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Author's note: Thanks to Royalty09 for her help with this one-shot. I hope you guys like it; either way, let me know what you think, drop me a note. Thanks!

„The Perfect Opponent"

He watched the listless sheep file through the gangway, bah-ing their dull thoughts out loud, completely unaware of the wolf's presence in their midst. Jackson's lips stretched into a secret smile when he caught sight of his current prey and he spontaneously decided to change his private little allegory – Lisa Reisert certainly was no sheep, she was more of a gazelle; which appointed him tiger, of course.

Man, he loved these last few quiet minutes right before a paper project turned into real life, those sweet moments of solitary knowledge that separated him from the rest of the worthless crowd. He had come a long way since East Bumfuck, Ohio, and he fully intended to stay as far from it as possible, in every sense of the word. Just then, a middle-aged woman in a muted green trenchcoat tiptoed around him with a shy, apologetic expression on her nondescript face; Jackson couldn't help but blink and stare until his brain finally confirmed that – despite sporting a shocking resemblance – no, this stranger was definitely not his mother.

His mother ...

He thought about her often. This admonition worked like a charm on nine out of ten of his 2 a.m. bar romances and it wasn't even a lie. Jackson did think about her often, only slightly different than the last call vultures pictured in their desperate, paltry imaginations. Jackson loathed the woman who had pushed him through her vagina into the big, shiny world, more so than any other member of his useless family.

Shaking his head, Jackson handed his boarding pass to the impeccable airline lady at the gate and flashed her a brief grin as she rattled off her standard apology for the delay. If any of these people knew about his profession, they would fall over backwards, all the while spouting their tediously vapid parlor psychiatry about abuse and neglect, sociopaths and antisocial personality disorder, yadda yadda, boring boring. They didn't have a clue. The simple truth of the matter was that he did this job, because he was perfect for it. It fit him like the proverbial glove. Could polishing silver mugs could give him the same tingling thrill and sense of self-fulfillment, he'd be polishing silver mugs for a living - no doubt about it – but it didn't, so he didn't.

A little kid bumping into his hip shook him from of his reverie. Suppressing his first instinct to snarl at the pesky anklebiter, Jackson quickly conjured up a benign guise for the so obviously stressed-out mommy who eked out a quick sorry to him before chasing after her child. Jackson's eyes trailed the little boy; he reminded him of something, something so profound, he could recall it as effortlessly as yesterday's events ... his first time.

"Get off the swing, you sissy! It's MY turn!"

Jackson was shoved hard and fell face-first to the ground. Sneezing from the dirt in his bloody nose, he limped towards the school while the bullies jeered after him. Their taunts alerted his teacher, Ms. Woodruck, who met him at the door with that soft sparkle in her pretty, hazel eyes. She seemed to favor him, although Jackson didn't understand why; granted, he was a good student, but he hardly ever spoke.

"Oh my, your pants are torn. Go on, cookie, you know where the nurse's station is." A big sigh and off she was to straighten out stupid Neville and his buddies.

His uneven footfalls echoed in the empty hallways. Theirs was a small town school with only a handful of classes and right after lunch, it was deserted. Normally, Jackson would always take a different route to the nurse's station, through the main lobby with the interesting pictures of the nation's capital and then up the back stairway. He was sort of famous for it; that he would never ever go straight across the canteen had become a source of constant ridicule. Today, however, Jackson decided to get a piece of Bazooka gum from his bag first, suddenly craving its comforting sweetness almost desperately; he made a quick detour to the left and quietly entered the room.

Grown-up Jackson beamed at childhood Jackson. Look up, cookie.

Childhood Jackson looked up - there was a wallet on Christina Walling's tidy front-row desk. And there was money in it too, lots of silver coins. How … interesting.

Grown-up Jackson paused and leaned against the cool railing to savor the moment. He was a twelve-year-old kid standing in the middle of an empty classroom with a boner forming in his Walmart-regulation underpants. His young brain worked on overdrive as it tested the waters of its own capabilities. Nobody knows I'm here.

Interestingly enough, his heart rate didn't accelerate when he stepped closer, it actually slowed down. Everything became so clear, so easy. Jackson's fingers hovered over the pink little thing, thoughts still searching for the right way. What finally propelled him into motion was Ms. Woodruck's angry voice from outside. "Neville, that's it, I've had it with you! GO to your desk, I'll be there in a minute."

