Hutch calls me an optimist with an allergy to facing facts. He doesn't mean job-related facts, or even practical real world issues. I have a completely acceptable grasp on reality. You can't live through the stages of my life and be an ostrich. I'm no bird with his head stuck in the sand. But there are certain ideas, dreams even, that I cling to despite Hutch's logical, well-spoken arguments against their ever existing in the same reality we call our own: Bay City, California 1979.

So, when I told him I planned to write a book about the two of us, Hutch laughed out loud and then sobered quickly. "A book. About us. What exactly about us?"

I grinned at him and let one of my eyelids droop slowly into a wink. The slow-motion wink always produces a sputter when slipped into the right kind of conversations.

"W-what a-about us, Starsky?"

"You kno-o-w," I dragged the syllables out with enough emphasis that Hutch jumped out of the arm chair and like a flying squirrel deposited himself on the couch beside me, for once unconcerned about jarring my healing body. I winced.

"Starsky, why waste your time on a book that will never be published?"

"It'll have everything in it, Hutch. Love, danger, suspense, intrigue, international--"

"Everything that, I repeat, could never be published."

"Hutch," I patted his knee. "Ian Fleming made a mint off the James Bond books. Look at the movies alone. This book will have all that and a little extra spice to go with it. Maybe in ten, fifteen, twenty years our book will be just as accepted as 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service.'"

Hutch gave me that "oh, how sweet" smile. Normally, I feel like he's wrapped me up in goose down when he smiles that way, but right then I felt patronized. I tried to move, a little too quickly, and ended up catching a harsh breath. Hutch's smile disappeared and was replaced by the trauma-surgeon-on-call expression. I swear he could play one of those TV doctors to perfection. "You're not even well enough to think about writing a book."

"Nonsense. I'm going to dictate while you're at work."

"Dictate. Dictate!" Hutch's eyes threatened to bob together as they enlarged. "Dictating would require that another human being--" His eyes went in the opposite direction, narrowing no doubt at the smug smile I had plastered to my face. "I suppose you already have a volunteer."

"Yup." I paused, let him stew for a minute, and then said, "Huggy."

"Huggy!"

"Yes, he spends a couple hours a day with me. Starting tomorrow he's going to bring over an old typewriter and we're gonna go to town."

"Yes, go to town on intimate details of our lives that also carry national security clauses in this case. I know what you want to write about, Starsky, and you should just save your energy."

He proceeded to lecture me on the status of religion in America, and politics, and sociological constructs, and a mile-long list of other 'isms' that all combine to prove his point that my book would never see the light of day. I weathered the tirade damn well, considering that I had slipped into an uncomfortable position with an ache in my shoulder and a throbbing pull in one of my scars. Finally, I just let him trail off into silence. Then I touched his cheek with one finger and said, "Wouldn't you like to think that someday people will know we weren't capable of doing that to each other? Hurting each other like that."

His face softened and the lecturing professor gave way to the basic, all-around happy, contented human he's been since I stood up on my own two feet, vacated the wheelchair at Memorial's patient pick-up, and survived the car ride home. "Starsky...."

"I'm going to write it, Hutch. I'm glad Huggy's going to be the first one who gets into the inner circle, and I hope he won't be the last. I need this, Hutch. You know what the doctor said about a good distraction."

Hutch sighed, protests dying in his throat. And then it was time for our nightly ritual. I can walk, dammit. I say it every time he reaches for me when the nightly ritual rolls around, but he never listens. I just know we're going to be expending bucket loads of money on back surgery any day now, but he just laughs at my concern like I'm the only one allowed to have a less-than-superhuman body. With a soft kiss on the top of my head, he tucks one arm under my knees, grips me around the back, and hoists me into his arms like a child who fell asleep in front of the television. And I'm carried to a warm, fluffed bed where I'm tucked in with a good dose of petting and whispered words of comfort.

But present day isn't really the topic of this book. I just wanted to explain my reasons for writing in the first place. Guess my next task should be background. Huggy interjected at this point that what I've dictated so far has thrown him for a loop and he can't wait for the rest...why not skip the background? Yeah, well easy for Huggy to say when he's known us since we were spit-into-the-wind rookies.

We're cops. Okay, to be technical, at present one of us is a cop riding a desk and one of us is a cop on extended medical leave, but until May 1979 we were both homicide detectives with the Bay City Police Department, and partners. You don't need me to drown you in background. We entered the Police Academy in 1969 and after a short period of adjustment in which we threatened to kill each other, we became known as Siamese twins. Roommates, study pals, best buds, brothers-in-arms. Graduation meant separation, but only a temporary one. As soon as I made Detective, I howled and created a sufficient uproar until a month later, the newly promoted Detective Kenneth R. Hutchinson was shipped over to my precinct and stuck with me. That first year of partnership wasn't especially easy. Hutch was suffering through a recent divorce and I had my own demons to conquer. Nothing worthy of tacking into this book, though.

(All right, all right, Huggy, I'll fill you in later. You know most of it anyway.)

By 1975, we were really into the groove of our teamwork. Siamese twins evolved into the concept of "Me and Thee." We were a force to be reckoned with in any arena we tracked a criminal. Whether undercover or blatantly stalking the streets, we counted on each other, drew strength from our closeness, meshed our differences into a damned impressive whole, and put our precinct on the map. I'm simply stating a fact when I say that Metro Division became synonymous with "Starsky and Hutch." Oh sure, plenty of people had beefs with us for whatever reason. Our methods—and our friendship—didn't make us candidates for the Most Popular Detective Award among our colleagues. But we had plenty of solid, at-our-backs allies, too. Captain Dobey, our superior officer, is chief among them.

 (Yes, Huggy, I think they ought to be able to figure out if I'm letting you type this for me, you rank high up there on that list.)

During the hey-day of our partnership, we faced our share of bullets, stab-wounds, and ordinary cop injuries, but our partnership seemed to attract the really weird stuff, too. Cult leaders, poison, bubonic plagues, psychotic females....jeez, when I look back sometimes I think we're nuts to put James Marshall Gunther up on the all-time villain pedestal. He's a mean-ass, coldhearted snake but compared to some of the portraits on our Wall-of-Wackos, he's fairly normal with understandable, human motives: money and power. Through it all, we remained intact because we remained together.

By mentioning Gunther, I'm getting a little closer to the meat of this book, although the events in this story took place before we knew that we were going up against that great, and some would say evil, entrepreneur-financier. No, we were still tackling his underlings...and someone not even connected to him at all.

I should get back to filling in the important gaps in your knowledge. Somewhere around mid-1978, we hit the skids a bit personally. Hutch's pseudo-social-work approach to law enforcement had started to wear a hole in his heart and he grew tired of fighting a system that wanted him to value bureaucracy over the instinct to protect and serve.

And I...I was just getting tired. Tired of watching Hutch relinquish one belief after another. Tired of watching him look for someone to make it all go away...and watching the candidates for that job walk away instead. Tired of watching my own companions die, give up, or choose something or someone over me. Our cases seemed to get harder to swallow as well. We had cases that just wouldn't fade into the shadows nearly as quickly as in the past. Or maybe we were older and wiser, forced by our own hands into looking deeper into issues than just locking away the "bad guys."

I constantly had the sensation that we stood at a crossroads and we could choose to walk together down one road or another, or split between the two. I wasn't prepared for the time to arrive, but when it did, I suddenly realized which choice had my vote.

I think what turned the tables was the overwhelming realization that I respected Hutch more than any person I've ever known, including my parents. Oh, I've always admired his word usage, his talents outside of police work, and his ability to view the world from such a fair-minded perspective. Just spend three hours with Hutch in his apartment and you'll feel like you've attended a college lecture, eaten at French restaurant, taken in an opera, visited the Louvre, and watched a Civil Right's rally.

 (Yes, Huggy, I know damn well what the Louvre is and not just because Hutch told me. So shaddup already.)

I've always marveled at his satisfaction in spending those same three hours with me even though he walks away with an earful of sports, strange bits of trivia, rock-and-roll, and a seven-courser of junk food. Oh, yeah, there's more to me than that, but when I'm with Hutch at my place I tend to want to balance his fine feathers with good old Americana.

(Where was I? Oh, respect.)

I'm not sure if this phenomenon ever gets a lot of press in academic circles or pop-psych books, but I learned just how a sudden understanding of the amount of respect you have for a certain person can lead you down the road to realizing that you're in love with that person.

(Huggy, just how did you manage to knock the typewriter off the middle of the table? Huggy? Oh, come on, Huggy, you can't be that shocked. You had to know where this was going. Huggy?)

>>>>

Equilibrium restored thanks to a pitcher of cold water. Now that I'm aching in places I didn't know existed on the human body after fetching and flinging that pitcher of water, I think we're ready to continue.

>>>>>

Love. That was the new topic. Oddly enough, I didn't feel the "in love" part right away. Like I said, the respect portion came first.

We had this informant working a case with us. Lionel Rigger. He was a good man. Rough around the edges, but boasting a heart more soundly in the right place than half the cops on the force at times. More than that, Hutch and I just liked the guy. He had a sense of priorities and the real meaning behind the double-talk. And he loved his family, his wife and little girl. Unfortunately for him, he had a rap to beat and the dangerous ability to help us put away a crooked Federal Judge. Long and short of it is, we ended up in court with our backs against a wall and both of us silently wishing that all lawyers would come down with a mysterious ailment that turned them into gnats. Watching Hutch on that stand, struggling, tap-dancing, willing to cut his own heart out of his chest and hand it on an ivory cutting-board to the defense attorney rather than give away Lionel's identity, I understood for perhaps the first time just how much I respected him. I felt choked by the strength of that feeling. I wouldn't have been surprised if a bright light had surrounded his head and trumpets started blaring in the background. You know, like in those movies when the hero is about to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Even when we lost Lionel, when I almost lost Hutch in the explosion meant to lure me from Lionel's side long enough for the assassin to get through, I didn't understand what I was feeling. Oh, I recognized the cutting grief. I still grieve for Lionel in my own way. Hutch does too. I knew I was experiencing a breath-taking relief, too, that Hutch was still alive and in one piece. But the heart wrenching look of despair, guilt, disappointment, and desire for vengeance on Hutch's face as he examined Lionel's body didn't fill me with a sense of love for Hutch...just that same powerful respect.

That respect lingered as I watched him respond to Huggy's chewing us a new pair of assholes.

 (Don't give me that look, Huggy. You raked us over smoldering coals. Granted, you had a right. We probably needed that smack in the face right then.)

When did the love part surface? Let me tell you something even stranger: I discovered an almost spiritual love for Hutch before I got whacked in the head with the "romantic" notions.

I'd been trying to occupy my brain with anything to avoid thinking about Lionel and the implications of our failure to protect him. I told Hutch I was going to catch a movie. He wanted to be alone. I backed away and gave him that space. Well, I did until I couldn't stand it any longer. All I could think about was Hutch. I was mad as a starved dog about The System. I wanted nothing more than to slam somebody against a wall and rail at him about injustice, corruption, and helplessness. Our whole damn military had its hands tied behind its back in Vietnam. I saw that firsthand. The kind of crap you wade into when you're given just enough power to do harm but not enough to do the right thing. I was living it again, here...as a cop.

All of that whirled around my head, but what I kept coming back to was a desperate desire to be with Hutch on whatever terms. If I could just have Hutch...if I could just keep Hutch. Then, the blinders or scales fell off my eyes and I looked in the nearest mirror, solemnly telling my reflection, "I love Hutch. More than life. More than my own soul. More than anything I do on this planet to earn my keep. I can't...I won't lose him over this." I don't talk like that, ladies and gents. Not my style. But that day, I meant every word.

Finding him didn't take too long. I have always been known for my Hutch-radar. But even after my enlightening discussion with the mirror, I didn't think when I spotted him, "Oh, God, he's gorgeous." My first thought was: Thank God he hasn't done something irreversibly stupid. He's there. Breathing. Alive. Still reachable. Walking down the beach, watching him as I approached, I fought back once again a sudden vision out of an old-time storybook about a suffering knight. The jeans, well-worn shirt, and charcoal jacket gave way to ripped and tangled chain-mail armor, the fair head minus its helmet and plume. He was my knight, dammit, and I planned to repair the kinks in that armor. I would tuck those sun-bleached strands back under the protective helmet and give him a new shield to carry around. Somehow. All I could force past my lips was..."Hey."

(Huggy, we're going to have a problem with my telling you what I was thinking at those times and repeating our conversations so I am just going to leave out the-- he said, I said stuff and we can worry about it later.  If I point to my head just type the thoughts in brackets or something okay.  Gonna use hand signals to show where I want a new paragraph or speaker - how about that? Okay, here we go.)

 When he turned, the wave of pain radiating from him just about knocked me to the sand. Think of something light without downplaying the situation, my instinct advised. "Polluting the ocean? It's against the law."

He couldn't even muster a frown. The mustache quirked a little but the eyes remained remote, icy. "Thought you were going to the movies."

Wouldn't have done anything but sit there and think about you, want you near me.... "Changed my mind."

No comment on that. Just another stare at the tide and a muttered, "What was that you were saying?"

"About what?"

"Something about...something being against the law."

 "Oh, that. Pollution. Definite violation." Screw pollution, violations, and meaningless small talk. Open up to me, Hutch. I'm hurting too. Can't we hurt together, heal together...can't you promise me you're not leaving me behind even if you're telling the world you've always known to piss off?

"Well, partner, the way I see it, this old badge has polluted me just about enough."

The crossroads. We were there. In the warmth and sea-salt air of a Southern Californian sunset, we faced the fork in the road. I knew what I had to do. I knew what I wanted. My heart was threatening to climb into my nasal passages because I just couldn't read what Hutch wanted. He fixed me with this wounded, bitter look that gave me a sour taste in my mouth.

My badge. I'd always seen it as an extension of myself. Proof of what I could accomplish, what I meant in the overall scheme of birth, life, and death. Right then, I came up hard against the truth. The six-foot, one-inch blond standing beside me was the only extension of myself I needed. With another glance at the piece of metal in my hands, I asked perhaps the most important question of my life, "Mind if I join you?"

I issued a silent plea that the slight brightening in his features wasn't a figment of my suddenly deranged imagination. He didn't say a word, but my heart decided to remain in its proper location when we turned in unison and hurled the badges into the onrushing waves.

For a moment we stood silently watching the sea carry away the symbols of our place in society. Then Hutch shocked my calmed heart back out of rhythm when he touched my shoulder, clasped my upper arm, and pulled me into a bone-shattering hug. Don't get any ideas. My dick didn't chime in with, "Ooh, can I play? Can I play?" I didn't feel anything except an internally swelling gratitude. His hands were patting my back in a strange cadence. I pulled back just enough to notice the sheen of perspiration on his forehead. He had been just as uncertain. He had known we were at the fork in the road.

"You didn't have to do that," he whispered.

As much as I relished the sensation of those so-familiar arms around me, I didn't want to be crushed while I tried to reason with Metro's answer to Aristotle. I stepped out of his embrace, shoved my hands in my jacket pockets, and turned back to the tide. "Like hell I didn't."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him smile. God, if the ocean had suddenly turned into boiling blood, I wouldn't have been afraid while he smiled at me like that. "Yes, but, Starsky--"

"I love you, Hutch."  Oh, terrific. I'd vowed after my chat with the mirror that I would sit him down and calmly explain that he made up the sum total of my world. Blurting it out, especially under these circumstances, was not my intention. I heard a choked cough and looked over in time to catch Hutch biting down on his lower lip.

"You love being a cop," he said a little louder.

If I was going to stick my neck out, I might as well leave it there long enough to get it chopped. "Not more than I love you."

"But what do you mean, Starsky?" Here we go, I thought. Hutch's frown had returned, but this wasn't a bitter, wounded pull on his lips. He had entered the analytical zone. Time to hash out the semantics, go over every possible interpretation of a word. I wasn't having any of it.

"I. Love. You. Doesn't that say it all?"

Hutch laughed. The sound had an uncertain, almost scared ring. "Starsky, there are countless forms of love and each one has its own set of consequences, actions, and conventions. Are you saying you love me because we're partners...best friends... family, even? We can still fill those roles for each other without your having to toss away your career."

"You're everything. I don't want to be where you aren't. I. Love. You." Last time, last try. If he didn't get the picture then, I'd run out of the courage to state my case more plainly.

Hutch took hold of both my shoulders and turned me gently to face him. His hands tightened and relaxed against my shoulder blades. His eyes lingered on almost every inch of my face. I would have thought he'd seen my mug enough to never need that kind of scrutiny to read my mind, but apparently he wanted the clearest signals possible. Then one hand wobbled away from my shoulder and rested against my cheek. I felt the trembling straight through my skin. Fingertips caressed my cheekbone. Then that fair head dipped slightly and the hand moved to allow the barest touch of lips to brush across my cheek and into the hair just above my ear. The lips were gone just as suddenly and he let me go, taking at least two steps off to the side before he said, "I love you, too."

(Huggy, I swear on the graves of all your ancestors, if you're crying over there, I'm going to throw the typewriter at you.)

I chuckled and rubbed my cheek. "Tickles." I've never seen Hutch more confused. He couldn't even vocalize the "What?" I saw hovering on his lips. "Mustache," I explained.

"That a hint?"

I shifted my gaze under a wave of heat across my face. I do not blush. I don't care what any of my old girlfriends might tell you. I've been around too many blocks to let innuendo embarrass me.

I wasn't embarrassed, but I was certainly uncomfortable because I didn't know how to answer. I was still on nervous legs when it came to this new, outside-of-work togetherness we'd just established. Maybe Hutch was right: what kind of love did I mean? Not wanting to tackle that question even mentally yet, I settled for telling him the absolute truth. "I don't want you to change. Anything."

I didn't expect Hutch to grin and act thrilled with my blanket approval. His reactions are never simple and predictable. He walked behind me and rubbed my shoulders again, not pulling me back against him, but standing close enough that I could feel something snap and crackle between us. Then I felt lips move softly against my hair. "I'll tell you one thing I'm going to change. I'm going to stop acting like you're part of my problem instead of the solution. The only solution."

