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Within the next few days I had requested to Iain that Vic join our research group.  He was a little wary at first that he would be working with the only two females in the class, but once I was able to convince him, by tactfully nursing his ego no doubt, that he was the only man in the class who had enough prowess to deal with a female, he smiled his charming smile and was very at ease with himself.  Most men are so wonderfully simple.  Emphasis on the "most".

Our topic for research was in relation to a book written by Robert Louis Stephenson called Kidnapped.  We were to research the true causes behind the Appin Murder, and educationally choose which figure we thought was responsible and why.  Though we would research together, we each had to write separate papers.  This paper we would write was, in a sense, a precursor to our later theses, the approximate 500 page books that we would write in the future in order to earn our doctorates.  Things had been progessing well in regards to our research and development of the paper until today.  Iain had promised Vic and I that he would meet us at lunch in the campus library.  We worked diligently from 9AM to 1PM.  But by the time 2PM rolled around, and he was no where to be seen, we began to get surly.  I made a comment about how men could possibly think they were God's gift to earth.  Then Vic reminded me that, though God created man before woman, one normally creates a rough draft before creating the final masterpiece.  She had me laughing so hard that the librarian gave us the "hairy eyeball".  We finally decided to leave, in case we got into any more trouble.  Then, our slap-happiness from four hours of diligent studying justified our plan that it would be worthwhile to embark on a cross-campus adventure in search of Iain.  It was a Saturday morning, and we knew that he always spent his weekend at the gym, so if he were anywhere else other than the library, we suspected he would be there.

We arrived at the old stone edifice after 15 minutes of walking across campus in the frigid air, our noses running and our cheeks bright pink.  I've always hated it when my cheeks get pink.  I'm very pale-skinned, so when my cheeks flush I feel like I even turn to the purplish color of a grape or a plum, in my own mind about as lovely an image as a cross would appear to Dracula himself.  Luckily though, I was still young, so I had managed to avoid the raisin or prune look, wrinkly alternatives to the grape and plum.  I was half-smiling at my randomness as I turned to finish contemplating my thoughts out loud to Vic.  

"Do my cheeks make me look like a plum?" I asked her, choked humor in my skepticism, "Or a grape?"

She giggled helplessly at my random question, and spread her arms out as if to say where did that come from?  "No ye dinna look like a grape.  Maybe a strawberry though..."

I laughed, my breath a fleeting white cloud on the chilly air.  We walked into the gymnasium.  It was mostly dark inside, and at first we thought we had walked across campus for nothing.  But then we heard the sound of what I imagined was clanging metal in a room around the corner.  It sounded like...swords.  Maybe there were some people fencing in there, I speculated.  I didn't know if they were the people we were looking for, or rather, the person we were looking for, but I still wanted to see fencing in action.  I had wanted to see it ever since Iain had told me he was a fencer.  

I looked incredulously at Vic, who had made my same epiphany, then I took her by the hand and led her to a place where we could see who was fighting inside the room.  We settled into a darkened area of the hallway just shy of the entrace.  She looked at me and shook her head, as if to ask why are we doing this?  I snorted in an attempt to hide my giggle.  I felt like I was back in junior-high, where most girls practically made it their past-time to creepily stalk the crushes in their lives.  Then again, I had a feeling that I would still be up for doing things like this when I was an old lady.  A girl's got to have her adventure, or else she loses her heart.  So, at that moment, neither one of us cared that we were indulging in immature notions, especially not after we looking inside the room.

We saw three shirtless men, one standing off to the side, the other two engaged in intense swordplay.  Each man was gleaming with sweat, and their arms and abdominal muscles twitched as they lunged...clashed...dodged...twisted...clashed.  Their movements were so mesmerizing, so powerful and yet so quick, a war waltz, that at first I did not recognize the men holding the swords.  My gaze focused on the face of the tallest fighter, and within a second I had gasped in recognition.  His dark hair was tousled and stuck to his neck, eyes of green glowing as I'd never seen them, shoulders broad with muscles that subconsciously convulsed, and olive skin, graced sporadically with dark hair, stretched over his immense bone breadth.  There was a V-shaped muscle where his abdomen reached his hips, and then his black pants, which skimmed over what I imagined where powerfully lean legs, interrupted my view of his flesh.  I had seen Kane MacAllister the scholar, but I had never seen, much less imagined, Kane MacAllister the warrior.  It was a decidedly less resistible vision.  If women had seen him half-naked with a highland claymore as I did now, it was no wonder they fell head over heals for him.  Suddenly the man opposing Kane blocked his sword with a clang, and then twisted his wrist quickly so that Kane's sword was swiped from his own hand.  his opponent caught Kane's sword and pointed both of the ominous weapons at his chest.  He was grinning wickedly, and then a deep laughter, which had the obvious tone of feigned truculence, erupted from his throat and permeated the room.

