She's A Knife

She's a knife
All diamonds and danger
She's a knife
She'll cut you down

 

I push irritably through the hangers, trying to find something I actually want to wear tonight. I have to be careful not to choose anything that I know he likes, wouldn't want to make it seem as if I care what he thinks, as if I want his approval. On the other hand, I do want him to appreciate how I look, as I need him easily distracted. I'm really looking for something he hasn't seen before, something that he can't associate with another time, something that is 'us'-free, so that he can't read any meaning into it.

I sigh. I have a walk-in wardrobe filled with thousands of dollars of designer wear, and it all sucks.

In the end I settle for an anonymous little Chanel business suit. It's from last year's collection, but Wesley won't know that. It has a very short skirt, which will keep him nicely distracted. I pull on a new pair of seamed black pantyhose and then the Jimmy Choo stiletto pumps, and I look at the completed picture in the mirror.

Yes, efficient and crisply business like, but he won't be able to keep his eyes off my legs. Good. My own eyes are still a little puffy, I notice with a frown, and sit down at my vanity mirror to take another shot at obscuring the residue of my tears.

I review my objectives for this evening. 1. Get my own way. ...Hmm, and that's it. I watch myself chuckle in the mirror. No surrender, no prisoners. He'll be thinking he's got the upper hand after the unfortunate holy water incident, which was admittedly stupid of me. But I couldn't just let the vampire break his scrawny English neck, could I?

And Security is always so damn slow.

So, he wants to talk. The talk better be him telling me he'll do exactly what I told him to do with Angel's brat, or there'll be trouble. It's about time he remembered who is whose boss. Yeah, he's useful and he knows it, but if he pushes me too far he'll soon find out he's expendable too.

It would be such a waste of those fingers though, and that tongue. I've grown accustomed to having them available. His brain as well, of course. He's like my own Swiss Army knife, with a tool for every occasion. So he better do what he's fucking told, so I don't have to do without.

I don't think he quite grasps the reality of working for Wolfram and Hart yet, and that, I confess, is my fault. I was so eager to get him contracted that he has been given the star treatment from his first day. If he doesn't give me what I want tonight, I'll have him moved down the corridor into the open plan office with the rest of the peons who'll just love to humiliate him for his fall. And I'll put him in charge of the office execution clean-ups, which should remove his blinders fast enough.

This is a tricky negotiation. He's got to realise that he's mine or he's nothing at all. That's his only choice. But I refuse to give him the impression that he's important to me. No, that would lead to him taking advantage again, and another incident like going to see Connor behind my back. And getting his wussy ass handed to him on a plate

And then I might find myself behaving like I actually gave a shit again and that can't happen ever. My days of caring about whether anyone else lives or dies are finished. I'm free, and if Wesley gets himself beaten up again, he can wipe up his own blood.

There's a knock at the door, his knock. It's always the same. On the way through my living room I turn on the bug-killer device I purchased at great cost from Japan. I like to keep my privacy, well, private. I open the door. He's standing there looking sexy as hell, despite or maybe because of his bruises, and he knows it. He has a bottle in his hand and is wearing the Gucci shirt I brought him last week. Indigo silk, the top two buttons open; he's dressed to seduce, the bastard.

I leave the door open and walk away from him brusquely, as if he had no effect on me whatsoever. With a small sigh, he enters and shuts the door. I hear him walking down the steps behind me, but I don't turn around.

"Hungry?" I ask in an all-business tone. "I've had some food delivered from Jorge's, but it's a cold platter and can be eaten at any time."

Which isn't entirely true, of course, but I've been very careful to keep him from knowing quite a few things about me, and one of them is that I cook. I'm a damn near cordon bleu chef in fact, but no one knows that except me, and that's the way it's going to stay. As soon as a woman cooks for a man, she's denigrated in his eyes and her power is lessened.

His arm slips around my waist and he nuzzles into my neck from behind. His voice is low in my ear. "Whatever you want, Lilah. I'm here to talk, anything else is a pleasant extra."

I step out of his embrace, and still without looking around, head into my kitchen area. I start to remove food from the fridge. He follows me over and stands the other side of the counter, putting down the cabernet. He starts to remove the canapés and hors d'oeuvres from the professional looking containers I have placed them in, arranging them on plates.

I try hard not to pay any attention to him, but once all the food is out and he's still standing opposite me, it's hard not to. I peer at him, as if looking for something.