I closed my eyes and murmured a few words when I felt his arms stretch around my waist, his hands clasping against the zipped part of my jacket. "Mind if I join you in that resolution, too?"

That mouth breathed a snort of laughter against the back of my head but I could hear the self-indictment in the sound. "You don't—you haven't--"

"Oh, shut up, Hutch. I'm not going to stand back and let you take the whole blame—for whatever—just because you get off on it."

"Oh, so now you think you're in charge of what gets me off?"

I tried to pull away and put some distance between us but those hands grew insistent, trapping me back against him. Finally, I rested in that hold and gave my hands permission to cover his, holding them in place.

"What are you going to want from me, Starsky?" warm breath whispered into my ear.

"I don't know what you--"

"Oh, yes, you damn well do know what I mean. You've just told me you love me; that I'm everything. How much of that everything do you want?"

That was the question I hadn't hashed out with the mirror at home. Hutch and I've been fairly adventurous on the recreational love front in our time, but I'd venture to say ninety-eight percent of that adventure has been strictly heterosexual for both of us. Oh, I dabbled on the outskirts of a same-sex relationship in-country and I had a feeling Hutch had at least a smattering of experimentation under his belt too, pardon the word play, but did I want him to do things to me that...did I even want to do things to him that went well beyond the acceptable line of dabbling? See, at that point, I still had the "overarching, almost spiritual love" and the "smoochy-in-love" feelings separated.

"Can't we play it by ear...see what happens?" I asked in a voice that sounded nothing like me.

Hutch just answered by playing my ear...expertly...with miniature kisses. "Sure. So, the next order of business is deciding where to go from here. We have to eat, pay rent, and keep up car expenses. Well, you still have car expenses."

I shuddered at the reminder of his close call and if I thought his arms couldn't tighten their grip, I was sorely mistaken. I wheezed and grunted under the constriction. "My partner the python." I grinned.

Those devilish, whispering lips were back at my ear. "More ways than you know, buddy."

I got a clue at that point. Hutch was slowly, tenderly seducing me. Well, I wasn't psyched up to throwing him down on the sand and taking advantage of the opportunity, but I can hold my own in a battle of wits, too. "So that Magnum really has been a phallic symbol all this time?"

Hutch laughed out loud and for the first time since before Lionel's death the humor was genuine, relaxed. I smiled and rested my head back against his shoulder. "You know, if we don't put at least six inches between us in the next few minutes, people are gonna get ideas. This beach ain't exactly deserted."

Hutch laughed again, an even happier sound. "Who the hell cares? What we do is no longer anyone's business."

I twisted around until I could face him. "Is that why--"

He gave me the Hutchinson Grin then, that beautiful, slightly superior, toothy smile. "You think I haven't wanted this, wanted you before now?  I always figured you'd kick up one hell of a fuss about anything that might threaten our work."

And he was right. I just might have...until that day. "Hutch, I'm still not sure I—I mean...."

"Shh...playing it by ear, remember? Besides, I think we've got more pressing matters to handle right now." And with a familial kiss on my forehead, he released me.

(No, Huggy, you're not going to be typing a long, drawn-out sex scene. I'll type those myself. Anyway, there isn't one yet. What, you want to type them? Huggy!)

>>>>>>>

Hutch walked in the door at around seven p.m., ruffled through the pages on the table, and asked, "How's the dictation going?"

"I haven't seen you all day and you ask about dictation?" I grumped from my comfortable perch on the sofa. He shed his holster and jacket and collapsed onto the couch, scooping me carefully into his arms and trying to locate my collarbone under the pajama top with his lips.

"Ummm...."

"You're trying to get something started," I mock-protested, hoping he caught the underlying hint of encouragement in the words.

"Nothing acrobatic," he murmured, fumbling with my buttons.

"I can't do acrobatic, baby," I laughed softly, craning my neck to kiss his hair. "In fact, on these pain meds I can't even do 'passive lover.'"

"Doesn't mean I can't devour you with tiny kisses," Hutch argued, proceeding to do just that in a traceable pattern across my bared chest. I shivered.

"Don't you want food? Bet you didn't even have a half-way decent lunch today."

"That's why I'm feasting now," he explained against my belly button. "You didn't answer my question."

"Question? You're setting miniature forest fires all over my body and you want me to answer a damn question? What question?"

"How's the dictation going?"

"Oh, that. Huggy's having way too much fun with this whole project, if you ask me."

>>>>>>>

(Where did we leave off yesterday, Hug? Oh, yeah. The beach.)

I guess it's about time I tell you when I did put two-and-two together with the love business and came up with four. Can't hurt to have some comic interludes in the book. The Bond books did, too. It wasn't, believe it or not, when we were forced to run for our lives from the assassins who came after us at that sidewalk café. That was yet another instance of thanking some Benevolent Deity that we ended up together, intact, and safe, but nothing that stirred my loins.

No, the crowning irony of this whole book is probably that my first romantic urgings about Hutch stemmed from a car. His car. A car of his choosing. Anyone who knows us, like Huggy, my amanuensis, who is now convulsed in giggles, will find that fact amusing.

(Huggy, I will go get that pitcher again and no I did not call you a bad name.)

I was waiting for Hutch to show up so we could dive into the real world job market together. Our first interview. Truth be told, I had some misgivings about my ability to fit in a world that didn't include laws, guns, rap sheets, and handcuffs. So, I kept an eye on my watch and fidgeted, kicking a poor soda can around relentlessly. I heard the telltale noise of a Hutchinson-mobile: the knocks and sputters of a car desperately in need of a proper junk heap burial.

When I caught the first glimpse of my...my everything...driving that little cream, toy-kit convertible, with an umbrella for a roof for Chris'sake, I practically swallowed my tongue. By the time he climbed out of the car, looking all sophisticated man-about-town with his gentlemen's hat and matching scarf, all golden, creams, and browns, I battled the sudden urge to swallow his tongue.

"Just in case of showers," he simpered at me, closing the umbrella. "Nice little car, huh? I call her Belle."

Let me call you anything, preferably when I'm out of breath and making you sing a special kind of tune. Not the time for that. "Let's go. We're late," I said, trying to drum up some irritation in my voice.

"Wait a minute," Hutch almost pouted. "You didn't tell me what you think."

I think I'm going to embarrass you and the spectators over there in half-a-minute if we don't get this show on the road. Embarrassment. That'll rile him up and get him in the damn car already. "I know...because I can't."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Means I'm embarrassed."

"Embarrassed about what?"

The fact that seeing you prance around and gloat over your little 'dinky toy' over there has me doing a snake-charming routine in my pants. "Grown man doesn't drive a car like that. Not a grown man."

Yes, I know my Hutch. That riled him, all right, but not enough for him to get into the Torino and be done with it. No, we had to go through an elaborate song-and-dance about the dangers of my having left the Torino unguarded for twelve hours. When I slipped the key in the ignition and he just about flipped over his snagged scarf in his haste to get to me, I wanted more than anything to grab him in my arms and ruffle his perfectly matched outfit. Cursing the lousy timing, I took refuge in reminding him how late we were for our first interview and ducked into the safety of the car. But Hutch is nothing if not persistent. "You sure you want to do that?"

I glanced at the key in the ignition, noticed that the key trembled from contact with my unsteady hand, and knew if he saw the tremors, he'd think I was just as antsy as he was. I was antsy, but for a totally different reason. "Yes, I'm sure."

"You sure you don't want me to take just one little peek under that hood?"

I sighed, counted to twenty backwards, and schooled my face. Annoyed, that was the look I aimed for. "If you don't get in this car right now after all the things I've said...I'm gonna leave alone."

"That's what I'm afraid of. Straight up...and in about a million pieces."

The words alone rattled my cage, but his face and the pleading, desperate quality in his eyes, squelched any snide response. This was Hutch's way of saying, again, unequivocally, "I love you. I don't want to lose you." I practically growled at having to drag him to an interview instead of off somewhere secluded where I could.... What, exactly? I wasn't sure, but I had a few ideas brewing. So I joined him in front of the hood, let the protector-supreme do his under-the-car inspection, and then we got our butts scared off by a tabby cat that came barreling out from under the hood when we lifted it. I could feel Hutch's scarf trailing against my shoulder as I turned, strangling in more ways than one, back to the car. I allowed myself to flip the scarf around his neck and give him one intense stare. I could tell by his uneasy smile that he interpreted the look as a threatening storm cloud. Oh, no. No, it was strictly carnal on my part.

I thought I was fine when we settled in the car and I managed to actually crank the engine without a protest from Hutch. I felt myself relaxing as we drove away. The moment I rounded the curve, I was lost. I slammed on brakes despite the road's decline and barely got the parking brake up before I turned in the seat and grabbed the lapels of his sports coat.

"Starsky?"

"Just—just don't talk," I commanded, knocking that ridiculously adorable hat off his head as I ran my hands over his hair, down the sides of his face, across his chest and around underneath his jacket to scratch at his back. That didn't satisfy me. Without even giving him a chance to vote on the next step, I clasped the back of his neck and tilted his head, attacking his mouth with what had to be nearly painful pressure.

He emitted a familiar choking sound and opened his mouth wide, pushing back against mine with equal force. No one's ever done to me what he did while we kissed. I was too busy trying to investigate his throat to notice at first, but slowly it dawned on me that two fingers softly stroked my Adam's apple while his other hand squeezed my knee. I'm not sure how he managed the latter considering our current tangle of limbs and jackets, but the effect was miraculous. I pushed back, gulping air like a drowning person, and spit out a broken curse word when his lips followed me and latched onto the skin just under my chin, sucking softly.

"Hutch--!" No response other than two hands running through my hair. "Hutch, stop! I mean it, stop now!"

He jerked back, the hurt visible in his expression, and looked away from me. I mentally kicked myself. "Hey, no...I was loving it, Hutch. That's the problem. We don't have time for me to change clothes."

The import of my statement crashed over him like a tidal wave. His complexion alternated between pale and pink and he chuckled nervously. "Uh...right, yeah. Well, guess we'd better make that interview, huh, partner?"

Partner. So much history tied up in that one little word and a return to the status quo that existed prior to our declaration of love—some kind of love—on the beach. I think that glimpse of the physical fire that could rage between the two of us scared us both spitless. We were already facing a complete upheaval in our everyday lives. Adding yet another new reality to the mix, however pleasant, threatened to topple us. Falling back into familiar patterns was far easier, and that's what we did by unspoken agreement. Hutch tripped all over himself in his chivalrous attentions to the lady at the employment office and when we were alone again, I suggested a matinee instead of a trip back to one of our apartments.

Then Allison came into our lives. A ghost from my past and a woman in need. But, sweet as she is, this book isn't about her or the torturous, weird maze we stumbled around in trying to help her and her father without our badges as protection and legitimacy. You can read about a lot of those events in newspaper clippings. Reporters flocked to us once we'd had our badges pressed back into our hands by the mayor himself. The fall of the DA and a leveling blow to a California-wide crime syndicate made national news. This book is about a case that hasn't been related in its entirety because, as Hutch said, national security hinges on the shroud of secrecy around certain issues. I bring up Allison because she was the catalyst that forged our bond and Hutch even called her "ironic foreshadowing" when we later de-briefed ourselves on the case that did spawn this book. 

The first night of our official re-instatement as Detective Sergeants, I took a bag of Chinese take-out and a six-pack to Venice Place.

(Yes, Huggy, I'm getting to a good part. I swear to God I didn't know about this side of you.) 

The key was back over the door, a sure sign that Hutch saw an end to the days of looking over our shoulders. I let myself in the apartment and stopped cold, surprised at the darkness that enveloped me. Somehow I didn't want to disturb his need for a blackout, so I stumbled over to the table by memory and depth perception and deposited the food.

"Hutch?"

"Out here."

He had exchanged the suit for a pair of tattered cords and an unbuttoned cotton shirt. Standing in a pool of moonlight in the greenhouse, fingers toying absently with the rim of a plant's pot, he was the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen. That rush of appreciation only intensified when he turned his head just enough to offer me a slight smile. "Have fun?"

"Yeah," I said casually. "Yakked about a lot of childhood craziness. Listened to her make plans for the future. I think she'll like San Diego. You could have come with us, you know. I was just teasing back at City Hall--"

"No," he interrupted. "You needed that time. You going to be all right with her living that far away?"

"What? What do you mean, all right? Sure, I'll be all right. Not too far away that I can't touch base with her once in awhile...." The possible meaning in his question chilled my heart. "Hey, Hutch...wait just one minute, buddy. What do you mean? Did you think—?"

I didn't wait for an answer. I scrambled out of my jacket, let it fall to the floor, and jerked Hutch up against me, swept away by the sensation of my hands on his back beneath the shirt. To hell with the shirt. I rid him of that article of clothing just as carelessly as I shed my jacket and wrapped my arms tight around him again. He let his forehead fall down onto my shoulder like a tired little boy.

"Starsk...."

"I can't believe you. This explains a helluva lot. Like why you were my second shadow every time I tried to spend time with her. You thought I was falling for her, didn't you? Dammit, Hutch, why couldn't we have talked about it?"

Hutch moved in the embrace and seized my face in his hands. "When did we have time to talk, Starsky? The minute she showed up we were pulled in over our heads, too busy trying to keep ourselves—and her—alive! Then, losing her father like that....God, what could I say? 'Starsky, I know you've just lost someone you cared about as a child, and I know you want to be there for his kid, who just happens to be one of your childhood best friends, but can we stop for a minute and deal with my damn insecurity issues, because I'm—I'm in love with you and—I think you may have changed your mind....or hell, decided not to make up your mind in the first place.' I mean, we've never—we've--"

"Oh, Jeez, Hutch...I backed away because I thought you wanted some space, too. You know, while we were trying to adjust to—to everything. I didn't want to push you into a corner. Neither one of us has more than a fistful of experience in this...."

Hutch frowned and he stepped out of my arms. "If that's an invitation for me to share my male/male stories, forget it, pal, but you're right. A fistful or less would describe my level of expertise perfectly. The important thing is I have no experience in being in love with another man. Hell, plenty of girls would tell you I'm no sparkling talent at being in love with a woman." He took a deep breath and put a hand against my mouth when I tried to defend his gifts in the love department. "No, let me say this. After that morning in the car, I didn't—I didn't know how to handle you. I was scared of asking too much, of driving you away...and while we were out there, alone, hunted, I couldn't face watching you turn away because you got cold feet. Then, Allison just blew me out of the water. Here's a woman who actually knew you, understood you during a time in your life I can't even comprehend. I thought if I stuck close, kept it a friendly rivalry, I could force the two of you to stay on that level."

I snagged his arm and tugged, encouraging him to face me. When he sighed, rolled his shoulders, and turned, I pressed myself against him, fitting my face into the curve between his neck and shoulder. "Until tonight, when you decided to go all noble, Knight Hutch and back off, letting the chips fall where they would," I whispered, my voice thick. "That's what you did, right? Stepped aside even if it meant having your heart ripped out. God, Hutch, when are you ever going to be willing to fight for what you want?"

A hand insinuated itself into my hair and pulled on a fistful while his other hand rubbed soothing circles on my upper arm. "Never had to deal with wanting to crawl in a hole and die if someone didn't smile at me a certain way at least once a day. Don't really know what to do."

I choked and to keep from bursting into totally humiliating tears, which would have embarrassed both of us, I'm sure, I slid my lips all the way up and over to his mouth in a continuous movement and found his lips parted, waiting for mine. Oh, how I'd missed that mouth since our first kiss the morning of Belle's debut. Never let anybody tell you kissing doesn't matter. Some people are just not compatible kissers. I've kissed quite a few girls who didn't match my needs in that department. If the kissing isn't right, it'll be a miracle if you can salvage the rest of the relationship. We put that little worry to rest immediately.

His lips massaged mine with incredible softness and strength, we followed each other's movements with precision, and I didn't even care about the strip of hair that whispered against my upper lip. After a few lost moments, I sighed, swallowed, and squirmed...a signal for him to let go of my bottom lip that he was trying to detach from my face.

"I want you, Hutch. I don't want anyone else. I'm not going to want anyone else. Does that take care of your insecurity issues?"

"Not quite," he panted. "Something important left unsaid."

I gaped at him. I wasn't stupid, just temporarily oxygen-deprived, but the hint was enough to jar my brain. Stroking each of his eyebrows with my thumbs, I smiled up into his eyes and said, firmly, "I'm in love with you."

Hutch's eyes closed and the last remnants of tension flowed from his face. "You hungry?" I asked. The eyes snapped open.

"Yes. Very. For you, you gorgeous idiot. Don't even mention any other form of sustenance to me right now."

"Well, that's a proposition if I've ever heard one."

(All right, Huggy. That's enough, thanks. No, I can't sit here and dictate this to you, dummy! Ain't got it in me. Yeah, well old-fashioned streaks show up in the funniest places, you know? Now, scram with your bad self. Jeez!)

>>>>>>>

I was in the kitchen fiddling with a juice container when the door swung open and that beloved voice called, "Home, sweetheart!" I snorted at our running joke and blasted the juice bottle with every nasty word in my vocabulary.

"Ouch!" Hutch said in the kitchen doorway. "You're really pissed at that juice bottle."

I frowned and flung the offending bottle into the sink where it shattered, gloriously soothing my frustration. "Hey, Hey," Hutch said and crossed the kitchen in one stride, wrapping arms around my chest. I breathed raggedly and tried to relax in the comfort he offered me.

"Not fair, Hutch. Not friggin' fair! All I wanted was to pour myself some damn juice. Used to be I coulda opened that bottle with my teeth!"

Hutch nodded. "And you will again someday. I understand your frustration, but I'm just glad they're not still having to force liquids into your body with a tube. Okay?"

I sighed. "Okay."

"So, did you make any progress on the literary project?" He released me long enough to scrounge in the fridge for a similar bottle of juice. I handed him my glass and didn't watch him open the bottle with probably flawless ease. He had to press the filled glass in my hand before I looked at him again. I stomped into the living room and relaxed back on the sofa.

"Too mad to talk about your book?" Hutch asked, loving me with the light in his eyes. I folded my arms cautiously over my mid-section and frowned, contemplating my juice.

