There's an implicit age limit on nightclubbing, and Lilah knows she's over it. There's no way, with her $1500 suit and $100 manicure, that she belongs here, calmly sipping her martini —
Sweet vermouth, vodka, twist of lemon zest, stirred, please.
— While people writhe to a computerized drumbeat.
She knows she's at least five years older than the oldest clubber in here, and she occasionally wonders how long it'll be before she throws on a wig and becomes the newest disco granny.
But the hunt —
the cunt
— Demands that she keep returning here, on the prowl again and again, her cat eyes and cat legs slinking through the refuse of youth.
And there she is.
Meow
It's been a few weeks since she showed Wesley this place, and it's been a few weeks more since she's come back — keeping up appearances in-between showing Wesley the delights of the flesh.
Lilah strolls merrily, merrily, merrily along, down to the main bar, her heels clicking on the concrete floor along with the beat. Two years spent on the pageant circuit, learning how to walk just right, and all their heads still turn as she strolls by.
It's nice to see she still has it.
She has eyes only for one girl this time, the girl with the red hair and the chip on her shoulder, the girl hunched over a bottle of beer —
The cheapest possible, of course
— and refusing to acknowledge anything around her while her eyes dart around in paranoia.
For shame. That's what got her into trouble last time.
But there are no vampires here — at least, none that Lilah has invited — and the only person Justine would have to worry about is currently...elsewhere.
What do you give the man who can easily achieve anything his heart desires?
The one thing he won't let himself have.
Lilah loves rolling that name on her tongue, repeating it over and over. Just-ine. Just-eeen. So close to Justice but hitting just off the target.
Justine. Feminized version of Justin. French: Just or true.
And it still makes Lilah smirk.
She tosses back the last of her martini, her tongue twisting over the spiral of lemon, and sidles, stalks, slinks, and other s-verbs her way up to the bar, right next to Never-Quite-Just-ine, handing the bartender the empty glass and an order to refill just how she likes it.
She buys a bottle of beer for her compatriot in villainy, and makes sure that it's a bit more upmarket than what she's drinking now. When Justine looks at her, she smiles, effortlessly, the kind of smile you only ever saw on silver screens and Bogart's arm.
"Take it," she purrs, just loud enough to be heard over the relentless beat. "As a compliment for doing what, well..." She pauses, looks down, times her bashfulness just enough to be endearing and not artificial. "Let's just say that I know a few people who owe you a favor for getting rid of Tall, Dark, and Daylight-deprived."
Justine's hand clenches on the neck of the bottle. "It wasn't me," she says. "It was all Con — Stephen's idea."
That's something to tuck into her mental Rolodex. But, for now, it's lazy smiles and thankful gestures and never mentioning the boy's name again. Lilah sips at her drink, gestures to the pseudo-disaffected youth imitating the latest MTV move and asks, so nonchalantly that you might just think it's not pre-planned, "Do you want to get out of here?"
Justine's still suspicious, and Lilah figured she would be. "I've got a hotel room," she says, pulling out the keycard with a practiced flick. "Nothing big, but you can shower, sleep, whatever it is you think is appropriate when a large law firm picks up the tab." She slides the card on the bartop over to her.
Justine picks up the card and glances at it, raising an eyebrow slightly. "The Westin Bonaventure?" she says. "That's nothing big?"
Lilah's half-smile would launch a thousand ships in her name. "Well, it's not a suite."
The room is bigger than any squat, warehouse, or ten-dollar motel Justine's stayed at in the past five years. Lilah knows this because she pays people to find these things out, and once Justine's left the club, she goes to the Westin Bonaventure, watching the other woman intently. Justine goes into the elevator, and Lilah goes to the bar, her smile sharp and slick when she walks in and sits at an occupied table.
Wesley is drinking Scotch, the way all men who think they are doomed drink Scotch. He mulls over it like all of his troubles are at the bottom of the glass, ready to be ingested with that final swallow. He looks up when Lilah sits, and quickly tips the glass back. "So," he says. "Any particular reason you invited me here?"
Her smile grows sharper, and she holds up a keycard. "Order me a drink," she says, looking straight at him. "Order me a drink, sit with me while I drink it, and then go up to this room."
He reaches over to grasp the keycard. "Isn't it a little late in the game for hotel assignations?"
Her eyebrow arches slightly. "I didn't say I'd be joining you."