He snorts and asks, "What have I forgotten?"

"I was just looking for the string."

He sighs. "I know I am going to regret asking this, but go on, what 'string'?"

"The one attaching you to me. I can't see it, but it must be here somewhere, since I can't seem to walk anywhere without you following me."

His face hardens and he turns and heads back into the living room. I feel a little hitch inside, but I swallow it down. It's like training a dog; I have to be cruel to be kind.

I carry two of the plates in. "You could have taken these with you when you stomped off in a sulk," I say, and place them on the coffee table.

He looks at me with a tired expression. "Do we have to play this game tonight, Lilah? I just want to talk."

"Talk then," I shrug, and return for the rest of the things.

Having got them, I sit down opposite him, making sure my legs are artfully arranged. He opens the wine and pours us a glass each. I hand him a plate and napkin. Silently, we select a few items to eat. I notice he picks one of the special crab-cakes, which pleases me. They're based on one of my mother's recipes.

I wait until he's about to take his first mouthful, and then I repeat, "Talk then."

He looks at me with a sour expression and quite deliberately bites into the little savoury pastry he has in his fingers. So, still not doing what I say then. He compounds his error by using his tongue in a provocative way to scoop out the filling while he knows I'm watching. So much for no game playing, I should have known better. Wait, I did.

I put down my plate and fold my arms, watching him eat. I stare avidly at him, a smirk hovering about my lips. This takes the fun out of his game and so he begins to talk.

"How long is this unnecessary discord between us going to continue to put us both in danger, Lilah?" he asks.

I frown a little. "Danger?"

"The demonic humanoids infesting our work place are a threat to both of us. If we are to survive unconverted, we need to be allies. We need to watch each other's backs."

"I'd never trust you with my back."

"You have already, Lilah, and more than once."

That's too close to the truth, and I know my face shows a brief loss of composure. I pick my plate back up and nibble on the mushroom roulade. I have many enemies, and greatest amongst them are love, hope and trust. If I have trusted Wesley, I was foolish. It must never happen again.

Wesley bites into the crab-cake and stops to chew more carefully when he tastes it. Once his mouth is clear, he says, "These are good." I would like to reward him for saying that, but he must realise that all is not forgiven. I don't smile, but I say,

"Your taste is improving."

He laughs a little. "I have great taste, Lilah." He smirks at me through lidded eyes. He's good. He's too damn good. He knows how to play me and I don't like it.

Suddenly he says, "I'll become the boy's Watcher, but I won't steer him any further away from his father."

I raise an eyebrow. Am I actually going to win this one? That's a substantial step down from what he said last night. Perhaps my good will is more important to him than I realise. Knowing not to push my luck, I say, "That'll do, for now," and I smile, letting him see a little of how pleased I am by his decision.

He looks carefully at me. "Are we friends again?"

"We were never friends," I tell him.

He frowns and puts his plate down with a clunk. Uh oh, I know that expression. "So what are we then, Lilah?" He gets up and walks to my side of the table, where he stands over me menacingly. "Tell me exactly what you think we are."

I can't back down now, so I stand. In these shoes I'm as tall as him. With a broad grin, I say, "I am your boss and your benefactor. You are my personal assistant and my little fuck-buddy."

He backhand slaps me.

It wasn't that hard, just enough to turn my face to one side. But I'm still shocked. "You'll have to do better than that if you want to intimidate me, Wesley." I say, trying to keep my fury from affecting my voice. He grabs my shoulders and growls into my face,

"Up to the bedroom. Now!"

"Fuck you," I smile, starting to enjoy the game.

He grabs me by the back of the neck and pulls me into a hard kiss, asserting dominance over me with devouring lips and a probing tongue. And while I initially struggle a little, I soon give in. Because the fact is he makes me as hot as hell when he's like this. And we both know, however much I may allow him to rule in the bedroom, that I'm the person holding his leash, not the other way around.

He pulls back and says in a voice that is both gentler and more raspy, "Bedroom, now." I grin and turn around, wriggling my little skirt straight for no reason other than to draw attention to that area of my anatomy. I stalk over to the stairs and climb them, knowing he is following, his gaze never leaving my legs the whole time.

When we get to the bedroom, I move towards my bed, but he says, "Stop," and so I stand where I am. I feel him approach behind me and take my hips in his hands. He breathes into my hair and says. "You need me."

"I want you."