"Got Huggy mad at me because I wouldn't let him type up the intimate details of our 'first time.'"

Hutch's eyes shifted from light and loving to wide and flashing. "W-well, well—" he sputtered. "At least you have some discretion. No one needs to--" He knelt in front of the couch and caressed my knees. "Um, Starsky, you've got that cat-full-of-cream look on your face."

"I typed 'em up myself," I announced with pride. "The intimate details, I mean." I pointed at the stack of papers on the table.

"You're not supposed to be typing! No wonder you couldn't muster enough strength to battle a pesky juice bottle." Then his curiosity overcame the nursing instinct as Hutch barreled off the sofa and grabbed the manuscript, dropping some of the pages on the floor in his haste to reach that particular section. I watched his face produce beads of sweat and his free hand loosen the collar of his shirt while he glanced over my masterpiece. This was no fun, I decided. "Why don't you read it to me?" I purred, patting the sofa beside me.

"I was there, Starsky, I don't need to re-live...." His voice died away and he looked up, face almost scarlet in splotches with desire. "You certainly covered the bases!"

"Read it to me," I insisted. "Come on, don't you think that would be romantic?"

Hutch half-tripped over to the sofa and sat down a full three-feet away from me. I smiled. We'd see how long that lasted. He cleared his throat and said, "Where do you want me to start?"

"Well, Huggy quit typing at my proposition remark."

"You—you let him write about us—kissing like—like that!?"

"Get over it, Hutch. I'm not ashamed of us kissing. It's beautiful. I'm not ashamed of the rest, either, I'm just...I don't know... Oh, hell, can we quit with the psychoanalysis and have some fun? Read, baby."

One more Hutchinson throat-clearing and he rested his hand on his thigh, reading aloud in an artificially steady voice.

>>>>>>

"Well, that's a proposition if I've ever heard one."

"Exactly," Hutch said, sucking the tip of my nose into his mouth and gripping my ass insistently. The sudden thought of how it would feel to have those hands on my bare skin in that location sent liquid fire through my veins.

"This is gonna happen right here and very fast if you don't watch out," I squeaked.

"Um...something wrong with that?"

"Yeah. Your plant friends don't get to watch."

"You're jealous of a few leafy life-forms?" he teased, trying to insert a hand down the back of my jeans. Too tight for any of that nonsense, I smirked, and wiggled against the invading hand.

"A few leafy life-forms you give names, put on special diets, and pamper like children. Come on, Hutch. You've got me so weak in the knees I'm gonna be horizontal one way or another in five seconds, so take me to bed."

"You're making me believe in my seduction skills," Hutch breathed directly into my ear, smiling at the full-body shivering I couldn't control. "Right. Bed." The moment he released me, I grinned and turned on heel.

"Race ya," I laughed and tore out of the greenhouse, Hutch in hot pursuit. I was knocked from behind with a thwump onto his bed. He gave me mere seconds to re-orient myself before he pulled my legs onto the bed and pounced on my zipper. "Hey, I'm not the only one still wearing pants," I protested. Hutch sneered.

"Yeah, but you're going to be the first one not wearing any," he informed me. As hard as I was, I didn't really bother to argue the point. I rocked the bed with a frantic shout when he placed his lips between the separated zipper-teeth. He looked up, eyes blazing. "You really are hovering on the edge."

"Y-yes...Am I the only one?"

That produced a sultry laugh. "Nope. I'm poised to shatter, babe."

"Then I want—I want...."

He understood without my having to spin a bunch of soapy words. With a little cooperation on my part, he had me naked in less than a minute. I rolled him over and attacked his pants. At a fairly critical moment, I simply stared, unable to move.

He wiggled the pants the rest of the way down his legs and touched my face. I was still frozen, not even realizing that I was measuring the bulge in his briefs with my fingers. A gurgling moan from my lover snapped me out of the trance. I met his eyes and bit my lip. "Sorry...just... what you said on the beach...wasn't empty talk."

He grinned, eyeing the evidence of my own desire. "Shall we let them get acquainted?"

"Before we're done, they'll be best of friends," I laughed.

"Partners," Hutch chuckled, reaching for me and pulling me down onto his chest.

The first moment of lying naked in his arms will be etched in my memory for life. He rocked me gently, murmuring words I couldn't even comprehend against my temple. Slowly the rhythm of the words sank in and I sighed, "Quoting poetry to me?"

"John Donne," Hutch whispered, cradling me tighter. "Never thought I'd be in love enough to...oh, God, Starsky, how this feels--"

"Say it again," I pleaded, feeling my rampant desire ebb into soothing, patient warmth. This beauty should never be rushed. "I want to hear you."

He rolled us over, stared down into my eyes, and moved his body to fit between my open legs, allowing our skin to touch in only the choicest places. " 'Take me to you, imprison me, for I, Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.'"

"Beautiful," I gasped, talking about him as much as the poetry. Hutch smiled, tracing my lips with his finger.

"Donne was writing about spiritual conversion. Somehow that seems appropriate right now. I feel—like I've found my soul for the first time. Sorry...I know you don't like mushy scenes."

"Thinkin' about lifting the ban on those, baby." I moved under him and watched with delight as his eyes clenched shut, mouth open and a soft grunt emerging.

"Starsky, will you...just lie still...let me love you?"

"But, Hutch--"

"Please?"

So I ended up wrapping my arms around him and receiving the most heartbreakingly gentle and intimate massage I'd ever experienced. He lined us up down to the centimeter and proceeded to rub tantalizingly slow against me, whispering more of the rhythmic words. I don't know whether it was the Donne or the insanely erotic softness of our lovemaking, but I fell under a spell and only emerged conscious when he was dropping tears onto my chest and the mingled fluid of our passion bound us together.

>>>>>

"Hutch? Are you all right?"

Hutch dropped the sheets of typing paper limply into his lap and then scattered them when he jumped to his feet, pacing. I started to worry about the wisdom of letting him read what I'd written when he collapsed on his knees again in front of me, crushing my hands together in his own. His eyes were over-bright, lids heavy, the look that I know by now only settles on his face post-ecstasy--he'd come while reading about us. I smiled.

"I love you," he said, kissing our joined hands. "My love, my life-mate.... You're right: we're beautiful together. Hell, let Huggy have a glimpse of utopia, I don't care. God, I wish the whole world could realize how perfect we are when we're loving each other...."

I grinned. "I'm still not gonna let him type our love scenes," I said happily. Hutch smiled.

"I know. I just wanted you to understand that I'm not ashamed of what we have together."

>>>>>>>

(All right, Huggy, we're getting to the heart of the book now. You're in for some revelations. You're going to learn the truth about the least favorite blonde in your lifetime of acquaintances. Yes, the infamous Kira.)

For the next several weeks, Hutch and I walked through the Garden of Eden even though we never left Bay City. Physically, however, we waded into the uncharted waters and as yet had stayed close to shore, neither of us wanting to push the envelope and change the other's mind. That specter of one of us getting freaked out by the whole thing hung over us like a sword dangling by a thin string.

Despite our lack of adventure, we enjoyed every second we spent together in and out of bed, and we were exuberant about our return to police work, too, until we were put in charge of nailing someone relieving a sick, twisted spleen on harmless pay-per-dance girls.

"Give you three guesses why Dobey's called us back here in the middle of closing down that pimp-strangler," I muttered, mouth half-full of candy bar as we strode across the parking lot. Hutch groaned and stretched. "Getting old, old man?" I teased. Hutch glared at me.

"I've been kept up past my bedtime," he retorted, the glare fading into a tender smile. I choked on the bite of candy and playfully punched at his stomach.

"Hey, remember the rule: no hints at work to get my blood boiling."

"You have a gutter-mind, Starsky. I could have been talking about that stray cat hanging around yowling into the wee night hours."

My turn to glare. "Right. I know what I've been keeping up, thank you very much. It's been up more than down recently."

"You have a problem with that?"

"Heck, no," I grinned. "Now back to business. Three guesses."

"One, something very unpleasant. Two, something nobody but us would be caught dead agreeing to. Three, something that will greatly impact the entire PD."

I frowned. "I was afraid you'd say that."

The minute we entered Dobey's office, my stomach did a backwards flop and I nudged Hutch. "Want the fourth guess?"

"Hmmm?" he asked, looking away from the impeccably dressed men who flanked Dobey behind his desk.

"Try all of the above."

Hutch nodded. "I think you might be right."

"Starsky, Hutchinson," Dobey used his official, all-business tone reserved for occasions that could mean the difference between honorable retirement and pension and being shuffled out of the captain's office with a broom. That tone meant we better sit our tails down in the chairs and act halfway respectable whether we liked it or not. Hutch and I did just that and waited patiently. "Let me introduce Agents Harcourt and Cannon. They're with the Agency branch office here in Bay City."

"That would be the Central Intelligence Agency, I'm assuming," Hutch said, completely undaunted, staring at both of the men head-on. I straightened in my seat with a burst of pride.

"Correct, Detective," Cannon answered, actually gracing us with a slight smile and coming around to prop against the front of the desk while his partner remained rigid and aloof behind Dobey's left shoulder. "We're here to discuss your current murder investigation."

"You mean, the dance hall case?" I clarified. "Isn't that a ways out of your jurisdiction?"

"The CIA makes its own rules about jurisdiction, Detective," Harcourt said, putting the wrong kind of emphasis on my title. "In any case, don't worry about losing the glory of your collar. We're not interested in the individual committing the murders."

I bounded forward in the seat, totally ignoring the restraining hand on my left forearm. "Oh, yeah? And I bet you're even less interested in the two innocent girls who won't live to see thirty because of the creep."

"Starsky!" the captain bellowed, too angry to give me the Dobey headshake. Hutch leveled a laser-gaze at all three of them.

"With all due respect, Captain, these gentlemen are probably here because they want something out of us. Otherwise, the CIA doesn't bother to discuss matters of 'national security' with plainclothes cops. So, if they want to achieve their goal, they should know that calling us glory-hounds and turf-squabblers isn't a swift move."

"Well said, Detective Hutchinson. And right on all accounts," Cannon said, perching on the desk. "You two are in a unique position to help us. Put simply, your reputation has preceded you." He gestured behind him and Harcourt, reading the signal, leaned over, handing Cannon a briefcase. Cannon opened the briefcase using his legs for a desk and rummaged for a minute before he withdrew a sheet of paper. "To quote one of your colleagues, who'll remain nameless, of course: 'Oh, they'll date anything female and 36-24-34. And sometimes the same one at the same time.'"

"Thank you for that glossy character reference," Hutch snapped. "Could we get down to business here, Agent Cannon, or do you have a letter from my elementary school principal you'd like to read, too?"

"Hutchinson!"

"Cap'n," I said through gritted teeth. "We've been in here less than five minutes and all we've gotten are snide remarks and implications. Hard to justify being dragged away from putting the cuffs on a guy who strangles his own working girls for this."

"You're being assigned a third team-member for the duration of the dance hall case," Dobey said, tone mollified. "That's why they're here."

"You're attaching a CIA operative to our investigation?" Hutch demanded, leaning closer to the desk. Cannon shook his head.

"Oh, no." He ducked back into the briefcase and pulled out an 8 x10 glossy photo. "This is why we're here, gentlemen."

She was lovely, no denying that. Hutch and I had seen her around the last week or so. There was a time when her blonde curls, long legs, and 'come on' smile would have tempted both of us. Not anymore. I handed the picture over to Hutch without a second thought. He looked it over, shrugged, and handed it back to Cannon. "She's the new transfer. Detective Sergeant—" he waved a hand, trying to jog his memory.

"Kira Adams as she has been known for the last decade. To us, she's Kira Irena Svetlanova and she's one of the KGB's longest untouched official plants in the law enforcement arena."

"K-KGB—" Hutch stuttered. "If you know she's an agent, why the hell don't you pull her off the street and out of the system?"

Harcourt sneered. "Oh, good question, Detective. Let me ask you one. Why don't you pull all the little five-and-dime drug pushers? Because you're after their bosses. Same rules apply in international espionage. She's relatively small potatoes compared to some of the people she contacts in the course of her operations. She volunteered for this assignment and Kira Adams has never put herself in the middle of investigations that didn't somehow work to the benefit of her government. Often in the most miniscule ways, but bit-by-bit their gains add up and we suffer the consequences. This is a long, torturous chess match, Detectives, and we'd like to win this move."

"What do you want from us?" I asked, eager for the punch line, wrestling with an uneasy feeling that had nothing to do with Russian spooks and Agency suits.

"Quite frankly?" Cannon tried out another sympathetic smile. "We want you to serve as a distraction. A diversion, if you will. Kira has a weakness, boys. She likes to dabble in love-games. Having men fight over her is her number one pastime. She laps up all the jealousy and strife like a kid with an ice cream cone. We're hoping that if you two can keep her just a little off her guard during this investigation, our agents will have a chance to ferret out just what her interest in the dance-hall case is and how high up on the contact list she's become."

Hutch and I exchanged a lingering glance, working hard at keeping it acceptable for public viewing. I don't like this, I tried to telegraph to him. Not now, maybe at one time in the past, but not now.

Hutch got my message. "Cannon, I'm sure you think it's an honor for us to be allowed on the sidelines of your grand operation, but we're attempting to stop a serial killer in his tracks. To us, that's the paramount objective. Dilly-dallying with some head-case KGB agent isn't going to help us in that regard."

Harcourt finally moved and walked around the desk to stand at Cannon's shoulder, effectively blocking Dobey from our view. "Your captain assured us, Detective Hutchinson, that you're up to the challenge of balancing what amounts to two assignments...especially when one assignment is something not completely foreign to the two of you in your everyday lives. Now, if you have an extenuating personal objection to assisting us, we'd be willing to listen to your concerns." Still shielding the captain with his back, Harcourt reached into the briefcase and partially lifted a photo. We didn't get a full look, but enough to know that they had us cold. There would be no explaining that photograph to the head of Internal Affairs.

Hutch coughed and refused to meet my eye. "And if we agree to go along with this charade?"

Harcourt smiled, pushing the visible portion of the photo back into the briefcase. "Well, naturally the government will be indebted to you. Amazing how handy Uncle Sam can be when you least expect it. I know after just being reinstated to the force, you and your partner hope to serve Bay City for many years to come. The right friends can go a long way toward making that possible."

There it was. The pay-off. If we didn't agree to go along with their scheme, we'd be conveniently "outed" in some way to the watchdogs in our department. If we served as their puppets for this case, they'd see to it that our careers remained untouched even in the event that our relationship surfaced through other means. Simple, tidy, and oh, so effective. Without even glancing at each other, Hutch and I said in unison, "We're in."

(Yes, Huggy, blackmail and bribery. Double-edged sword. Go ahead and fume for a few minutes if you want. God knows I almost wrecked my car on the way home from that little meeting.)

"Good," Cannon widened the smile and moved so that Dobey wouldn't wonder at his being locked out of the conversation.

"Now that you've got us, why don't we sidestep the bull and get down to what this is going to entail?" Hutch's question had the force of an order. Harcourt looked him over with a grudging hint of respect.

"You're going to be doubly undercover, Detective, for the entire duration of the case. While you're playing lonely hearts at the dance hall, you're also going to be 'jealous, quarreling rivals' around Kira. At all times! Don't let your guard down for a second.

Even when you think you're alone, you don't say anything that could be construed as knowledge of Kira's real identity and purpose for being involved in this case. In fact, throw out as much disinformation as you can. Just because you think no one is listening, doesn't mean you don't have an opportunity to confuse the right person."

"We have done undercover work before, Harcourt. That's why you're here with us now," I said. Cannon abandoned the fake nicey-nicey smile and got in my face.

"No, you pay attention to this, Detective Starsky! You're out of your league in this one so you listen to the people in the know. Don't underestimate this assignment. You'll have to be in character twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week until we give you further notice. At approximately noon today, just two hours after Detective Adams received confirmation that she's your new team member, their operatives efficiently wired your apartments for both audio and video. Your cars will be bugged. And, though we'd deny this anywhere outside this room, we'll admit for the sake of warning you that the KGB's talent at surveillance quite often surpasses our own. While you're this close to their agent during an operation, you are objects of definite interest--"

There it was again: the hint that the CIA had enjoyed a bird's eye view of our nuptial couch and the KGB would have the same pleasure. That meant a moratorium on even a loving glance throughout this entire ordeal. I pushed my chair back without warning and Cannon, already leaning into my personal space, nearly landed on his dimpled chin on the floor. "Then damn well un-wire them!" I growled.

"Not a prayer, son," Harcourt said. "We want them to hear you, see you. Only, we want them to hear and see the right things. As long as they are convinced that you two are just patsies who've fallen into Kira's vortex, they aren't going to jump to the conclusion that you know about her—and consequently that we know about her. And don't even think about running water, making cover noise, et cetera. That might work in the spy books, but the real pros will know right off the bat what you're doing, and that's tantamount to admitting that you know about the whole deal."

"It's all about smokescreens, gentlemen," Cannon said, brushing off his suit coat and straightening his tie. "And we need a flawless one to work behind on this operation, because the stakes are too damn high for screw-ups."

"Why don't you tell us how high?" Hutch asked in a cold whisper.

"No can do," Harcourt shook his head vehemently. Captain Dobey had remained silent until that point, but at Harcourt's refusal, he vacated his chair and stood in front of the file cabinet, folding his arms across his chest and glaring at both agents.

"You're asking my boys to step into a dangerous game...even if it is just on the sidelines. I think they—and I—deserve some idea of why this is worth our time and the invasion of their privacy."

Yeah, what else are we fighting for besides the right to keep our badges, partnership, and our love for each other?

Harcourt nodded at Cannon, who sighed and turned away from the trio of probing gazes demanding honesty. No doubt he planned to feed us a vague mumble-jumble of half-truths and couldn't face us while composing his speech. "Our information is sketchy at best, but we have reason to believe the Soviet government has stumbled onto a hint of a black op that took place in Vietnam...sanctioned by the United States government—more specifically military intelligence. I can't even breathe the details of that operation outside a specific room at the Pentagon, so don't even think about asking. Suffice it to say, if the KGB could convincingly publicize enough information regarding that operation, the United States would suffer on the world stage. Critically. At this point in time, we can't afford that. Period."

