Victoria was not in the least surprised when she woke up and found the table covered with different cosmetic accessories and the wardrobe, which had been empty the day before - choked up with dresses. Quite the contrary, bewilderment and indignation would overcome her if V wouldn't turn out to be so provident.

So the girl dedicated all morning to bringing herself, so to say, into salable condition. She plastered her pimple-blossomed snout so thoroughly that it was matching a mask in its smoothness and overall perfection; she penciled her eyes thoroughly and covered almost all the upper part of her face with an elaborate lancet pattern; she made her thin lips bloom like scarlet roses (after she'd vainly rummaged through the table in search of black lipstick). She spent much time choosing perfume and at last douched herself with a cologne the name of which seemed the most gothy to her. She nestled in her hair the biggest rose from a bunch standing beside , completed her image with little and elegant, although a bit pinching patent-leather shoes, gave her reflection a satisfied look and went to breakfast. Surely, following her rich experience on seducing the masked vigilante, drawn from the multitude of fanfics she'd read, she remained in her nightgown.

- Good morning, Victoria, – V said affably, not deflecting from the stove, as soon as the girl stepped over the threshold. - It seems to me you were so dazzled by the variety of your new wardrobe that you could not make a final choice? - he added ironically.

- Exactly so, – Victoria assented, trying to crack a grateful smile and at the same time unwittingly biting her lip in frustration. She sat at the table and crossed her legs so that the nightgown's hem, as if by accident, would show the most of her skinny legs.

- Your talent in disguise make-up is breathtaking indeed, – V continued in the same tone, – although, due to the absence of any outside persons whatsoever in the gallery there is no necessity in that. If your stealth is a matter of principle, I could let you use a spare mask.

- It's not disguise. We, true goths, have such style. - Victoria was going to utter it in a somewhat offended tone, but, starting such an important topic, couldn't help but puff up. - We wear only black, we suffer from loneliness and lack of understanding, we revere night and death... - at this point a plate appeared in front of the girl with a dish known to everyone lying on it. This made her commit a little sacrilege: she uttered the last words with her mouth full.

- So you think you are the chosen descendants of an ancient Germanic barbarian tribe? - V hemmed, probably making use of the fact that the girl was unable to answer but only gazed at him in some offended bewilderment. - But may I inquire why, revering death, you wear on your neck an Egyptian symbol of eternal life and fertility.

Victoria almost choked and dropped her fork.

- Oh shit! - she swore quietly, bending down to reach it under the table. Not quiet enough, though, for V's delicate hearing.

- I understand your pride for your national cultural and especially language values*, - he uttered in such a tone, as if he were frowning a bit, cocking his head habitually, - but don't you find it improper not only to bring them to Rome, as the proverb says, but demonstrate them at table? - after a pause V, most likely addressing himself, added indulgently:

- But is there any sense in telling a Goth how to behave in Rome?

"I'd never have thought he could lecture me like mom does!" - with such a gloomy thought the girl sulked and on principle kept grave silence till the end of the meal.

When Victoria noticed V striding resolutely along the corridor in his hat an adjusting his explosive belt, she stated on her clairvoyant's rights that she was going to the TV tower with him, because else the mission would inevitably have a deplorable result. Leaving behind the details of their way (in her uncomfortable if beautiful high-heeled shoes the girl moved slowly; she also, as you know, was notable for complete lack of physical endurance... in general, there's no need to say how greatly she slowed V down) and the broadcast, which has been known for long and would most probably be dull for the reader, we shall get right to the crucial moment of this adventure.

The girl was standing behind the detective who was holding V at gunpoint and was desperately trying to fight the unexpected indecision.

«Now! Go, you must! - Victoria cheered up herself, clutching in her sweaty little palm the handle of a big knife she'd snatched in the kitten and hidden in the folds of her black silk dress. - Are you not a bloodthirsty predator but a cowardly blonde? Show him your devotion! Or else he'll despise you or... he'll be shot!" - with such fatalistic thoughts she was trying to blow up the adrenaline fire of decisiveness that started to fade quickly as soon as her devoted dreams collided with reality. She stuck the knife ahead of her like a spear, snatched the wrist of her right hand with her left hand so that the former would not tremble, closed her eyes tight and rushed forward in a hit-or-miss fashion. A desperate shriek right above her head and something warm streaming down her hands made the girl sure that she did hit. Still not opening her eyes she seized Dominick's clothes with her left hand and, getting furious, stabbed him several more times.