"No, you need me. Tell me you need me."

"You're the dependent here. I do not need anyone."

"Do you really believe that, Lilah?" he says, nibbling on my neck. The back of my body feels on fire from his proximity, even though only his hands and face are touching me.

"I believe it," I insist.

"Very well, I'll go then."

I hear him walking down the stairs. I know if I don't stop him that he really will leave and that will be this evening over. But I'm not in the mood to pretend to need him to make him feel like a man. I need no one. I'm a free agent, completely free now. I don't want him to go, however.

I call out, "Wait!"

He ascends the stairs again, and I hear him in the doorway. I haven't moved from where he left me. "Don't go, Wes. We're friends again, let's not ruin that."

"So we *are* friends?"

"In as much as I have such things."

His hands return to my hips. "You like having me around," he states.

I don't have a problem admitting that. "Yes, I do. What's not to like?"

"Ah ha," he says slowly, as he slides his hands lower, over my outer thighs, kneeling as he does so. "So it's the 'need' issue that you're in denial over. Well, I dare say it's comparative." He kisses my leg through the pantyhose, just below the hem of my skirt. "I don't suppose you'll whither and die without me." He kisses the other leg. "But you need my help if you're going to get any further up the hierarchy in Wolfram and Hart."

"What I *need* is for you to shut up and put your mouth to better use."

He chuckles. "So you *do* need me for something then." He pushes up my skirt.

There are no coherent sentences for quite a while after that.

***

Some time later, I'm lying naked on my covers with Wesley on top of me. I'm shuddering from post orgasmic trauma. Yes, trauma. I'm sure it's not natural how violently I respond to him. My throat feels hoarse from screaming, and this isn't helped by the fact that all my neck muscles are tense, trying to swallow down the impulse to sob.

Goddammit, I thought I'd mastered this. It's typical of Wesley that he can bring these annoying emotions back to the surface again. I don't have time for them. He props himself up on his elbows and looks at me, so I quickly turn my head to one side.

"Lilah?" he asks, in a curious tone. I try to roll him off me, but he resists, and uses his hand to turn my face towards him. I school my expression into hardness, but he seems to see something, nonetheless. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I mutter, and then add in something that could pass for a joking tone, "Think you broke something is all."

He chuckles, but continues, "Seriously Lilah, what's wrong? It's been clear that something has really been bothering you."

"Yes," I say, shoving him hard to one side. "You." I sit up.

He lies on his side where I pushed him and says, "No, I don't accept that. This isn't about me, or not just about me, anyway. Tell me."

I give him a disbelieving look, like he's my shrink or something? "Fuck off, Wes."

He sits up and looks sternly at me. "No, I won't. We've been sharing each others bodies for nearly five months, now I want to share something more."

I sneer at him. "I don't do feelings."

"Well," he asks, in the gentlest of voices. "What are these then?" He wipes a finger under my eye. Bastard. Utter goddamn bastard. I'll hurt him for that. I'll make him pay.

In my most controlled voice, I say, "They're not for you."

"Ask not for whom the lawyer weeps..." he says, smiling softly. "Tell me, Lilah."

I try to get up, but he catches my wrist in a strong grip. "Let go, Wes," I spit.

"Tell me," he orders.

I dig the nails of my other hand deep into the flesh of his hand on my wrist. He hisses and withdraws his arm, and I escape the bed. I take my white silk robe from the hook and slip it on. I look at the mess of clothes and discarded accessories on the floor and think about the barely touched food drying out downstairs. I become bothered by all this disorder and waste.

"Get up and go and put the food away," I tell him, as I tidy the floor.

"I'm not your housekeeper or your mother, Lilah. I don't clear up after you."

There's a clay tribal objet d'art in my hand, that we had knocked from its stand during the early phase of tonight's session. Without thinking consciously about it, I throw it, hard and direct, towards his head.

He ducks of course, and my aim was bad anyway, so it hits his shoulder. He curses and jumps out of bed, grabbing me by the shoulders. "What the hell do..." He stops, noticing the tears streaming down my face. "Oh hell, Lilah, please tell me what's wrong!"

I try to escape his hands, but he pulls me closer to his naked body, and wraps his arms around me. No, I will not be comforted by him. I don't need this. I don't need him. I struggle against him, but he just holds me tighter, so I knee him in the balls.