"Ha!  Ha ha ha haaaaa!" Laughed the mystery man mightily, yet playfully, as he held the two swords in his hands and walked menacingly towards Kane, endeavoring to back him against the far wall.  "I've got ye now ye bahstard!  Put your hands above your head!  Retreat!  Tis all over."

Kane had never struck me as a man to swallow and wallow in threats, or to accept being condescended to.  He didn't seem like a contentious man, but he was in no way passive either.  He had a menacing silence about him that when he pointedly stared, he could give just as powerful a command as someone who had spoken it.  Despite the fact that he was holding the weapons and Kane was seemingly defenseless, I still momentarily feared for the mystery man's life.  I expected to look up and see Kane's eyes seething with wild fury, to see that same punishing look he'd given me at the pub.  Surprisingly, he did not appear that way.  Surprisingly, he appeared to be enjoying his pitiful situation.  He eyes were narrowed and determined but his mouth was quirking with humor.  In the midst of his slow retreat backwards away from the sword points, he reclaimed his glory, and my relief. Quickly, he reached out with a hand to swipe away one of the weapons.  Sensing his opponent's momentary weakness, he then reached for the handle of the sword in a movement so fleet that it seemed as a blur.  He somehow grabbed hold of it and twisted quickly away.  Now both he and his opponent began to laugh.  

"Over, is it?" Kane asked, eyes green as wild glens and smile as roguish as the swashbuckling weapon his hand possessed, "Nothing is ever over..." he said as he squatted slightly and raised his brow and sword insolently, "until...I...say so."

The mystery man doubled over in laughter and dropped his sword on the floor, its sound a louder, more erratic chime than mere coins dancing concentrically on hard surfaces.  Nay, these men were not "mere" anything.  They were grand.  They were fascinatingly primeval and distinctive, and I was wildly and unexplainably intrigued by it, as intrigued as the hungry she-wolf who crouches in shadows as limbs crack beneath the steps of an ignorantly lackadaisical passerby.  The savagery of these men made me want to be savage myself.  I brought my arms around my waist, preventing my intrinsically animalistic blood from emerging from its long-kept cage. 

Kane and this mystery man seemed to be equal fighters, of equal speed and strength.  Kane was taller than his opponent by about two inches, and whereas Kane's eyes were green, his opponent's eyes were a darker color unidentifiable from such a distance.  Their hair was the same color, but Kane had more of it across his body, and their builds were very similar, but Kane's lean muscles covered a broader bone structure.  The other man was slimmer than Kane, more sinewy, but just as appealing to certain women.  Both men had striking facial features, made more rugged by their unshaven conditions.  

They shook hands then, which turned into some kind of special "man hand shake" that involved chest bumping, fist thumping, and awkward hugging, and then they turned toward us as they walked to where the man on the sidelines stood watching.

"Wha'?  Callin' it quits already?" The man from the sidelines called out.  Suddenly Vic nudged me.

"Tha' is Iain!" She whispered, surprised.

I looked a little closer, then raised my brows.  The man was definitely Iain.  His skin was pale and ruddy, and his hair was dark and plentiful, playing like dark velvet across his chest and arms that were bared.  He was just as tall as Kane, and just as broad and as beautifully sculpted, but he was less mysterious and more engaging, and he had a jubilant way about him that rubbed off on people.  I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed him standing there before, because Iain had a cocky stance about him that was normally unmistakable.  He would stand with his shoulders squared and his head tilted downward a bit, so that he always looked at people as if he were looking darkly over a pair of glasses while reading the newspaper.  It was an affective stance for him, even now, as I clearly heard Vic's whispered reaction, "Uh...Jackpot?" I nodded my head, but it wasn't on Iain that my eyes were ultimately glued.

