1. Let Me Tell You 'Bout a Friend
As abysmal as these streets were, there was always a white dove in heels that found her little way through the alleys, trudging through the grime of this pathetic city's scum, inhaling their cancer smoke and gliding over broken glass. Her skin was as white as her dress, hair the lightest color of blonde, eyes striking blue, lips red as the queen's roses. This dainty damsel passed through this dark territory almost every day, and Bakura had taken note of her presence.

Owner of the Jank Jazz and Juice Club, Bakura had a sinister and thriving reputation among these streets. With men like him running around, it was a wonder why such frail young women would ever come around. Women with soft hands, plump cheeks, doily eyelashes. Women that were taken care of and privileged. Women like that white dove in heels.

In passing, she had always given the jazz club a glance, entranced in the soul that seemed to explode from beyond the glass. Even the pouring rain over her white umbrella couldn't drown it. It had intoxicated her so thoroughly until she, one day, finally decided to take a step inside.

She stood out like a sore thumb, her brightness blinding in comparison to the muted tones and the blackness that wallowed in the corners. Her flowery perfume, with a slight hint of mild spice, became entangled with the bitter smells of Vodka, Jagger, and Liquor. The Saxophone player on stage played a song that felt created to seduce her, and the smell of all the alcohol in the room seemed to give her just enough of a buzz, a placebo effect, perhaps.

Her eyes wandered around the club, and she saw the boarded and broken windows that made this place feel like a prison, but the strangest, most attractive type of prison she had ever seen.

Let the children come to me...

His voice was like something that spoke from her belly and crawled up to her ears. She had never listened to Jazz before, and it had become a love at first sound. It made her feel so absolutely calm, so absolutely and distinctly lulled in the darkness that slithered in the world.

Let the children come to me...

And then her eyes wandered to him; Bakura. He sat in the back, long, and lanky. How had she not noticed him before, he stood out nearly as badly as she did with that white mane of his and that red tie that seemed to pierce. It may very well have been the only bit of color in the club. And even from where she stood, she could see his long, white lashes over his black eyes. He was so terribly attractive to her, like the embodiment of her new, jazz lover. The poison smoke he let free from his lips seemed to dance about his head, inviting her over. She knew he saw her staring at him, and she felt as though he were pulling her closer, like some invisible force she couldn't deny.

The white dove made her way through the crowd of drunkards and heroine addicts, made her way through the mess of broken bottles and vomit. She felt her heart beat. Bump. Another step. Bump bump. Did she know how to breathe anymore? Bump. She felt their eyes locked. Bump bump.

Let the children come to me...

He took another puff on his cigarette, looking at her with small eyes, shoulder still rested on the bar behind his seat, leg still rested on the barstool. She was desperate for his voice.

"Jazz has many lovers; sinners, the broken hearted and the down-trotted," and another puff, "but Jazz does not love the privileged or the beautiful. Just what is a spark of light like you doing on my streets?"

She could still feel the beating of her heart against her chest. "But isn't that what makes Jazz so beautiful? So passionately melancholy? I swear, I've known it all my life." Bakura chuckled, shaking his head.

He flicked the ash onto the floor. This club was made only for trash anyways. "You, my little light, couldn't hope to understand it. It's a dark mistress, a black ghost that befriends only the dark and the hopeless. You, my dear, my white light, should never even come by here. Your purity is at risk just being in this place."

Not for one moment did she take her eyes off of him. "But what if I want to understand it? What if I wanted my purity at risk?" She seemed so desperate, it was almost hilarious.

Bakura took another long puff of his cigarette, finishing it off with a conniving smile, giving the young maid a daring look. "And just what do you call yourself, my jazz virgin?"

By now, they were extremely close in proximity, he calm and suave as ever, she shaking and out of breath. "Namine. My name is Namine."

