"The best thing about meeting girls in prison," Faith said, brushing away an errant drop of silvery polish with her thumb, "is that you don't have to ask the same stupid questions just so you can have the same boring conversations."

Kathryn's toes twitched just a little as Faith shifted her grip, grazing a sensitive spot on the bottom of her lover's foot. "What, you mean like, What colleges are you applying to?"

"Yeah. Like, What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"Tell me all about your summer vacation."

Faith made a face. "We should all just have little bios with the interesting stuff printed up. Then you could just trade them, look them over, save some time." Finishing Kathryn's last toenail, she went looking for that spot on the sole of her foot.

"Jesus, Doe, we're in *jail.* What are you saving time *for*?"

"I mean -- you know. Outside."

"Oh. Ahhhh...." Found it. Kathryn's back arched so hard that her hips almost came off the cot. Damn, but she did it for Faith; there was something about the way grey prison-issue pants looked when you wore them with nothing but a black push-up bra -- something about the way only Kathryn Merteuill could get her hair cut short in prison and wind up with a trendy copper-colored bob instead of the assembly-line hackjob everyone else had to put up with -- something about bare feet, pouty lips, toenails so meticulously cared for and fingernails chewed down to the quick. "You can always go with, What are you in for?"

"That's so prison-flick."

"Hel-lo. *Prison.*"

"Yeah, yeah. And anyway, I was talking about living a happily cheesy-pickup-line-free existence, not looking for new ones."

Everyone in this place had secrets; no one gave a damn about Faith's, except for her court-appointed shrink, and Faith didn't care too much about anyone else's either, even the anyone else who had been her semi-public lover for almost three weeks. Kathryn was doing four-and-a-half to six for Man 2 and cocaine possession; there'd been a big scandal in her rich private school, and a lurid, tell-all diary, and talk of a television movie. Corruption and depravity among the beautiful people, just the kind of thing the tv-movie-watching masses got off on. Other than that, who knew?

"Truth or dare?"

Faith chuckled briefly -- and then stopped. Kathryn had propped herself up on her elbows (that position was going to be great for her abs) and had Faith fixed in that want-take-have look that was always so much more naked on Kathryn's face than it ever was on Faith's. "Fuck. Katie, don't--"

"Truth or dare?"

"Dare."

"Wrong."

"Well, fuck me. This is some game."

"Are you telling me you never have questions? You never want to know -- anything? About me?"

Gently, Faith lifted her foot up higher and kissed the ball of it. "I know what I like, Pussycat."

She flopped -- but flopped gracefully, because she was still Kathryn -- back with a frustrated sigh. "You're such a bitch."

"Yeah, but you love fucking with the only chick in this place that all the guards are scared of." So what? Faith couldn't stop being a Slayer just because her shrink had her reading Henri Nouwen and managing her anger, and around here, just like in the real world, being the biggest kid on the block made you royalty. Only the best for Kathryn; Faith was like walking, talking jewelry to her. So what?

"Nobody's scared of you, Doe." Faith snorted. "You can't scare someone who thinks she's already in Hell."

"That's deep, Prep School."

"Fuck you."

"Ask your fucking question already."

"Why do you like me?"

It wasn't like Faith couldn't think of any answers. *Your Victoria's Secret collection. You read the business section at breakfast. You biting your nails. Me biting your ears. Your charm-school posture. You cheat at poker and win at volleyball if you have to put someone in the infirmary to do it. Your on-again, off-again eating disorders. Your French name. The things you know about car engines. The things you don't know about vampires. Why does anybody like anybody? Because it feels good.* "Because you look just like the prettiest girl I know."

"Wouldn't that *make* me the prettiest girl you know?"

Faith smirked down at her just a little. "No."

"You're a piece of trash, Faith," she said, and there was a tiny bit of real nastiness behind Kathryn's familiar petulance. Her heel hit Faith in the ribs a little harder than Faith expected, hard enough to jump-start Slayer reflexes. Faith caught her by the ankle and fought.

She kept her eyes closed -- couldn't see, didn't want to look. Faith could feel every movement before Kathryn completed it, and she was there to use it against the hopelessly-outmatched socialite -- grasp, wrench, hold, shake, shove -- *good for you, girlfriend? baby, let me tear into you, fuck you up and down* -- until Kathryn's head and shoulders were off the edge of Faith's bed, her arms shaking under Faith's hands, the bra right where Faith could have torn it off with her teeth if she'd wanted to. "You stupid crack-whore. Katie, you *stupid cunt.* I'm the last person you want to know!"

Kathryn was fighting back noises, meek little ah-ah-ah sounds strangling themselves in her throat. "I'm -- sorry. Jesus, I'm *sorry,* all right? Let me -- please. Let me go. You're hurting...."

The darkness.... Faith forced her attention away from the soft, shuddering body underneath her, welded it up against those damn relaxation exercises -- the elevator -- Dr. Stockard's mellow voice -- okay, okay. Going down. Let it go. What Would Angel Do? Her body tried to laugh a little at that, but she'd cut her own strings, the only way Faith knew to stop herself. Just *stop.* Totally.

Boneless, she felt Kathryn move, even felt Kathryn move her, but her kinetic sense was shut off like she'd pulled a plug. Safe place -- Dr. S was big into the safe places. The public pool in Boston where her mom had dropped her off every morning all lazy summer long and picked her up at five when she got off work. Angel's arms, and how he was like a teddy bear, no heartbeat under her ear to distract her with somone else's emotions. The sofa bed in Jessamine Wallace's apartment, with the hum of the refrigerator and the one light that meant her Watcher was still awake, still Watching.

When she had it pulled together again, Faith peeled her eyes open and saw the ceiling of her cell. Instinctively, her hands moved to curl around the curved skull beneath the soft ginger hair resting on Faith's stomach. "My -- my bad," she said lamely, hoarsely.

"Yeah. Well, I don't plan to share the intimate details of my love life with the parole board, if that's what you're concerned about."

It wasn't -- in fact, it so wasn't that for a second Faith couldn't figure out what the hell she was talking about. "H. Christ, Pussycat, don't tell me you *liked* that."

Kathryn snorted -- she was even better at those fuck-off noises than Faith was. "I wouldn't tell you anything. Since you don't want to know."

She really didn't. She just wanted to lie here in her court-appointed safe place or what the hell ever, stroking her girlfriend's thick, bobbed hair. Ignorance really was bliss -- and knowledge really was power. Make of that what you will, as Jessamine would say, if Jessamine were still alive.

But maybe sometime she would ask what colleges Kathryn Merteuill had applied to, and what she wanted to be when she grew up. Just for something different to talk about.