"Ach, no, we're na' callin' it quits, ye see, we're just temporarily ending our duel on good terms" clarified the mystery man.  

"Good terms?" Questioned Iain with a knowing smile on his face, "Ye made nothing but threats!"

Kane tossed his sword to Iain, who caught it deftly by the handle and swiveled it a bit to cut through the air.  "Aye, but we're Scots" Kane said, shrugging cheekily right before he bent to pick up a towel from the floor.  He grinned widely when he arose, and laughed good-naturedly for once, "and tha' knowledge alone should justify our threats.  We make them whether we're in high spirits or gnashing our teeth" he finished.

I shook my head, a) because he was so...insolent, and b) because I still couldn't drag my eyes away from the damn man, especially since he was rubbing the sweat off his face, his neck, and his abdomen, his movements subconsciously making his muscles twitch.  I felt something deep within me awaken, fireflies in my lower abdomen, probably better known as the affects of lust, and I thought about how shameless it was that he didn't even know I was here.  I almost released a small groan of disappointment when they all put their shirts back on.  However, when they began to put their jackets back on over their shirts, a new epiphany, one that should have hit an intelligent person a whole hell of a lot sooner, hit me with the weight of a cement truck.  They were leaving.  They would come out into the hallway.  We were in the hallway.  I reached to clutch Vic's arm in panic.  Mother Mary of God, I thought to myself, here we are, caught in the supremely creepy act of spying on our half-naked professor as he plays a game of...sword fighting.  Shit. Shit shit shit.

I looked frantically around me for a better place for Vic and me to hide, but our current spot was most likely the best area, given that it was near the corner and bereft of light.  Perhaps they wouldn't look to their left as they walked out the door.  Snowball's chance in hell, I thought.  My heart began to drum in my ears.  It was such a ridiculous situation that I didn't know whether to cry, laugh, or meadow muffin my pants.

"Vic" I whispered suddenly, last minute idea coming to mind, "why don't we just act like we just got here?  We could just...nonchalantly walk into the door and tell everybody we were looking for Iain.  Oh...well there you are...we're happy we found you.  Yes, we no forgive you for not showing up today.  Not really...well we could at least try it.  It's better than getting caught...creeping."

Vic was about to answer, but suddenly we heard Iain curse from within the gym.  "Och my...BALLOCHS!" he said loudly, the crude phrase echoing off of the padded gym walls, "I forgot to meet Ellen and Vic at lunch to go over our research papers.  Ach hell, they're going to kill me.  I hate working with women."

"Ach, come on, why?" The mystery man asked, smiling, as he was most every time I looked over at him.  He had dimples when he smiled.  "Ellen and Vic get yer ballochs in a twist?"  Apparently, though we did not know the man, he knew us. 

"Aye, more like make my ballochs go runnin' up into my own asshole, squealin' like hogs all the way" Iain corrected, and all three men erupted with laughter.  Despite my inclination to feel affronted towards the fact that Iain was speaking about women, particularly us, in a negative way, the statement he'd made was almost oddly flattering.  He was implying that we had intimidated him.  This surprised me, because I knew that Iain was  the kind of man who was seemingly undaunted, like a daring member of cavalry charging the enemy despite his possible fears.  Iain was unafraid.  Point blank.  And I did not truly believe that he was afraid of me and Vic, simply because he had had the strength to confess it.  It was because he admitted it that I decided it would be okay to laugh along with them, very quietly.  And I continued laughing until I heard what Kane said.

