"I feel… flaccid. Does that make sense?"

"You mean, like a limp dick?"

"I guess so. I'm a lesbian."

"Mm."

"A flaccid lesbian. Isn't that kind of funny?"

"Hon, this is a place catering for the flaccid. Limp dicks surround you. I'm one of them."

"Really? What's your story?"

"Maybe later."

"Why not now? You've got me curious."

"I'm curious, too, and you got this thing started. Tell me about your impotence, honey."

"I probably shouldn't. Might come across as pathetic." The neon light discoloured Wave's eyes as she directed a tired gaze at Rouge. "But it's unfair."

"You've had enough to drink to talk, clearly."

"Whatever. My impotence, it's external to who I am. I'm not impotent. Not as a person. I have so much more to offer, but the world makes no way for people like me. Discarded, fading people."

"It's like the world looks at us, what we've become on the outside, and it doesn't really have a place for us, anymore."

"Hmm. Exactly. That's just what I mean."

"How have you expired?"

"Well, I'm forty-something years old. My career's finished. Been finished for a long time. I'm retired, see? I didn't have much of a choice because I was getting too old for it." A shaky inhale, a pained exhale. "I left my boys to pursue another life with a woman I loved, but then maybe I'm that difficult to be with or maybe I'm that dull, because she left me as the fire died down. The paparazzi aren't keen, anymore, either."

"You say all of this like you aren't complaining bitterly."

"No complaints. I'm not that stupid. These are observations. All I am, now, is a has-been. A lonely, lethargic legend."

"You still getting tail?"

"As that's the only thing that matters. Sure, I've been screwing women half my age just to feel somehow relevant and desirable, like I'm trying to stop my death or my decline or something."

"Fuck, why not?" The bat was smiling. Her lips gleamed, plump and conniving, in neon. "I'm retired, too. When I've got hours to kill, I indulge. It's nice that my body still works like it used to, save for the aches."

"Yeah, we've got it better than some people like us. We're still hot."

"Damn right."

"Screw society for not seeing us older folks." Lowering her eyes, the swallow rested her gleaming beak in her palms, glaring at droplets of spilled alcohol. They formed some sort of constellation between her propped elbows. "I'm a genius. Remember that?"

"You were obnoxious."

"I'm a fucking genius. And I can't think of a way out. Nothing short of becoming a cyborg and getting back on my Extreme Gear."

"That'd be awesome. I'd shoot missiles out my tits."

"At this point, though, I'd be a depressed cyborg."

"Can I tell you something pathetic on my end?"

"In case it makes me feel better, sure."

"I used to own this place."

"Oh, yeah?"

"I sold it. This business was my baby and I sold it. I come here some nights to drink and watch my baby nurse from someone else. Can't even feel sad, anymore. Like it's too late, now."

"Are you as drunk as I am?"

"Possibly."

Over the music, or under it, Wave made a sympathetic sound.

Rouge's gaze drifted aside, alighting upon the other woman with some mischief.

"Do you still hang out with that creepy hedgehog guy?"

"Shadow. Yes, we're still together. He lives with me."

"Is he the love of your life, then?"

"He is. We don't have sex, though."

"Why not?"

"He doesn't work that way."

"Does it upset you?"

"That's awfully personal."

"You're under no obligation to answer any of my questions. And you brought it up, first."

"I suppose." The bat closed her normally aquamarine, now neon-stained eyes. "Sometimes, it hurts."

"Do you resent him?"

"He gives me more than I can say."

"But does it make you angry, because of how much it hurts?"

"He's kept me from some sort of edge, over the years. I can't begrudge him for being himself."

"I think you're talking shit."

"You're free to think whatever you want."

The swallow nodded into her hands. "I'm at risk of being an asshole and social censure, but I suppose that's the price of being one's own person."

There was a moment of silence.

"Wanna take me home?"

"I was thinking about it. But are you offering because you pity me, or because you pity yourself?"

"Both, actually."

"Heh. Nice."

"Am I getting fat?"

Rouge set the magazine down and admired Wave from her place by the pool.

"Because I don't want to believe it, but I suspect it's true. I suspect I am. And I'm not dumb enough to pretend. Or am I?"

"Honey."

The swallow was standing over the water, gazing down at her reflection, rippling and distorted in blue.

The bat understood how that felt. "You're beautiful," she murmured and she meant it.

"Yeah. But you have crappy eyesight."

"That isn't my fault."

"It's not."

A womanly grunt, mildly impatient, somewhat amused, faintly sad.

Fingers undid the towel that had been tied about a softening waistline, allowing fabric to slip down, falling to pile about feet and ankles, freeing tail feathers. A backwards glance. "You're beautiful, too, by the way."

"Thanks, honey."

