Born To Give Pain

Disclaimer: I own nothing. The characters and the way in which I portray them have nothing to do with the actual people who play those characters.

Ch.6

Maria awoke slowly, groggy from her interrupted sleep. She stretched and immediately winced at the feeling of the sheets breaking away from her back. She sat up and looked back at them. She'd bled a little more in her sleep and the cream-coloured hotel sheets had a few rusty-looking streaks on them. She walked into the bathroom to check them out, but all seemed to have closed over pretty well. She showered yet again to remove the last traces of blood. She stared at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were surrounded by dark circles and she looked paler than usual. For a second, she felt as though she was looking at an eerily familiar stranger rather than at herself. Retreating from the large bathroom mirror, she walked back into the bedroom and began laying out her clothes for the day. She'd have to be careful to wear something that was fairly loose, but since the wounds seemed completely sealed now, she wasn't worried about bleeding. She chose a dark pink cardigan and a gray and pink knee-length plaid skirt. After quickly doing her hair and make up and checking to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything in the room, she went downstairs.

Christy was already waiting for her in the lobby. Her face was lit up with curiosity, but she was discreet enough not to ask anything incriminating in the lobby. They took a cab to the local radio station and did the advertisement. They were also schedule to be the special guests on the station's lunch hour talk radio show. The disc jockeys, Mike and Doug, asked them the usual banal questions and humorously hit on them. Christy flirted back and Maria, true to her character, acted as though she had no idea what was going on. That was when she got quite a shock.

“Careful, Doug,” Mike said after a particularly funny set of innuendo directed at the seemingly oblivious Maria, “I hear she's taken.”

“Why, whatever do you mean, Mike?” Doug questioned with a mischievous look.

“My sources tell me that Maria was seen at one of our fine city's most romantic restaurants last night with none other than fellow WWE Superstar Kane,” Mike replied.

Maria couldn't keep the utter shock off her face. How could these people possibly know when she was only at Cerise just last night? Why would they spring this information on her so suddenly and on the air? Her first instinct was to angrily inform them that she did not discuss her personal life and storm out of the station, but she quickly got that impulse under control. Vince McMahon would have a heart attack and the press would have a field day. From the dumbstruck look on Christy's face, she wasn't going to be much help either. Quickly coming up with a plan that would hopefully quash both the speculative looks on the faces of the two disc jockeys and most of the inevitable internet rumors, Maria again donned her vapid look and said as innocently as possible, “Yes, Kane and I had dinner together last night. He had reservations at this wonderful restaurant and his friend had to cancel on him at the last minute. Since it's well known how much I enjoy good food, he let me tag along. Right, Christy?” Maria nudged Christy with her elbow.

“Uh, yeah, Maria's always going on about trying new places to eat,” said Christy lamely.

Though it seemed to her the story was idiotic, it seemed to satisfy the disc jockeys. They finished up the talk show and Christy and Maria went to have some lunch before the autograph signing. After much debate, they finally decided on a trendy vegetarian spot Christy had heard of. As they perched on little bistro stools at the tall table, Maria could tell her friend was dying to ask about the previous night. Ascertaining that the yuppies to either side of them were too busy chatting on their cell phones and looking cool, Maria looked at Christy and sighed, “Okay, ask.”

“Well, what happened? I took all your stuff back to your room for you. I thought you'd call when you got back, but I never heard from you! I was so worried.”

“We did go out to dinner and we ran into all the McMahon's at the restaurant. If it wasn't already all over the company, it will be now. When I got back to my room I just passed out. I guess the stress got to me. I'm sorry I didn't call and let you know I was okay.”

“I'm just glad you're alright,” said Christy as she spontaneously hugged Maria. Maria was doing her utmost not to outright lie to her friend.

“What did he say? Did he tell you why he wanted to have dinner with you? Was it really a romantic restaurant?”

“He didn't talk much and I didn't know what to say. It was a very quiet dinner. I guess you could say it was a romantic place. The food was excellent, too. The McMahons certainly looked shocked to see us there.”

“Do you think maybe that was it? Did he want them to see him out with someone maybe?”

“Could be. I don't claim to know how that man's mind works.”

Christy continued randomly asking questions throughout lunch: What kind of food was it? What was the décor like? and other such trivialities. She seemed to assume that Maria had come straight back to the hotel after dinner and Maria chose not disabuse her of that notion. Her lies-by-omission were chewing at her conscience, but the thought of telling Christy the truth was too much to bear. From the restaurant they went straight to the autograph signing. Perky, vapid Maria signed autographs and chit-chatted with the fans. Maria truly loved her fans and all the attention, but every once in a while her persona got on her nerves. She glanced around and noted that, as usual, Kane was not present. It was rumored that only a limited number of personal appearances were written into his contract and that after fighting so hard to get them, Mr. McMahon intended to use them judiciously. After the fans left, all the other female superstars gathered around Maria, as did Jericho and the Big Show. Their questions mirrored the ones Christy asked her at lunch, so Maria already had ready answers for most of them. Only Show was looking at her with suspicion. She silently begged him not to say anything. Thankfully, the big man seemed to sense her distress and kept his vaunted sense of humor under wraps. Everyone shortly went their separate ways for dinner. Some of them would be on the same flight, but others would be on different flights depending on where they were needed next. Sometimes Maria wondered why she often had to be at both the RAW live show and the next night's Smackdown taping. It would seem to make more sense to film her vignettes before or after RAW, but she wasn't the one in charge so she kept her mouth shut and went where she was told. She and Christy decided on a light dinner at the airport cafeteria since they had so little time. The best friends traveled together whenever possible and this day was no exception. They boarded the plane and Maria immediately fell asleep.