Slayers Do It Better
What we had nobody really expected to last. I mean, yes, Willow was definitely someone I would consider hot but, after a while, dead ex-girlfriend baggage became a little too heavy to handle. In my more egotistical moments - and there were plenty - I liked to think I helped the healing process along.
Neither of us was looking for love so we were adult about it and enjoyed the sex for what it was. Besides, we really didn't have anything in common except that we both liked women. And Willow never seemed too comfortable with that fact, always overly defining everything in relation to her gayness.
I guess, for me, it was never an issue. Just a part of who I was, never something that I'd thought twice about or struggled with internally. Once I saw Gina Gershon in Bound, there was no other option. Maybe I was almost arrogant in my own self-acceptance - I think Willow was slightly scared, perhaps in awe of how little it mattered to me if people stared at us making out.
Certain people are, and always will be, publicly uptight about their sexuality. From what Willow told me about the past, she and Tara were quite the adorable couple but only behind closed doors. In public they shared secret smiles and shy glances. If there was a Kama Sutra of hand-holding, they sure wrote it. They had a cat, herbal tea, cable-knit sweaters, and comforting hugs. That wasn't for me, and I didn't apologise for it. I'd always been the type to go for what I wanted and I didn't care how many toes got trodden on.
Hasn't won me many friends, I'd be the first to admit.
When Faith arrived, I knew she was like me. And clearly bi. At the time, I was too wrapped up in the thrill of the chase with Willow and Faith was involved in an ambiguous way with Buffy then unambiguously with Wood.
It wasn't until later, after Sunnydale was destroyed, that we were all left thinking, "Well, what now?" I mean, how exactly do you follow up the battle to end all battles? The connections we'd all made prior to that seemed to have lost their appeal - as if we saw them for what they were: desperate attempts to convince ourselves that we were still alive. In the end, the thing that had brought us together had now pushed us apart.
A couple of the girls went home, to their families. I'd had plans before all of this - college fund, job in daddy's firm, upscale apartment - but they were all kind of hollow now. I was a fully fledged Slayer but I wasn't sure where to go, what to do, or how to wield this new power. During the battle I 'd operated on instinct, we all had, but in the dust and daylight that was all that was left of Sunnydale, I was uncertain.
I remember Buffy had this strange smile on her face and she looked inexplicably younger. I guess she was only a few years older than me but she always seemed so serious, so distant.
The first few nights we spent in a motel about thirty miles north of Sunnydale. A gaggle of bruised and battered girls and guys pulling up in a school bus must've been a weird sight for the clerk. For days most of the us sat in our rooms pigging out on ice cream and watching television while we healed.
I, on the other hand, was prowling and restless. I had this power coursing through me and nowhere to channel it. Willow was busy with Giles, trying to contact what was left of the Watcher's Council. On the fifth day, Buffy took off and she didn't come back. Giles said she needed time to enjoy her freedom and left it at that. Wood went a few days later and nobody seemed to notice, still dazed and lethargic.
Faith spent all her time outside, chain smoking until night fell and pretty much no one had the guts to approach her. I was more than a little intrigued by her - part of the reason I backed her up when it came to the leadership crunch, the other part being that, for all her amazing Slayertude, Buffy was disappointingly a bit of a wimp. Whereas Faith projected strength, even if it was mostly bravado. I could relate to that.
I think girls mainly irritated her, and me more than most because I was loud and wasn't afraid to voice my opinion, particularly when it wasn't asked for. So one afternoon I did approach her, expecting her to tell me to get lost. She didn't but she didn't acknowledge me either, just continued taking draws on her cigarette and squinting into the middle distance.
"Hey," I said, shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans. "So, any ideas what you're gonna do? In the future, I mean. Now that Willow's expunged your records."
"She did?" Surprise was evident in Faith's voice, and her eyebrows knitted together.
"I thought you knew," I said, equally surprised.
Faith just shrugged.
It made me wonder what exactly happened between Faith and Willow. All I knew was that Faith went mental or something a few years back but nobody wanted to divulge any more than that, which only appealed to my curiosity further.
"She doesn't hate you."
"I guess not," Faith muttered in a non-committal tone. She dropped the cigarette and ground it under her heel.
