Keep Me Movin'

   Gotta make a move to a town that's right for me
   Time to keep me movin', keep me groovin' with some energy
   Well, I talk about it talk about it talk about it talk about it
   Talk about, talk about, talk about movin'
   Gotta move on
   Gotta move on
      ---Lipps Inc., "Funkytown"

It's a hazy, humid evening in Washington D.C. Not particularly hot -- sixty-five, maybe seventy -- but humid enough to make it seem hotter. The humidity hangs in the air, making lights appear diffuse, buildings ghostly. It makes breathing labored and flesh sticky. It makes Faith's shirt stick to her back and the undersides of her breasts, annoying her. It's not that she minds the heat or the haze so much, but if she's gonna be sweaty and breathing hard, she wants to be having some fun with it.

Easily ditching the truck -- one of a series that took her across the country, both with and without the drivers' knowledge -- she pops impatiently out of an alley and into a likely-looking bar. A darkened place with a lot of barstools, few tables, and a medium-sized dance floor. At this hour, somewhat early on a Thursday night, there aren't many people around except for the serious drunks and the irrepressible partiers.

The bartender narrows his eyes at Faith and she can tell he'll ask for ID if she orders a beer, so she scowls in annoyance and veers away. Her fake IDs disappeared along with everything else: the Mayor, her job, her clothes, her sense of purpose.

So she slinks moodily out onto the dance floor and starts to move, which always makes her feel better. This is some stupid 70s crap, but at least it has a beat and the words are right on the mark.

Time to keep me movin', keep me groovin' with some energy, the singer exhorts, and Faith rolls her hips, keeps groovin'. Polished bottle-blondes with perfect skin and expensive suits, sipping white wine spritzers, pointedly turn their boyfriends around so that the men have their backs to Faith and the women can glare daggers at her over the too-muscular shoulders. Faith ignores all this. Being sexy, being hot, knowing she's hot, is not tonight's point. It's all about movin'. Gotta move on.

Sure, so all the male eyes in the place are on Faith. So she's quickening blood across the room with her dancing, unselfconscious, pretty much completely anti-DC. So half of these three-piece-suited, corporate-rat-race, political-pandering Washington men have probably never seen a woman as unpolished and unaffected as she. So what? They'd never move on, never change. Kind of like a lot of other men she knows, has known. And not just men.

Over in the corner, of course, there's another guy. Dark, and not just the coloring. He's watching her, like the others, maybe hungrily, but not with that wide-eyed look. He looks like a guy who's seen Faiths before. She isn't watching him -- at least, not past the first glance where she thought for a moment he might be a vamp, but then decided he just had that haunted look -- but she's aware of him. Feels him coming closer, but she keeps on dancing, doesn't look up.

Until something cold touches her arm, right on the barbed-wire tattoo, making her gasp a little and look up. She thinks at first it might have been a vampire finger, she could have been wrong about him (why not? Join the club), but then she sees it's a beer bottle. The guy has one in his left hand, half-empty, but with his right he's offering Faith a full one.

Flick of the glance over to the bartender, who clearly sees but doesn't care. Flick back down to the bottle, which still has its cap on. In a flash Faith sees that this was meant to reassure her; the dark guy isn't some creepazoid who dumped a drug into the beer to soften her up, knock her out. Her mind fills with the other things that this means. This is no government drone, no mindless servant of The Man; this guy read her, knew she had a suspicious mind, a suspicious soul. The beer bottle says all this, and the angle of his head on his neck, the way he glances idly around the room while holding it out, says that she could take the beer and he'd walk away. No pressure.

Faith kinda likes that. She puts her hand over his on the beer bottle and presses the cold glass against her forehead, slides it down across her cheek to press it against her neck, letting his thumb brush the top of her breast. Then she pulls his arm back over her shoulder, letting the bottle rest on the back of her neck. It feels nice. The condensation forms a drop that rolls very slowly down between her shoulderblades, tickling. His forearm rests easily on her shoulder and she grinds her hips a little, not actually touching him, but including him in the dance.

Won't you take me to
Funkytown?
Won't you take me to
Funkytown?

"Thanks," Faith says over the music. "You gonna open that with your teeth?"

The guy almost grins. He's kind of cute, actually: dark hair, round face, long eyelashes, pouty mouth. He's moving a little now, keeping pace with her as she moves to the beat. He takes his hand back from her shoulder, the beer bottle still in it, and neatly removes the cap with his teeth. Faith laughs a little as she reclaims the bottle and takes a swig. He rolls his eyes, and again she gets his meaning: not trying to be macho. Hey, you asked.