In a flash, Jackson had grabbed a fistful of coins and zipped up the wallet before shoving it deep down into Neville's bag. Two seconds later he was already running through the canteen as fast as he could, careful … careful! … not to make a sound.

That afternoon, he stopped by the corner diner on his way home to buy a nice, big cup of chocolate ice cream; it tasted better than anything he had ever eaten. I didn't have to ask for this. I made it mine. The world was bright and wonderful. Oh, and Neville? He had gotten into t-r-o-u-b-l-e. Ms. Woodruck had taken one glance at Jackson's bruised nose, eyes shifting to meet her student's silent, baby-blue gaze that said, 'But Miss, you KNOW I always go through the main lobby and up the back stairway. I couldn't have done it. And even more than that … you know me. You like me, right? You KNOW I'm not a thief.' The judge's hammer fell swiftly.

Grown-up Jackson joined the queue in front of the plane, chuckling at his memories. Epiphanies came to the unlikeliest of people and at the unlikeliest of times; he had only been twelve years old when he discovered who he was – thanks, Neville. Right in front of him, Trenchcoat Woman was craning her neck, apparently trying to sneak a peek into the cockpit; her mid-length curls bounced against her shoulders as she twisted her head. Once again, Jackson was struck by her similarity to his mother.

"Hey baby, how was your day? How was school? You want a snack before dinner?"

Always the same old questions as soon as he'd walk in the door. Jackson murmured a testy reply and marched into the basement, enjoying the calm which, unfortunately, would only last until his brother and father came home. They were a real team, at least in his father's head. Mac merely fed that belief for the advantages it granted: money and a generous blind eye. By all means, they were living the ultimate suburban dream - car salesman dad (still hanging on to the football glory of days long gone), flawless housewife mum, one sports ace kid and one smart kid. If Jackson compared his family to all the others he met, they came out perfectly normal; the only abnormality was he himself. Over the last two years, Jackson had learnt to cater to the hunger of his analytical mind, devouring books and, after it became clear that no one else was up to the task, setting his own challenges to conquer. He excelled in the regular trappings of high-school life as well as in the more private homework he chose to do. Not that the male members of his family appreciated any of this; to them, he was simply ittybittyboy, the one who wasn't into sports.

One evening about sixteen years ago, however, even his premium mind had been stumped. Jackson couldn't decide what to blame, the eternal needling of the dad-and-brother-tag team over dinner or his general teenage frustration at the world, but the damn mathematical formula just flat-out refused to be solved. Out of nowhere, his mother appeared from behind, tenderly brushing the hair from his face.

It made him angry. "Geeeez, mom, I'm working here, alright?"

"Stop grumbling, it won't get you results." She actually had the audacity to giggle.

"And you're the expert?"

"Let me see. Oh don't give me that look, I'm not stupid, you know?" His mother's forehead creased as she scanned the page. "Mhm. Well. Okay, that's how it goes …"

What followed was a brief excursion into the finer details of algebra with his mother as the surprising guide. He wanted to hit her. The sentiment was so strong that even now, all this time later, Jackson would physically have to fight the urge to lash out at a perfect stranger whose one and only fault was to remind him of his mother.

How could she …? How DARE she …?

Young Jackson clenched his jaw, his own fingernails puncturing the skin within his curled-up fists. How could she be so smart and yet so dull? How could she be so much more than those Neanderthals upstairs and yet solely live to serve them? How dare she be content with what she had? How DARE she expect the same of him?

His room was right next to his parent's bedroom and as far back as Jackson could remember he would hear his father's disgusting grunts when they "made love". Oh baby. Ooooh baby. Oh who's doing ya, huh? Who's fucking ya? OH OH yeah. Yeah baby, yeahyeahyeahYEAHUUUUUUNNNNGGHHH. His mother never uttered a sound.

How could she suffer it, this fat, beer-fouled beast pushing into her, when all she had to do was THINK and be rid of him? How could she stand spawning yet another version of that cretin and still treat it exactly the same as her one, true child?