Harcourt took over, "We suspect that Kira may be on the look-out for a contact at the dance hall while ostensibly assisting with the murder investigation. There are several men involved in that black op who have fallen off our radar, so to speak. Leaks do occur. Even if they aren't directly involved, there is the chance that they may have let information slip to third parties. We're trying to cover those bases as we speak and we're not even sure that this explains Kira's connection to the case. But that's our best guess at present."

Cannon turned and extracted yet another photo from the briefcase. "Meet Dmitri Aleksei Grigorovich, Detectives. Another fairly small fish operating in the Bay City area and one of Kira's right-hand men. He tends to be a facilitator...similar to your...um...Huggy Bear." Cannon smiled again, this time remarkably sincere. "Do us a favor. If you see Kira attempting to make any contact with this man, find some way to distract her and get her away from him. Make sure you have a means of doing it without arousing suspicion, though, or you'll risk the whole operation. But if you can legitimately break the contact, you'll give us another leg-up."

Hutch and I shared a glance at the photo, memorized the features, and watched Cannon file it away again. Harcourt put a hand on his partner's shoulder and looked us both square in the eye. "When it comes to your interaction with Kira, be convincing, gentlemen. Take her to paradise and back again; you get my meaning? Kira won't settle for less and if she's getting less than that, she'll know something's out of synch. These are pros, boys. She talks like she was born in Iowa, for crying out loud, and Dmitri's just as gifted. You make one false step and this whole operation will come crashing down around our ears. Understood?"

"Sure. Tell me something. Just how did you manage to waltz into our station and have this nice little chatty meeting with us without the KGB pondering that turn of events? Sounds like they've got just about everything but your under shorts wired."

"Hutch, that's just about enough—" Dobey abandoned the fight and with a wave of his hands, sank back down in his seat, scratching behind his ear.

Once again I felt light-headed with respect for my partner. Even Harcourt and Cannon looked taken aback by Hutch's acute question. Finally, Harcourt actually laughed. I thought I'd fall out of my chair.

"I think we're in good hands, huh, Cannon?" he asked with a side-glance at the other agent. "For a while now we've been dropping hints here and there that we wanted to discuss certain details involving your recent spectacular crime-fighting coup. They're no strangers to inter-agency nosiness in the Soviet Union. Entirely plausible excuse for our being here today. We'll even file a bogus report or two back at the branch office just to seal the cover. Any other questions?"

"I think you've made your expectations perfectly clear," Hutch said, a layer of stone over his face. Dobey looked between him and Harcourt, glanced at me, and then frowned. I knew why. This was not the Hutch Dobey had seen during the last few weeks.

"Nobody's twisting your arms, boys," Dobey said, as much for the agents' benefit as for ours. I sighed. Poor Captain Dobey. We couldn't tell him that the CIA was twisting more than just our arms in this scenario.

"No, Cap'n, don't worry," I said in what I hoped was a confident tone. "We've been up against a lot worse than this Mata Hari."

Hutch allowed himself to brush a hand briefly across my back as we turned to the door. Nothing Dobey hadn't seen even before the change in our relationship, but the gesture had to speak volumes to the Agency geeks watching our exit. I patted his shoulder in response, my mind whirling. Pay attention, Harcourt and Cannon. This man means more to me than this whole damn country. I've said that before on his behalf and the scales are weighted even more in his favor now. I won't lose him in a crossfire...even in a sexual one.

Just a few feet down the hall, something seemed to snap in Hutch and he grabbed my hand, pulling me into a convenient interrogation room and locking the door behind us. I didn't have long to thank our lucky stars that the hallway was empty because his arms were around me, bruising me with an exquisite pressure, his mouth fiery and insistent against my throat.

"Hutch, I'd say this is breaking about three of our rules."

"Screw the rules," he muttered against the side of my mouth.

"That's normally my line," I laughed, stroking his back.

"Starsky, I don't want this," he practically whined into my shoulder. Hutch doesn't whine, for those of you not acquainted with him. God help us both if this case was already starting to affect him this way.

"Shhh, I know. I don't either. Looks to me like we don't have much of a choice unless you want to march right back in there and hand over your badge again after less than a month of carrying it around in your pocket."

"Should have known I was incredibly naïve to believe we could have both!" Hutch pushed violently away from me and braced his palms on the table, shoulders slumped.

"We can have both, Hutch, we've just got to play our cards right. Look, think of this case as an investment. We give those spooks in there what they want, and they'll pad our path with I.A. in the future if anyone starts nosing too close to our personal lives. Didn't you hear 'em?"

"Starsky, now you're the naïve one, and that's not like you. Don't you know that the minute they've accomplished what they want, they'll pull out and forget they ever conversed with us? If anything happens down the line to get us in hot water with the suits upstairs, the CIA sure as hell won't come running to the rescue like cavalry in one of your westerns. How much thanks did we get for helping them corral their rogue agent who was going around killing our fellow cops?"

"You don't know that they won't live up to their end of the bargain this time, Hutch. They want more out of us. Last time, they thought we were just nuisances in their way. Maybe you're right. Maybe not. All's I know is we've gotta look at our involvement in this situation as positively as possible or—or I'm not gonna be able to swing it, you understand? I can't—can't do this if I can't tell myself I'll be helping you and me—us—in the long run."

"All right," Hutch acquiesced with a wan smile and a sigh, holding out a hand. I took it, brought it to my lips, and held it in place, closing my eyes. Within moments a strong arm slipped around my waist and that soft, bedroom voice whispered, "I love you. No matter where this case takes us, please—for God's sake, please!—don't lose sight of that."

"Right back at you, beautiful. Now, we'd better get out there and do our jobs. And we can't afford to make a habit of this either, Hutch. We don't know right now who might be watching us. Not specifically in this room, I mean, but watching us closely enough to wonder why we keep ducking alone into corners at the station."

"I know. I just had to have a few minutes with you before--"

"Same here. After this case, we'll go away somewhere and make up for all the lost time, Hutch. I promise."  

(All right, Huggy. Time for me to call it a day. I'll be throwing things around the room if I don't take a step back. I still seethe when I think of the corner they shoved us into without a damn care for what we were risking. All because we couldn't be like normal people and say, 'Oh, I can't hack an assignment like this because I have to consider my wife.' We didn't even have a chance to voice our reservations. Yeah, I know, Hug, it bites you in the ass, too.)

>>>>>>>

"Babe? Starsky? Starsky, where are you?"

I didn't have time to destroy the evidence before Hutch streaked into the kitchen, looking one second away from calling out the National Guard. He took in the scene in one glance and, one hand on his hip, wagged the index finger of the other at me. "How much have you had?"

"Jus' one. Okey-dokey...maybe I should say two since there are two cans on the floor in fronta me. Sorry, Hutch."

"Sorry! Jesus, Starsky! On all your medications, I can't believe you aren't halfway to Nirvana by now with two beers. What the hell did you think—Oh, forget it. Don't.... please, don't...Starsky, babe."

But it was too late. I'd lowered my head as prelude to the waterworks. I hate these post-trauma tears. The doctor said I'd be inhuman if I didn't release some of the interior poison of pain, fear, and uncertainty through a conventional, cleansing means. Even for a grown-man, tears are the most effective method, but they drag claws across Hutch's heart every time they make an appearance. He fell down onto the floor, sending the empty beer cans rolling to the other side of the kitchen, and grabbed hold of my arms, lifting my head with a nudge from his own and rubbing our foreheads together. "Oh, babe. What hit you hard enough that you're trying to drown it two different ways?"

"Just thinking...you were right, Hutch. Maybe not—not in the way we thought, but damned if you weren't right."

"What? Sounds like you're speaking English, babe, but I swear it must be a dialect."

"Those Agency suits. We bled for 'em in that case. Okay, not literally, but emotionally.... And whaddid we get out if it? They—they left us in the wind, just like you said they would."

"What are you talking about? I don't understand. When did they leave us in the wind?"

I pushed his arms away and ripped my shirt open. "Here! Look at what they let happen! Do you think....an international conglomerate like Gunther Enterprises.... You think they didn't have a file on him? Didn't have a clue which way the wind was blowing? Just one whisper, Hutch, one li'l heads-up, and we'd still be prowling the streets--"

Hutch was stunned. For once the man with an answer to everything simply opened his mouth and produced a gurgle. I snuffled, swallowed the rest of my crybaby routine, and lifted his jaw gently with my left hand. He snatched that hand and buried his face in the palm. "Oh, Starsky. You're not saying what I think you're....please?"

"How convenient for 'em, Hutch. They don't have to worry about Dobey; he's old school when it comes to authority. But we're renegades. Loose cannons. Always have been. What better way to silence us on this subject forever than let a man more powerful than the damn President get away with his own assassination plans?"

"No, no, Starsky. You're traumatized. You're reliving a difficult time for us every day when Huggy comes to visit. I warned you about tackling this ridiculous book idea--"

I backed against the counter and heaved myself to a wobbling but upright position, "Don't patronize me, Hutchinson! I'm thinking clearer than you are even on two beers and a host of other chemicals."

"What are you going to say next, Starsky? That the CIA is going to try again to 'silence us forever?'"

I groaned, clutching my cheek to hold my head steady. "No, I think they've backed away. All the media blitz about my survival and the Gunther bust has made us national darlings right now, Hutch, however long that lasts. And the CIA ain't nothing if not political. They aren't going to go after us direct, but I think they sure as hell stood by while someone else gave it a shot. Literally." I tried to make a dignified exit, but Hutch has surpassed me in the feline quickness department over the last couple of months. He was in my path, arms open, before I could brush past him. I sighed and let him enfold me.

"If re-hashing all this mess with Kira is going to do this to you, babe, I've got to ask you to stop. Please, for my sake? I—I can't go out that door in the morning if I think I'm going to find you in this shape when I come home."

I struggled in the embrace and then relented, breathing in all the Hutch-smells I could. "No, Hutch. I'm not giving up on the book. I want the truth down on paper one way or another. I promise I'll behave tomorrow, though."

>>>>>>

(Ready, Huggy? What's in that glass? Damn, this is getting to you that bad? Well, heck, I don't mind a half-sloshed typist if you can see straight enough to hunt-and-peck. You start typing in Portuguese, though, and we're gonna go round and round.)

Kira latched onto us like a leech the first time we were officially introduced. I'm still not sure how—even with us on the look-out for her wiles—she managed by the end of our first joint briefing with Dobey to have one hand practically in Hutch's back pocket while her other was stroking down my chest. All without the captain noticing a thing! Oh, no, this wasn't a repeat of the friendly "rivalry" over Allison with the two of us enjoying the company of a genuine, sweet girl who happened to think both of us hung the moon. No, this blonde she-devil had the blood of our partnership in her sights from the very beginning. I knew it. Hutch knew it. And we had no choice but to hand her the key to the prize.

I thought I could manage, and at first, I think I handled the blatant in-jokes and set-ups between Hutch and her with finesse. Then, one night at Madame Bouvet's, I developed an inner ache while dancing with this nice, drawling gal who wanted to give me a good time. I couldn't pay attention to her—or, I'm ashamed to say, any possible candidates for admission to San Leone—because of the sudden nervous tick in my neck that kept turning my eyes over to the table Hutch and Kira shared. Watching them, all-too-recent memories of the weeks before our introduction to Frick and Frack from the CIA swirled around me.

Sitting on the floor in the greenhouse on a blanket, enjoying an impromptu midnight picnic after getting in late from work...Hutch's fingers toying with my cheek and up into my hair, caressing my ear, his face leaning close, eyes smiling, laughing at something I said that didn't even sound funny to me at the time...That's what you do when you're in love.

That same picture played out in the dingy dance hall right before my eyes, but the wrong person was on the receiving end of that attention Hutch lavishes on you when his number one objective is seducing you straight into his arms and beneath the covers. I hope I didn't wound the drawling gal's ankle for life. She sweetly teased me about making my big move and would have continued to put up with my inattention, but I was too busy figuring out a way to break up the party at that table. I trusted Hutch. I knew he was acting. I swear I did, but I'll be damned if I could handle another minute of watching the charade.

We'd already discussed in a stolen minute of Starsky-Hutch code outside Metro that we'd change our plans at the last minute and Hutch would go home with Kira, leaving Susan in my care. I'd act surprised and agitated when Kira informed me and just fuel her belief that she had us both on the string.

Sitting beside that table, having to exchange snide, almost hurtful remarks with Hutch left me feeling like a block of ice, especially when I could tell how our sniping enticed Kira. "Why do you think Dobey assigned Kira to this case?" I asked him when she walked away, using the double-talk to remind him when he gave me one particularly wounded look that we couldn't snatch even those few moments and talk to each other like friends, much less lovers. No, our task was spreading disinformation. We had to talk like the blind, toyed-with schmucks we were portraying.

 "Well, maybe I oughta make like an ordinary customer and split," Hutch said eventually in the voice of a stranger, sore loser played to perfection. What his eyes said to me in a brief glimpse soothed my heart: "I'm leaving. I'm backing away. Your turn to dazzle her, but I can't watch. I know how hard it's been for you to watch us. I'm not that strong."

Strong? I was dying inside one vital organ at a time. Holding that woman in my arms ranks as high on the pleasant experience chart as tangling with Marcus' black-robed fruitcakes. If she'd known anything about me at all, she'd have realized that I didn't give a rat's ass for her when I used one of my oldest, tattered lines in the book while we swayed to the music. I could waste the 'crazy about you' riddle on her, but I damn sure wasn't bringing any of my real seduction sequences into play. Only one person hears those sultry, whispered words from me now, and he was no longer in the building. "I give up," she twitted with her little laugh. "I wish you would," I replied. I wish you would. Find your contact, give the agents enough on your beautiful little tail that they can sweep in and end this farce before I break and tell you just what I think of your little game.

Her reaction at finding out about the arrangements switcheroo turned my stomach. If I hadn't been occupied with pasting a convincingly astonished and hurt-little-boy look on my face, I might have embarrassed myself with abrupt physical sickness. "Lucky Susan," she pouted prettily. "You're not angry, are you?" Angry? Nauseated at what you stand for and why you're here and wishing Hutch and I could concentrate on nailing this killer instead of sucking up to you. Angry? Oh, no.

(The next part, Huggy, I'm getting second-hand. After the case had concluded and we could speak freely again, Hutch filled me in on the details of "guarding" Kira that night and since they are important in the overall scheme of things, we need to write about 'em. Huggy, are you all right? If you don't unclench those fists, you're gonna have permanent fingernail scars on your palms. Easy, Hug-man, it's all over now. I know, I know. Drink your concoction over there.)

Hutch is the one who came face to face with our pal Dmitri Aleksei Grigorovich, who attempted to make contact with Kira in the guise of an oversexed family man from 358 North Abrams out walking his snarling German shepherd. Hutch still waxes amazed sometimes at the man's flawless suburbanite accent and mannerisms. Professionals, indeed. The moment Kira noticed Hutch had spotted her newfound "friend," she turned into an outraged, accosted pretty female in immediate need of rescue, giving Hutch his opportunity to slip into just that role and break the contact.

Kira didn't bat an eye, but Hutch panicked. He thought his over-zealous cop routine would fly well considering that he was supposed to be falling all over the lovely lady cop in his protection, but even so he worried. Consequently, he turned on every ounce of the Hutchinson charm once they entered the darkness and privacy of Kira's apartment. Hutch may have bungled his way through those few lines in that western movie during our stint as Hollywood stunt men, but he's Oscar material when he's undercover as a cop.

So I'm more than confident he left her with liquid for knees and almost no remembrance that she'd just botched a contact with her "facilitator."

One of the first things he confessed to me in our personal de-briefing was the "What's a Starsky?" come-on line he used on her. Somehow, saying that, even in the context of that night, hurt him worse than having to physically put hands on her in intimate places. That's Hutch for you: emotionally complicated. And when he did put hands on her, he told me in broken, halting sentence fragments later, he had to close his eyes and latch onto her curls, turning them into dark brown in his mind, and ignore her chest completely. I managed a chuckle at that confession. Some might think it's weird that we discussed those intimate occasions with each other, but sharing and unburdening helped us through the aftershocks. Having all the facts in plain view allowed us to say, "This is what happened. No secrets. Now you know. You know why I had to do it. It meant nothing. It changes nothing."

That night was my turn to do actual police work while Hutch satisfied the other requirement of our assignment. I'd headed back to the station to go through the case files again before taking over for the officers discreetly staking out Susan's apartment. I can't claim any brilliant deductions during that time, because I endured a coffee-break counseling session from the lovely Minnie, who has a special place in my heart, God bless her, but who couldn't have said anything less comforting if someone had handed her a script written by the damned KGB itself. She also knows me too well. Her gorgeous blonde sergeant remark was an arrow piercing straight into my soul. No, I wasn't taking care of the gorgeous blond sergeant, not the one I wanted to wrap up in warm velvet and rock to sleep in my arms after making love, but I couldn't very well state that fact. Part of me wonders to this day if she hadn't uncovered the truth about Hutch and me just by caring about us so much, and attempted during that little conversation to figure out why we were putting ourselves through this emotional tsunami with Kira. When she gave me that "Minnie-knows-all" chuckle after I told her that Hutch had Kira covered, I rushed into the breach with an antagonized, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Oh, she played along, taunted me about carrying a torch, but something...I don't know...in the tilt of her chin and the light in her eyes told me she knew that the jealousy was real...and it wasn't jealousy for Kira. I had to get out of there fast before I ended up blowing the whole friggin' scene. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," I countered, secure in the truth that I wasn't carrying a torch for Miss Communist Block, but Minnie's parting shot, asking me if the thing with Kira was for real or just play? The hidden undercurrent in that question told me right then and there I'd have to avoid Minnie for the remainder of this little Broadway production of ours or we'd be up the creek without a paddle. Oh, she knew. She knew I carried the whole damn flame that the Vestal Virgins guard and she knew the person responsible...the man responsible.

