CLAIRE

The difference between them was never more apparent than when she was beneath him.

Her skin, like fine satin, smooth and cool beneath the pads of his fingers. He touched her reverently, with great care to watch her eyes while he did. The scent of her skin never failed to arouse even his sinuses as if she were, it seemed, pleasure itself.

The sister of his greatest foe. The need of his loins. The beat of her heart, beneath the spread of his fingers, that promised they'd both never forget this obsession.

He kissed her, slowly, taking in the curve of her neck and wet slip of her tongue. Her hands roamed to range themselves on the sharp jut of his hips. She was full bodied, seeking to bring Boticelli to life to paint her, looking to craft from the emptiness inside of him a lover that worshiped each pert nipple that placed themselves against his steely chest.

He pictured her face the first time he'd seen her: a young beautiful thing on the side of the road in the rain. She'd needed a tire changed on her bike. She was visiting her brother in a bad city. She was a Lolita, sent to tempt him from the confines of the flesh that made him a man. He wasn't. He isn't. He would never be.

But with her, sometimes, he felt he could be.

He tried her name, aloud, in the dark. "Claire."

She trembled. She cupped his flanks with her creamy thighs. She parted her pearly lips to take her name from him on a simpering kiss.

Claire.

He'd touched her that first time outside her brother's house. Not like a monster. Like a man. With needs. With wants. With purpose. She wore a t-shirt and cut off shorts. She leaned on the wall and let him.

He touched her over her jeans. She wantonly put her hand in his pants to feel him. Hard. He'd been hard. The victory of that alone was hers. She'd brought him to an erection with just a touch of her fingers. No.

With just the sight of her ass.

Bending over the flower bed, nothing really, harmless. He'd nearly ached to touch her.

She'd breathed, with his fingers under the ragged denim, stroking toward her wet cunt. "...Albert."

His name.

It was Albert.

He forgot sometimes. He forgot that he wasn't just Wesker. He wasn't just a machine. He was a man. A man. A man.

He reached under her cutoffs to put his single finger into the creamy delta of her thighs, and he was also...human. She erotically tugged on his dick until he'd grunted, giving her his cum in a sticky spill between her slippery fingers. He'd held her to the wall with one hand in her tight cunt, fingering her, and the other pinned to her chest to press her into the shadows.

She'd pulled her hand free of his pants to lick her fingers - and he was lost.

The first time he took her, she met him at a motel on the interstate. She was so young. Not even old enough to buy a drink. She was so sweet. She tasted like lip balm and spearmint gum.

The valley of her breasts gave him the beat of her heart as he devoured her.

She tasted like heady sex - in the slippery folds of her, he buried his face, looking for the man that he nearly was when he was with her. She clutched at his hair, she gasped his name, "Albert." He almost was. Almost.

He pressed his fingers into her and found the truth: virgin.

She was so young. He tried to break the barrier of her with just his delving digits. He pushed against the hymen, making her squirm in discomfort. He held her down with a hand on her pelvis, using the wet of her body to guide him. She didn't break. Her body, rejecting.

He didn't fuck her that first time. He took pity on her. He tried to reason with himself: young. Too young. The sister of one of his best men. She was a child. She was too young. Too young.

Virgin.

He fucked the first time after she called him to pick her up from a party. She was inebriated. She was handsy. She kept grabbing his dick in the car while he drove. "Albert," she breathed, "I want to make love to you."

Stupid girl. He was a man. She was so stupid. Did she think it would be like a fairy tale? Love. She knew nothing of what he was.

He brought her home to his house and found himself tonguing her breasts like he'd never stop. He was, it seemed, Albert when he was with her. That man she craved. That kind thing. But she was too stupid. She whispered, "I love you."

She was a dumb girl.

He didn't want her love.

He left her shirt open and took her shorts. He didn't even remove his clothing. He simply unzipped. He grabbed a condom and she whispered, "It's ok. You don't need it. I'm clean."

Yes, stupid girl. He grabbed her neck to bring her up to his mouth and answered, "I'm not, Claire. I'm not clean. Stupid girl."

He put the condom on and spread her legs. She whimpered, ready, but she wasn't. He hurt her. He knew that. Even as he shamelessly gripped the tops of her thighs to fuck her hard, he hurt her. He wasn't gentle. He used her body, rutting inside her as a beast might or an animal. It was animal, after all, the need to mate.

He felt her blood on his thighs and saw it all over his slippery dick as it slid out of her. He liked it. He liked using her. That part wasn't Albert. That part was Wesker. To own her, to take her, to deflower her - that was him. It was the monster he recognized.

The part that bathed her thighs and dressed her. The part that brought her home and kissed her goodbye. That part was a mystery to him.

He started fucking her without a condom after a few months. She kept asking him, he kept using her - he was never gentle. The fifth time, after her birthday, he fucked her in the ass to show her he wasn't worth loving. He pumped his cum into her bowels and held her down on her face on the bed, fucking her while she mewled...and she loved it.

Stupid girl. He felt like a man with her. She climbed on his lap to fuck him like a woman. Stupid woman. She whispered, "Albert...I love you." She wasn't afraid of him. She didn't hate him. She didn't see his fucking as punishment. She saw it as love.

He fucked her without a condom and came in her while she squealed. He said, "You want to get pregnant, Claire?"

She cupped his face and breathed, "I want to be with you. I want you. All of you."

She called him Albert. He came in her and felt like Albert. There was no Wesker when she was near. Just Al. Al, she'd call, look at this: she'd show him rabbits nesting under her porch. Didn't she understand he was a monster? He held in her the sunlight while she laughed with delight.

He didn't feel like a monster. He felt like a man.

Maybe he could be...if she stayed with him.

But she'd go away...and he'd be Wesker again.

His beautiful, stupid, wonderful Claire. She loved the monster that she thought he was. She didn't know. She couldn't know...what he really was.

She bought him sunglasses that changed color in the light and the dark. "Now you can be cool everywhere you go." She posed in the glasses in her panties. He felt something in his belly that made him wonder if he had feelings for her.

Impossible.

He was not a man.

He felt like one with Claire.

She kissed him, angling his face down in the evening light. "What are you thinking?"

In two days he'd lead the S.T.A.R.S. on the longest night of their life. What was he thinking?

That sometimes he could just be...Albert.

He touched her mouth, aching. "Nothing."

She cradled him between her thighs, whimpering at the feel of his dick against her slick folds. "I love you, Albert. Tell me you'll come see me this weekend."

Her brother would be dead by the weekend and he would be...Wesker.

He's still Albert as he answers, "...I wish I could...Claire."

His erection pierces beyond her heat, finding her moist and ready. She opens, her thighs straddling his narrow hips. He anchors her to the bed with his hands and plunges into her body, listening to the suckling sounds of her pussy around him. Her mouth opens, on a silent cry, as she raises her mouth to his for a kiss. They kiss, clinging, and he wishes...he wishes...he was just Albert.

But he's never been a man. Not a real one.

The difference between them was never more apparent than when she was beneath him.