He tenses and his face screws up in pain, but the bastard still doesn't let me go. On the contrary, he grits his teeth and scoops a hand underneath my legs, lifting me up, carrying me over to the bed. "Damn it, Lilah. You *will* tell me." Sobs wrack my body, weakening me, but I still roll away from him, trying to escape.

He lies beside me and pulls me back to him, not hesitating to use his greater strength to get his own way. I yell at him. "You fucking bastard!" But he ignores this and just clasps me to his body until I've got no other choice except to give in to the combined force of his strength and the uninvited emotion possessing me. I'll never forgive him for this.

So I weep for days, or at least it seems that way, sobbing into his chest, thumping and scratching him because I hate him for this rape. And all the time he holds me, strokes me, soothes me, like I'm a fucking child and not the ice bitch who controls his destiny. And he keeps saying. "Tell me. Tell me," until I do.

"My mother died yesterday."

Not even that shuts him up. He strokes my hair. "I'm so sorry, Lilah, I had no idea. You never talk about your family."

"I don't have one, not any more." I try to distract myself from my own inconvenient and yet aggravatingly unavoidable pain by digging my finger nails deep into the skin above his nipple. He tenses, and then gently lifts my hand from his chest to his lips where he kisses it. I hate him.

He asks, "She was all there was?"

"For a long time." My voice seems very distant, not mine at all in fact.

"Tell me," he orders.

"I don't want to."

"You need to."

"How come you're so up on my needs all of a sudden?"

"Haven't I always understood your needs and taken good care of them?" Of course, he's right, but there's a humiliating smugness to his tone, which isn't helped when he moves his free hand down to my ass and starts circling the silk over my skin. Assumptions -- everything he does, everything he says is based on assumptions. And the fact is, he doesn't know the first damn thing about me.

I try to sit up, but he holds me down to him. I stare with unfocused eyes at his chest, and I start to tell him. I speak as if reading out a news story, detached and impersonal.

"Her name was Mercedes Kelly, Merry to her friends and everyone was her friend once upon a time. I know you won't recognise her name, but she was a big star on the Hollywood party circuit for a while during the sixties. She was the beautiful, charmingly sweet heiress of her family's fortune and considered a very desirable match.

"She married an up and coming actor, whose real name was Thomas Morgan. I was their only child. Merry loved Tommy in that kind of all-encompassing, self-sacrificing way that is so not in fashion these days.

"He took her for every cent she had, and when the money ran out, he began to beat her. One day I watched him break her front teeth and, since there was no money left for dental work, her looks were gone from that point.

"She never once fought back.

"When Tommy died unexpectedly, Merry wept. She never really recovered. She has been in the best hospital my money could buy for many years now. The doctors said it was Alzheimers, but that is just a kind lie. She was punch drunk. Brain damaged from repeated blows to the head.

"She died of heart failure early yesterday morning, but her mind died a long time ago, with her beauty and her future."

The tale complete, I start to weep again. I really don't seem to be able to stop for long, and this is all his doing. I would have kept control; I would have mastered this. But he dragged me down into this well of misery, a place he knows like a second home -- and boy, he must love having company in here for once.

"That's a very sad story, Lilah," he says in a low voice, kissing the top of my head and rubbing my back to ease my sobs. Why does he use my name so much? I've often wondered. It's like he has to keep reminding himself who I am.

"I suppose you think you know everything about me now, about why I've done the things I've done. But you'd be wrong. You don't know a damn thing."

"Of course not." There's a smile in his voice, but then in a much more intense tone, he asks, "Did you kill him?"

This time he can't hold me as I kick and punch and scrabble away from him. I glare at him from the other side of the room. "Get out."

"I'm sorry, Lilah. Please. I won't ask again, I promise. Come back to bed. Please."

I just look at him, making little noises that are someway between sobs and cackles. He starts to get out of bed and I back further away, picking up the nearest ornament I can find. He sits naked on the edge of the bed and rubs his face. I'll never forgive him for seeing me like this. For making me like this.

He says, "I really do understand how difficult all this is for you, Lilah. I know that you must feel like someone's scattered all your carefully arranged chess pieces."

"So, you understand how a control freak reacts when things get out of control. Big deal, seeing as you're one too."

"Yes, you are right. That's why I understand. Come back to bed, Lilah."

I want to scream at him: for fuck's sake stop saying my name. Like there's anyone else in the room you could be addressing. But instead I say,

"Would you like to see a photograph of her, from when she was beautiful?" And I don't know where those words come from. They're most certainly not mine.