As much as the first epiphany of his life had elated him, this one ground him down. His mother was no mystery woman, quite the opposite – her motives were all too transparent. Cowardice, indolence; Jackson decided right then and there that he would hate her forever.

Adolescence passed and he survived his jolly home without major damage, leaving the thorny nest at the earliest possible occasion. Jackson's grades warranted a scholarship at a prestigious university far away where he majored in Political Science and Business Administration. After an excessive search, he found the job that eventually led him to the company of his dreams. All his hard work and ambition paid off; these people were more than eager to employ his challenge-driven mind. The news of his father's death reached him through the grapevine - the idiot had managed to catch HIV from a hooker, promptly passing it on to his ever-faithful wife. Jackson didn't attend the funeral.

His mother, in her last thoroughly predictable act, only outlived her husband by a few measly months before she too died and presumably went to heaven … or wherever else the boring people spent their afterlives. A natural atheist, Jackson didn't care either way; all he wanted was to be witness to her final stage-left. It was a tawdry affair - flowers, cummerbunds and weepy speeches - and soon he grew irritated with it, decked out in his sharp suit, shoes shined, eyes completely dry.

Twenty minutes later, his restless feet were crunching on the gravel walkway to his car when an unexpected hand dug into his shoulder to pull him into a too-tight hug, nearly gagging him with the reek of stale sweat. Mac ... bloody hell, the years had definitely taken their toll on the former quarterback hero. His brother's chest, once proud and bulging, had deflated into a pair of sad man-breasts, supported by a solid ring of fat around the middle that pushed the belt buckle down to somewhere near the crotch area. What kept the pants from dropping for good, Jackson wasn't sure.

"Heyya, little bother. Muahahaha, little brother, of course."

He should have left earlier. "Hello, Mac."

"Long time no see, buddy. How ya been, huh, how … ya … BEEN?"

Oh fantastic, the fake stomach punch. "Splendid, you?"

"Yeah, well, working my ass off in the mines, nose firmly to the grindstone, you know, that sort of thing. Paying my dues and all that shit."

Jackson pondered a comment about how Mac was a tad too old to still be paying his dues, actually. "I need to leave, I'm on a schedule."

"Listen, kid, seeing as we're the only ones left and seeing how you're all alone, why don't you give that heart of yours a teensy push and come back? To the family, little brother." Mac pointed towards two whiny rugrats clinging to a leathery, chain-smoking blonde. "Your family." His blue eyes – meanwhile degenerated to two narrow slits in a bloated, puffy mass – reamed Jackson's figure, no doubt assessing his kid brother's financial state by the clothes on his body.

It made Jackson shudder with annoyance at the trail of slime Mac's lingering gaze seemed to inflict on The Holy Hugo Boss. "Now why would I do that, family man?" His opponent's visible flinch just served to incense his aggression even further. "I'm done here. Am I to understand that paying your dues isn't leaving enough money to pay the mortgage or what's the deal? Fuck off, Mac, you're not getting any of me and you're certainly not getting any of my money." Jackson turned to leave.

Finally … finally he had beaten them, proved to them beyond the shadow of a doubt that ittybittyboy was the best. Triumph washed through his veins, spreading a hearty dose of pure, unbridled, electrifying glee. And then he made the mistake of taking one last look at his loser brother.

Mac had literally shrunken down a size, blubbering like an idiot with his mouth agape, a big fat void in his dim sleazeball stare. Out of the blue, the victory rang shallow, seemed more of a cheat than an achievement. Being the best of this … pathetic bunch meant nothing, absolutely nothing at all; Jackson stalked back to his Audi and sped off. A few days later, he would waltz into his boss' office and demand more difficult assignments, which he was granted. The years taught him a valuable lesson: people were weak, easy to bend and even easier to use. Challenges, they were not. Their failures gifted him with success and wealth; however, a tinge of resigned disenchantment had lately started to taint Jackson's pride in his abilities. Apparently, no one else shared his inner drive and absolute devotion to one's goals.

Neither did sweet Lisa Reisert, the focus of his attention for the last eight weeks.

