Bubble gum girl wake from your sleep.
The big bad World is not so sweet.
Boy band romance left for dead.
A faded smile above your bed.

Time moved on and so must you.
Something old, battered and blue.
With your mum's good looks and ya dad's despair...
Pierced naval, nose and vacant stare.

Unstable, disable attention craver.
Bubble gum girl has lost her flavour.
When the world around you lost its head
you turned your back. You stayed in bed.

Excerpt from "Bubble Gum Girl..." $neak Technique

"Bubble Gum Girl"

I came for a holiday, or something. I kissed Riley's cheek and then packed my bags. Pants, shirts, tees, socks - the usual, toothpaste, a hair comb...

I told Willow that I wanted to get away for a while. I grabbed my camera, and some books on Mexican geography. I planned out my route. I chewed bubble gum on the greyhound to San Diego. The charter plane was small. I met some guys, one of them said I was pretty, I smiled back.

I am pretty.

I arrived at the hotel. I'm somewhere near Puerto Penasco on the coast. The hotel smells of sweat, and old sandals...some sand and fresh fish. The woman who runs the place smiled at me. She's very maternal looking. She said I have beautiful hair, leaning over her thick wooden desk she asked me why I'm here alone. She has a beautiful accent and wears flowers in her dark hair. I like her, she's warm, she shouts fractured sentences at her husband and has this wonderful shrill way of saying 'Carlos.'

I told them I needed to get away. I went out onto the beach. Beautiful beach, really great waves as well...I wondered why I didn't invite Riley to come with me. We could have sat on the beach...maybe, I don't know, it felt wrong. Riley's got a whole bunch of stuff he has to deal with on his own.

So, I enjoyed the scenery. I ate sandwiches and drank cola from glass bottles. It was good, wholesome, you know? I don't know really, but it sounded right. At least it felt someway self-indulgent, like I was doing this for me.

The sun set on the beach. I took a couple of pictures with my camera and then headed back up the hill to the hotel where I was staying.

I don't know what surprised me more, the fact that everyone was dead, or the fact that I was so shocked.

My initial reaction spun along the lines of: Oh my God, everyone's dead.

Which, routinely enough, was replaced by a Slayer one, number three eight six in the handbook to be exact, : Everyone's dead. Why? Because you're the slayer. Deal with it. Kill vampires. Kill!

I killed the vampires who were left, the others had made it out into the night. They disappeared into little dust mites on the floor. I called the local police and practised my broken Spanish. I was very professional - they wondered if I'd done it, but then I don't look like a mass murderer.

My name is Buffy Summers, Officer. I attend UC Sunnydale. I'm pretty.

I don't know, but somehow I can spin a line that anyone'd buy. Guess I'm gifted, huh? Is it one of my super powers? But the fact is - you can't sum up my life in a few sentences anymore. I'm this whole barrel of subtext fun, because what you see on the outside, is nothing compares to what goes beneath.

I'm going to have to find somewhere else to stay. The next flight out isn't until tomorrow.

The morgue's a real weird place, you know? I mean, first of all it's exclusive. You either have to be dead, or interested in dead people...or just really, really sick and in need of some serious head-case therapy to get in here.

Secondly, it has no smell. I expected formaldehyde or just that dead smell that you get off of vampires. You know, mothballs and cleaning fluid. Anything, just any kind of smell to make it more human, make it more like a place on Earth.

But then I don't really walk on the Earth at all, do I? I just skirt the edges. I'm getting old, too old. I come to these places and sit down, watch the bodies and think...that's going to be me. It's funny - most kids think they're going to live forever. Me? I'm just living before I die.

And so why am I in the mortuary? This is the question that keeps coming back to me. Why am I in the mortuary? Because that nice woman, with the flowers in her hair, is going to rise and I'm going to have to drive a stake through her heart. That's why.

Which is why I wished these places smelled, so I could tell one apart from the other. Because, if I really look, my life tends to be one death and destruction snapshot after the next. You get tired you know, exhausted?

Maybe I'm this way because Willow isn't here. Yeah, that must be it.

She rose. I drove a stake through her heart. I feel dead. I feel just as dead as Conchita with the flowers in her hair and Carlos her husband, wrapped in death-affirming body-bag plastic.

I hate when I get this way.