And yes, I'll admit that I was the first person in the Dynamic Duo to make a foolish blunder. When the whole operation didn't go up in flames, Hutch and I should have started asking ourselves a few questions. My only guess at the time was that the KGB surveillance goofs couldn't do elementary math or weren't privy to enough information to come to important conclusions based on one sentence out of an entire argument.

At dawn, I turned the protection gig back over to a pair of officers and hustled to Venice Place, where I fell asleep wrapped in dreams of Hutch and scenes of fooling around that had us both shouting with pleasure on that exact sofa. I hated waking up with the knowledge that my purpose for being there was so he and I could have one of our "rivalry quarrels" to convince the people listening in and peeping at our show.

(I'm getting to the mistake, Huggy. Just hold on. What, you're so unused to me screwing up; this is giving you a thrill, ain't it? Hey, I can't help it if you feel dumb that Minnie did the right arithmetic and you didn't. Don't take it out on me. Just put that wad of paper down, Huggy. You start a paper-ball fight and Hutch'll kill both of us.)

Hutch and I had worked into a real knock-down, drag-out about proper police procedure and my obvious distaste for him hanging on Kira like a fur stole while she was supposed to be our pigeon, when he hit me with, "You go out with a girl for a week and you think you own her, huh?" I don't know what happened. Call it the stress of the endless deep cover experience, or my brain trying to run away from the nasty comments I had to fling at Hutch and field from him in return, but all I could think about was the person in front of me, not the girl I was supposedly dating.... Not a week. A month. I've been "going out" with you for a month now, Blondie, and yes, I sure as all hell own you. I own you heart and soul. Tell me I do. Please? And before I could surgically detach my tongue and put it in the sink, I'd said out loud, "A month. But that's not the point." Hutch's startled eyes jarred my sleepwalking brain and I covered the slip by badgering him louder than ever about leaving Susan in the lurch. Luckily, Hutch steered us back on track with some commentary on my inability to handle competition. Competition, that's the name of this game. Whoever comes out on the other side with his sanity intact wins the prize.

I had to leave at that point. I couldn't trust myself. I hadn't been oblivious to the clumsy mess Hutch was making out of brewing coffee and the bulging of that vein in his neck that testifies to internal agony. I know my Hutch's body language better than Brooklyn slang, and my remedy for the situation could only get us thrown off the force by a vengeful group of Agency suits. I wanted to take him in my arms, drag him to the floor, and give the KGB whatever they cared to see. For a second, I toyed with the rationalization that they probably understand the concept of "bisexual" in Russia. What, couldn't we realistically have a hot-and-heavy thing with each other and still fight over a beautiful girl? But watching him, breathing in his nearness, I knew that was a joke. The CIA geeks knew, too. What they'd seen of us had convinced them that we're not fence sitters who get kicks on both sides. The sounds we make, the way we touch when we're loving each other are the actions of people deeply in love and committed. That's what Harcourt and Cannon had warned us in their veiled hints about betraying. So I concluded our little drama with the following brilliant suggestion, "Now either you handle the rules of the assignment, or you go find yourself another assignment...." Yeah, and get me another one, too, while you're at it. One for both of us, in Alaska even, just to get us away from this...and what it's going to do to us before we're done.

>>>>>>>

"Where's the sexiest man on the face of the earth?"

"In here twisting himself into a human pretzel per the physical therapist's instructions," I yelled back, gnashing my teeth at the wave of pain that radiated across my chest.

Footsteps heralded the appearance of Hutch in the bedroom doorway. "Starsky, you know you're not supposed to be doing those exercises unattended--"

"Don't start on me, Hutch." I rolled over, unfolded my legs, and sprawled on the mat, gasping and counting the cracks on the ceiling to avoid letting any sound of discomfort past my lips. I didn't want Hutch to wallow in yet another "I should be here with you all the time instead of helping us make ends meet by working like an ordinary citizen" guilt puddle.

"You stay there. Right there. Don't move."

Hey, I'm tough, but I know when to throw up a white flag. That no-nonsense edge in Hutch's voice could slash through the vaults at Fort Knox. After perhaps ten minutes, I'd started to snooze when loving hands gripped my arms and hauled me gently up into a warm embrace. I relaxed and murmured my approval, but my alertness level bounced back when those hands started peeling off my clothing. "Um, Hutch?"

"Shhh. Going to make you feel so good."

"Sure," I snorted. "Tell that to those libido-killers I have to swallow every day."

"More ways to feel good than that, Starsky."

"Oh, excuse me, Mr. Enlightened National Geographic Society Member."

"Hey, see if you knock my method in about five minutes," Hutch laughed. He dashed out of the room, leaving me naked and alone, but when he returned, he carried my well-worn terry robe and slipped it on me with a smile. He'd heated it in the dryer while I'd been dozing on the floor. The warmth and softness against my skin lured a moan of appreciation from me. "Don't go to sleep, droopy-eyes. The post-therapy therapy isn't over yet," Hutch said, leading me over to the bed. "Back in another second."

I curled into my favorite position and talked my eyes into staying open. Hutch appeared in the doorway, shook his head fondly at me, and then joined me on the bed, stretching out beside me fully clothed. He unwrapped a gaudy, golden, beribboned box and extracted a dainty brown object the size of a quarter. "What's that?" I asked, my nose registering chocolate.

"Taste," Hutch said, parting my lips with his fingers and popping the morsel between them. I bit down and smiled.

"Umm...."

"Banana slices dipped in caramel and then covered with chocolate fondue," Hutch announced as though he'd made them himself. "Heard one of the girls in Records talking about them and thought they might be perfect for my favorite monkey at home."

"You know, I'm gonna start regrettin' I have more chest hair than you do if you keep insinuating that I'm Harry the Hairy Ape."

Hutch actually gifted me with a loud cackle before he popped another banana piece into my mouth. "You know how I feel about your chest hair," Hutch said softly in a voice that matched the chocolate for sweet seduction. "So, why is Huggy's car parked outside when he's nowhere to be seen?"

"Hutch, I don't think I understood until today just how deeply Huggy—well, how much he cares about us."

Hutch fed me another candy and pondered my remark. "Thought-provoking, Starsk, and since I know you inside-and-out, I'd say that statement was actually meant as an answer to my question."

I batted playfully at him and almost upset the box of banana slices. "Yeah, dummy, you're pretty quick. Learning what we really went through with the whole Kira case has been a tough blow for him. He brought over a glass of some alcoholic witch's brew this afternoon and by the time we came to a stopping-off point, I couldn't let him drive back across town in his condition, so I called him a cab. He'll come by cab tomorrow and he promised he'll lay off the fermented tree-sap or whatever it was so he can drive home."

Hutch whistled. "Huggy got drunk in the middle of the day, away from The Pits, without a drinking buddy—" He eyed me suspiciously and I held up the boy scout's sign of good faith. "That's not like him."

"Tell me about it!" I said fervently. I yawned and eyed the box and Hutch with a grin. He sighed dramatically and dug out another banana chip. "Should I do the airplane or choo-choo routine, too?" he asked, holding the candy just out of my reach.

I rolled my eyes. "Just putting 'em in my mouth was working fine, thank you."

"Are you sure your story-telling capabilities aren't responsible for Huggy's inebriation?"

"What, did Dobey tell you to come home and pester me this evening, Hutch? Gimme that banana thingy!"

>>>>>>>

(All right, Huggy, jog my memory here. Oh, yeah. I'd just left Hutch's apartment after blasting him to the moon about police procedure and keeping his mind on the assignment.)

I drove out of the city into the wild and haunting area I'd combed for the hit man Callendar a couple of years back when Hutch faced probably the greatest physical trial of his life. Sometimes I think in the recent post-Gunther hubbub people forget Hutch's miraculous strength and how he proved his mettle against a virus that should have been lethal long before we got the antibodies into his system. I thought back then I could never enjoy this section of Bay City's outskirts, but after his survival and recovery, I found myself returning more and more to this landscape when I needed room to speed and open-spaces for thinking. Every now and then I'll stop in and pay Mrs. Yeager and Richie a visit, but today I wasn't in the mood. I had to mentally tie some important loose ends into a knot.

For one thing, I was edgy about the case. Not the Kira involvement, per se, but the overall investigation. I hadn't felt this mired in sludge since...I couldn't fix an example. We should have been closer to the killer. There had to be some lead we were misreading, overlooking. I kept having flashbacks from the stripper murders we'd handled back in '75, but I couldn't see any connections between the two cases. Those girls weren't killed because they were strippers, although that was our first assumption. Did that mean we should be looking for a motive in this case that went beyond the profession of paid dancers? Whenever the fog lifted on that front, I got caught up in memories of escorting the mobster Mello's daughter from San Francisco...but she wasn't really his daughter...she...and why the hell was I thinking about that?

Maybe part of the problem was our coming into the investigation in mid-stream. The first murder, almost six months ago, didn't fall into our caseload. We were working a higher profile case at the time. Then our temporary exit from the force delayed our getting a whack at nabbing this sicko. But Hutch and I are usually top-notch at picking up other detectives' pieces and gluing them back together again. That's why we're considered Metro's number one team, the clean-up crew, if you will.

Escaping personal thoughts helped, but the relief didn't last. Before I could face a drive back into the city, I had a mission to fulfill. There's a spot out there off a dirt road that has always caught my fancy. It's an almost perfectly circular meadow surrounded by tall trees, unusual in this neck of the boonies. I parked the car at the end of the road, walked about twenty feet through the trees and into the open, wind-blown grass and took a deep breath. Then I spread my arms wide, and screamed, "I love you, Hutch!" For too long now I hadn't been able to say those words in my own apartment, my car, or anywhere else for fear of immediate repercussions. It's hard enough having a closet relationship. Having a closet within a closet because of this KGB business was a throbbing pain in the gut. The scream whistled through the trees and the breeze that kissed my cheek seemed to be a response from the person I needed most.

Splitting our time with Kira definitely wreaked havoc with our professional lives. Even Madame Bouvet, the owner of the dance hall, picked up on that. Hutch and Captain Dobey had the pleasure of an irate visit from the shrill-voiced lady who thought '40s clothes never went out of style. Filling me in on her visit after the case was closed, Hutch told me that he and Dobey came across as complete idiots to our favorite French lady, while trying to analyze to her satisfaction the threatening note she had received that prompted her trip to Metro. They had a good excuse for their supposed stupidity. That note scared the be-jeezus out of them because it asserted plainly, "The spy will dye." Now, Madame Bouvet jumped to the obvious conclusion that Kira's cover had been blown and the killer knew about her badge. But Hutch and Dobey knew another reason that a particular female in the ballroom might be referred to as a "spy" and they didn't have a clue number one how to handle the situation. Harcourt and Cannon had emphasized our detachment from them during this whole operation. On a bombing mission in a war, we'd have been under what they call a 'radio silence order.' We didn't contact them; they would contact us.

We were merely the window-dressing. Yeah, so what does the window-dressing do when somebody in that dance hall might have figured out that Kira carries a Party card?  We couldn't assume that the killer left the note because the killer getting wind of Kira's secret life just didn't make sense. But Hutch and Dobey couldn't discuss what the note might really mean in front of Madame, so they picked apart the misspelling of the word "die," which later we learned hadn't been a misspelling at all, sputtered protests about us doing all we could, and sent Madame Bouvet into a fit of French and not-so-flattering commentary about our law enforcement skills.

 (Thanks, Huggy. Just what I needed to hear. Glad you think we can be plenty goofy without any help from the CIA. Whose side are you on, anyway? Now put those paws back on that typewriter; you're interrupting my train of thought.)

And where was I while my lover and captain were squealing tires trying to figure a way to send up an SOS flag to Harcourt and Cannon? Oh, I was enjoying "quality time" with Russia's darling and playing the lonely, lovesick fool. The whole time I stood in the archway to her dining room, Kira sitting on my shoulders happily nailing a decorative plate to the wall, something nagged at my subconscious like a mosquito. I managed to make a lame joke about eating off of the plates when we curled up by her fireplace, but Kira could tell I was distracted. Couldn't have that, so I wrestled my attention back from la-la land and tried to remember my part. Oh, yeah. Jealous, cynical, lovesick fool. I should have been nominated for an Academy Award for the performance I gave that afternoon. I handed her a tear-jerking speech about coming into life alone and leaving it equally alone...not expecting anything from anyone... In a way, that might have been part of my philosophy before I realized fully what I have in Hutch. Saying those words in front of her with any ring of truth to them, after having found the other half of my soul in him, required every speck of undercover talent I could muster. And even so, Kira's not an agent with a world power's premier intelligence arm because she's a dummy. She gave me an uninvited character analysis and wooed me with some pretty words about how she wouldn't be there with me if she really believed what I said.

 Well, believe this, schweetheart. You're right: I've got a love that would blow your tight little black shorts out of the water, and I'm gonna carry it with me past my grave, but it ain't got nothing to do with you.

(All right, Huggy, Hutch says I need to write the truth about this next crucial part of our case. I think he gets some weird kick out of people seeing him in a sketchy light, but if he's determined to come across as a bad guy, what can I do?)

I had to wrestle emotionally with Hutch for three weeks after the case's conclusion before he finally admitted that breaking under all the pressure was acceptable, but I couldn't get him to see that we both broke in our own ways. According to Hutch, starting with our going on duty at The Golden Ballroom that same night, the next twelve hours would be some of the hardest of his life. I'm more to blame than he is in my estimation because I made the arbitrary decision that I'd continue to hold Kira's hand despite having been with her during the afternoon. That deviated from our switch-off pattern and I didn't have a chance—or a secure place—to explain my reasons. See, I had a wild-eyed notion that I might drag some information out of Kira. Call it Starsky vanity, but I thought she might be opening up to me. Yeah, I thought maybe I—Studly Starsky—could weasel a clue out of this hardened foreign operative about her real motivation for being at The Golden Ballroom. Never mind that Harcourt and Cannon said that wasn't my concern. Never mind that Hutch and I had specific orders. Never mind that he and I were forced to work like those double-blind psychology experiments I read about in one of his college books. I had all these fragments of ideas whirling around my brain and I thought if I could just pluck one hint out of Kira, one slip of her tongue, I'd put all the pieces together and get Hutch and me out of this mess ahead of time. But Hutch had no knowledge of this brilliant plan his lover had cooked up and he took my insistence on escorting Kira an entirely different way. I should have realized there was more ice than usual in his play-acting when he called me a 'stuffed shirt' and stalked off to mingle with the dancers. I should have seen throughout that night the fear in his eyes whenever he saw Kira and me within a five-foot radius of each other.

Apparently, Hutch had started to doubt my ability to fend off the Kira enchantment. Lesson in Hutchinson 101: the man is God's gift to society in so many ways, but he has never digested that concept. He's a firm believer that he's totally dispensable. Plus, despite my having been the first one to say "I love you" in more than a partnership sense, Hutch still sees me as the less likely of the two of us to be in a male-male relationship. Add those two ingredients together and you get a Hutchinson angst cocktail. And he sipped at that cocktail the entire night he watched over Susan. He still feels guilty for repeating a self-soothing mantra of "Keep your mitts off, Starsky" when both of us had already put mitts on her without much choice in the matter. But that night he was scared. He was scared that if I kept applying those mitts, I might decide to leave them there, regardless of the fact that she's a professed enemy of our nation among other less enviable traits.

So, when he showed up the next morning looking worse for the wear, I didn't do the right math. I anticipated the next act in our Broadway production. I thought he was giving me our opening cue with his "work out our problems" line. No, he was trying to clue me in that he was freaked. But I missed the signals and launched into one of our pre-scripted rivalry arguments for the sake of our KGB audience. You know, the old "I love her. No, I love her. Well, you can't have her, dammit. Well, I'll see about that!" routine. That's how it was supposed to go. Didn't though. Hutch forgot the script. Mid-way through the discussion, I started to have an itchy feeling that I was the only one playing to the crowd. I reached out and stroked his coat sleeve, the only physical contact I could allow myself thanks to our Candid Camera, in an attempt to focus his eyes and figure out what was happening.

When he left, visibly shaken, without fighting me at all, I couldn't do a damn thing but sit there like a bump on a log and say, "Thanks for stopping by."

About five minutes later, I kicked myself repeatedly and saw the big picture, but our favorite pals chose that precise moment to intervene. The minute I climbed into the Torino the radio squawked at me to haul butt for Metro and Dobey's office.

Harcourt and Cannon were waiting behind Dobey's chair like pop-art statues. "Where's your partner?" Cannon asked, face troubled.

"I—I think he might have gone over to Kira's." I just wish I knew for sure why.

"Oh, shit," Harcourt breathed.

I glared at him. "What? Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing? Keeping her so busy she can't see straight?"

Cannon held up a hand. "Look, not your fault. Bad timing is all, but we've just gotten word ourselves that she might be making a fairly substantial contact this morning. Maybe this is better. We have something for you to plant in her apartment. With him already there, that should set up a neat-and-tidy confrontation between the two of you and hopefully she'll be too distracted to examine this little goodie before her visitor shows up." He tossed me a wrapped package.

"What is it?" I turned the gift over and over in my hands.

Harcourt sighed. "We haven't had the luxury of wiring her apartment because her electronics specialist is too good at his sweeping job. We've tangled with him before...although not in connection with Kira, of course. But we got our hands on this little baby just yesterday and it's going to let us have an ear on her conversations. State-of-the-art. They won't sweep this one. And it's just in time. Dobey told us about the note. Don't like that one bit, but we're convinced that it has nothing to do with Kira. This morning could be the break we need."

"So, just go over there and get your partner out of her hair without giving her a reason to think twice about it," Cannon said, waving a hand as if to dismiss me. "You've got about a thirty-minute window."

"Look," I said coldly. "I'm getting a little tired of this whole charade. We have a killer out there and Hutch and I can't stay off this damn merry-go-round of yours enough to do our jobs!"

"I don't give a good tinker's damn about your killer, Detective Starsky!"  Harcourt roared. "You're a cop; you'll manage. You just live up to your end of the bargain or maybe we'd better hear what's really keeping you on the merry-go-round."

That was it. I'd be damned if I'd have my love for Hutch held over my head one more time by these assholes. I ignored Dobey's raised, alarmed hands, and flung myself into Harcourt's personal space, gripping the lapels of his perfect suit. "You don't know what you're playing with, Harcourt!"