"I would," he nods seriously.

I walk into my wardrobe and collect the box from the shelf at the back. When I come out, I see Wes has put his pants back on and is just collecting his shirt. He puts his arm around me and says, "Let's take them downstairs and look at them there."

"Hungry?" I ask.

"Yes," he admits. "And you need rehydrating." He's right, of course, and a part of me is angry that he understands my needs better than I do. Another part of me likes it, which makes the first part very scared indeed.

We go downstairs and I sit on the sofa while he gets a bottle of Evian from the fridge and two glasses. He sits down beside me and hands me the water once it's poured. "Drink, then we'll look," he instructs.

So I sip slowly, grateful for the Evian's coolness on my throat, and he nibbles at the food which no longer looks very appetising, but that doesn't seem to bother him. When I put the empty glass down, he asks, "More?"

"Not yet." He nods and wipes his hands carefully on a napkin before he lifts the mementoes box to my lap.

So I undo the ribbons and start to show him selected items: cuttings from society pages and gossip columns, portrait photographs taken by big name photographers, even a picture I drew of her myself with crayons when I was very little.

He looks at it all with the same careful solemnity with which he treats the Nyazian fragments, as if these scraps of memory are somehow sacred or hugely valuable. I suppose they are to me. I should burn them all.

"That's a very familiar smile," he says, looking in the box at a photo of me playing on a swing at about six years old. The smile in question is far too carefree and innocent for him to have ever seen it on me before. I look suspiciously at him and he laughs.

"Seriously, Lilah. That's how you smile just after you've climaxed. When you're still euphoric, and for a few moments, all your cares are stripped from you. That's the smile you give me then; I love to see it."

I'm disbelieving. "Have you forgotten I'm the evil lawyer bitch, Wes?"

"Never," he smiles. "There are many things I like about you. Would you care to hear the list?"

I put the lid back on the box and return it to the table. "Knock yourself out. I can provide the club if you like."

He grins, and puts a hand on my knee. "Well, let's start with the easy things." The hand runs up and down my thigh, over the white silk. "I like these. I *love* these."

"Tell me something I didn't know," I smirk.

"Yes, we both know you have the *best* legs," he laughs. "And you know exactly how to display them to the best advantage too. Which brings me to another thing I like: your sense of style. You have exquisite, classical taste and a eye for purity of design."

I look dubiously at him. "Since when did those things start mattering to you, Wes?"

"I guess there are things about me that even Files and Records doesn't know." It's his turn to smirk. "Let me continue. I admire your strength and your stubbornness, and your 'never surrender' attitude. You're a survivor, and you never give into fear, no matter how beset you are by those outrageous slings and arrows. I like your wicked humour and your feline sensuality. And I love how you seem to have the blueprints to my sexual circuits and that you can turn me on like nobody else before you.

He stops his list in order to kiss me. It's a good kiss - long, lazy and sensual. Then he draws back and continues.

"I like your smiles, all of them - the evil smirks and the reluctant chuckles, the good humoured grimaces when I amuse you despite your best intentions to remained pissed with me, and your hungry grins when I'm touching you just so..."

His hand on my leg slips through the gap in my robe, and I'm soon grinning at him in just the way he described. I've no idea what to make of his list. My ego is purring like a well pampered cat, of course. The rest of me is asking: just what exactly is it that he wants?

"Boy, Wes, you must really think about me a *lot*," I snark.

"I do," he admits easily. "You spend a great deal of time in my thoughts."

"But why?" I ask, not sure that I really want to know.

"Because I love you."

I smack his arm from out of my robe. "No! You can't! Take it back!"

He leans back beside me, not touching. "Don't you want to be loved?"

"Do you know what they do to people who love at Wolfram and Hart?"

"And why should it bother you what they might do to me?" he asks with a half smile, licking his fingers.

"You're no use to me dead."

"Do you love me, Lilah?"

I sigh in exasperation. Isn't he listening? I tell him to, "Shut the fuck up." He raises an eyebrow. I explain, "Love is weakness, love is failure. I can't afford to love anyone, it would destroy my career."

"And you won't allow me to destroy your career." He quotes my words from yesterday.

"That's right."

"Perhaps the destruction of your career could lead to the reconstruction of your life?"