Empty. I'll phone Giles and he can pick me up - right after I go after the sons of bitches who did this, which is kinda predictable in a 'I am the Chosen One' kind way.

But my life is predictable. It's like last week. Willow had gone out with Tara, probably somewhere nice, probably house hunting. I don't know. I didn't ask. So I was rooting through some of her stuff and I came across this ouiji board. Sure, I think, wouldn't hurt to give it a try. I ask silly questions: is Liz Hurley naturally that thin, what exactly is lint...and then, God knows what possessed me, I asked it how old I would be when I died. It tells me twenty-five. Twenty-five.

And what do you know? Looks like it was dead on. There's some spirit out there with Buffy Summer's number, and he's pissed as hell.

Mexicans have a Day of the Dead too. Ironic, huh? Maybe I belong here.

My life is this whole nasty stream of consequences. I broke into the police house and got some files - some 'suspicious characters' to investigate, some leads. I tell Giles he can pick me up next week. Everything was in Spanish, but I managed; I always do.

I went North, took an over crowded bus. I threw away my bubble gum. Guess the bubble burst.

I got off at this dead end town, real Spaghetti Western deal and walked the long street up towards this suspicious looking warehouse. It's too quiet, but then I realise that I've never liked that cliché.

The sun's beating down on me, Mexico in July - not the wisest of vacation destinations.

I get to the nest, but she's already there. Covered head to toe in glistening sweat. I help her take the last one out. She stands and grins at me, hands on her hips. Seems she's been following the police reports, and worked out where I'd be. Says in that jagged, low tone of hers that she got sick of waiting and just dived on in.

She asks me how I am. I shrug, 'Five by Five,' I smile.

I finally know what that means. It doesn't mean anything. I'm just waiting, waiting for the lucky vamp who gets to take this slayer out. I am nothing. Five by five's nothing too. Faith and I are nothing - just pawns in some bigger game. I take her picture with my Kodak and then I punch her in the stomach.

She grabs my hair and throws me to the ground, kicks me, spits, all the usual stuff.

I push her against the wall, hard. I wanted to kill her, first time I saw her at Angel's I wanted her dead. But I guess I know now that's she's always been dead, like Angel, like me.

But me and Faith, we're living on borrowed time.

I slap her across the face. She smiles at me. 'You can't kill me,' she says.

She'd be right.

'I know the location of another nest,' she tells me.

I nod and then drop her from the wall. She sees the glint in my eye, she knows I mean business. I wonder why the hell she waited for me. I wonder how long she spent in jail last time, or if she busted out and headed South, freedom in Mexico. Part of me, something I haven't wanted to face for a very long time, is glad she's here.

'Take me there,' I say.

We catch another overcrowded bus. I'll never be Faith, and as much as she wants it, she'll never be me. But there's a bond, we're two of a kind and I'd never kill her, as we're living on borrowed time.

This place says "dead". In a way that graveyards, floral wreaths, parsons and sobbing little Sarah clutching her Mom's skirt never do.

In fact, dead isn't wholly accurate. More like never alive. Inanimate. That was it - inanimate.

There are humans here. The check-out clerk, the pump attendant, the mildly sociopathic jerk who sings Madonna at the back of the diner. The waitress, wearing a pink that's never looked less innocent, and lipstick that almost drips off her pursed lips.

And the woman who sits opposite me in this cute little 'booth.'

Dead, all of them. No, I'm forgetting myself, inanimate.

'You want a cigarette?' she asks.

'Sure.' I take one, light a match on the underside of the table and, once lit, take a life affirming breath of the nicotine goodness.

'I didn't think you smoked. Thought it was too 'bad' for a prissy good-girl like you.'

'It is,' I return, darkly. But I gave up trying to be prissy good-girl - maybe I even gave up trying - a long time ago. But then again, I'm not into this self-pity shit.

I look up. 'But I figure everyone starts at some point. Either you grow up to realise that they aren't good for you, or you get so old that you wonder why you never tried. Anyway,' I snort, 'it's not like I'm about to die from lung cancer.'

'No,' she laughs back, a hollow chuckle. 'Maybe I had you planned out all wrong, B.'

'B,' I smile, mimicking her, 'it's been a while.'

She winks at me, 'Sure has,' she grins. 'Fuck girl, where you been?'

Dying. That's where I've been. Not in the literal sense of course, merely metaphorically.