"Starsky!"

"Perhaps your captain would like to hear what we're playing with?" Harcourt asked, sneering.

"Tell him, G-man. Go ahead. Spill the beans." I clung to the lapels and kept my face within inches of his, not even blinking.

"Starsky, let him go. Let him go, dammit! Go get Hutch and take care of business. I'll handle these two."

I paused a beat and then reluctantly released Harcourt's jacket. Cannon breathed a sigh of relief and Dobey sat back in his seat. I grabbed the present from where I'd dropped it on the desk in my haste to strangle a certain CIA agent and wagged it at them both. "I'm going. I'll do this. Last time, you hear me? Find some other puppets."

Hutch had gone over to Kira's. I learned later that his main objective was to figure out what exactly had happened the night before that could have put stars in my eyes. And, like his knight-impulse with Allison, he would have walked out Kira's door when she said she loved me, but at Kira's professing an equal love for him, he knew the truth. He knew this was still a game—at least for her. And he was damn well going to see that it remained a game. He fell right back into the role of a confused, strung-along lover boy and let her have her cake and eat it.

 (Huggy, calm down. He didn't sleep with her that time. You're gonna find out about that in a couple minutes. You're hooked on this like one of those soap operas. I guess right now wouldn't be a good time for me to ask for a break? Just kidding! Man, I better shut up. I'm not fond of pain.)

When I arrived, I knew we were running short on time. As I pulled up beside the decrepit Ford he'd bought to replace Belle, who didn't last as long as we thought she would, I had a momentary flash of gratitude for her demise. I think if I'd seen the car that I associated with perhaps the most important morning of my life, I could never have gone through with the rest of this foolishness. Having to walk in there and start a confrontation with a Hutch who might have all kinds of half-cocked ideas badgering his brain didn't appeal to me one bit.

I could tell the instant I caught a glimpse of his face as he exited her bedroom, shirt un-tucked, this wasn't going to be as easy as Harcourt and Cannon thought. Hutch looked too serious, too guilt-stricken.

Kira made it plain as day that she was only too happy to have us both there.  Her delight sent warning bells off in my head but I didn't have time to analyze them. So I overacted my part, hoping I could show Hutch that we were still on stage, still undercover, still not doing anything that touched us personally. I flung the present off to the side and washed my hands of that reason for dropping by. The softhearted boob would have pulled me into his arms right there in front of her if I hadn't turned it into a shoving match. He didn't even defend himself against my pulled punches, almost attempting to embrace me instead. When she separated us, our eyes made true contact for the first time and I almost choked on the pain threatening to spill over from what I've always considered the most beautiful eyes in the world. Contacts, agents, and spy equipment meant nothing to me. I wanted him out of this viper's pit so I could focus on damage control. Thankfully, Kira played right into my hands. She put on this little crocodile tears display. Oh, she's a fine actress, all right. I was sick to my stomach of her. I was heartily sick of the whole mess. I don't give a flip about what you have to say, lady, or how you feel. I want to know what my Hutch is feeling. Some really screwy signals here and they need straightening pronto.

The minute her door closed behind us, I turned and said, "Follow me."

Hutch's wounded eyes stared straight through me. "But, Starsky--"

"Follow me, dammit!"

 I nearly got us both killed tearing through the streets in search of a hiding place where Hutch and I could snatch a few critical moments.

(Huggy, that's a nice thought, but we couldn't trust your place either. Too many people know about your connection to us. We could rest easy that Dobey's office wasn't wired, but making that assumption about your place would have been dumb.)

 I couldn't drag him all the way to my favorite little forest-enclosed meadow, so I settled for second best. My uncle Al owns a plot of land out in the canyons that offers a nice, secluded clearing beside a small fishing pond. No one in the family has time to take advantage of the property except on weekends, so I thought we could safely count on some uninterrupted privacy.

The second he exited the car, I slammed the door for him and pushed him up against the side of the car, ripping the shirttail out of the pants and falling down on my knees to kiss the area of skin I'd shoved with fists. Hutch broke down and whimpered as I covered his stomach inch by inch with my mouth. "I'm sorry...I'm so sorry...." I murmured repeatedly between kisses. Hutch's hands massaged my scalp.

"Starsky, we should—should move away from the car."

Bugs again. Worried about the damn bugs. I flat out didn't care anymore, but I listened to reason and pulled him away. I grabbed the blanket I keep in the trunk of my car and spread it on the grass at the edge of the pond, gesturing for him to join me. He dropped down on it with a heavy sigh. "This isn't smart, Starsky. Who knows how closely they're tracking us--"

I seized his face in my hands and stared straight into his eyes. "I. Don't. Care. Do you hear me? This is about to get out of hand, and I won't lose you because two shit-for-brains CIA agents can't do their own dirty work. Following me so far?"

Hutch's lips turned into a thin line and he looked away from me, gazing out over the pond. "How—how can you still want me after--"

"After what? You kept playing the game? Slept with her?"

He swung an alarmed expression back in my direction. "No! I mean, yes, I was still playing the game, but I couldn't—She wanted to, but I—I couldn't get past first base. She tried every trick in the book, but Starsky...if you hadn't shown up when you did, I think I'd—I'd have blown the whole thing and told her just why I couldn't get it up no matter how many times she coaxed my shirt out of my pants and headed for the belt buckle. God, I just feel so dirty for having gone over there in the first place.... Once I was there, it was like I...was trapped. I just—this morning, I thought...."

"You thought it wasn't a game for me anymore," I whispered, rubbing his cheeks with my palms.

He groaned and rubbed his eyes. "Yeah. If you hated me for not trusting you any more than that, I'd understand."

"Hate you? Hate you! Holy God, are you out of your mind? You were fighting for what you want, Hutch. Finally! More than that, for what's yours. I made promises to you, Hutch. You think I wouldn't have been fighting like hell to keep you any way I had to if the tables had been turned? I knew this would happen when they first dropped this time bomb in our laps. I knew there were bound to be missed signals, gaps in communication--"

"It just got so intense. She has this weird power, presence, something.... And you and I have had to be so distant lately...."

I took away his capacity for speech or breath for the next couple minutes. His arms latched around me and he put his entire weight into pushing me down on the blanket. I couldn't seem to move my hands from that beautiful face, but I eased up on the pressure before I left handprints. Finally, I tore my mouth away from his and said, "I love you. I haven't quit loving you for a second. She's not gonna win this round, Hutch. Harcourt and Cannon ain't gonna win. We're going to come out on top. But for the next little while, you're going to be on top."

Even half-crazed with relief, Hutch's brain works at full speed. He caught my meaning instantly and pulled back, scrambling into a seated position. "No—No, Starsky. Not like this. I don't want that under these terms."

"What terms? I want you. I need you. If it hadn't been for this godforsaken case, we'd have already done that, believe me. At least, you in me, I mean."

"I want that with you just as much, Starsky. Both ways. But two wired, stressed out, completely novice men with hardly any time to kill on a damn blanket on the ground doesn't sound like a very good idea."

(Well, Huggy, there's your stopping place. Put the typewriter down, Huggy. Put it down and step away from the table. You don't want to assault a police officer. I've told you, I can't dictate these scenes to you. Oh, you think you're sooo liberated. I betcha four sentences past this point and you'd be three shades of red. Fine, never speak to me again. See if I care. Huggy—Jeez, slam the door any harder and it'll register on the Richter scale!)

>>>>>>>>

"Something smells fantastic, gorgeous."

I whirled around. "Hutch, when you see a table set up with candles, you're supposed to just sit down at it."

"Oh, is this another Starsky law?"

"Yeah, so am-scray."

"Pig Latin now? Come on, Starsky, what's going on?" Hutch disobeyed my order to leave the kitchen and sauntered up behind me, rubbing the tip of his nose just beneath the hairline on my neck. Man, that always gets to me.

"Can't you see I'm about to get something out of the oven?"

"Starsky, you're not supposed to be—Oh, hell, I'm going to stop saying that. Couple days ago I find you've opened your own brewery. Yesterday, you were working on your contortionist act. Today, you're Julia Child. What, are you going to turn into a pumpkin tomorrow?"

"Nope. Not close enough to Halloween. Now cart that devastating rear of yours over to the table and sit down."

Must have been the determined set to my eyebrows, but he listened that time. I laughed softly and hauled the casserole dish out of the oven. When I placed it on the table, Hutch leaned forward, drinking in the aroma. "Man, that smells divine, and I don't even get one whiff of salami." Eyes teasing, he reached for my zipper. "You look like Starsky, but maybe I should just make sure--"

"Cut that out," I swatted his hand, laughing, and sat down. "Mushroom-rice casserole," I informed him with pride floating on a cloud all around me. Hutch smiled appreciatively.

"Where'd you get the mushrooms?"

"Fresh. Huggy brought 'em over when he came today. But don't get used to such world-class service. I'm officially on his hit list now."

"Oh, really?" Hutch scooped out a portion of casserole and filled my plate before he served himself. "And how did that happen?"

"We'll talk about that later. Right now I want to seduce you with food."

Thirty minutes later, Hutch was putty in my hands. He cleared away the table, washed the dishes, mumbled complimentary remarks about the casserole throughout the cleanup, and finally collapsed back down at the kitchen table, rubbing his tummy. "You never cease to amaze me."

"What, Hutch using a cliché? Jeez, that casserole must have been better than I thought."

"Come here, you," Hutch opened his arms.

But when I came, I brought the typewriter with me and placed it in front of him before I climbed onto his lap. His arms hugged me close. "This is nice, Hutch, but I've gotta be hurting your legs and we're gonna break the chair."

"You move and I'll scream," Hutch threatened. I smiled. "So, I'm guessing there's a reason you've got this infernal hunt-and-peck machine in front of me and it must have something to do with Huggy's turning on you. What, has he given up on the project?"

"Nah, I don't think so. Just another case of interrupting him at an—ahem!—awkward moment."

Hutch raised one eloquent eyebrow. I sighed. "The pond out at Uncle Al's."

"Oh, God." Hutch's face matched my red t-shirt. I started to vacate his lap, but his arms turned into adamantine chains. "No, no you don't. You want me to type that pornographic scene, you're going to sit right here with me."

"Hutch--"

"No, buddy. If you're going to be the gay community's answer to Ian Fleming, I'm going to enjoy some of the benefits."

"H-u-u-tch---"

"That's a delicious whine, Starsky. What's the vintage?  Now, where do I start? And guess what, I'm going to type this from my point-of-view."

"We stopped after you gave me your wrong place, wrong time lecture."

"Oh, right, I remember that little speech. Hmmm, let me think...."

So I ended up sitting there on his lap while he stretched around me and typed. What can I say? The man has rubber arms. Reading those words as they appeared on the paper, I felt my temperature climb, but Hutch was relentless, fingers flying across the keys. He's become quite the typist since they chained him to a desk....

>>>>

"Lotion...glove compartment. It'll do," Starsky choked out, hands caressing my back so firmly that I could feel the movement through my jacket and shirt.

"Let me up then," I said.

"Got you right where I want you," Starsky laughed softly.

"Right where I want to be, too, Starsky, but if I don't go get that lotion now, I won't be thinking straight enough in a few minutes to make it to the car."

I meant every word. Whatever issues my libido had while faced with the Soviet Siren were suddenly non-existent. I didn't waste any time getting back to him. For a few minutes I reintroduced myself to every sweet spot deep within his mouth. Starsky's a very active kisser even when he's buried under one-hundred-and-seventy pounds of male. Eventually I had to free myself, feeling like I'd been through an aerobic workout. He just turned that ferocity into ridding me of any cloth impediments. I didn't have time to think about privacy issues or feel embarrassed about being half-naked outside in broad daylight. I was worried about my lack of experience, but Starsky seemed to have no fear. He whipped me into a frenzy of desire with both lips and fingertips until every inch of my body felt the heat that only he can generate in me. He was supposedly the one being taken, but I'll be damned if he wasn't in control from the very start. I could hardly get my hands on him in places I definitely wanted to touch because he was too busy stroking me into delirium.

Unfortunately, we knew we didn't have a lot of time for foreplay. Hell, the KGB or CIA could have had a tracking device on our cars. We both felt the murder investigation hanging over us like an anvil in those Saturday morning cartoons Starsky watches. Even with all that threatening to destroy the moment, I've never experienced such utter bliss as I did when, after careful but what I know had to be totally uncomfortable preparation, Starsky's body opened up to me.

>>>>>

"Uh, Hutch, it was a little more clumsy than that. Remember at first you thought you--" 

"Starsky, I'm writing a love scene, not an instruction manual, okay? The object here is to capture the romance."

"Yeah, well, you didn't even talk about undressing me."

"Starsky, I think it's pretty self-explanatory that I had to get at least your pants off to be at the point I am now in the narration. Now will you quit squirming, I can't type."

"Easy for you to say. There's a certain part of you that would like to re-enact these events and guess where I'm sitting?"

"Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry about that. You want to move now?"

"Not in this millennium."

>>>>>>

First times are rarely easy for the man on the receiving end, we'd read during the research phase of our relationship, so I tried not to just lose myself in the white-hot, flowing rhythm. Starsky didn't help me in that regard. From the way he reacted, you'd have thought he'd done this all his life without an ounce of pain or awkwardness. He moved under me like shifting sands, situated his legs until he was poised to draw me in as deep as possible, and screamed his enjoyment to the four corners. I couldn't last under that onslaught of raw sensuality. With a muttered curse at my lack of control, I lost my mind in a breathless gasp and gave into the inevitable. But I didn't neglect the most precious lover of my life. As soon as my heart gave me permission to move without it bursting in two, I slid free of my beautiful haven, moved forward, and took as much of him as possible into my mouth. That brought us up to speed. Within mere seconds, Starsky had joined me in the realm of mindless happiness.

>>>>>

"Oh, wow... oh, wow. Hutch, you won't believe this."

"What?" Hutch sounded decidedly breathless, hands falling away from the typewriter.

I grabbed his right hand and forced it down on my groin.

"Well, now."

"So what are you going to do about it?" I asked, pleading with a feverish intensity.

"Oh, I have a few ideas. Something soft, loving, and non-exertive."

"Yeah, well, a certain part of me thinks exertive would be just fine."

"Um hum, but the rest of you would hate us both later. For now, we'll keep it light."

>>>>>>>

(Huggy, I can't believe you're actually pouting. Nobody's twisting your arm to be here, you know. Admit it, you're so hooked on this story you'll stick around no matter how many scenes I hide from you. There, finally, a smile. Now can we get to work here?)

Hutch and I needed that interlude. I don't know that either one of us would have survived the rest of the case without the reassurance we found together on that blanket. But we needed a good old-fashioned Starsky and Hutch brainstorming session, too. After we pulled ourselves together, I said, "We've gotta talk."

I cursed myself the minute the words were out of my mouth because they sounded too much like one of our scripted confrontations. Hutch all but swallowed his tongue. Then he saw the soft curving of my smile and his face relaxed considerably. "Yeah."

"Something's wrong with this whole set-up," I began.

"Have you noticed how Kira hasn't spent time with any one person—except one of us-- for more than a few minutes since we've been in the dance hall?" he asked, nodding at me.

"Right. For someone who's looking for a contact, her sonar hasn't exactly been active. Not to mention how willingly she's put up with our hanging around her outside the ballroom. No hint of us cramping her style...like this morning, Hutch. Harcourt and Cannon sent me there to hustle you away from her and plant a surveillance device because she was supposedly expecting a 'visitor'."

"The present?" Hutch asked, grinning. "I wondered if you weren't going a bit overboard in the fake courtship department."

I grinned back. "I'm only gonna be giving you love presents, Blondie. And soon as I can, I plan on smothering you in 'em."

"You don't have to," Hutch said, looking bashfully down at the blanket. I lifted his chin with my forefinger and swiped a caress across the bridge of his nose.

"Oh, yes, I do. But back to Kira. If she was expecting her mission objective to fall into place this morning, don't you think she'd have been just a weensy bit alarmed when two lover boys show up and stage World War Three in her living room? But she was thrilled, Hutch, tears or no tears. Nobody's that good an actor. KGB or not. Something doesn't add up in this equation."

Hutch sighed. "I'm just mad as hell about the case. Our case. I've got this sinking feeling that we've been too damn preoccupied with the CIA's little B-movie to prevent this psycho from striking again."

"From now on, screw Kira," I said firmly. Hutch waited all of three seconds before he burst out laughing. "Did not mean for it to come out that way." I chuckled, happy that we could laugh about the situation after all the pent-in angst and frustration. "We're cops again from here on out."

"Yes, but we've still got to play the part, Starsky. You should hear the guys at the station. Word of our...um...deteriorating partnership has filtered through Metro. If we start acting like long, lost reunited twins right off the bat, somebody's going to start putting pieces together and making 'em fit. Like Harcourt and Cannon said, until they give us further notice, we've got to be on the outs with each other big time in public."

I jumped to my feet and bit back a wince. Hutch was at my side in a moment, rubbing my shoulders. "Starsky, I didn't—I didn't hurt you?"

"No," I said, smiling, fibbing slightly. He'd been as gentle as humanly possible, but any time you force the human body to adapt, it's going to balk. "But I've got to shrug down even the twinges and keep a lid on all my sappy smiles, or someone will get some interesting ideas."

"I love you, Starsky. God, I can't breathe, I love you so much," Hutch whispered, pulling me close and burying his face in my hair.

"Love you too, Hutch. Don't worry: we're going to get the rest of the way through this disaster of a case. As long as I come out on the other end with you in my arms, I don't care what else happens. Got that? Job, CIA, Internal Affairs...none of it matters more than you."

"I know. Same here."

Hutch's worst fears received swift confirmation. As soon as we headed in our separate cars back toward the city, we got a 187 call that matched our psycho's MO.

