It had been nine days since the Supreme had returned to her ravaged Academy, and just as long since she'd had any contact with the Coven. I'd allowed my desire to be spoiled and moulded by Fiona to prevent me from attempting to fix what I'd essentially destroyed. I returned to the hotel and nervously paced outside the room, unsure what to expect or what to say. I could feel the other girl's dislike from me through the door, so what weight were they going to give my words? Cordelia opened the door, rapidly. 'Will you just come inside already? Your anxiety's singing in my head.'

'No, actually,' I said, taking her hand. 'Can we speak out here? I don't wanna see the others.'

Cordelia sighed. 'You're being silly.' She stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind her, folding her arms. 'There's no reason to avoid them.'

'I'm not avoiding them, I just don't want to argue right now.'

'Fine. What's going on?'

'You have to see Fiona.'

'I've nothing to say to her,' Delia spat, immediately.

'I'm not playing piggy in the middle between you two. I just came to say that I'm sorry for whatever hand I had in this and that it's between you two now. You should both just grow up and do what's best for the Coven.' Delia eyed me with a decidedly displeased stare and pursed her lips. 'It isn't fair that everyone should miss out on having the protection of their Supreme because she spat her milk out and embarrassed you.'

'This has nothing to do with you, Acantha. I- I appreciate you trying to fix this but even if I did go talk to her it wouldn't change anything. You- you don't know my mother,' she sighed.

'She said she felt there was never any common ground between the two of you. She regrets that, Delia. She knows she's wrong but doesn't want to lose face. She knows eventually you're going to need her for something long before she'll admit she needs anything from you.'

'She said that to you?'

I shrugged. 'She said some of it, yeah. The rest she projected, I guess.' Delia looked at the ground. 'I can't deal with feeling like I came in from nowhere and stole the queen of the witches from everyone- especially her own daughter.'

'No, sweetheart, that's not what it is. Fiona Goode does exactly what Fiona Goode wants to do and she always has. If she wanted to be with the Coven she would be here. It's not your doing. She just finds ways to keep me out of her way for a while and she can be a little dramatic.' She rolled her eyes.

'Will you talk to her?'

'I don't know. I'll think about it.'

'Thanks,' I said, breathing a little easier.

'How are you?' Delia asked, tucking her hair behind her ear.

'I'm fine.' I blinked for a moment into the silence that was building around us.

'Look, I hope you know that you're still part of this Coven.'

'Yeah, as far as the law states.'

'No, as far as I state.' She sighed. 'I'm sorry that I maybe didn't believe you or defend you as readily as I would've the other girls. It was wrong of me to think, even for an instance, that you would have done something like that, but in my defence you haven't been all that game for playing ball with us since you arrived. Maybe it clouded my judgement, but it's something we need to address if you decide to return, regardless.'

'I can't come back, Delia.' I paused, shuffling my feet. 'I never felt it. You know, the instant bond and feeling of belonging I've heard so much about from other witches. The feeling of being able to be free and like-minded and all the other bullshit- it wasn't there. Those girls hate me, and fair enough. I don't care. I just don't want to feel censored or restricted because I'm being judged. I don't want to be instantly accused of arson because I didn't want to spend an evening giving them pedicures and curling my hair. It's just not going to work. It never felt like home to me.'

'I'll talk to them, Acantha. They're clique-y. They can be bitchy towards the newbies, you know, setting their ground, marking their territory-'

'-I'm not interested in any of that, Delia. There'll always be something that makes people standoffish around me. There always has been. Queenie is a human voodoo doll and Nan can hear the thoughts of everyone in a two block radius, yet I'm the one left feeling like a weirdo because they can accept all those strange things about one another but they can't accept me.' I shrugged.

'I'm sor-'

'Don't be. It isn't your fault. Please just think about talking to Fiona, ok?' I turned and walked away, renewed with a sense of pride. I couldn't bear the thought of being trapped back in their torturous whispers and judgements and was glad I'd finally explained myself to Cordelia, even if it did hurt her feelings.