The light in the diner swings slowly, and its shadows adjust, change. It's not enough to brighten the coffin though; the pine walls just shine the light back as it looks for some kind of exit. And if I wasn't already dead, figuratively speaking, then I'd help it out of here.

'Nowhere, everywhere,' I say distantly. 'Fucked Angel yet?'

The grin turns half sober. In the background, someone's coughing up 'Ma's 'hotter than hotter' burger relish that may as well be arsenic for it's reaction to the stomach lining.

'Nope,' she even manages a hurt look. 'I'm picking my life up. I'm moving on. Anyway, I wouldn't want to mess with the broody one's moment of happiness crap.'

'Like you could give him one,' I mumble. This is what she reduces me to - mumbling. Something apathetic takes hold of me again, and I don't particularly care if she's been screwing around with my undead ex. I also don't care if she gave Riley the best fuck of his life. Because it's not what she does that bother's me. And it never has been. Faith's far too gone to the happy lunatic asylum in the sky to ever do any collateral damage, just took me a while to realise, that's all.

I take another deep inhale. I wonder what time Giles'll be here to pick me up. I wonder if she'll laugh at me when I tell her what I realised. What dirty little secret I have sitting under my, how'd she put it, 'prissy good-girl' dungarees?

'Been here long?' I inquire, resting my hand against the table, cigarette held and smoking quietly away, adding to the oppressive heat mix that death always seems to stir up. My gaze fixes outside, old gas pump, old burnt out car, motel that probably smells of sex and disease.

'Long enough. I was wondering when you were gonna show down here. I thought we should have at least one last tango in Paris.' She plucks a cigarette herself and lights it quickly, placing it, prop-like, against her glossy lips.

She's not wearing as much make-up now-a-days, more natural, more like the country hick wild child than that urban gothic shit she was trying to pass off back in Sunnydale. I don't know if it suits her better, but then I'll never want her as much now as I did then.

'You've changed,' she tells me.

'Yeah,' I smile back. 'Chanel Number Five. I borrowed it from Cordy. She sends her utmost venom by the way. In fact, I think she asked me to run your trailer trash ass down. Now, tell me Faith, why'd she want me to do that? Not that I mind the feel of a little road-kill under my goodyear...'

'Damn B, someone got to you.'

'Maybe I got to me.' I say blankly.

Her stare is confused but she lets it fly, she always lets it fly.

She takes a long puff of her cigarette. The waitress, who I'll call Nancy, gives a little disgruntled sigh and moves to the phonebox. Maybe her Prince Charming hasn't called. I can relate.

'Nope,' she says, carefully. 'It ain't him. I'm guessing you spaced him into nice little pieces. It's me, isn't it? I managed to fuck with 'Miss Pretty'.'

And yeah, she's right.

Not that I've ever been in love with her, or even liked her, or even wanted to touch her. But she pisses me off, screws with my head to the extent that taking up smoking and swearing seem like the most sane ideals in my life. And she always wins our little game, our mind-fuck monopoly that we play every time we meet.

And what pisses me off? That it took me this long to realise it.

I take another long puff and then stub the cigarette out on the plastic table. 'You want to order waffles?' I ask.

She shrugs. 'I like to do my killing before my waffling, if it's all the same to you. Killing then waffling. Brings order to the universe.'

'Sure,' I say monosyllabically. Who am I to disagree with her hard fought philosophies?

I stand up, pull down my tee, run a hand through my hair and charge into the kitchen.

One.

I look around, check for el bad guy and then run through to the backyard.

Two.

She's right behind me.

Three.

It looks 'vampy' enough, old warehouse, usual deal. I used to wonder why they couldn't get themselves anywhere less 1812. Stress on 'used.'

Four.

I'm running at the warehouse, kicking up the dust in these huge boots I picked up discount somewhere.

She's looking at me, smiling. She wants me. I love the fact that she wants me.

Five.

We're in the barn. Well, to be accurate we kicked our way through the rotten old door and then charged our way in, blasting the first few with sunlight. It's a little known fact that interstate members of the 'Not dead yet' brigade have little to no common sense. They're asleep, and there's no guard.

Six.

'Aww,' she says, standing next to me. 'It's no fun when it's this easy.'

Seven.

