She's never been anything but a childish copycat, right down to stealing my garter and that pitiful attempt to imitate my trademark. That move that's marvelously useful in court, where you cross your legs in just the right way so your dress slides down almost enough to be sinfully revealing.

I first noticed that one, of course, that day in the cigarette room, when she was--honest to God--knitting baby clothes. I don't really think it was actual knitting; there were holes all over the place and a piece of yarn about two feet long hanging out of the middle of whatever the hell it was. I think she really just spent hours practicing how to move the needles around and look busy, because the damn thing never got any longer or wider, just messier. I'll admit the baby scheme was about her one and only intelligent move in all the time I've known her, but she was taking it way overboard.

Something about her was different than usual, though. She'd fluffed her hair and put on her Publicity Dress (short, tight, and guaranteed to divert attention away from her lying mouth and onto her skinny little chicken legs). What got me was that she was usually so careful to look all foolishly neat and tidy, and this time the top two buttons of her dress were undone.

"Save it for home ec," I greeted, fishing around for my lighter.

She pretended to ignore me, but she's always been a terrible actress, and I saw her glance up at me out of the corner of her eye. I wandered up behind her, leaning over her shoulder to get a closer look at her tangle of yarn and holes. A few ashes from my cigarette dropped onto her shoulder, but she didn't move a muscle till I pulled up a nearby chair and gracefully arranged myself so I could watch her and throw out a few malicious remarks now and then.

While I was trying to think of some, she gave a polite sigh. "Miss Kelly, I really would appreciate it if you smoked elsewhere. It's terribly unhealthy for me and my unborn child."

I silently wondered if now was the right time to find a sarcastic way of expressing the fact that she'd been pregnant for several months now and still had the same scrawny waistline she'd always had.

"Rox, go fuck yourself," I offered casually and--I'd like to think, amicably--in response.

She rose from her chair, carefully laid down her yarn bundle, and slowly made her way across the room to my chair. I tried to keep myself nonchalant and indifferent, which normally would have been a piece of cake, except for the fact that she suddenly leaned forward and straddled me on the chair.

Her hand reached up to slide the cigarette from my lips, expertly flicking it onto the floor in one quick move, just the way I did. My immediate reaction was to wonder how she'd learned that. She was rotten with cigarettes. She dropped them, burned herself, choked on them. She was a shitty smoker, a complete amateur. The rest of her life wasn't much different.

I would have pushed her away, of course--I was much stronger and much braver. But that would have involved touching her, and knowing her, she would have run off to Momma whining that I'd tried to attack her or something.

So, apparently to avoid this, she attacked first.

It wasn't completely out of nowhere. She did say something first, although I must have blacked out at some point because I can't remember what it was. Something ridiculous to the effect of "I've seen the way you look at me", but I couldn't exactly reply "You mean with disdain?" because by this time she had her tongue in my mouth.

I guess I responded out of surprise. It had nothing to do with desire or even surrender, it was more just curiosity. But before I knew it, that goddamn curiosity had us on the floor and I was popping the rest of those stupid pearl buttons on her dress.

Well, like they say... curiosity killed the cat.