"Aye, tha' is when ye know ye've come across a good woman" he said with laughter still in his eyes, still on the rich timbre of his voice.  He bowed his head a bit and clenched his jaw so that his jaw muscles did their familiar quiver-dance, and his voice became softer, sounding as if he was inching his way across fragile ice, or a topic that was a sensitive one for him.  Iain was unafraid.  Kane, however, was not.  Perhaps circumstance had rendered them different men, or perhaps Iain was just born to be intrepid, and Kane born to be circumspect. But the more I analyzed, the more I began to see, Iain may have been bold and daring and captivating, but he was also ignorant to heartbreak.  One the other hand, Kane's vigilance, his hot and cold behavior, revealed to me that his soul was a treasure, capable of being deeply penetrated and thus very rare.  He was circumspect and guarded because if he wasn't, he would love so greatly that it would tear him apart if that love was taken from him.  It had torn him apart.  I thought about him, five years old and motherless, losing his sister as a teenager, being cheated on by some bitch who was too insensitive to try and understand him.  I thought about these things and imagined that his soul was not just torn, it was likely shredded.

Kane continued voicing his thoughts, controlling himself so that he still sounded acceptably remote, "When they intimidate ye, but intrigue ye at the same time...tha' is when ye know they are unlike any other woman.  It's like they're a poison yet a panacea, and ye doona know whether to distance yourself from them or hold on to them and never let go."  

My heart shook with his admission, and I sat crouched in stunned silence.  Kane looked up then, giving a huff of laughter as if to shake off the fact that he had just ejected a fragment of his heart onto the air between them, but Iain was already studying him hard, and Kane could not take back what he had said.

I saw Iain's leaden eyes narrow in suspicion.  "Aye" he said quietly, looking Kane in the eyes, "tha' is exactly how I feel about...weel...you would know wouldna you?"

Now Kane narrowed his own jade eyes.  The men were on eye-level and silent for a moment as they studied each other, Kane distant and calculating, Iain bold and penetrating.  I began to get an ill feeling that their conversation had a much more important intention than had been spoken.  A half smile crept slowly onto Kane's face, and I sat impatiently, wanting to know what kind of epiphany his minded had reached.

"I 'ave seen the way ye look at her" Kane said, still calculating Iain's thoughts, eyes gleaming like a distant star.

"And i've seen the way you look at her" returned Iain.  Kane did not expect this, and he lost his composure, as his eyes went from cryptic to cold.  I had seen that same look on his face at the pub, when he had risen his eyes from his glass of swirling whiskey.  It was a "how dare you" glance.  I wondered, if maybe for a second, that Iain was talking about me.  But then I shook my head, deciding that was out of the question.  No, they were talking about a woman I didn't know.  I was disheartened, unexplainably, to know that they were both interested in this invisible woman.  My chances with either of them had been slim, and I had not truly desired to enter into a relationship with either of them, but I still felt as if I'd lost something.  Nevertheless, there was nothing I or anyone else could do about it; it was obvious that both men were partial towards her, whoever she was, as one man boldly basked in his discovery of it, and the other man coldly backed away in attempts to guard his soul by denying it.  These were the classic reactions of the two men that stood face to face in the distance before me.

Iain was not a fool.  He had known Kane much longer than I, and he was able to read his swift changes in  mood.  "Ah" Iain said on an epiphany as he watched Kane's eyes form emerald icicles, "so it is true.  Ye do like her.  Else ye wouldna 'ave reacted so.  Bluidy hell, Kane MacAllister, is it about time.  So she is the poison, the panacea, eh?  Is she the one ye were thinking of when ye were talking about the right woman?  Because if so, I 'ave a wee bit of funny news for you, news that I suspect ye've gathered by observation.  She is the one I was thinking of too."  Iain's last sentence had been spoken with growing fervor, and a great passion within him simmered beneath the surface like burning coals trapped within a furnace.  Kane remained cold as ice and distant as death.  If he was simmering beneath, if he was the trickling water wanting to break through the cold, hard surface above, then he did not show it.

Abruptly Kane turned away.  "Take her" he said to Iain, quietly, grimly.  "I'd only weigh down her life with my own."

"Weel if ye keep treating her like rubbish ye'll not 'ave to worry about me taking her, she'll come running to me." Iain said without thinking, and harshly. 

Kane stiffened.  I saw Iain bow his head, possibly in instant regret.  Kane had a reason to treat people harshly.  He did not.  Iain stood in silence then, across from the man that he had grown up with, been taught by, and been best friends with.  His charisma could lead him no where in this situation, he had already said too much to smoothly recover himself.  I suppose it was providential that there was a third wheel amongst them.  