The man's cries following every stab were so pitiful, and his face expressed such painful, genuine suffering, that V felt sorry for him and mercifully cut his throat. The girl, still seizing at the corpse's clothes, lost her balance and fell down together with it.

- How ruthless you are, Victoria, - she heard, raising herself from the corpse a little with an effort and feeling the blood-soaked silk stick to her body with a strange mixture of primal exultation and squeamish disgust. - Even I, a desperate vigilante and a cold-blooded killer, wouldn't even think of slaying my enemy by stabbing methodically his liver and kidneys with a kitchen knife.

At last Victoria dared to open her eyes. "Have I really done it?.." - she thought, gazing in dumb perplexity at the blooded knife she was still clutching in her hand, rough, voluminously bleeding cuts at the corpse's waist, her own dress and hands, all covered in blood. The nauseating smell and fatigue made her feel dizzy, dark circles started swimming before her eyes, and she fell back on the corpse, fainting.

Slowly floating from the dark depths of unconsciousness, Victoria felt on her back, at her shoulder-blades, soft touches of warm leather fingers. Breathing free, the girl understood with sweetly sinking heart: these fingers had just loosened her corset (she had been made to put it on and lace it tight by her perpetual phobia of appearing fat).

Yes, she was lying on a bed, and V was sitting at her side and, holding her shoulder a bit lifted for comfort, was delicately unlacing her corset... "He is feeling very shy – Victoria thought competently. - It's even surprising that he's decided already... I should hint him that everything's ok, go on... but carefully, or I'd scare him off..."

The girl produced the most languishing sigh she could, and a sweetest smile blossomed on her face. She slowly opened her eyes and looked into the mysterious darkness of the eye sockets of the mask with a tender submissiveness, as if telling "I'm yours..."

Noticing this, V carefully put her back on her pillow and said:

- I'm happy that you did not think anything nasty and that a free breath was enough for you to regain your senses. Otherwise, however regrettable it may be, I'd have to resort to such in every respect unpleasant means as ammonia spirit.

The smile was wiped off Victoria's face.

- I'll prepare a bath for you, – V continued in a calm voice without even a hint of passion. - Leave the dress in the bathroom – it needs thorough cleaning.

"Probably dried blood simply does not arose him," - the girl decided, turning her eyes to the door behind which V had just disappeared.

Secluded in this temple of cleanness, laid with white and black marble, Victoria first dragged off the dress, which had unpleasantly dried to her skin in some parts, and secondly – reached for the place where she hoped to find an answer to the question torturing practically all the Vendetta fangirls**. That is, into the underwear basket.

To Victoria's frustration, there was no answer there. There wasn't anything at all there. "Look how diffident he is!" - the girl giggled, pulling everything else off and making the basket not so painfully empty. She asked herself what she would change into but than waved it off: it is well-known that for successful seduction one has to stop wearing something under her nightie at some point – and the fact that this moment had come so soon was not a reason to worry.

Victoria sank into the fragrant foam, that immediately turned from white to tender pink, and started examining the orderly rows of vials and bottles on a corner shelf. Trying to find out by comparing the amount of contents, which shampoo and bath foam V preferred – strawberry, rose, jasmine or something else from the arsenal present – she only became sure V preferred variety.

Closing her eyes blissfully, she pictured to herself V, half-lying opposite her in the foamy spaces of the enormous bathtub, flaccidly leaning his wide, sturdy back to its edge and serenely stretching his smooth, muscular arms along the boards. "And what if he turns out to be all burnt and eyeless, just like some mean envious creeps like to thrust under our noses to spoil our mood?***" - the girl suddenly thought, annoyed, and stubbornly shook her head, shoving off the reddish, scab-covered apparition. Finally she calmed herself with the thought that se was in the forld of her fanfic where behind the porcelain mask there was a blue-eyed hadsome man with fresh and smooth skin that had replaced the burnt one. A very exacting reader would ask Victoria why she didn't base her fic on the comics if the movie version of V didn't suit her. It is known that in the comic book not only the burnt hands aren't mentioned, but even V's face, if we believe the dying doctor, is beautiful. The answer is simple: our heroine simply didn't read the comics.

Your humble servant could describe how Victoria washed herself, wrapped herself in a towel, went to her room (dreaming of bumping into V in the corridor), dressed and so on, but does not find it necessary to wear down his respectable reader with such prosaic description of daily life.****

* Both the author and the translator tried to make Victoria sound American. It is for you to judge if they were successful.

** (the author waves to Miss Cullen and Lady Nightlord, grinning cheerfully)

*** A hint on the author's good self and the fanfic "Behind the mask"

**** ...like some fanfiction writers do