They smiled.

Wave drew Rouge closer, sharing her heat.

A gentle, husky chuckle permeated the dark stillness.

"You're awake?"

"Yes, and you might as well be an owl. You hardly sleep."

"My head's always busy. I have noisy thoughts."

"I've noticed. You're a little Byronic, sometimes. It's sexy but troubling." The bat nestled her hand deeper into a feathery bosom, clasping a fistful of plumage. "Maybe I can distract you, again. For a little while." What went unsaid was, "And maybe I can distract myself."

The swallow found comfort in the kisses that pried her beak apart.

"I'm not asking you to love me, you know."

"I know."

"Sure as hell wasn't my intent."

"Again, I know."

"But you already do. Me, too."

It had been a confession cried out in ecstasy by one, then murmured in agony by the other.

"So, I just… I figure, why not? Why don't we? Let's be girlfriends. Let's move in together. Let's grow old."

"We can't."

"Why can't we?"

"We won't. Because I'm too fucked up for that and maybe you are, too."

There was a clock mounted on the wall. It ticked noisily, obtrusively, in the pause. Counting the meaningful seconds where the women simmered in the room of a hotel, the open window offering no relief in the humidity. There were the heady scents of sweat, cologne, and perfume, cloying together yet distinctly apart.

"I'm flaccid. I'm soft. God, I hate being female, sometimes. Maybe that's it. Maybe I can blame it on biology. Or on creation."

"You shouldn't. Womanhood isn't a symptom of weakness."

"Of course not, but our shelf life is short and there's this anticipation, this… expectation," Wave hissed through her clenched beak, "of weakness. Of decay. We're pretty, hopefully, but even the ugly ones eventually fade into unimportance, if they were ever important to someone, sometime, in a superficial world. We all fade, eventually. We reach that point in our own time, when we aren't wanted, anymore. And I hate it when you look at me and you realise I'm not only flaccid, but I'm soft. That my heart is in your teeth. That you can hurt me."

"You want us to last."

"You're about to leave but I don't want you to go. You're the only way I can stay fresh. Wanted. Relevant. Potent. Meaningful. You keep the rot at bay. Not like the women half my age. Because it doesn't matter if I'm getting old, when I'm with you. You're getting old with me, assuming you stay. Isn't that kinda nice?"

"We'll just fade, together."

"Right. And that's ultimately what most people want, isn't it? Someone to grow old with. Someone to be there, loving us, as we die. Someone to be our equal."

"You're making this difficult."

"Shadow doesn't age. You told me that, once. Doesn't that break your heart? He's beyond you."

Rouge ground her forehead into her palm, to somehow destroy this headache. But the pain in her chest would not be soothed.

"I do age. I'll depart, just like you will. And I'll have sex with you. I know I tend to assume a lot of things but based on the evidence, I do think that I'll ultimately hurt you less. But you have to stay. I'm inviting you."

"I don't commit."

"And I'm not some hopeless romantic. So, be my guest. Stay. Leave. Either way, I won't beg you to change your mind." The swallow's lithe figure was draped over a chair in the corner of the room, closest to the sun streaming in. "This isn't some womanly plea for validation or mercy or whatever. But I love you and you love me. I want you but you're so damn terrified of letting me keep you."

"I'm sorry for being the way I am. I'm the product of my choices and my experiences and my defects and my traumas." The bat's tanned skin seemed to glow, but it was flawed.

"Oh, sure, if you wanna put it that way. Like there's really no free will. Like we're just puppets orchestrated by circumstances."

"You're being a dick."

"You, too. Go, if that's what you want, or what you think you want, or if that's all you can do. But I'm gonna make you feel like shit after you've gone. Because I'm in pain."

Suddenly gripped with anger, Rouge lowered her hand, exposing a sneer. It quickly turned into a grimace when she saw the glimmer of a tear in Wave's eye.

The swallow kept her face turned toward the window. She was lit up. Painted warm and soft and naked.

"I am getting old. I am set in my ways. This old bitch doesn't learn new tricks." The bat raised her hand again and ran her fingernails through her hair, going silver in places. Her shoulders were bent, rigid, putting stress on her back. "I can't commit. Or maybe I can. I won't even try. I don't know how. I don't know if I could."

"You're afraid of the delight."

"And the disappointment."

"Even then, you reserved the greater extent of your love for him, didn't you?"

"It doesn't… Oh."

"You are committed. You're committed to him. I'm not him. And you're hurting."

"It's fine, hon. Well, no, it's not. But it's over. That's sometimes as close to fine as shit can get."

Shadow watches Rouge light another cigarette. Worried. Knowing that she's left out a lot of what happened between her and the mysterious woman. He is aware of his ignorance as to many things.

"But, god, I do miss her."