I opened the door to the apartment to be greeted by a rogue stocking and a man's shoe. I watched, pleasantly entertained, as Fiona and Joe scrambled about the bed, hurriedly pulling garments back over exposed flesh and smoothing down hair. 'The one time you leave the apartment and you're gone for twenty minutes,' Fiona panted, wiping the smudged lipstick from around her mouth. 'That's barely enough time for foreplay.' She turned on the bed, angling her open zipper to Joe, who obediently closed it, kissing the nape of her neck. I laughed and threw the stocking at her.

'Twenty minutes of foreplay at your ripe ages?' I joked, taking a bottle from the fridge and sitting at the table.

Fiona laughed. 'I'm the most powerful witch currently in existence and he's technically dead. Twenty minutes minimum, isn't it, baby?' she smirked, winking at her lover as he watched her slowly pulling the stocking up to her thigh.

'Well, did you get anywhere?' I asked casually, taking a mouthful of water.

'What, with you here?'

'Doesn't usually stop you,' I muttered, raising my eyebrows and smiling. From the way they sat on the bed I could only see Joe's expression as he met Fiona's eyes with a look of quiet shock. She giggled at him and pressed her hand on his thigh.

'Anyway,' she said purposefully, standing and walking towards me. She lit a cigarette and flattened her dress as she walked. 'Where've you been?'

'Nowhere. Just- just for a walk.'

'Well next time I suggest you take a longer walk,' she said, jesting.

'Duly noted.'

'I'm going to take a shower,' Joe crooned into Fiona's ear as he passed her. She smiled up to his back as he turned and went into the bathroom. She waited until he closed the door before melting into the goosebumps on her neck and laughing. She exhaled deeply, her eyes wide.

'I've never known anything like it,' she mused, playfully. 'I just want him all the time.' Her hands covered her glowing cheeks. 'Have you ever had that with a man?'

'I've never had anything with a man,' I confessed, lighting up a cigarette. Fiona looked at me aghast from across the table.

'You've never…' She raised one eyebrow and lowered her head. 'You've never had sex?'

I smiled, weirdly satisfied at being able to surprise her. '…With a man,' I finished.

'Oh. Oh Jesus Christ, are you gay?' I laughed and shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly.

'I don't know about that. Maybe. I guess.'

'I didn't know that. What's it like with a woman?' Her eyes lit up as she asked and leaned into the question, resting her elbows on the table.

'God, I don't know. It's only good when you're with someone who does what he does to you,' I smiled pointing at the bathroom door. 'Regardless of gender.'

'How many women have you slept with?'

'A few,' I answered shyly. 'I take it you've never been with a woman?'

Fiona leant back in her chair and blew a neat curl of smoke from her still smudged lips. 'No, I was too busy with the boys to ever get round to the women. Besides, it wasn't so readily accepted in my days. But tell me. I want to hear what it's like.' I stood to take my coat off and paced for a moment, smirking. I shuffled my backside onto the edge of the table.

'It's…' I searched for the words. 'It's… soft and… malleable.'

'Malleable?' Her face furrowed.

'Yeah. Everywhere you touch is warm and curved, smooth. There's nothing more rousing than a woman's naked body. It just cries out for your open mouth over every inch. It's an all-consuming experience, you know. You feel cared for and safe and gentle but at the same time it's dangerous and exciting. Finger nails and high heels. Stockings,' I smiled. She rolled her eyes, grinning softly. 'Lipstick. Lingerie. Perfumes. Fistfuls of hair. Breasts, for god sake. There's just something naturally erotic about women. Don't you find that?' Fiona looked up at me with her pussycat eyes and wry smile, completely in control of everything that was happening around her, despite not saying a word.

'I guess I do,' she whispered, deeply, and I exhaled, squeezing my thighs together slightly, attempting to quell the burning she'd caused with just a few choice words and those goddamn eyes. The bathroom door flung open and Joe reappeared in front of a wall of steam, towel wrapped around his waist. Fiona's eyes pulled away and she smiled at Joe awkwardly. I sighed and jumped off the table, returning to my seat.

