Again, thank you for all the R&R! Your reviews are sweet like triple cream caramels all the way from San Francisco... Keep 'em coming, I wanna get fat on 'em! And yes reviews are nice, but what matters most to me is that you are all enjoying my story. VK, special thanks goes out to you for having been there for every one of my chapters so far! Thanks for being truly dedicated. Oh yeah, VK, I'm working on an America's Sweethearts fic at the moment as well, but I'll see what I can do about Entrapment or The Haunting. ;D

What's in the future of this story you may ask? A LOT is my answer. It's good stuff, so just stay with me for a while.

Anyway, yall enjoy now ya hear!

After their prolonged performance in the dance older than time, the two lay gazing at each other, savoring each moment of their newly found rapture. As Velma began to trace little pictures over her sweetheart's ticklish tummy, Roxie draped a leg over Velma's side and moaned in delight from the tantalizing feel of Goosebumps popping up all over her body. A smile playing on Velma's lips, she finally said, "I'm glad I'm here with you now." "Me too, Vel." Replied Roxie.

"You know, I didn't want to sleep on that couch anyway. It's all lumpy. When I was sittin' there, I felt like I had a bunch of doorknobs sticking up my ass." Velma said. Roxie laughed wildly and Velma smiled from making her do so.

"Velma, can I share something serious with you?" asked Roxie softly. "Of course, babe." Velma answered stroking Roxie's wavy blonde pageboy.

Roxie looked down for a long time. At last she looked up and glared meaningfully into the eyes of her partner. "I didn't know makin' love could be like that!" she said eagerly through a whisper. "I mean, with Amos I coulda been foldin' laundry and never have even known the difference...and with Fred it was always pretty good... but with you! That was...That was..." Each time Roxie repeated herself the grin on Velma's face grew wider and wider. For her, Roxie's words were like magic. It was as though jewels fell from her mouth as she spoke. "That was beyond something I thought any one mortal person could feel on this earth! To feel some one's passion for me while we make love, is absolutely amazing. Up until now, I've never been like that with anyone...Up until now, well, I've never been in love."

Roxie had no clue as to how eerily similar her feelings were to Velma's. "Me neither, Rox." Confessed Velma.

"Oh come now, Vel. What about Charlie? You obviously loved him enough to kill him, AND your sister when you found out they were foolin' around."

"That's just it, Rox." She scowled. "I HATED Charlie and my sister! Oh forget about it." Muttered Velma. "You wouldn't be interested in all that crap."

"Of course I would. I'm interested in everything that has to do with you." She comforted her friend. "Yeah?" Replied Velma spirits brightened by her friend's reassurance.

"Yessss." Murmured Roxie, drawing out the 'yes' in true wanton fashion. She planted a kiss right below Velma's ear and her lips lightly loitered all the way down the side of her neck to where the sheets met her cleavage. Velma's heart fluttered and she felt weak in the knees, but took no haste in acting upon the roaring fires that the little showgirl had just reawakened inside of her once again.

She leaned over and caught Roxie's lips with her own, but like the speed of lightening Roxie turned away and Velma was left kissing air. "Not until you tell me about you and Charlie." She pointed a finger at Velma in a feigned reprimand.

Casually Velma looked over at the wall, though still burning inside. 'This woman is the first person that knows how to work me. That can't be a good thing.' She thought humorously. "Uhh, OK fine." She grumbled.

"A long, looong time ago, when I was still a kid livin' downtown on Michigan Avenue, about 15 at the time, a certain some one and his seemingly perfect family moved in next door to us." "WHO?" Roxie interrupted.

Velma eyed her dubiously. "Al Capone..." She answered. Roxie gasped. "Charlie you idiot!" laughed Velma. "OOOh." Roxie blushed.

"Anyway," Continued Velma. "From the day that he moved in, me and Veronica would always see him walking on the way to school. Every time we'd look his way, he'd always be gapin' at us like a dog eyein' table scraps...always smiling and winking, silly stuff like that. At first I gotta kick out of it, I was only 15 like him. Veronica on the other hand wanted no part of Charlie, her being a mature older woman of 17." Croaked Velma sarcastically.

"What? Did your sister think she was to good for him or something?" asked Roxie. "Sweetie, my sister thought she was too good for everybody. She made ME look modest!" Roxie giggled.

"She was rude to me, my father, her teachers, her classmates, and damn well near anyone she ever knew. I swear to God if Jesus Christ had come down from heaven and had informed her of her commonality, she would have told him to go climb his ass back up the cross.

I know I'm not one to talk, but there was nothing good about that broad. She would yell and swear at my father and I, like a drunken sailor all the time. She bossed me about like I was her own little personal slave until I was around 13, at that point too big for her to throw around like an old dishrag.

When I was really young, she'd stuff me in closets and lock me there in the dark for hours. If I ever said anything to her she'd cut up all the clothes of mine that she hadn't already stolen for herself, so that I had to wear rags to school, the bitch. She would steel anything of mine that she liked, toys, food, my friends, Everything! Sometimes she'd even smack me around for fun. I can't tell you how many black eyes and bloody noses I'd suffer in the course of one year. Time after time as I had to defend myself, one positive thing did come out of it though. I learned how to fight. Veronica could throw a pretty mean punch, and that's the one good thing that she passed on to me." Velma laughed as she smacked her fist into her hand.

Roxie looked at Velma in disbelief. "Well why didn't your parents do anything about it?" she asked sullenly amazed.

"My father was always busy, working to support the two of us. He worked 14-hour days Monday through Saturday at the loading docks by the lake. When he came home he was so tired I usually didn't bother him. When I did tell him about that devil of a Veronica, she denied it up and down. Whenever he questioned my black eyes, she'd tell him, all sweetness and light, that I'd gotten into fights at school and that I got beat up and I was too embarrassed to admit it. Although, I gotta say, it didn't help that I did get into my fair share of altercations at school, although I never brought 'em on, and I NEVER EVER got beat up. I was a tough little punk of a child." She chuckled. "I always kicked ass."

"Well what about your mother? Couldn't she do anything about it?" Roxie asked, still upset by the knowledge she had taken in of her friend's abusive childhood.

Velma's expression turned cold. She looked up at the ceiling. "I never knew my mother, Roxie. Well I don't remember her. She left when I was two, and never came back. Apparently, she was some type of boozehound or something." She paused. "Maybe if I had had a mother around to teach me a couple of dainty things once and a while, or at least to have shown me how to care...maybe I wouldn't have turned out to be such a shit." Velma stated dryly, though an undeniable sorrow was visible in her glowing dark eyes.

Roxie wanted nothing more than to grab her, to grab her and shake her and hug her, and tell her to screw everyone and everything!!! They had each other now, and their careers. They were on top of the world!

But by now Roxie's mouth had gone dry and her body had begun to shake from all the uninhibited emotion that she was not at all used to feeling. She reached to her lover. Enwrapped in a fond embrace for what felt like hours, Roxie finally leaned back on her pillow and said "But I don't understand Velma, if you hated your sister so much, why the hell did you go into show biz with her?"

"Well, think about it Roxie." She looked at her keenly. "There's only one business in the world where that's no problem at all..." Roxie laughed. "I suppose that's true, Velma. That's very true."

---OK, more to come SOOOOON. Next chapter will be a continuation to Velma's past, so if you're confused about anything, don't be. Most likely it'll be explained later, it's just I felt this chapter was getting too long.