By the time Hutch and I reached the crime scene, he and I had worked up enough genuine piss-and-vinegar about our failure to prevent this murder that we had no trouble keeping up appearances and snapping at each other for the surrounding officers' benefit. Captain Dobey chimed right in and delivered a rousing performance himself, chewing into us about the situation. He knew we were just as mad as he was, but he couldn't publicly show us any understanding. He did, Hutch and I both appreciated, let us know on just whose side his personal loyalty rested. When he told us to shelve "whatever was between the two of us" and concentrate on catching the killer, he was giving us permission to ignore Harcourt, Cannon, Kira and the whole side mess. In essence, he was saying he'd deal with whatever flack we caught from the CIA for concentrating on our jobs as cops.

For once neither one of us minded the Dobey bluster he used to pound that point home.

We might have to stay "in character," but we planned to include some top-notch law enforcement. Hutch got the ball rolling by bullying the lab guys into submission. Our killer was definitely targeting blondes and he'd gotten close enough to our most recent victim to see through her brunette wig. After we stopped heaping coals on our heads—and Madame Bouvet, for not bothering to inform us that she had another thinly disguised blonde on the dance floor—we realized we'd hit the turning point in the case.

We'd officially run out of blondes other than Susan and Kira. If our killer's appetite could handle one more, we'd have him cold. That night at The Golden Ballroom we were all business.

Looking back, Hutch and I are both ashamed that we didn't even smell a lead around Joey Webster as many times as he waltzed in and out of the club. Our only consolation is that his name never appeared in any of the files we inherited from the detectives previously assigned to the case, either. I saw him at the games' table with Kira but my desire to avoid her completely led me to gravitate toward Susan. Hutch had the same allergy to Kira; he danced with his back to her most of the night before the final showdown. I had to clamp down on a smile watching him boogey with my "drawling gal" from earlier.

Receiving the phone call with the lab analysis of the rubber fragment found at that afternoon's crime scene gave us only a minute or two warning before the world crashed down. Hutch and I knew that out of the various sources for the rubber, the cane tip was the most likely candidate. You just can't be blind to coincidences in our profession.  Kira's report—yeah, her KGB status doesn't mean she can avoid filing reports like any other cop—says she did her best to curtail the situation before it got out of hand. Not much you can do against a mentally disturbed Vietnam veteran with a blonde phobia and a live grenade in his hands. But she tried.

He was just a victim of the system. According to Kira, he babbled about "being in the know" before he short-circuited. He wasn't just shooting the breeze. We learned later from our CIA pals that he was one of the men involved in that "black op" who fell off the government radar following his supposed VA rehabilitation. We didn't get graphic details, of course, but even with the hints Harcourt dropped, you can guess the things he witnessed in the jungle would have broken any ten men. Hell, I had a hard enough time overcoming what I witnessed as a GI grunt. Joey had a right to be paranoid about "blondes in Vietnam" because shortly following that heavily cloaked mission, a female Cong operative parading as a Saigon prostitute who looked fifteen-years old and had dyed-blonde hair fingered him. Though he gave the VC no valuable information despite torture and imprisonment—from which he escaped—he carried the scars of the experience all the way into present day and The Golden Ballroom. Funny, but Harcourt and Cannon wouldn't tell us just how he slipped out from under the government's watchful eye.

(Was he Kira's contact? Good question, Hug. You have been paying attention. We'll get to that in a minute. Be patient, Huggy.)

Like so often, the ending of the case could have left one or both of us dead. Joey had knocked Kira and her gun to the floor and held the entire ballroom hostage with the weapon in his hand. My heart froze in my chest when Joey pulled the grenade pin and Hutch moved to intercept. I didn't have time to think. Flinging the grenade out the nearest window wasn't a brave move on my part; it was sheer instinct, just like knocking Kira protectively to the floor during the explosion while the most important person in the world to me tackled our disturbed veteran. I didn't breathe again until I saw Hutch move.

Don't think Hutch and I were able to lock arms and walk off into the sunset the minute we cleared the crime scene.

(Yeah, Huggy, you got to see something like that happen, but that's later in the story. Just chill, man.)

 No, Harcourt and Cannon hadn't contacted us and we had to go on the assumption that our thankless duty wasn't over yet. So, no matter how tired, shaken, and in need of each other's comfort we were, we couldn't curl up at one of our apartments and unwind. We had to unwind separately. My bed never felt so big...or so cold.

(Tell you what, Huggy, why don't we drag this out one more day, huh? I'm hungry and...uh...well, I was a little more active yesterday evening after you left than usual. Don't even grin at me like that, Huggy! Anyway, food and a nap sound good right now. Pain pill? Nope. I'm giving up those babies. Yeah, yeah, I know. No one gets a medal for suffering. You're just like Hutch. Nag, nag, nag.)

>>>>>>>

"Open those eyes for me, babe."

I let one eyelid crawl open, and I smiled up into the world's sweetest face. Hutch stroked my forehead while his other hand rested warmly over my heart. I yawned. He laughed.

"Someone had a good nap."

"Absholutely," I agreed, smiling brighter. I scooted back on the sofa so he could join me. Then I snuggled up against him. "Um, I love you."

"Good thing, too, because I'm kind of hung up on you myself," Hutch said, dropping a kiss onto the top of my head. "Did Huggy leave in a better mood today?"

"Oh, yeah. We'll probably finish the book tomorrow. He says it's not long enough to be called a book. It's a novella."

Hutch laughed. "Well, well. Huggy Bear the discriminating literature expert. Who would have guessed?" He frowned at the sudden tensing in my shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Just thinking about the part I'll be dictating tomorrow. You know...our grandstanding scene at The Pits."

"What about it?"

I took a deep breath and blew it out in increments. "Aw, Hutch, don't you feel...well, jeez, out of the two of us you usually are the one who feels guilty. Don't you ever wish we'd treated her better that night?"

Hutch flung an arm around my shoulders and hugged me close. "Starsky, we had no way of knowing. We still had to play our parts—especially in front of Huggy, who knows us both too well—because Harcourt and Cannon hadn't bothered to contact us yet. We were flying blind. And besides, after you and I launched into our spiel, she went right along with it. 'So what do we do about this troublesome little triangle?' Hah! She knew she was going to be thousands of miles away from the aftermath of our little triangle, so what did she care? No, dammit, I won't feel guilty about giving Kira a little comeuppance. And you shouldn't either."

"She could have been killed--"

"Yeah. You accept that risk when you operate as an enemy agent on foreign soil. We accept that risk when we walk the streets...and we're trying to actively help people, not topple opposing governments. I'm sorry, I can't—I just can't drum up any sympathy for her."

I reached up and grabbed hold of his chin, pulling his face down so I could turn and kiss away the hard line of his lips. Hutch melted immediately, opening his mouth and accepting everything I could offer him. He whispered my name into the kiss, a little habit that always heats my blood.

"She didn't win, Hutch," I said when I released him. He nodded.

"Just...hold me, Starsk?"

I grinned, reaching for him. "My pleasure."

>>>>>>>

(All settled, Huggy? Comfy? This is the homestretch. Yeah, I know you're dying for me to explain that little show we put on in front of you at The Pits.)

The following morning at the station we expected a summons from Dobey's office at any moment. I don't know why but we just felt that the end of the dance hall case ought to signal the end of the CIA's little shindig, too. Well, real life isn't that neat and logical. Our shift consisted mostly of paperwork and red tape except for our separately receiving notes from Kira requesting the honor of our presence at The Pits at a precise time. Hutch and I were still officially at each other's throats—or giving each other the silent treatment—in front of the people at Metro, but we managed to snag a few minutes alone out in the parking lot and decided we'd show Kira that she hadn't succeeded in ripping the heart out of Bay City's best partnership.

We were careless. No matter how Hutch tries to justify our actions, we could have screwed the whole operation straight to hell. Problem is, we didn't give a damn. We'd faced a nasty death the night before and all that mattered to us was the beauty of what we had together. The CIA could handle their own snags and if they wanted to drag us through the mud with Internal Affairs, then fine.

How were we careless? Well, I suppose I should give us some credit. We arrived at The Pits separately and played our wounded friendship gig for the benefit of anyone who might be "eavesdropping." So I guess you can say we started out playing by the book Harcourt and Cannon handed us.

(Yes, Huggy, what? Oh, my beautiful blond remark. You remember that? Yeah, I might have been ordering Kira's drink, but I was definitely talking about Hutch. Now that I've cleared that up for you, can I move along? Thanks.) 

Kira showed up a little breathless and antsy, but we didn't suspect anything out of the ordinary. If we hadn't been so eager to win a few points for the home team, we might have gotten a clue when she said we knew why she'd asked us to meet her. Instead we ran right over that little tip-off like a Mack truck. She handled our wounded male ego tirade like a pro and when we stood there offering her both of our beautiful bodies—knowing we wouldn't oblige her even if she took us up on it—she declined with good grace and let us have the last laugh. Arms around each other's shoulders, we marched out of the bar and savored the thrill of triumph and knowing that Kira could have no doubts about our friendship being stronger than her charms.

But still, we were careless. That little display negated our ability to keep up the act a moment longer. We effectively took ourselves out of the game. As I've said before, we just didn't care. We knew we couldn't go home and make wild, passionate love on the floor until our apartments had been "swept," but we wouldn't let the KGB or our guys keep us from doing a victory dance in our own way.

(Well, I'm glad you feel better now, Huggy. I know you thought we were loopy that night but we couldn't exactly let you in on any of the secrets.)

A soft voice stopped us cold on the way to our cars. She stood there in the shaft of light filtering through the bar's open door. Before we could turn away, she'd rushed up to us and grabbed us by the arms. "I d-deserved that. I've only a few minutes, so please listen. I may be wrong...perhaps you are not.... Just in case you do know what I mean, I want to say thank you." She stepped away, clicked her heels together, and saluted us smartly before she dashed down the sidewalk. Hutch and I had fused into the concrete, watching her disappear into the darkness.

By the next morning I was beyond the limits of my endurance. Dreaming every night of Hutch and having to roll over and cuddle with a pillow just doesn't do it for me. Hutch entered the squad room bleary eyed and looking as out-of-sorts as I felt. I don't think I've ever been so glad to hear Dobey yell, "Starsky! Hutchinson! My office now!"

Sure enough, our friendly neighborhood stuffed shirts greeted us with bland smiles. I suppose that's as close as they come to whooping and hollering. Harcourt waited until we flopped into our chairs before he said, "Just stopped by to let you know that you're off the hook. You can work on patching up your—er—differences and go about your business."

Hutch and I even blink in unison on occasion. That was one of them. Then Hutch relocated his tongue and said, "That's it? 'Just go about your business, boys?'"

"What did you expect, Detective Hutchinson?" Cannon asked, smile wavering.

"I think we both expect a little professional courtesy," I said, hearing the irritation in my own voice. "Webster was her contact?"

"Excuse me?" Harcourt looked at Cannon for inspiration but his partner simply shrugged.

"Joey Webster. The Vietnam vet who almost blew The Golden Ballroom into outer space night before last. She seemed particularly interested in coddling him through the post-arrest procedures."

Harcourt's expression turned uneasy. "No—No, Webster's presence at The Golden Ballroom was just—just one of life's crazy coincidences." At our abject stares, he and Cannon consulted silently and Harcourt ended up enlightening us about Webster's background. I've already relayed that information once, so we'll skip to the next tantalizing bit of dialogue.

Hutch rubbed his forehead in his 'I've had about enough' manner and said, "Kira established a meeting with us last night. We didn't know how you wanted us to play it, so we pretty much stuck to our original plan...with a slight alteration at the end," he grinned over at me. I wanted to cover his face with kisses in response so I had to smile and look away.

Cannon frowned. "What did she say?"

"We didn't give her a chance to recite a speech, but she did...well, she thanked us," I said.

Harcourt eyed Cannon. "She risked her skin pulling a stunt like that. Sounds like she figured out the score."

Cannon sighed. "True to form for her. Playing it on the edge. How she managed to arrange that little escapade without her Red Guard dogs or us knowing about it is beyond me."

I fled my seat and braced against Dobey's desk to keep myself under control. "Look, why don't you just quit throwing out vague hints and tell us what's going on here? We never once saw Kira make anything that resembles a contact at The Golden Ballroom. You say Webster is a coincidence. She sets up some weird meeting with us last night. And now you're telling us to go on our merry way. What gives?"

"You don't have the privilege of demanding that information," Harcourt began, but Dobey pounded both fists on the desk and whirled in his chair.

"The hell they don't! Following your orders cost us—indirectly at least—an innocent civilian life. I think all three of us deserve some explanations. Of course, I could always see what your regional director has to say about the situation--"

That's Dobey for you. He knows exactly when to pull rank. Cannon waved me back into my chair and turned his back on us, the signal, we'd learned by now, that he was about to divulge something juicy. "We turned Kira two years ago. Unlike the KGB, we tend to give our former enemies a chance for redemption. She's been a double agent ever since and we've managed—at the cost of one of our own—to conceal that fact from the KGB. Protecting her has been worth our while. She's given us some hardcore, beneficial intelligence. Unfortunately, in the overall scheme of things, she's fairly low on the totem pole. So, when the Soviets realized they had a shot at a major coup here on the West Coast—the Vietnam operation details—they decided to 'sacrifice' her. Flush her out. Use her as a decoy."

"Decoy!" I shouted, startling everyone in the room—including Hutch. I grabbed his wrist without thinking and wagged it up and down. "Mello's daughter, Hutch! I kept thinking about that...risking life and limb, driving her down here and finding out she was that Detective Whozit's...  I knew it! I could feel it...."

But Hutch was too outraged to be amazed at my instincts. He vacated his chair faster than I had and stretched out two hands as though he'd like to strangle one of the agents from across the room. "You had us—Us... Over a damn decoy!"

Oh, boy. When my Hutch is incoherent, people take note. Harcourt shifted his stance and Cannon grunted uncomfortably, "Look, Detective Hutchinson--"

"No, you look, Cannon! Turn around and face me, dammit. You roped us into this whole mess and we could feel okay about the situation because we thought we were doing our country a service--" He turned distraught eyes in my direction and I read his gaze easily: Not to mention the blackmail, the indignities, oh, but it's not supposed to be a problem for a man to just yank it out of his pants for anybody and any reason...

Cannon did an about-face. "Sit down, Detective! You did do your country a service, and you directly saved a life. The Soviets started spreading disinformation through the proper channels that pointed to Kira as the agent in charge of collecting the Vietnam intelligence. We knew from Kira, however, that the real gig was going down in San Francisco, but we couldn't drop everything in Bay City and focus on Frisco, or we'd be tacitly admitting Kira's dual allegiance. Within an hour of their realizing that we were making more waves in Frisco than here, Kira would have been dead and the Soviets would have rearranged their plans for the main contact. We'd have lost both ways. We didn't have complete information from Kira. We needed time to piece together their precise game plan for obtaining the pay-dirt in San Fran."

Harcourt cleared his throat. "That's where you two proved so useful. We let the right words slip that we planned to involve two local law enforcement officers in our attempt to prevent Kira from establishing her contact here in Bay City. You gave such a convincing performance that the KGB was convinced to the bitter end that our attention focused solely on Kira. Fending off Dmitri was a particularly nice touch, Detective Hutchinson—yes, we know about that-- but really your actions as a team throughout the operation were first-rate. You basically allowed us to devise a seemingly serendipitous means of thwarting their plans in San Francisco. As we said at the beginning, a protective smoke screen. The Soviets lost this round, but they're convinced it's because of a mistake on the part of their agent in Frisco, not because of Kira."

Hutch practically fell back into the chair. I said barely above a whisper, "So...she knew all along that we were playing her?"

Cannon smiled. "Oh, no. The KGB is not as forthcoming with their agents as we are. And we often pay the price for extending—as you say—professional courtesy. No, they would have told her not to avoid your attentions, but that's all. Kira was simply being herself. She's a damn fine intelligence officer, but she gets her thrills playing with people. That may be what led her into this line of work in the first place. The Soviets would have seen that as a quality to be cultivated."

Harcourt said, "We didn't tell her for much the same reason we didn't give you the full story. You get the best out of people when they believe they're on the front lines instead of the rear echelon. As long as she thought she was working without a net, she was more likely to go along with all the KGB orders regarding her status as a decoy...and stay alive. We exerted control over your actions by the information we gave you."

"What, was it all a pack of lies? Those lines you fed us about wanting the Soviets to believe we were just Kira's patsies. And telling us to be convincing with Kira...to take her to paradise and back again, I believe was your lovely suggestion. Why was that absolutely necessary if we weren't having to convince her—or anybody—of our 'innocence'...when in fact you wanted them to know we were working for you?"

"It's the hide-in-plain-sight theory, Detective Hutchinson," Harcourt responded, sounding weary with our inability to accept our role as pawns. "By strictly playing two cops out for a personal conquest with no affiliation to any government operation, you perfectly fit—in their eyes—the profile of two operatives firmly in our pocket...based on the information we'd creatively let fall into the wrong hands.

"If we'd put all the cards on the table at the very beginning, the odds are one or both of you would have decided to grow a brain at the most inopportune moment, and the whole scheme would be flushed down the toilet. We couldn't risk that. Better to keep you in the dark and be able to consider you a constant instead of a variable while we worked around you to achieve our objectives."

"So you had to bed a woman undercover," Cannon shrugged. "You want me to believe you haven't ever had to do something similar in the course of your ordinary law enforcement stings? If you're going to turn into prudes, I'd suggest you find a different line of work altogether."

"Why, you--" Hutch bounded out of the chair again and took a menacing step forward, but I put myself in his path and he froze, clasping both my shoulders to steady himself.

"What was the deal with my planting that surveillance device?" I figured as long as their jaws were flapping, we might as well get the whole play-by-play. Dobey had been a completely passive listener. For a minute I thought he was catatonic.

Harcourt adjusted his collar and I had to smother a smile at his reliving our little encounter. "Just more of the subterfuge, Detective Starsky. They'd let word of a meeting slip so we had to snap at the bait. Within minutes of your departure, her sweeper was over there picking away at the contents of that package with a fine-tooth comb."

"You handed over a prototype device—just like that?"

Cannon stared at me. "Prototype?"