He grinned. "A name as beautiful as your face." He came closer, his forehead nearly pressing against hers, his voice just barely a whisper. "You're shaking, Namine. Are you so sure you're ready to understand? Are you so sure you're ready to leave your world of light and enter my dark void? Are you so sure?"

Namine thought for a moment, swallowing and closing her eyes as though it gave her a bit of solitude as she thought, though it didn't help; he was still just on the other side of that blackness. She took another breath and nodded. "Y-yes."

He grinned devilishly and pulled his arm around her, pulling her even closer, which before she didn't believe could be possible. "This probably wouldn't make for the best place to initiate you into our black abyss. Perhaps someplace more... private?" Bump. Bump bump. Bump. Bump bump.

Around the dim, green-yellow light of the bar, over the hole in the floorboards where you could see the rats run to and fro, to the left down a narrow hallway, squeeze past the drunk, pants yet unzipped, as he tumbles back into the club from the restroom, and squeeze past the skinny whore and her sleazy one-night lover to enter his office. Gray light from the world above the slums tried to pry its way through the broken blinds on the windows, desk scattered with papers and beer bottles, a chair toppled over, frames crooked, some barely hanging on the nail, books laying on the floor on their open pages in Bakura's office. Namine continued to look around, found herself a small cot, and finally realized that this office was his home, his sanctuary.

He led her around him, patting the clear edge of the desk to beckon her rump to rest there. She nervously hopped up, knees together and knuckles white around the handle of her umbrella, her ears still barely able to make out the sound of that saxophone and singer in the club around the corner. He took the umbrella from her and tossed it to the floor, and she jumped and he laughed.

Her embodiment of jazz love came closer, hands groped around the tops of her thighs, sliding down to her knees and forcing them open and around his waist. She felt her balance fail, and she caught herself on a stack of papers from the other side of the desk, throwing more books onto the floor and breaking a lamp as it fell with them. The corners of his mouth seemed to reach his ears and his eyes seemed to look right through her. He reached under her white dress, tickling around her hips for her undergarments. Namine had no control here, but she would rather her heart burst from her chest than make herself a fool to run back home to the city above.

She was falling backwards, and without thinking, grabbed onto him in order to keep upright. She didn't know how to feel about the course of action, she didn't know whether to let go or not, but he was already pulling her panties from off of her and tossing them aside on the floor, wrapping an arm around her back and unbuckling his belt with the other hand. Namine swallowed again, maybe about to cry from nervousness. His lips found her neck, sucked on her like a vampire-beast and stole her breath from her. He pulled her bottom closer to him and she felt something against her skin that she had never felt before and she felt the butterflies in her belly tickle her until it was unbearable. There was no going back.

His hand went down the top of her dress, grabbed at her breasts as he took her for himself, claiming her body as his own. At this moment, she was a slave to his darkness, a servant to his demonic desires. He made her into his prostitute, made her into his woman of night. And she held onto him tightly, almost as if to beg him to go easier on her, but part of her didn't want that at all. How far would she let him go? How much of her purity would he remove in this instant?

He let her fall down onto the desk, papers flying around them, pink breasts free from behind the frills of that dress, continuing his initiation, his destruction of her innocence.

Give yourself over, pushing your consciousness deep into every atom and cell...

And she cried loudly into that abysmal office. So this is what impurity felt like? So this is was love felt like? Where had her breath gone off to? Where was this feeling all her life? Why hadn't she run to the slums years ago, run into the darkness of the city below?

Bakura stood over her, unbuttoning his waistcoat and under-shirt and throwing them to the ground. "And now, my little light, you can enter into our world. Now, you can call jazz your lover." With that, he put himself away and left for the bar, shutting the door behind and leaving her sprawled out on the desk. Alone and in a little pain. Unchivalrous, unpleasant, unloved. And she cried into the night.

Lully: Have I mentioned that I LOVE writing fics about Bakura and Namine? Well, I actually like shipping Ryou Bakura and Namine, but I had this idea and I just had to go with it. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I am writing it! Constructive criticism is always welcome!