They kiss at the elevator and she watches him ascend before walking into another. She looks up at the ceiling as it ascends, watching the roof grow closer and closer before the elevator breaks free, revealing all of Los Angeles to her.
Her smile must be why lawyers are called sharks and she takes out a third keycard just as the elevator doors open. It's only a few doors down, and she stops before she opens the door.
She can hear the water running, and she quickly opens it, stepping into the semi-darkened hotel room. There are clothes lying on the floor and someone in the shower. Lilah gingerly picks up the faded jeans and rummages through the pockets just to kill some time. She finds a wallet, smiles as she cups it in her hand, and goes to the window.
The curtains are closed, and she opens them, admiring the night sky for a few seconds before looking towards the building.
The curtains are open in the room across from the elevator shaft, and as she looks over, she sees him standing there, holding a pair of binoculars, just like her note specified.
She smiles, waves, and sits at the table to go through Justine's wallet.
When the water is turned off and the bathroom door is opened, Lilah is flipping through business cards.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Justine says, wrapping the towel around her.
Lilah holds up a card. "Did you know they're demon owned and operated? Well, obviously you would, being that you can't exactly disguise a K'lanktha demon, but they have been known to hire humans to mind the store during their mating rituals..."
Justine glares at her, but Lilah isn't paying attention, reshuffling the cards and putting them back into the wallet, smiling politely as she hands it back to its rightful owner. "I got bored."
Justine takes the wallet, glaring at Lilah with suspicion, and quickly looks down to rifle through it.
"I don't think I'd be particularly interested in twenty bucks and a picture of your dead sister, but, by all means, check for yourself."
Justine puts it down and stares at her, as if a single look could explain her. "What are you doing here?" she asks again.
Lilah smiles and stands, her body perfectly poised and posed. "At the club, when I said that there would be a lot of people who owe you favors..." She tilts her head slightly and smiles. "I might be one of those people."
Justine scoffs. "What, so Wolfram & Hart think 'Yay, she got rid of Angel, let's give her a hotel room and one of our lawyers to fuck'?"
Lilah's tongue slips across her top lip in a supposedly unconscious manner. "If you want to believe that, go ahead, but Wolfram & Hart keep this room permanently for any guests — as far as they know, you're just another client."
Justine shakes her head. "So why am I here?"
Lilah moves towards her, a step at a time, slowly, carefully, perfectly. "Because, like I said," she says, her voice low as she moves in closer. "I. Owe. You. A. Favor."
Each word is accented by a step, and when she gets to "favor," Lilah is barely an inch away from Justine. She's looking at the other woman with the same poise and confidence that she looks at everyone with, but there's that hint of sex that she only reserves for the few and in-between. And, nowadays, the only one who normally gets that look is right across the way, his hands clutching binoculars, his eyes never straying.
It doesn't take long for Justine to succumb. Not many can resist Lilah Morgan when she's on the prowl. The towel slips, the eyes close, and Lilah moves in for the kill.
The note sat on top of the binoculars.
The note said "Watch."
And, thankfully, that's all Wesley is able to do. In between the brief interruptions when elevators pass by, blocking the views, he watches, hands gripped tightly around the binoculars.
He knows he could easily watch without them. But it's the closeness that he wants. Each movement. Each expression. Each thrust recorded in his mind.
She's effortless in her movements, pushing Justine up against the window, breasts and cunt and body against the glass as Lilah dips down and around and in. Justine's mouth is open and Wesley thinks he can almost hear her moans, and one hand slips down to stroke the bulge in his jeans.
Lilah's mouth is fixed on Justine's neck and she occasionally steals glances up and towards him. Each time she does that, she gets more wild, a hand cupping a breast, fingers pinching a nipple, a hand between her legs, fingers obviously inside.
Justine's been bucking and moaning and coming over and over, her head lolling back onto Lilah's shoulder, her hands clutching the curtains tightly, her legs spread wide. Finally, she slumps to the ground, forehead pressed against the glass, her body shaking with a final orgasm as Lilah releases her, a self-satisfied grin on her face.
She leaves the window for a second, just long enough to grab a pillow to place under Justine's head. Wesley is about to look away — for the first time in what feels like hours — when Lilah holds up a sheet of paper.
Written on it, in thick black block letters:
SHE'S ALL YOURS.
This Angel/Buffy the Vampire Slayer story was written by Kate Bolin. If you liked it, there's plenty more at http://www.dymphna.net/fanfic/. And you can feedback her at dymphna@dymphna.net.