standard disclaimers apply.

A/N: This is really ancient, I wrote it back in 2008 I think and never posted it. But when I decided the other day that I really ought to try and do something about my longing to see Dorothy as Hedda Gabler, I wondered if there might be something in here I could recycle. In reading it over again, though, I've decided to just post it as is. I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense, but I think it also kind of works.

Double or Nothing

by Bryony

Dorothy held the pawn as if it was a cigarette, clutched loosely between two fingers. Her lips were curved as she slid it forward, but she was not smiling. Her eyes met his and she said, "Checkmate."

His eyes dropped to the board but he sat still. There was nothing to be done. As he watched Dorothy picked up her piece again and moved it, calmly knocking his king off the board with an elegant flick of her wrist. It clattered off the table and rolled noisily along the floor, finally disappearing underneath the piano.

"Well, Mr. Winner," the Catalonia girl simpered, "it seems I have you beat. What do you make of that?"

He met her gaze and tried to smile. "An excellent game, Miss Dorothy. Well played. What were the terms of our wager this week?"

Dorothy's eyes darkened and narrowed ominously. She stood abruptly, peering down at him from her greater height. Then with neither elegance nor warning she reached out her hand and flung the rest of the chess set from the table. Quatre watched the damage without comment, allowing himself only a politely inquisitive stare. It was harder to withhold a wince when Dorothy followed the chessmen with the table, giving it an angry sideways shove that scraped the tiles and narrowly missed his knees. She crossed the newly empty space in two quick steps and glared at him, hands resting dangerously still on her hips.

"I know you let me win," she purred. "Don't you dare think you have me fooled. You want to cheapen my victory by handing it to me on a silver platter and making it yours - but that's not the way this game works, you see." She grabbed him roughly by the collar and drew him forward until his chin poked uncomfortably into her navel. "I've won and you will regret losing. Yes, you will. You'll regret it."

The heat of her belly filled his face through the thin silk of her shirt, contrasting sharply with the chill of her hands by his throat.

She shoved him back and turned away, leaving Quatre unsurprised and uncomfortably aroused. A haughty toss of her head sent a ripple through her hair, a prelude to the backward glance she sent him over her shoulder. "Clean up your toys, Mr. Winner," she said. "I'll see you next week."

"But Miss Dorothy!" he called after her. "What about the terms of our bet?"

"I'll collect later," she replied.

Next week he won and Miss Catalonia calmly undressed, her disproportionately long limbs not in the least bit awkward to her naked, regal carriage. Disdain made her face ugly, so Quatre tried not to look at it, concentrating instead on her supple flesh and slender body.

He won the next week also and Dorothy's boredom seemed sublime. Despite the moisture of her body down below and her erect nipples up above she never made a sound or any overt response to his lovemaking. But still she showed up next week too, and the week following that, and the week after that.

Finally Quatre could take no more. The next time Dorothy appeared in his living room he said to her, "I want to change the terms of the game this week, if I may."

Dorothy unhooked her purse from her shoulder and dropped it to the floor, where it landed with an ominous thunk. "To what, may I ask?" Her voice was delicate, feminine, deceitful.

"If I win…" He paused, studying her; her high-waisted black skirt, her creamy blouse. "I want you to answer me a question."

Her lip curled. "That's hardly adventurous, Mr. Winner. Most unlike you, I would have thought. Whatever could have brought this on, I wonder?" Her eyes, that strange shade of blue that should have indicated blindness, remained fastened on his an inordinately long time before she finally inclined her head in acquiescence. "Very well, I accept," she sighed.

He hesitated just the merest moment before saying, "You know, you're a very sexy woman, Miss Catalonia. Dorothy."

She stared at him still, blank, almost dead. "Let's play our game, Mr. Winner."

He never got to ask his question.

Dorothy won.

She leaned back in her seat, smiling her Cheshire cat smile and crossing her legs, maintaining all primness. "Well now, Mr. Winner," she said, her voice all softness and light. "It seems to be payday. I did promise you you would regret letting me win, didn't I?"

Quatre swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing wildly. Dorothy was behind him now, her hand on his neck, her thumbnail dragging along his skin, leaving raised hairs and gooseflesh in its wake. "I'm collecting twice today, Mr. Winner… It seems that I've got double…and you've got nothing. How interesting, don't you think so?"

It was after Dorothy had left, when he lay draped across the divan, panting and sweating still, that the sharp acuity of Quatre's mind began to reassert itself. Memories of past encounters and patterns of behavior began to arrange and rearrange themselves like tactical diagrams. A truer understanding of the nature of Dorothy's visitations on him and the balance of power between them began to emerge with a startling clarity.

Armed with this new awareness, Quatre received Miss Catalonia's next visit much better prepared. She walked into the room and stopped abruptly, eyes narrowing and fastening onto his. She could sense that something had changed. But Quatre only smiled disarmingly and encouraged his guest to sit down.

Dorothy allowed herself to be persuaded, but remained perched on the edge of her seat as if poised to flee at a moment's notice. Quatre playfully fed her anxiousness by allowing his index finger to trail up her arm as he walked past and behind her, ostensibly to fetch the chess set. In reality, it was to feel the shiver the touch sent through his chest.

Dorothy Catalonia was the closest Quatre Winner had ever come to death. The thrill of touching her, of dominating her and walking away unscathed, was of conquering mortality. Quatre had understood this about himself since their first sexual encounter. Dorothy's reasons for coming back to him time and again had always been more mysterious to him. But now he was confident he understood even that; and it was this ace in his pocket that kept him calm as he announced his desire to keep the same terms of their bet as last week, and as he found himself soundly beaten once again.

Oh yes, she was slippery, this Catalonia girl. But they were playing the same game now, and Quatre was just as capable of bending rules as she was.

As Dorothy cheekily knocked Quatre's king into his lap with her rook, she declared with her tinkling, triumphant laugh, "My game. Do get undressed."

Instead he reached up and gently caught her wrist. "Miss Dorothy, I'm terribly sorry but I'm afraid I'm going to have to renege."

She said nothing, her hand hanging limply from his grasp, her eyes cold and narrow. He could see her lips tightening, wanting to repeat, "Renege?" but she remained steadfastly silent.

Not to be thrown, Quatre continued by way of explanation, "You see, I was hoping you might allow me to swap something of equal value. I was thinking that perhaps you might let me take you on…on a date."

Dorothy withdrew her hand, and staring straight into his eyes said simply, "No."

It was the response Quatre had been expecting. In his mind's eye he could see their battle on Libra repeating itself, her cool denial the sharpened tip of her fencing foil skewering through his stomach. Then as now he hadn't the sense to deflect the blow. But he could win just the same. In fact, he believed allowing things to progress like this was the only way he could.

"Why are you panicking, Miss Dorothy?" he pressed, "Don't you find it strange, that my offer should provoke such a response in you when you've been arranging these encounters between us for so long?"

Her face passive, her eyes staring blankly past him, Quatre knew it was time to stop teasing; there was no point in being cruel. Instead he bent down and took hold of Dorothy's elbow to propel her gently to her feet. He said apologetically, "I'm afraid I really must insist you let me accompany you to lunch. I warn you, I won't take no for an answer."

She would let him and she would hate him and love him for it. Quatre had finally unearthed the crux of their relationship; she could only love him if he beat her, and she could only love herself if she beat him; and contempt was all that would befit a loser. But now that Quatre understood, he thought he could play the game to both of their advantage.