I don't think I care whether it's easy or not. A long time ago slaying became a series of automatic responses, easy and natural, so natural I developed a count for them, a rhythm. A ten count, which usually gets lost right around the time I place my little wooden stick of tricks up against a vamp-ugly's chest. But still, it's one of those little panic button things I developed to stop me being sick post-kill. It's funny what fifteen year old 'chosen-one's' will do to keep sane, isn't it?

Eight.

Ugly number one was simple, upper cut, left block, nice big thwack, comic-book style, in the gut and he's on the floor. He has a horrendous taste in clothes, I'm wondering if he's been dead since the fifties, and mommy used to dress him even then. I put the stake in his back and it's game over.

Nine.

Number two ran at me like Cordy when there's a sale at Prada. Easy done, once in the chest - watch the yellow's of their eyes as they disappear into the dust. Sometimes, if I get too close it makes me sneeze. Geez, how ironic, on days like these, hot days, inanimate days, the closest they can get to me is a bad bout of asthma.

I often wish I were always this strong.

Number three was dispatched with a flick of my wrist. I resist the urge to pun; it's too dark in here and smells too much like cow shit for me to really want to stay long.

The last one grins at me as I come towards him. Eyes doing that weird yellow thing like he gorged on Florida Orange Juice at the WalMart. Teeth all nice and pointy. Grin like he's going to kill me where I stand.

Loser.

He comes towards me, all practised elegance. I wonder if this guy's the real deal, some European vamp from some Czechoslovakian ditch come to play with the Californians, come to piss on our parade. But it's back, that part of me that keeps me sane, and flares out like the unfeeling bitch I can be at the worst times.

He's fast, dodges a punch to the head, flips me on my back quicker than anything. 'Slayer,' he breathes down on me.

'Nuh huh,' I grin back, doing the usual 'sarcasm' thing, 'although people are always confusing me for her.'

I go straight in, a kick to his stomach, it connects and he wobbles backwards. Behind me Slayer Numero deux is making slow work of his girlfriend, seems redemption's a bitch where Faith's concerned. She always was a better fighter than me, because she put her heart and blacker than black soul into it. Me? I always used to keep a perspective. Not anymore.

I go after him and he's on the floor, near the sunlight that's streaming in from the entrance. He covers his eyes and moans pathetically a little. As I get near he trips me up, sends me falling and landing badly, the all-too-familiar crack of some bone going in my arm. I jump back to my feet, gymnast style, and set my gaze on his blood-sucking behind. My arm is going to sting for hours. He won't get away.

A high kick from behind sends him back to the floor again, and as I use my arms as a counter balance I plunge my stake into his back.

Poof. No more vampy.

'Poof,' I say audibly and then look over at Faith. The female vamp has her by the throat, back against the wall. 'Oh dear,' I sigh, without a hint of sincerity. 'Faith, you wanna hand?'

Bad thing about being angry - a part of me dies, I haven't figured out which part it is yet, maybe something like innocence or compassion. But every mean red day like this one, a part of me dies. And today, stuck at some border café in the desert, is no different. I want her dead, and I figure letting the vampire do it would be such a neat way of...

Fuck it. I ram the stake into 'vampy' girl's back and poof number two. Faith's sweating, and grinning and even looking somewhat thankful.

I don't care. I never care when I get in a mood like this, when it's all about getting equal and staying that way. I came out here to win the game, make the home run, finally get her out of my head.

You know, I don't think I expected to find her so beautiful.

So it's unexpected when I reach up to her neck and run my hand through her hair. She wants me, I can see it in her eyes, and most likely she always has.

I pull her down and press her lips to mine, hard. She presses them back and it's odd, lipstick on lipstick that 'cared-for' feel as I press my tongue into her mouth, slower this time, almost delicate.

I break the kiss. Because I'm in control, because this is where I can dominate, this is where I can show the bitch that she can't fuck with me. She wants me too much; she's into my Buffy charms way too far to even think about what she's letting me do.

'You wanna?' she asks. She's breathless, and beautiful. Her hair is curling around her face, and the hazy sunlight is shining across those high cheekbones.

Yeah, I wanna, this may even be fun.

'Let's fuck,' I say neutrally.

Ten.

The motel is exactly as I expected it. Very Faith in that regard. The owner is wearing a shirt three sizes too small; it doesn't fit over his bulbous stomach.