I turn and try to rake his face with my nails. He catches my hand and then forces me into a hard kiss. Feeling like Scarlett O'Hara, I give into it, letting him claim me again. It makes no difference; he can never win this war. I should be rejoicing. With that confession, he has just handed me his own head on a platter. He's truly mine now, to do with what I wish.

But when he breaks the kiss, I say softly, "There's no point in loving me, Wes. No future."

"Why not?"

"Because I know you don't intend to stay with Wolfram and Hart. I know you are using them, using me, to get close to the Demonic Humanoid guys who are your current big foe." That shocks him. His mouth drops a little open before he quickly recovers himself.

"What are you talking about, Lilah?" He shakes his head. "No, never mind. Say I do leave Wolfram and Hart one day, I'd still stay with you if you let me."

"And then what? I'd leave Evil behind me, and we'd get married and have two point four kids? Get real. I can't offer you anything I haven't already given you, Wes. My soul is spoken for. I have signed blood oaths and made all the correct sacrifices. I can't ever leave Wolfram and Hart, perhaps not even after death for all I know."

He lets me go and looks miserable. "I feared as much," he admits. "But I still love you. And even if we end up on opposite sides again, I will continue to love you."

"Stop saying that!" I slap him again, and then collapse on him in stupid tears once more. I hate, hate, hate how out of control I am. This is not me, or at least it hasn't been me for so many years now.

After a little while, Wes asks in a soft voice, "Are you going to your mother's funeral?"

"No."

"I'd go with you if you wanted."

"Not going. Can't afford to be out of the office at the moment."

"She was your mother..."

As if I'd forgotten. I launch into a short rant that would sound more impressive if I wasn't sobbing uncontrollably through out it. "She was a liability, her existence kept me vulnerable. Kept me human. I couldn't give my all to my career while she was still around, leeching off me. I'm free now. I'm glad she's dead. Nothing to stop me being as evil as I goddamn wanna be."

He has the audacity to laugh at me. "Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Very well, you better have the wetworks people take me out then, as you're so convinced I'm just using Wolfram and Hart, that I'm a traitor in the making."

"You were a traitor when I first picked you up in that bar, darling." I drawl viciously, but he rolls with the punch, and smiles nastily.

"Kill me then, Lilah. Isn't that what your firm does to traitors?"

"If they're lucky."

"Quite. I'll go and hand myself in then," he says, not moving.

"No you won't."

"Why not?"

"Because you haven't saved the world yet."

He snorts. "Are you going to expose my supposed treachery, Lilah?"

"Not unless it will hurt me not to."

"Why not? Because you care for me?"

I frown, "Because I need you."

"Yes, you do, we settled that earlier. But I'm sure the New All-Evil Lilah can find other ways than death to torment me for this supposed treason. Come now, think."

"Shut up, Wes, I'm tired. Just go home."

"No, I want to stay the night. I want more sex." He slides a hand back inside my robe, higher up than before, and despite everything, I moan as he brushes against my breasts.

"I hate you," I tell him.

"I love you," he replies. "Like it or not, we're a partnership, Lilah. If you surrender to this fact, it'll be a lot easier for both of us."

Ok, I'll admit it to myself although never to him. There's a small part of me that dreams of perfect fairytale futures, when the princess marries the prince and lives happily ever after, but we all know I'm the wicked witch in this piece. Can the wicked witch have a happy ending too?

"I can't ever be a good person, Wes. I've lost that chance. So I'm going to be the best and biggest evil bitch in town instead. I'm going to shine like a big dark star, with or without you. But you can help me if you want to."

His hand stills beneath my robe as he looks at me. "I'll help where I can," he says. "As I have already helped. But I won't aid atrocity. And you must keep talking to me, so that I can see the full picture. I need to see the whole chessboard if I'm going to coach you in strategy."

"I'll talk. About that sort of thing anyway. I would rather have no more evenings of messy emotional revelations, thank you."

"It wasn't *all* bad," he smiles, his hand returning to its previous activities. I close my eyes and enjoy his touch.

"Fucking you is never bad," I admit.

"What did you do before I came along, Lilah?"

"Mostly?" I put my hand in the air and wiggle my fingers. He laughs.

"Indeed. Much the same here. I love you."

I look at him and know that he's right and we are stuck with each other. I also realise that I trust him, and that sucks so very much. I smile affectionately at my lover and say,

"I hate you, too."

 

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She's A Knife lyrics © Looper
Many thanks to Justhuman for the great beta