I studied her, taking in the dark profile, the unkempt hair that reached halfway down her back in straggly waves. There was a barbed wire tattoo that circled her upper arm and she was overly fond of leather pants, even in this Californian heat.
"What was prison like?" I asked her suddenly, tactlessly.
She turned to look at me, really look at me, her shoulder leaning against the stucco wall, and all I could think about was Corky in 'Bound' and how Faith was exactly the same archetype. Just needed a biker jacket. That train of thought wasn't good because I was a real sucker for bad girls.
Faith tilted her head, mascara-heavy lids half closed as she stared at me. "Better run back to your girlfriend. Won't she be wondering where you are?" There was something about the way Faith said 'girlfriend' that made it sound like a dirty word.
Impulsively, I took a step towards her, squaring up to her. "We're not girlfriends. It's just recreational sex."
"Right," Faith smirked and I really just wanted to wipe it off her face.
That was why I kissed her. At least, that was my motivation at first. I didn 't really expect her to kiss me back. Which she did, hard. She pushed me roughly back against the wall, arms braced on either side of my head, allowing me no avenue of escape. As if I wanted to.
I reached out, my hands moving over her shoulders and back, feeling the strength of skin and muscle. So different to Willow who was lanky and thin and almost delicate. Sometimes I was worried that I'd hurt her, being overeager, but there was no danger of that with Faith.
Before I knew it, she was unbuttoning my jeans, jamming her hand down my underpants, fingers sliding against my sensitive flesh. Already, I was startlingly soaking wet and her fingers glided easily inside. With her free arm, she reached around me, scooping me up. My legs hooked around her waist and she pinned me with her hips as she fucked me - God, that's what is was - against the wall.
I'd never felt so uncomfortable, so sleazy, so turned on as I did right then with the hard wall digging into my back. As her fingers drove into me, she shoved her tongue into my mouth, and I swear she almost licked the back of my throat.
My hands wandered around to her breasts, and I soon found her nipples, torturing them as her thumb raked over my clit.
I was thrusting against her, like I wasn't even in possession of myself, my body reacting purely to her and the things she was doing to me. Within moments I came hard, clinging onto her like my life depended upon it.
She eased me down onto my wobbling legs and I gripped her arm to steady myself momentarily.
Our eyes met. "I want to do to you what you just did to me," I said and my voice was surprisingly strong and even, considering my present state.
Faith glanced around the deserted forecourt. "Not here." She nodded towards her room.
Inside, the curtains were drawn, the blankets pulled back on the bed. Faith' s clothes were strewn on the floor leading to the bathroom.
Our eyes never left each other as we stripped off, quickly discarding our clothing and dumping it on the floor with the rest of the mess. It took me all of two seconds to cross the room. I pushed her down on the bed, climbing on top, kissing her forcefully like she'd kissed me.
Her hands were all over me and I knew that if I didn't press my advantage then she'd take me again. So I slid down between her legs and showed her what a pierced tongue could do.
Later that day, when the last hour of daylight streamed through the thin drapes, we lay in bed together - Faith smoking and me watching shapes on the ceiling. The entire room reeked of sex. My skin felt deliciously covered in her. I wondered idly if Willow would be able to tell and felt only slightly guilty. But then, we weren't in love. I wasn't Tara. I was Kennedy who Willow had kept at arm's length because she was so scared of wanting intimacy when she was supposed to be grieving. It was about relinquishing control too. She needed someone to take that from her so I did with no judgements.
Now I felt kind of redundant - Willow was stronger now. She didn't need me.
"When you decide what you want to do, after here I mean. Maybe I could come too?" I said conversationally. My hand toyed idly with the bed sheets.
There was a long pause before Faith looked at me, the cigarette smouldering between her fingers that tasted of me. "C'mon, Kennedy. You know that wouldn 't work out."
"I wasn't proposing marriage." I smiled as my hand moved to her bare stomach and drifted downwards.
She pushed my hand away. "And I was just blowing off steam."
With that, she sat up and reached for her clothes.
If she heard the soft "bitch" that escaped under my breath, she didn't make it obvious, just continued pulling on her leather pants. Leaving the cigarette in the ashtray beside the bed, she padded towards the bathroom.
"Get dressed and shut the door behind you when you leave, okay?" Faith said, not looking back and closed the bathroom door.