The air smells of artificial fragrance, freshener to disguise the smell of sex and infidelity, kink and lies that tends to sit on the air in these kinds of places. Of course, I have no real idea what a 'this kind of place' is, old motels aren't exactly one of 'Buffy's favourite hang-outs'.

I pay the man quickly and stare up at his salivating form harshly. 'We'd ask you to join us,' I say, adding to the illusion. The 'I have some idea what I'm doing' illusion. 'But I'm pretty sure we'd give you a coronary. So much energy, so little time.' The last bit comes off badly, not very me at all - too coarse and forward.

He leers at me, then Faith, whom he seems to like more. 'She the girl?' he asks.

Faith put her hands on her hips, preparing some kind of comeback. Any reply she has will be old, she's become predictable to me. Easy to overcome. Defeatable.

'So, if Faith's the girl then who am I?'

'The guy,' he says, probably thinking he's such an old pro at this.

I lean in very close, hop up onto the desk and then reach for our key. He hasn't bothered to move it from the board yet. I wrap the key around my little finger and then move into him.

He looks at me, wondering if he should move his hands and just grab me, taste the goods on trial offer. Logic says, this guy's had too many assault and battery charges levelled against him to be that stupid.

I stroke his cheek and smile, languidly, lazily at him. It's a look that works well, it says patience and innocence just waiting to be taken and dirtied.

As I expected, his mouth drops open and he stares up at me, sitting neatly on his grimy desk.

'You really think I'm the guy?' I say huskily before drop down from the desk. I loop my arm around Faith as we leave the small office.

I catch Faith's look. She's impressed. Maybe she thinks I've changed. That makes her the naïve one then, but can you imagine her ever admitting that? She's too high on the death and nicotine, the sex and smoke to even think straight.

I like the look in her eyes as I jam the key into the lock. She's hungry.

And I have her. I'll win this round.

Every time I'm this way, a part of me dies.

She's playing with my breasts. I'm on my back and the fan in the centre of the room is whirring. Once, twice round and then all I can concentrate on are her hands on my breasts, seasoned, an old pro.

I love the feel of her on me. Trite as that sounds, I like the fact that she's pouring all her energy onto me. I didn't think Faith did anything for anybody. But she wants me too much, needs me.

I like the fact that she's mine. I like winning, always have.

She leans down and circles my breast with her tongue, it makes me shiver, that kind of electric feeling when something is really hitting all the right buttons, running up and down my body.

I feel myself getting wet, feel my lips part at her touch, feel that little gasp that says 'Fuck Me' better than anything else. It's been a while, but I've forgotten what it's like. Riley doesn't make me feel this way, and I was resigned that he never would.

She brushes her tongue across my nipple again. I remember, a year ago now, I used to fantasise about this. She suckles a breast, runs her thumb over the other one, eliciting that slow kind of pleasure that I really want. Kinda like being adored, if you wanted to add some window dressing.

She moans into my breast as I lay inert. I was getting wetter, slowly, the pounding in my head slowly dying. There's no frenzy about this.

I slip out of my jeans and then my panties. 'Eat me,' I say coolly, a sadistic slant to my voice. And Eat Me? I heard it in the movies.

That fan's still whirring. Sun light is coming through the window blinds and making beautiful patterns on her back. And I realise, as she reaches a hand into my folds and rubs her finger around my opening, slow at first before making her way through, up to my clit, that no one's going to be here to see me win.

I turn my head to the window. I moan, long and slow, as her fingers attack me again, and a finger runs around my entrance and then goes in a little, teasing me. Muscles tense and blood rushes. The finger slides out and she pinches my clit. I feel like I'm in some bad porn, that is, when she allows me the time to think.

She's so beautiful.

I'm going to win.

She's licking me, swirling her tongue around and pushing it in. Part of me isn't thinking, my hands are on my breasts and there's sweat running down my skin. And I'm going to come, I know that much as I begin to buck and my reasonably small frame pushes me closer to her.

She puts a calming hand on my hip, pulling me away. I need her, damn, this is all going wrong.

I don't care. These are the long hazy days when a part of me dies. These are the dead days. The inanimate days. I want her to fuck me hard.

Her tongue runs around me again, into me and around me and skilfully into the sensitive flesh. I wonder if she knew she could make me feel this way, trite and stupid and like nothing before ever mattered. She touches me a way I want to be touched, but then, I guess, she knows. We're comrades in arms after all, just minus the big old sunset to ride into.