Later that evening Fiona and I lay on the bed drinking whiskey and listening as Joe made beautifully coagulated music, dripping in tone and emotion. There was something palpable in the air. The jazz and the alcohol only added to the suffocating rhapsody that seemed to entangle me. I tried to ignore it and told myself it was only me that felt this way, but the more I glanced at her glowing in the alternating neon lights, losing herself in the music and her drink, the more I wanted to throw down my glass and run my fingers over her thighs. I saw the way her eyes lovingly adorned Joe's face and hated the jealousy I felt. I found myself hoping Cordelia would soon pull her mother away from me before I became completely obsessed with her.

Fiona lolled her head in my direction, her eyes burning a hole in my cheek, but I refused to look. I pretended to be lost in the music. She softly tapped my hand but pulled it away quickly. I turned my head. 'You kissed me,' she whispered, under the music. My eyes darted and eventually narrowed, questioning.

'What?'

'You kissed me,' she reiterated. Her face was straight but pleasant, difficult to read.

'So?' I eventually managed, instantly disappointed with my childish rhetoric. Her feet graced one another as she rubbed one up the length of her calf, stretching and sliding down the bed slightly.

'Why'd you do it?' she smiled, teasingly.

'Because I wanted to.' Her eyes flickered up to Joe who was still lost in his music, playing his song as though his life depended on it.

'Were you trying to seduce me?' she purred languidly, rolling onto her stomach, smiling. Her eyes held mine the whole time.

'Of course not,' I said nervously. I glanced at Joe and then back to the striking eyes of the woman laying before me. She sniggered.

'Are you sure?' Fiona rested her fingers lightly on my hand, tracing my fingers hypnotically. 'You know what I think, my pretty little lesbo?' She enunciated viciously and it stung. 'I think you want to suck me into this little fantasy of yours. Me and you.' Her eyes gazed longingly and I tried to steady my breathing. I returned her lustful glances but watched cautiously behind her at the blurry figure caressing his saxophone.

'And you know what I think? I think you're drunk, Fiona,' I breathed.

She gently chuckled to herself and rested her chin in her hands. Her ankles crossed in the air behind her and she kicked them, playfully, smiling. 'Yeah, maybe,' she admitted, smiling. 'Tell me again what it was like.'

'What what was like?'

'Sex with women,' she whispered, her eyes huge in the half light. 'What was it you said? Smooth and curved. Safe but exciting. Wet, as well, I'd bet,' she smirked, gliding a finger down my arm. 'Come on, don't be boring, Acantha. Tell me.' I licked my lips and swallowed, heart rate rising to an almost unbearable pace. Joe finished his song and I held Fiona's eye contact the length on the final note he played. I saw the figure turn and I looked up at him smiling. Fiona turned her head behind her. 'That was beautiful, darling,' she mused.

'It really was,' I echoed.

'Thank you, ladies. I wrote that for someone special,' he reached over, smiling, and took hold of Fiona's foot, kissing the sole.

'Pour moi?' she joked, gasping in simulated shock. They laughed and she rolled over, shuffling to the bottom of the bed towards his stool. She kissed him briefly as she stood and fetched the open bottle of whiskey from the table. She filled her own glass and then filled Joe's as he tabbed the keys of his instrument, absentmindedly. She came towards me and took the glass from my hand, running her fingers alongside my own, filling it with more rich, dark alcohol. She passed the glass back, looking in my eyes, intensely. She put the bottle down and retook her position on the bed. 'Play me something else, Joe,' she demanded, playfully.

'Anything for you, Babydoll.' He tapped the keys a couple more times before bringing the instrument to his lips. Fiona closed her eyes, breathing in the first few drawn out notes of the song, moving her neck and shoulders weakly with the music.

'I love this one,' she whispered to me and I felt as though she'd just told me a secret.

'Me too,' I replied, watching her dress come down at the shoulder as she swayed.