowa\'s direction.

Trowa didn\'t know what to make of it, but he knew for certain that he sure as hell didn\'t like it.

Mr. Schapery held out his hand, \"It\'s a pleasure to meet you Mr. Barton.\"

Trowa took it and spoke through his teeth, \"The pleasure\'s all mine.\"

A dentist approved smile spread across Taylor\'s features and Trowa grimaced, perching on his seat.

The room was full of vultures, and he, he figured, was the lone rotting carcass in the desert sun.

++

It took virtually no time at all for Taylor and Trixie to fall into deep discussion, occasionally stealing glances at a slightly irate Trowa and giggling like schoolgirls.

If I don\'t make it out of here alive, Trowa mused, I leave all my holdings to my cat Mr. Bojangles, and my cat to my sister Catherine. Let them not say that I died being mauled by two sex fiends, rather, that I was standing up straight in a courtroom going over the motions of Texas state law when I was gunned down by two man-hunters that wanted to sell my organs on the black market.

He smiled, amused by the flowering creativeness of his own mind.

++

At one-fifteen, Quatre and Mr. Chang appeared.

Wasting no time at all, Mr. Schapery was already at an uncomfortably close distance to Quatre and raising his hand to his lips.

\"It\'s an honor to meet you Mr. Winner. You are, indeed, as beautiful as the tabloids say, though, I have to admit that they hardly do you justice,\" he flashed his smile again, \"I\'m Taylor Schapery, by the way.\"

Quatre looked like he had just been violated by Kujo (though he attempted to appear pleasant), and Mr. Schapery was eyeing him like he was a fresh cut slab of meat.

Trowa would have said something, but he was too aghast at the situation to utter a sound.

TBC

note(s):
1. Taylor is another Lorena creation that I\'ve pilfered. He and Trixie are a package deal^^; and both he and Trixie have been used many times in Fablespinner\'s fics. I encourage you to read them!
2. gosh...this is fun...Trowa torture!^^;
3. please review! thank you!