Her tongue is back and I feel myself lose control. I wonder if I'll call her name as I come. But this was right; somehow, somewhere a chapter is closing.

She bites my clit and a mix of pleasure and pain burst through me. My world stops.

'Faith,' I whimper.

I never whimper.

I'm playing with her nipples now, straddling her, pressing myself against her stomach.

I think I get what this is now. I needed her to fuck me; I needed to have her under my control. I needed her to trust me.

I've never felt this way before; I feel the kind of hyper-kinetic Faith always seems to manage. Part of me isn't worrying, and far from being dead, part of me is alive, very alive. She knows, she has it down-the right mix of pleasure and pain, the exact time to let me feel her, the time to pull herself away. She knows I need the comfort with the roughness, she knows how much I can take. She doesn't want to treasure me, she seems to want me to feel, all of it, all of those sensitive muscles some guys don't even know exist.

I have her now. Maybe I did win this round, maybe I will come out on top this time, maybe there are too many maybes.

I lean down to lick a nipple and stare into her waiting eyes. They're beautiful, she's beautiful. Something told me I shouldn't be so intoxicated by her. I shook it off. Jumping from her, giving a last look back I pressed my lips to hers and smiled.

I went to my backpack. You don't come looking for supremacy without equipment. Every time, every damn time she's beaten me, whether it was remorse, or envy or pure hate she always came out the victor. Angel. Riley. None of it mattered.

But I was strong now, and I would walk away the winner from this.

She grinned at me as I wrapped her wrist to the bedhead with the rope. I moved quickly around to the other arm.

'B, liking the adventurous kink much?'

I stood naked in our smutty motel room. I would make her moan, I would make her cry my name and need me more than anything. All this time, all these encounters and she always came after me. She needed me. And I didn't need her.

I liked those odds.

'Adventurous? Shit,' I grin, 'I was aiming for dangerous.'

I didn't think she'd let me. Shows how much she needs me - shows how much that's always been her weakness.

It's a hot day. But the blade is cool against her skin and she moans, purrs even as she moves her body into it, feels its sharp edge against her.

I run it under her breasts, up under her chin, around the sweat-slicked flesh that is salt-taste to my tongue. I cut into her a little under a pert breast and then lick away the blood, and press my tongue over the small wound. She moans, she bucks, her skin shakes and shivers.

She's mine.

'Buffy,' she pants. 'Oh God Buffy.'

Never a sweeter sound. I was winning. She was submitting. And I was getting off on her power, I felt myself get wetter and moved a hand between my legs, just a little rub, a little taste. I almost didn't feel like me, when did pretty Buffy Summers get off on a bit of sado masochism and....

It was time to stop thinking. These were the dead days. And I was winning.

I ran the knife over her stomach and cut her again; her blood is fresh and very red. I bend down and lick it, slow, flicking my tongue against her skin.

She's moaning and the sun is setting over the hills. It's getting dark. Maybe, I wonder with a smile, when I get in these kind of moods I'm not myself at all. But I've always been like this, just one coping device after another, just one more thing to win.

I lick her stomach and press my breasts into her. 'You like that Faith?'

She doesn't respond, but pulls a little at her restraints. I have her. She wants me and she can't get me.

I run the blade along her upper thigh and she moans. I bend my lips to her and kiss the folds of skin beneath the glistening auburn pubic hair. She moans as I trail my tongue over her mound and then go lower and flick my tongue between her lips. She presses into me and I raise the knife and press it flat against her pelvic bone.

I always wondered what this would be like, God knows I'm an amateur, but I seem to get the right response. The fan is whirring overhead and with each spin I lick my tongue around in a circular motion. She tries to hold on, I can feel the tension, but she can't.

She bucks forward. My knife nearly slices into her stomach and something makes me stop, drop the knife, let it fall away. I lick her again before dropping the blade and putting my fingers to her.

I lose control. I climb up her body and land a crushing kiss on her mouth. Still bound, she moans into me. I kiss her eyes, her hair, her chin. Part of me needs her. My sex throbs and I feel myself run alive. I put a hand either side of her face and look down at her. 'Want me?'

I'm dripping sweat and I feel the heat from my cheeks.

