In this humidity, it feels so good to have someone cool against you. We don't use the beat-up noisy air conditioner, except when she's putting on her makeup. We lie on the trashed mattress, curled up in each other's arms, my cheek against her breasts, the coolness of her body calming me, making the dreams fade as we sleep, the curtains tightly drawn against the daylight.

She's fire, cold fire in the night, dancing in the small clubs while I watch from the corner, a bottle of beer in my hand, the dew on the bottle dripping down my hand, cold against my hand, cold like her, like my hands sliding down between her legs, rubbing up against her, her soft moans driving me on.

We met on the road. I was alone, drifting, miserable, having woken up from my dream of being wanted, being needed. She had just abandoned her lover, he switching over to the other side, the karmic cycle continuing--I went bad, he went good. We met, and I knew I'd spend my life protecting her.

Her world isn't like mine. Her sight goes beyond what I see--what I could ever see. I'm afraid of what she sees sometime. There's death, destruction, blood on the moon, fire across the world. I hold her while she tells me, her voice a low whisper, mumbling, muttering, weeping.

I was Catholic when I was a Slayer. Not practicing, but the background was there. The saints looked down at me, protecting me as I fought in the night, watching over me as I tumbled into the darkness that engulfed me. Then I was alone, and not even the saints would look at me.

But she found me. Our Lady of the flowers, of perfume, of death, of corruption, of abandoned desecrated holy beauty. And I was saved. Saved in her darkness, baptized in her sweetness, dripping down my face as my tongue slides into her.

I once was lost but now I'm found. And she found me.