Jackson's first full observation of her had been unusually early in the game; plain boredom drove him out of a clingy post-fuck embrace and straight over to Lisa's house, the other woman's scent still sticking to his pores. His initial pleasure with Lisa – thank heavens, a good-looking mark for a change – had gradually transformed into mild irritation at the repetitiveness of her nature; Jackson soon recognized habitual patterns that emerged like the Ghost of Family Past. He watched her handle asshole customers with wit and aplomb and she carried a college degree, so who exactly was Lisa fooling in the job of a glorified handmaiden when she could do so much better? Masochistic tendencies? Maybe … maybe not. She definitely didn't want to find out, always sticking to the same routines, the same drinks, the same damn life. But hell if she wasn't attractive. Under different circumstances, Jackson would have tried to chat her up at a bar, although he got the distinct impression this might have been a difficult task; odd that Lisa Reisert preferred to keep to herself.

Something about her irked him … so he kept following her.

One night during those long eight weeks, Jackson had flipped through the Keefe folder, suddenly realizing it was growing much thicker than all the others. His notes on Lisa were extensive, detailed, obsessive even, yet hadn't brought him any closer to the core of her character. And for what, anyway? Lisa Reisert … his mother … interchangeable. Or were they? That exact night, discreetly parked in front of her house, he had had a dream about Lisa that still managed to rattle him to this day.

He was striding down a broad dust road that cut right through the vast emptiness of space. With no stars to spoil its shade of tar, the night sky loomed perfectly black except for the pale, cold light of a huge harvest moon hanging low on the horizon. Jackson felt content – alone, yet far from lonely – on the march across his austere domain. A faint noise halted his steps and curious as to its source, he turned around, squinting at the wavy silhouette whose swift approach chewed away the distance between them; his instincts had grasped her identity long before his eyesight could.

Lisa was wreaking havoc on his precious universe. Wherever her feet touched the ground, the road dissolved into whirling clouds of brownish dust, spinning and twisting until the very atmosphere rippled with disturbance in her wake. Closer now, Jackson picked up a wildness in Lisa's spirit that held him utterly enthralled, transfixed to her apparition when in truth, he should have run. The thought crossed his mind, but failed to ignite as he stood, waiting for the one answer which had eluded him so far. Who are you really?

Gusts of wind heralded her imminent arrival, tugging at his clothes like greedy fingers and hissing breezy kisses onto Jackson's skin. A ball of heat erupted in his guts at the sensation of Lisa's body drawing near; his nerves twitched with delicious, almost delirious anticipation of the impending collision. Jackson braced himself, more than ready to battle his way into the eye of the storm, to where she was. Oh yes, he would take her, taste her and tame her, then set her ablaze all over again and again until he'd know more about her secrets than she did herself.

So close now …

BAM!

Jackson had snapped awake with a barely suppressed moan, uncomfortably aware of his pounding heartbeat and the insistent throbbing in his groin. Damnit, what a newbie mistake to get suckered in like that! Angry at himself, he had shrugged off the echoes of his dream and staunchly reminded himself of the rules of engagement – no emotions, no personal shit, no contact until the wheels are turning. Period.

That he had broken the last one today wasn't really his fault; the eight – eight! – people in line between him and Lisa had all switched queues, effectively placing Jackson right behind her. Enter Mr. Rerouted Twice who threatened to delay things even further and there hadn't been much of a choice for Jackson. In all honesty, he would have never expected Lisa to actually show up at the TexMex, it went against everything she had displayed so far. Too late, might as well enjoy the surprisingly easy banter … which he had. In fact, Jackson was fairly certain they both had. Funny how she had lied to him, though, and about what – can't know my favorite drink, but I'll tell you all about my dead grandma? Ah well, patience, patience - in a few hours' time, she'd be his to pick apart. Beautiful Lisa Reisert, welcome to my world.

Jackson smiled as he boarded the plane, thoughts leading him back to the day in his employer's Washington office where he had gotten this particular assignment.

"You're arrogant and you think you have no vulnerabilities." His boss' cocked head signaled disapproval. "That's dangerous, boy, because the moment you discover yours, it will bite you in your unprepared ass. Don't go around searching for the perfect opponent, you may bloody well find it. And then it'll be a different story."

Lisa Reisert, the ultimate challenge? Not very likely. Still, part of him couldn't help but wish that she was.