Notorious Miss

"You've reached Lilah. feel free to leave me a message, though I don't guarantee I will care enough to call you back."

*beep*

As bright as a star going nova, she burns. This is how Lilah spends her first year in Hell. She likes the burn- the way her skin feels like it is alight and there is fire everywhere and she feels like she is glowing. The warmth makes her forget the chill that had invaded during her last year on earth, and for the first time in her life she is content just to be.

Hot enough to burn away memory, she smolders. This is how Lilah spends her second year in hell. She thinks about the things she knew and knows that she's losing most of what she had as it fades to ash. She can see now that it all slipped away when she let Wesley kiss her. The one she couldn't walk away from and gradually she starts to forget.

Damp and shivering she opens her eyes and finds herself somewhere cold and with the chill come the memories and the pain. This is how Lilah begins her third year in hell.

Hell’s sense of humor had obviously reared its ugly head.

She breathed unevenly, bending a knee and sliding a wet soapy leg over the edge of the tub which lifted her hips into his touch as she sought his lips.

Continued from here.

There was a rawhide chew toy for the nosy dog, and a decent amount of room for him to run around where they wouldn't scandalize him. She'd thought ahead.

She watched Ranger from the doorway for a moment when she came back marveling over the fact that he'd chosen her. Then she cleared her throat, she held a bottle of champagne in one hand and two glasses in the other.

She was wearing the scrap of blue fabric tied at her hips and absolutely nothing else.

Things had been quiet, strained, since their talk a few days before and while it put a little bit of a damper on things she refused to let it ruin the holiday.

Which was why she'd invited him for dinner which she'd set up with candles and champagne, and chocolate dipped strawberries.

She waited for him, hoping he came, and sipped a glass of the bubbly in her lingerie and a robe.

She pushed the door closed and then turned on the blow dryer to dry her hair. That done she slipped on her robe, put on a touch of gloss and then put the necklace from Ranger on in place of her choker.

She surveyed herself in the mirror, from her mostly bare face to her naked throat and over the necklace, to her breasts and lower to where she was newly waxed and nearly bare. She was a little surprised he hadn't noticed.

She bit her lip and then opened the door, leaning against the frame her robe falling open, "Your gift is in the blue box."

She'd managed to beat Ranger back to his room, having bogarted his spare key to let herself in.

She'd seen the birthday boy, been told she was beautiful (in her workout clothes), found a therapist for Harley and (maybe) made a friend and waved at Cybil as she drgged Johns out of the party no doubt in a hurry to get the denim clad cowboy back to their room.

It had been a good night, but not good enough to make her feel less trepidatious as she got into the costume she'd bought for her night with Ranger.

She'd have to explain to him, unless she pulled off not being nervous. The drinks at the party had helped. But still she was tense and sort of jittery while she perched on the back of his couch and waited.

The last time she'd done this things hadn't exactly gone very well.

[ooc: Imagine it's more school girl nerd than paperboy. I liked the shorts and suspenders. And her hair is in braids.]

[ooc: Stolen from buy_me_beer. Sort of freaked out by the accuracy of the made up birthdate.]

Lets101 Quizzes - Fun Quizzes

You are The Devil

Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession

The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.

Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Continued from here.

She stripped of her shirt dropping it to the floor and kicked off her shoes.

Continued from this thread here.

If you would prefer to skip the rated material go straight here.

The door to his room closed behind them with an audible snap.

Continued from here.

She'd picked a door at random, making sure the light wasn't on and upon opening the door found a gypsy themed room. All rich wall hangings, candles and incense. An elaborately carved four poster bed occupied the lions share of the space, the rest was strew with gauzy veils and cushions.

She turned, backing into the room with Kilrenko in tow.

"This will do just fine."

Title: damnation, with veil.
Rating: PG-13

Summary: Sometimes hell isn't what you expect it to be.

Once more, my eyes trail over my body looking for imperfections. It's like looking for a flaw in the Mona Lisa. There's none. I am the perfect bride, with the perfect wedding on the perfect day. I have worn my hair up, because that is his preference, twisted into a tight coil that leaves my throat bare. He likes the vulnerability of it. The feeling of trust he thinks I must have in him to expose myself in that way.

Nature compressed every major pathway of life into a narrow structure engineered for maximal mobility and made us weak. He finds pleasure in my weakness, my pulse fluttering beneath his fingertips, his lips against my throat inhaling my nakedness because he thinks he has none. Except me, I make him weak.

I have nothing but contempt for his blindness.

I take the time to pin my veil in place. The pale gauzy white stands out against my hair dark as it curls in soft wisps around the veil. My bouquet is a dense mass of perfect yellow roses, the symbol for freedom and sympathy.

Call it passive defiance. He hates yellow. I know this the same way I know he likes his manhattans dry and sex that lasts for days.

He said he wanted me to have everything my heart desired, but since he cannot love me I have settled for the perfect fairytale wedding day. I always dreamed of yellow flowers when I was a child so I would have them. He insisted. It pleases him to make me happy. I bite my lip to keep from laughing. Happy would be marrying a man who loved me. I smooth the front of my dress just as Fred comes to tell me it's time.

She says I look perfect, but her smile is brittle and false. She is picturing herself in my place but the picture is flawed.

This is perfect. I am perfect, because he wants me to be.

Picture perfect down to the last detail, like the paper dolls my mother made me when I was a girl. Every edge meticulously cut out. Every dress, every curl every face drawn carefully on whatever scraps she could find so I had someone I could play with. Paper children in vivid colors for her cardboard child dressed in grey.