"Yes, that day you said you'd just gotten your hands on--"

Harcourt actually grinned. He looked ten years younger. "That's just the line we fed you, Detective Starsky. We've never underestimated your intelligence or Detective Hutchinson's for that matter. We had to keep you from piecing together the idea that Kira wasn't the whole ball of wax. Sounds like you just about tumbled to it anyway. Oh, no, the device in that package is nothing they haven't seen before, just a little more cleverly disguised. Enough to keep them thinking."

Hutch groaned and stared at the ceiling. "We usually know who our enemies are. We track them down, gather evidence, and then haul them off the streets so they can't continue to do harm. At least, that's the way it's supposed to go. You're just letting... sweepers, surveillance operatives, contacts, and facilitators all belonging to a foreign government trot around Bay City doing their thing. Explain the sense in that to me!"

Cannon grimaced at the implicit criticism. "We have similar teams operating in the Soviet Union, Detective Hutchinson. That's just how the game is played. That's why it's called the Cold War. We don't define battlefields and eliminate each other with extreme prejudice. We play elaborate games and hide in shadows, following rules of competition more medieval than modern. Most of the time, it doesn't make sense—even to us. But even in cold wars, some victories are crucial and winning them without excessive loss of life is even sweeter."

"What will happen to Kira?" I asked after a pause.

"She'll be shipped back to Russia, de-briefed, put through extensive re-training and then re-deployed in some backwater intelligence pit that doesn't get much of our attention."

"But why not—Oh, God, my head's spinning," I flung a pleading look at Dobey, who rustled in his desk drawer and tossed me a bottle of aspirin. With a light hand on my forearm, Hutch steered me back to my chair. Again, nothing Dobey hadn't seen out of us for years, but I noticed that Harcourt watched us closely. Cannon had turned to the window again, preparing to answer my aborted question.

"Why didn't we reel her in now that she's been put out in the open? Again, that's just not how the game's played. Right now the Soviets believe they've managed to save face by keeping one of their assets. Equilibrium's restored. But we'll get her. Don't worry. Somewhere down the line, we'll manage to bring her in and put her in safekeeping. She can look forward to that because of the two of you."

Harcourt walked around the desk and leaned back against it, folding his arms across his chest and staring us both head-on. "That's why none of this can leave this room, gentlemen. This whole sideshow with Kira has got to go down in the books as a love affair that went sour for both of you and nearly split your partnership in two. Otherwise, one little hint of the truth will result in a bullet in her brain. She's a prized asset to us, too, and losing her in some squalid Soviet prison courtyard would not make us happy campers."

"She's also a human being!" I growled, too angry to even screw the lid back on the aspirin bottle. "That'll keep our mouths shut quicker than worrying about what you might get out of her later."

I'll give Harcourt credit. He knows when to hang his head. "Point taken, Detective Starsky," he said quietly.

Cannon must have decided that they'd issued their yearly quota of straight answers, because he shook Dobey's hand and then turned to us, nodding at Harcourt. "We'll let you get on with your jobs now, Detectives. I think we've covered the bases, don't you?"

"Yes," Hutch muttered, not even gracing them with a glance. I could tell he was overly sickened by the whole conversation.

Harcourt left the office first but Cannon stopped halfway out of the room and turned around. "Oh, one last detail," he said softly. "By the time your shift is over today, their sweepers will have cleaned your apartments. You're no longer on display." He had the gall to wink at us before he closed the door behind him. Hutch turned bright red.

Dobey isn't blind. He gave Hutch a sympathetic half-smile and gestured for us to stay put. "When I was a field officer, I had a couple of cases that forced me to do—things—undercover that felt like cheating on Edith. No matter how those automatons want to gloss it over, that sort of thing never gets easy to swallow. Probably what pushed me to the lieutenant's exam so quickly." Hutch and I sat deathly still, unable to even glance at each other out of the corners of our eyes. After some throat clearing, paper shuffling, and twisting in his chair, he said to the file cabinet, "Right now is the only time we'll ever discuss this. Harcourt and Cannon showed me the photo before you got here for that first meeting--"

"Captain--" Hutch began as the red in his face faded to pale, but Dobey held up a silencing hand and shook his head.

"They were counting on my helping them pressure you into cooperating if you chose to decline the honor of participating in their little game. When I said then that no one was twisting your arms, I meant it. I would have tried to shield you from the fall-out. But God help me, I was testing you, too. I don't want details—I don't want to know how, when, why—but I do have the department to consider. You proved to me that you are willing to do your jobs, and do what is in the best interests of the department, even at a cost to your—um—personal relationship. You could have walked out of this office, said good-bye to your badges, and saved yourselves a lot of grief, but you didn't. Throughout this fiasco, you've been professionals. You've shown me that you can be partners on the job and whatever else you happen to be in your off-duty time without it coming back to bite me. I can't promise you that you won't face some unpleasantness if people figure out what's really between you two, but for what it's worth, I'll be in your corner. Understood?"

Hutch and I had to retrieve our jaws from the floor, dust them off, and try to get them working again. I had mine functioning first. "Yeah, Cap'n...that means...means a lot."

"Thank you, Captain," Hutch echoed, still dazed.

"Then get out there and get to work! I've already lost enough time out of you thanks to those Agency pains-in-the-ass!"

He didn't have to tell us twice.

As we opened the door and faced the rest of the squad room, a bellow drifted past us from Dobey's desk. "—And start acting like partners again before I ship both of you to Timbuktu and save my gastrointestinal system in the process!"

Hutch and I exchanged sly grins. For the rest of the day we could be more than civil to each other and the other officers would chalk our mended fences up to a patented Dobey chew-out.

(Huggy, you've been awful quiet over there. Huggy? What now, Huggy? You're not the last person to know. We wouldn't have told Dobey on our own. We can't help that Harcourt and Cannon were lousy, underhanded sons-of-bitches.... Don't you want to hear the rest of the story? I'll let you type something mushy and romantic, how's that?)

We'd driven to work separately, so that evening on the way to Venice Place; I picked us up a monstrosity of a pizza. Hey, it's not caviar and champagne, but I have my own way of saying, "Let's celebrate." By the time I pulled up behind his rust bucket, I could barely wrestle the key out of the ignition. I shook like I had a killer attack of the 'flu. I wanted his arms, his hands, the scent of his hair...I could feel the tiny puff of air just above my lips that signals his homing in for an open-mouth kiss. Lost in that sensation, I made it halfway up the stairs before I realized I'd left the pizza in the car. I debated letting it stay there.

(Huggy, if you're having a heart attack over there, please cease and desist-- to borrow a Hutch-ism. I don't just think about food, you know. Oh, thanks, Huggy. Great character analysis: David Starsky=food and sex. Thanks a lot.)

 Finally, common sense won the argument. I knew I'd be even more distracted and less inclined to make a trip to the car once I got my hands on him. I broke the sound barrier fetching our dinner and when I opened the door to the apartment, memories hit me full force because the place was draped in darkness.

 (Will you quit laughing? Yeah, so I proved your point. Do you want to type this or not?)

"Hutch?"

"Out here."

I stumbled over to the table and deposited the pizza, but I didn't make it to the greenhouse this time. Hands pulled me away from the table and turned me deftly into a tight embrace. His bare chest smelled of rain and evergreens. I'm not sure how he manages that, but I don't knock the miracle. He whispered words into my ear, scratching softly at the back of my neck. "More Donne?" I asked, engine good and revved. I could feel him smile against my cheek.

"You bet."

Oh, man. When he pulls out the Donne, I'm in for one incredible evening. He'll wring me out, leave me dry, weightless, babbling with delight. "Kiss me," I breathed, turning my face to meet his smile. I should have reminded him to leave my lips attached for another time. When he lowered his face to my throat, gasping for breath, I couldn't feel them.

I might as well have left the pizza in the car. Twenty minutes passed beside the table but I was the only menu item consumed--from head to toe. Literally. I swear he kissed my toenails at one point. Then he guided me around the pile of clothes and into the greenhouse where he'd spread blankets on the floor and surrounded them with candles.

That night's loving qualifies as the most amazing of my entire life. We didn't even concentrate on any particular part of our bodies. We just took turns touching each other, kissing each other, sometimes just brushing our foreheads against each other's chests and relishing the contact we'd been denied. Even the tiniest gestures, like Hutch dragging his foot, toes pointed, slowly up my calf, rocked my soul. Or the way he arched his neck and whimpered, "More, more," when I squeezed his shoulder and pressed my lips beneath his chin. And then at one world-shattering moment, he took me into his arms and the sudden full-body closeness created a mutual explosion.

(Well, Huggy, I've finally let you type a love scene. Still breathing over there? Huggy, are you crying? You are. You're right: it is beautiful. I'll grab you a tissue. Say, why are you so mushy lately? If I didn't know better, I'd say you've got the love bug, too. Oh, really? Huggy, I oughta smack you. You've been hearing R-rated details about my relationship with Hutch, whining about our not telling you before, and you've been holding out on me? Spill, pal.)

>>>>

Okay, I think my typist has recovered. We've had a chat about the future Mrs. Bear, who will be joining us for dinner tomorrow night so Hutch and I can give our seal of approval. Where was I? Oh, yeah....

>>>>>

Hutch and I lay there, wrapped around each other, listening to our mingled breath sounds like music. "Starsky?"

"Um...."

"I need to say something to you."

"All ears."

"May seem like a bad time to bring this up, but I have a point to make...."

"Hutch, quit beating around the bush and speak your piece before I fall asleep."

"No, I want you awake...."

"Okay, I'm wide awake. You gonna make me drag it out of you?"

"That morning at Kira's...." He felt me tense and commenced a soothing massage up and down my arms. "I know you probably don't want to talk about her, but I have my reasons."

"Fine, Hutch. I'm listening."

"I'd—I'd torn into her about her liberated approach to relationships—you know, all part of our cover—and she asked me...well, in so many words she asked me if I was looking for a till death do us part kind of commitment."

"Yeah? Whaddya say?"

"That I'm not—"

I felt my entire body go rigid. Hutch felt it too because he pulled me tighter against him. "Hutch, if you're trying to say--"

"Hey, wait! Let me finish. She was referring to a commitment with her if she decided to choose between us. Of course, I wasn't going to encourage her in that direction. I don't care what part we were playing, some lies are just beyond me. They choke in my throat, know what I mean?"

"Yeah," I agreed, feeling a bitter twinge that I hadn't choked myself before I said I loved her in front of Hutch. He took one look at my face and read my thoughts.

"No, no babe. I don't mean for you to feel bad about...damn, I'm sorry."

"Shhh...It's over, Hutch. Maybe my brain's fuzzy after you blasted my world apart a few minutes ago, but are you—trying to say something specific to me?" I turned my head up to look into his eyes and then let my own eyes close, a yawn breaking through my resolve to stay awake.

"Yes," he whispered against my left eyelid. "After Van, I thought I never wanted to go down that road again. I tended to look for girls who didn't have marriage so high on their priority lists either. The ones who did seemed to see through me fairly quickly and broke the speed limit on their way out the door. I've—I've changed my mind. If—if you'll have me, I want to consider myself—married to you."

I experienced a moment of outright panic that my heart had burst within my chest. Three-quarters of me wanted to take refuge in a joke, lighten the mood, downplay the moment for my own sanity's sake. The mushy quarter of me told the other parts to go to hell. "Hutch, I'll have you on one condition."

He trembled and I knew I was playing a dangerous game. One tiny shove in the wrong direction and Hutch would retreat into a shell, never broaching this topic again. But I had to make my point, too. "What?"

"If you'll finally come to terms with the fact that you're the absolute, unequaled, best thing in my entire life."

"Oh."

"Nope, not good enough. Not oh. Say, 'Yes, Starsky, I'm the best thing in your entire life.'"

"Starsky—"

"Say it!"

"Starsky, this is ridiculous."

"You think I'm going to accept a marriage proposal from a man who won't even fulfill that one minute request?"

"Yes, Starsky, I'm the best thing in your entire life."

I pushed him down onto the blanket and covered his body with mine, framing his jaw, sideburns, and hairline with kisses. "Consider yourself hitched, Blintz," I grinned, stroking his mustache.

(How do you like that for an ending, Huggy? Pack enough of a wallop? Not really any other loose ends to tie. 'Sides, Hutch is right. As far as we know, Kira's still in Soviet hands so we can't even think about publishing this right now even if our society would accept a same-sex love story. I won't admit it to him, but I—I know we'll probably never be able to bring this into the light. It just—really meant something to me to get it off my chest, let someone else hear the truth. Truth is really important when you've come face-to-face with the Great Beyond. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to type all this out for me. Hutch would never have stood for me typing it up myself. He acted like I'd climbed El Capitan when I cooked that casserole the other day. Yeah, I know, he's just taking care of me.)

>>>>>>>

"Lover?"

Uh-oh. He only calls me that when he's got something up his sleeve and wants me all fluttery before he springs it on me. I used to be the one with the market cornered on practical jokes and surprises, but after I left the hospital, Hutch became my apprentice and then surpassed the master. I put the half-eaten sandwich back on the plate and walked into the living room, tempted to close my eyes for some reason. Hutch stood just in front of the couch, arms clasping a bundle gently. I could have sworn I saw it....

"Hutch?"

"I called your long-term care therapist today...you know, just to give her an update and see if there's anything we haven't covered. She and I discussed the fact that you're still not independent enough to leave the house by yourself for long periods of time and that you don't have a lot of company. I mean, I know Huggy comes by and Edith has been good about bringing the kids, but....well, there's this new idea on the horizon. She says pretty soon it'll be all the rage."

"Hutch, am I going blind or did that...whatever it is...in your arms just move?"

A whuff, snuffle, and a moist sound. Hutch got wide-eyed and sheepish all at once. He unwrapped the baby blanket—I wondered where he got the baby blanket—and bent over, cautiously placing a ball of fur on the floor. I stared, mouth hanging open, as the incredibly tiny living thing unfolded itself and emitted what had to be a bark.

"Hutch, what is that?"

"You are blind. It's a puppy."

"Okay. Puppy. Right. What is a puppy doing on my living room floor?"

"Your living room floor?" Hutch looked hurt. I swallowed and nodded, conceding the point. "Look, when she told me about pet therapy, I really liked the sound of it...so I called your doctor and he said you're past the point of immune system concerns and.... Will you say something, dammit?"

"Hutch, just what kind of puppy is that?"

Hutch smiled and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Kind of a mixture actually. I thought the best thing would be to rescue some poor little guy from the animal shelter. He'll get to be—oh...medium-size, I think."

"You think?"

"Well, that's what the woman at the shelter said. Look, Starsky, if you're that opposed to the idea, I'll just—I'll just take him back...along with all the things I bought to take care of him and--" he lapsed into silence, biting down on his lip. I lowered myself carefully to the floor and made eye contact with the creature. Large, liquid brown eyes raked over me before the nose trembled and produced another moist snuffle.

"Hutch, I think this puppy has a cold."

"Nonsense. I don't think puppies get colds."

"All right an allergy then. It's sneezing."

"It...you're going to just call the poor thing It?"

"Hutch," I gestured for him to join me on the floor. "This is sweet...and thoughtful. But we're already cramped as it is and you're thinking about bringing your plants over from Venice instead of making so many trips over there to take care of them...there may even be a pet clause in my rental agreement--"

"We'll manage for the little amount of time we're going to be here," Hutch said brightly.

I ignored the puppy's wobbling approach in favor of a more important concern. "You want to run that by me again?"

Hutch reached into his jacket pocket and produced a folded piece of paper torn from a magazine. I unfolded it, staring at him the entire time, and then lowered my eyes. The page was from a real estate magazine and someone had circled the picture of a small cream brick house against the backdrop of rolling hills. "As soon as you're well enough to even think about a move, that's where we're going...if you like it...."

"Hutch—" I wanted to say something both intelligent and non-bubble-bursting, but moisture in a decidedly awkward area distracted me. "Hutch, it's--"

Hutch snorted and then laughed out loud as the puppy curled up in my lap, sniffing at my crotch. "Well, you can't knock his brains. He's already figured out the best part of you."

"Funny. Very funny, wise guy. Hey, move, fella, that spot's reserved...and not for you." I smiled as the puppy opted for nuzzling my knee. "He's...he's cute," I admitted, astonished at the size of the grin that statement brought to Hutch's face.

"Hey, I think somebody wanted this before a long-term care therapist even mentioned the idea."

Hutch sighed and looked away, fidgeting with the zipper on his jacket. "We—we can't have kids, so I thought...."

"Home, dog...I get it now. You're trying to give me the suburban American marital dream. Or at least a version of it."

"No, that's...okay, yes, maybe...I don't know. Well, what if I am?"

"Hutch, we don't have to own joint property and an animal for me to feel married to you. I've felt that way since the night you brought up the subject."

"Fine. Bad idea. I read you loud and clear," Hutch leaned over, confiscated the puppy from its precarious perch on my knee and started to stand. I touched his arm, tugging him back down.

"No. Not a bad idea. I like both ideas. I just know that you're usually the one who frets over practical concerns. I don't want you getting into this for the wrong reasons and then regretting it. See my point?"

"Yes," Hutch nodded, looking down at the struggling mass of fur and legs. "I think—I think he's attached to you, Starsk." He set the vibrating ball down on the floor and it immediately wobbled back over to lick at my foot. I grinned.

"You're right: can't knock his brains. How 'bout we call him Einstein?"

"You want to name a puppy Einstein?" Hutch's entire face screamed disbelief.

"Got a better idea?"

"Hey, I'm just happy you want to name him. Guess that means I can haul the junk in from the car? Don't worry, Starsk, I plan to make pet ownership as painless as possible for you. You'll reap the benefits of companionship, relaxation--"

"Hutch, you brought me a puppy, not newborn human triplets. We'll manage," I laughed, scratching Einstein behind one tan, velvety ear. When Hutch moved, I tugged on his arm again. "I love you more than anything in the world."

Hutch attacked my mouth with an insane fervor and then jumped up to fetch Einstein's paraphernalia. I was still reeling from the kiss and didn't notice at first that Einstein had located the sofa and the stack of manuscript papers I'd left on the floor from my proofreading session after Huggy left. The unmistakable sound of body fluid emission got my attention. I looked up just in time to see the spreading puddle on the top sheet. "H-U-T-C-H!!"

The End

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