The sun sets behind the hills. I wait for an answer.

'I want you,' she says crisply.

I kiss that bruised mouth again. Part of me is crying for her. But she wants me.

'Tell me you need me.' I say, running my mouth over sweat-bound skin. 'Tell me.'

'I need you,' she gasps as my hands find her breasts again and squeeze. She's still bleeding.

I've won. The room is dark.

We kiss like old lovers, I realise. She caresses my mouth and I run my hands through her hair.

These are the dead days.

I untied her hours ago, and now our bodies are entwined as I lick the wounds on her wrists. I remember the sound when I made her come. I lick my fingers, liking the feel of her on me.

I feel awake for the first time in years.

'Are we even?' she asks, leaning over me and trailing her fingers along my back.

'No,' her fingers go lower, her nails dancing across the small of my back, over the fine muscle and bone and my delicately tanned skin. 'We'll never be even.'

She's playing with my hair. Strands of gold against the pillow. 'Do you hate me?' she asks.

I'm drugged on the sex of her. She's like some narcotic mommy never'd let you have for fear of losing you completely.

'Yes.'

In the hot air, the fan still whirring, the night dark and foreboding there isn't room for secrets.

'Good,' she says, 'because I never want to see you again.'

I nod and then I kiss her cheek, brush my hand over her collarbone. 'Neither do I,' I whisper. 'Neither do I.'

I pull on my huge boots that I bought on discount. Sympathy makes me run a hand through her hair, maybe even pity.

Sun light shines through the slatted windows. I wonder if the motel owner listened at the door last night. I wonder if Nancy, the waitress, is serving hot morning coffee.

I wonder how many hours Giles has been waiting in his car. It pulled up at four, I remember the light shining through and marking out Faith's body as she pushed her fingers into me.

God, I sound so trite. Like I'm writing some kind of school-book. And Buffy and Faith had sex...

But I was right, right to come here. A chapter has closed. She's not going to win all the time, she can't take anything from me, she can't make me believe that one day I'll be like her.

I've walked on her wild side. I've felt that pain. I've felt her pain. Something has finished, in a smutty motel near the border. I feel very grown up, very mature. My self pity has evaporated somewhat. I feel ready to face outside.

I get to Giles in his car without even thinking. I left a note for Faith on the mirror ledge, not exactly the classiest of exits but it'd have to do. Like I say, I'm an amateur.

Giles was leaning against the bonnet of his car, staring out at the seven AM hills. 'You want to get some breakfast?'

I love that he trusts me. I love that he's not mad. 'Not here,' I say, opening the door to his car and sitting down.

'Oh, okay,' he says, eagerly. He opens the door to his side and jumps in. Reaches into the side pocket for his glasses before starting the car. 'You're all done here?

'Yeah,' I say, as we drive away and the sun rises above us. 'Finished.'

Instead of a sunset, I'm riding into a sunrise. This isn't a dead day.

Hours later, who knows, maybe even days, the other wakes from her deep sleep. She arches her back as the noon sun streams through the shutters.

Her bed is empty, and she expected it to be. She smiles to herself as she walks into the bathroom. She checks her reflection, feels the prickly heat against her skin and notes the smell of sex around her. She wears a smile, a real smile, and fears her cheeks may break. But that's the kind of girl she is, always worrying about the little things.

Faith was never one for the bigger picture.

She sees the note on the mirror ledge, folded neatly. It reminds her of the woman who had been in her bed. She decides to ignore it. She was never one for last words, never had been. And she felt a little stupid, a little like the third grader who should have put a little more thought in before playing with the big kids. She wouldn't let her win tonight, wouldn't let her have the last word - because in the daylight she had more control, not as much need.

She brushes her teeth, washes her face, yawns once or twice to feel the mouldy atmosphere on the back of her throat. Picking up the piece of paper she discards it, and it falls slowly to the floor.

She discards it on the floor and heads out of the smutty motel room and into the fresh day.

She decides she wants waffles. Waffles never did anyone any harm. And so she kicks up dust on her way to the diner.

The note fell in a little pool of water on the bathroom floor. The pink notelet paper marked 'San Michel Motel' was covered in scrawled blue ink writing that bled into the water. Once it had read, simply, 'We're even.'

The ink ran out onto the tiles as she sat in the diner and ate her waffles.

Fin