"Christ.  Can we na' talk about this?  Ye know wha'?  I'm sensing a sever beer draught.  I doona know about ye two romantic-types but I'll be needin' a Guinness of the now.  Bluidy hell, I'll be needin' a 12-pack of them 'afore the night is done if I 'ave to listen to any more of your...rubbish.  Can we just...go?"  The mystery man had interrupted, and with a frolocsome look in his dark eyes, and a few pounds in his hand, his intentions became quite a clear and glorious alternative to conversation.  

The man seemed to have eased Kane's remoteness, as he now smiled a bit, saying "Personally, I'd prefer haggis and scotch."

"Abominable" the mystery man replied, "why would ye drink scotch when ye could enjoy loads of warm, rich-bodied beer?"

"Colin MacAllister, I swear you are more German than ye are Scottish" Iain said, also snapping out of the intense moment he had had with Kane.

"Eh...wha' is the difference?  We're all hairy beasts tha' drink too much.  And fight more than we fuck." With the addition of the last line, the three men burst into laughter again.  It seemingly applied to the situation, as they all three had been sword fighting, were talking of drinking, yet were all single and troubled over the idea of a woman.  Nevertheless, Vic looked over at me and rolled her eyes. 

I held my breath when I thought the men were exiting through the door nearly across from Vic and I.  But we both wiped our brows with relief when we realized there was another exit from within the gym, and they took that door instead.  We had managed to successfully pull off creeping without getting caught.  However, we didn't think we'd make a habit of the pastime.  

As Vic and I walked back to the library, I began to wonder about the conversations I had heard from within thegym.  For one, all three men were male physiognomy sculpted to perfection.  Second, their personalities were each very different.  Third, Kane and Iain liked the same woman.  Fourth, the mystery man's name was Colin, and he was Kane's brother.

***

Iain found us in the library almost immediately after we had returned.  Our cheeks were flushed again, and our eyes full of humor and newfound discovery, which bred quite a curiosity.  

"What were you doing all this time when you were supposed to be helping us research?" I asked him, interested to see if he would remain truthful.

He smiled widely, "Ye wouldna believe me if I told you."

"Try me" I said, and raised an eyebrow, still breathing quicker than normal from walking briskly outside.

"I was fencing" he answered, trying to be straight-faced.  Then he looked at me more closely and began to laugh.

"What?" I asked him testily.

"Ye look like a grape" he said, then held his stomach as he cackled in his chair.

I put my hand on my hips and gave him the stink-eye.  "Fine, and you look like strawberry.  Ass." I returned, remembering the earlier conversation I'd had with VIc about grapes and strawberries.  He laughed even harder, then reached out and grabbed me by the waist, pulling me into his lap.  I struggled to be free, but he held me close to his heat.  I realized I'd never been so close to Iain before, and the realization made me stop moving right away.  One of my hands was still clutching his upper thigh.  I was suddenly scandalized by its nearness to certain...other parts...and quickly jerked it away.  He sensed the change in me, and leaned his head forward so that he could talk softly in my ear.  His lips nearly brushed the edges of them, ,and I was torn between trying to claw his face away or trying to lean my ear just a little closer.

"Doona be prickly, Ellen" he said in a laughing, knowing voice, "canna ye take a wee joke?"  I hate him then, for he obviously liked another woman and yet he was fooling with me.  I would not be a toy, or chattel, no doubt what he thought most women were.  My face became no less flushed than it already was, as a hot rush of blood crept through my entire body and ended at my cheeks.  I could take a wee joke just fine, just not with his hands all overe me while I was trying to take it.  Vic merely looked at the situation from her seat across from us and giggled progressively harder, so hard eventually that we yet again earned the "hairy eyeball" of the librarian.  

"So tell me, Iain" I heard Vic purr, after he released me and I sat in the seat beside him, "doona ye love working with women?"  My lip quirked upwards in realization of what Vic was trying to do.  She was twisting his facetious admission of hatred towards women at the gym, testing him, taunting him, just what he thrived upon and at the same time felt like running from.  

He got a gleam in his eye and gave her an enormous grin, too big of a grin to be completely sincere.  But of course, with his naturally suave way, he made light of the situation.  "Och, aye lass" he winked, "tis a pleasure."

***

i think my fingers are going to fall off.