Notes: Thank you (all three of you) for your wonderful reviews! It's great motivation to read your opinions and thoughts.


And Zoe, I smiled for about three days strait because of your review. You're so super cool.





The Casino smelled of stale flesh and beer, candy-liquor and bruises. Lex felt dizzy off the low-hanging condensation of painful pleasures.


His gelatinous sight finally wrapped itself around the shape of what looked like Lyta, but at a closer glance was a different worker.


"She's around back, but I she's not with a client right now... you know you're gonna have to pay extra for barging in on her break..."


"Why don't you just bring her out here, eh?" Lex sieved from his teeth with difficulty.


This woman, this... girl... He hadn't felt so violated since long before the Virus. His heart made patterns with its betrayal, and his hands made the simpler forms of fists as he watched her walk around a back curtain.


To think he had let her into his home.


But Lyta's chocolate smile hadn't melted, and it bubbled like acid in his throat to loose his will at the sight of it.


"... And I didn't even take off my top," She said to his return, a smirk cutting her face.


"Jen, you, and the Technos... tell me about it," He watched her eyes milk over, and her face became ancient at the mention of it. Lex could feel his chest being pushed inwards by her nervousness.


Her composure toppled like a shifting scale, finally finding its equilibrium. Once achieved it was impeccably placed. "I have no cue what you're talking about."


"Yeah, I think you do. What exactly are you girls looking for now that Mega's gone, eh? Maybe the Mallrats are next..."


"Lex, How do you stay on your feet with your head as large as it is?"


Lex sucked on his teeth to control his hands, "I dunno, maybe I'll try setting my legs apart a bit farther, like you."


Her face sank for all of the world's weight. "I don't know anything about the Techno's or the Mallrats, alright? I don't know!"


"Yes you do! You're a spy!" Lex said all too loudly. Lyta's pale pale cheeks began to bleed.


"So what if I am... what do I spy on? The size of the local sovereign Tribe's..."


"Look, I'm not joking around. Did you go home with my last night for info or not? Recording what I said in my sleep... like that movie... 1989 or something."


"Like I said..." Lyta's teeth clenched to say, her blush cherrying to a flush, "You have no clue what you're talking about..."


"I think you do and I think I do... and maybe the rest of the room does!"


It became quiet, heads turned like the white-flushed heads of owls to stare at the two. Lyta's face convoluted into electric embarrassment and rage. Lex felt like he'd cornered her now... an entire room of alcohol infused agitation would do the trick of truth, he was sure of it.


But instead he felt the grip of her surprisingly strong hand (for her frail arrangement) on his upper arm, dragging him trippingly to the other side of the Casino and into a small bedroom towards the back.


Lyta slammed and locked the door behind them.


Lex took a look around the room. It had brown walls and a white ceiling, and a mattress at one corner, draped in scarves and softly torn silks, a make-shift canopy lulling it to sleep. The walls were covered in old broken-framed charcoal drawings of nude women and melancholy faces, and onto protruding, splintering screws were strapped broken masks of chalk-skin and tulips. Some of them were poorly glued back together, others sanded down. Some had their detached lovers still laying on the floor, still resembling in shape what the rest of the mask was without. There was a chandelier, also partially destroyed, from which sewing thread held old scratched CDs. Old vinyls lay about a fumbling record player.


It was her bedroom... her own bedroom. Lex didn't even think they had them.


Lyta had taken some time to ice her temper, to gather her words into something politically correct, at least.


"Are you completely insane Lex?" ... Well, she tried.


"Well, I just want an answer."


She was quiet for a bit, staring boldly into Lex's eyes. Her irises were like looking into the leaves of trees, like photosynthesis. They were the colored pencil detail in her charcoal body.


She was finally able to hold her voice again, "What does it matter to you? Why so upset? Like you've ever been any holier..." She broke off, but Lex waited for her to finished.


"Yeah, so Jen suggested all too clearly that we were not to forget anything said to us that might be... integral to the Techno regime. Alright, Lex? I admit it. I was the top slut for that job for Chrissakes." She let breath fill her faint a few times. "But you can't stand there and tell me that what I did was wrong. Do you understand now that I know you dealt with the Technos, just as shadily. I know."


"Well at least I tried to put them out! At least I didn't leave my information to some idiot who'd get us all killed with it," Lex finally said.


"You're right. That Gladiator bit was just genius."


"... Look I did all I could–"


"And I didn't, right!? Jesus Lex, do you think I like this? Do you think I'm happy? I'm a fuck and a freak... I've been doubly exploited..." Lyta felt her stomach slide outside of her torso. "I can't forget... I can't forget anything. It's a disorder... absence of subconscious or something." She shook her head. "I don't know. Everything, every word I've read every... conversation I've had I... remember... That's why Jen put me up to the Technos... There were only four of us who did it... But I could remember everything in the room without being suspected, remember the smallest details." She looked up, her eyes like arrows, cutting fabric and flesh to reach the core they crave.


Lex was not shocked, it was more like fumbled. He felt out of place, out of bounds and deep inside, he felt hurt. He felt piteous... then envious... and then felt guilty for it. When the torrent had subsided, he lifted his eyes back to hers. Falling deep inside them, crawling and chipping and scraping through their chasms. Falling into them. Falling...


"The Chosen wanted me first, the Locusts before that. They took my brother but I got away... thanks to Jen. I went to school with Mart... Zoot... they thought Kai had the same "gifts". I think he's dead now." She looked like a pile of ashes. Sad and dry and destroyed. "I had no idea who Jen was, but as it turned out I walked into what I was running from."


"Oh... I'm sorry"


She was sinking down into a corner, skinny and scared and clammy. Lex walked over and knelt down beside her.


"So you knew Martin, and Trudy and Bray?"


Lyta sighed humidly. "I barely payed attention to Martin in High School. Jaffa payed more attention to me than I to him – I've never had a man work so hard to win my affection in my life... though that's not hard to believe now. Bray was mister popular, never spoke to me one word. Trudy... She's a Mallrat now... I recognized her voice... Strange girl..."


Lex was confused. "Why didn't you say anything to her? Weren't you friend with her?"


"I haven't survived on blurting out every memory I have, Lex.


"And I didn't have any friends. I was too 'creepy'."


Lex nodded in understanding. This was becoming very complicated. But if he thought it was complicated, then she must have stones in her head from these webs woven. He began to have some conception of why she never slept at night...


She was speaking again, shakily.


"I knew who you were... but I approached you for me... my sake... You're face, it's a plate made of secrets and served with secrets, garnished with them... secrets you would never tell. Silent sex. I just wanted something peaceful. Even though I didn't get it, I'm glad I did it. I don't care if you hate me... everyone hates me."


"I don't hate you," was all he said. He placed his hand on hers... she was freezing, cold as crystal. She seemed flat, two-dimensional, like a drawing. One of Lautrec's Parisian whores. Yet as the shadows hugged her, like a child to a mother's breast, Lex felt his chest tighten, his joints buckle and grind.


"You wanna know what Jen did with the information?"


Lex nodded dumbly.


"He was going to sell it to whoever would pay the most... but he ended up waiting too long, and by the time he tried, you lot had already defeated Ram. His secrets were for free."


Lex felt laughter cook in his throat. He began to exhale, and found himself thundering with it. Lyta, too. His head fell into her lap as his laughter contorted his balance. He couldn't tell you how long he rested there.