That's what I am. A cardboard woman turned into real flesh by a man of flesh. Built in his image of womanhood. I am amazed at how alive I look smiling in the mirror, the perfect bride on her wedding day.

I am not a woman he could love. It isn’t a secret. But he wants me and that will have to be enough. I force my eyes to brighten my stance to change. I will be a happy bride.

The smile was what got him in the end I think. Like I have a secret, the way my smile changes, it can be happy, mocking; sometimes he says it looks sad. At night in bed he say it is filled with secrets that he wants to discover day after day. I told him I have no secrets, only truths.

My smile was sad then, but I said yes when he asked me to marry him. I said yes and regretted it, because it means someday he'll know what it is he married; if he doesn’t already.

I will make him hate me, but until then I will be his. I form my mouth around the words, love, honor, and obey.

For one second, I allow myself to forget that I am not the woman he loves. For one brief second I look into his eyes and cannot fathom the betrayal I will make him suffer.

I wonder if this is why women cry at their weddings.

Title: Maybe it was a Tuesday
Rating: R

Summary: Who cares what day something she can't define started; he wouldn't and that's all that matters.

Lilah thinks, but is not certain, that this thing between them began on a Wednesday. If she asked Wes he would tell her it was Tuesday. They would disagree. Perhaps even argue. She'd show him the photos taken by Wolfram and Hart security, date and time stamped the night he'd kissed her at the door rather than sending her away.

She'd eventually have to conceed probably in bed later with him above her looking down with that wicked smile that seemed to be hers alone. She finds that she'll agree with just about anything when he looks at her like that so she'll nod even though she thinks it may have started long before the first time they ended up in bed together and neither of them had noticed.

She thinks it may have started a month earlier in a bar, or when she gave him the book. Or maybe it started the night Justine cut his throat and left him with nothing because she isn't always convinced it has anything to do with her except that she was there when his friends weren't.

She thinks that may have been a Wednesday too; but she doesn't ask.

It's not a relationship, Lilah reminds herself, it's only sex, nothing more. The other thing, the feeling she can't quite describe, she isn't sure when that began. But who cares what day something she can't define started; he wouldn't and that's all that matters most nights.

***
It was actually a Monday the first time they had sex, the clock hovering at midnight for what seemed like an eternity. His frustration at doing nothing was beginning to show, she realised it when he opened the door and didn't close it in her face. He practically vibrated with pent-up energy each time they met and she was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. So, really, was it any wonder that when her finger grazed the slowly healing scar he'd grabbed her wrist and pulled her into his apartment and kissed her pressed fully against the wall with the door still hanging open so any one could see.

If he was surprised to find his tongue against her lips and his hands beneath her shirt, he hid it well. If he was shocked that she didn't push him away there was no trace of it in his kiss. Se tells herself it was no more than she expected to happen eventually. She wonders if he'd get her to admit it was something she'd wanted for herself rather than simply a way to persuade him to come work for her. If she asked him about it she wonders if he'd be honest and tell her he'd long known it was just a matter of time.

Of course, she doesn't ask. After all, they don't really talk and she isn't sure she wants to know the answer anyway.

***
Three months into it they've developed a pattern - meet, screw, then leave. Despite the lack of conversation, Lilah almost starts to believe there's more to it than just sex. A notion quickly dispelled the first time she asks him to stay the night in a quiet moment of weakness when her arms won't let go. She asks in a half whisper for him not to leave and miraculously he doesn't.

She's smart enough to know it wasn't about her, it was about finding Angel, about walking away from his old friends when he knew he could have stayed. It was about being alone for the first time since he lay in his own blood knowing he was going to die. It was about needing a connection with anyone, even her, that lasted more than a moment.

She wakes up alone the next morning, and as she starts a pot of coffee she tries not to picture him sneaking from her apartment in the dead of night.

Of course, she fails, and so she doesn't ask him to stay again.

***
It has been almost six months since the first time they shared a bed when they share a bed for the last time. It is the first good nights sleep either has had in weeks. Lilah can't help comparing it to the sleepless nights since after the Beast attacked Wolfram and Hart and she's found himself worrying, not about the impending apocylypse or her own life, but about him.

The others are shocked when she shows up, but it is no less than he expected, she can see it on his face when he catches her in the sewers. He tries and fails, to choose Angel and the team over her; fails even more spectacularly to choose her over them and she calls him on it. Calls him a bastard for making her weak. They both return to the Hyperion and she pretends she doesn't see the looks on the teams faces, she should be concerned about their feelings, but she isn't. All that matters is that this time he asked her to come with him.

She hates herself a little for how happy that makes her. This time he's the one who asks, in a half whisper, so she stays. Later with him spooned against her back with his arm around her waist she wearily wonders how long it will last and if he'll still be there in the morning.

He is, and despite the neverending night and Angelus three floors below she's happy for the first time in a long while. They kiss each other awake and she never imagines it will be the last time.

***
He tries to burn her contract and she can't say what she really wants to, can't fall into his arms and beg him not to forget when she knows he won't have a choice. They gave that choice to Angel and he made it for all of them. In fact she doesn't cry until later, sitting in a dark office waiting for Angel to return, she bawls until her eyes are red and her throat is sore.

She doesn't know what day it is but if she asked Wes she thinks he'd tell her it was a Tuesday.