She takes another deep swig and the bottle is half-empty. Slides closer to him, and this time his hand falls to her waist, resting lightly on the tops of her jeans, not infringing in any way, leaving her perfectly clear to walk away. She puts both her hands on his shoulders and tosses her head back, groovin', watching him watch her breasts bounce under the thin shirt. She knows he's hard for her, and shit, hasn't it been more than a year since she last got laid? She's way overdue, for chrissake. (She conveniently blots out the episode with Riley. If she thought about it, she probably would say it didn't count, anyway. Being sticky, uncomfortable in her own body is nothing like being in Buffy's. The back of her neck still tingles with the wrongness of it.)

"You don't talk much," she observes, reaching again for the bottle. The music's a little louder now and she has to raise her voice. The guy tilts his head toward her to hear.

"Not much to say," he replies, watching her tip her head back to drain the bottle. She lets it fall onto a nearby table and shakes her hair back, preparing to take the dance even closer to him.

He brings his left hand up to take a swig from his own bottle, and Faith notices that the arm moves somewhat stiffly. With a slight shiver, she realizes that the hand holding the beer is a fake one, a prosthetic. He had taken his eyes off her for a moment, eyeballing the level of beer in the bottle, so he misses her reaction.

Swiftly Faith steps forward, closing the gap between them again as she closes her hands around his upper arms, squeezing hard to see how far up the fake arm goes. His eyes widen as he feels the strength in her grip; he watches her warily. She moves her right hand up farther, all the way to the shoulder, and finds that his entire left arm is fake. Wood, from the feel of it, or maybe some kind of plastic. It's bizarre, freaky, but somehow it makes her even hotter.

They're still moving to the beat, their chests separated by less than an inch. Faith lifts her gaze to his face and sees him beginning to resign himself to her walking away. She leans in and tilts her head upward toward his ear. Curious, he inclines his head down to hear her.

"So, can you still fuck with that thing?" she asks. It's not easy to do a sexy rasp at a near-shout, but she manages. The corners of his mouth curve. Damn, he has a cute little mouth. And really pretty eyes, now that she's inches away from them; dark and liquidy and kind of feminine. She feels his hand -- the real one -- on her ass. Her nipples tingle at the thought of his mouth wrapped around them. She can almost feel the anticipated sensation of his flesh sliding into her. It makes her groin feel heavy and damp.

"I manage," he yells back, the cocky smile touching his eyes. He lifts the fake hand and lets the backs of its knuckles brush ever so lightly across Faith's right nipple, sending an electric shiver through her whole body directly down to her core. She draws in her breath and gives him a sultry smirk. Yeah, this guy knows a thing or two.

"Your place," he says, turning his head, bringing that mouth next to her ear. She shakes her head, feeling her hair catch on his lips.

"Ain't got one," she replies. "Yours."

"Ain't got one," he echoes, his grin turning ironic. Faith laughs cheerfully, reaches around, pushes her hands into his rear jeans pockets. Pulls his hips forward to grind against hers. Her nipples, hard and burning, brush his chest.

Well, I talk about it talk about it talk about it talk about it...

Faith's eyes flicker toward the back of the bar, and back up to the guy, who's watching her with something between amusement and lust. Mostly lust; she can feel it straining against his zipper when she not-so-accidentally bumps her hip against him. He looks down at her with the lust glittering in his eyes, waiting for her to call the next move. She sees that he would probably do her right here on the dance floor if she gave the word. But she doesn't relish yet another run-in with cops tonight, and she has a better idea. Glancing around, she notices that most of the stuffed shirts have cleared out, taking their bitches with them. It's only the real drunks now, all of them men.

"C'mon," she says authoritatively, jerking her chin toward the back of the bar. He glances that way, looks a little confused, but willing. In an instant he's drained his beer and set the bottle down. Faith spins on her heel and heads for the smoky darkened back hallway. She doesn't need to look back; she knows he's there, following.

Faith cracks the door of the ladies' room and peers in. As she suspected, it's empty. And clean enough, for a place like this. Bonus. She shoves the door open fully and strides in, the dark guy right behind her.

Barely are they inside the first stall before he slams Faith up against the door, pinning her in place with his fake arm, his good hand up her shirt. Faith grins excitedly and allows him to grope her, his hand hot on her flesh, kneading it very firmly, but not squeezing hard enough to hurt. His thumb flicks over the point of the nipple, then returns to rub it slowly, letting it harden in his palm. Her jacket falls to the floor. She's trapped in the corner of the stall, cold metal stinging her flesh when her shirt rides up. His mouth is hot on her upper cheek, by the corner of her eye; she twists her head upward to seize his lips with her own, tangling her fingers in his short dark hair, pushing her tongue along the roof of his mouth. It tastes of beer and salt. His tongue meets hers and their mouths slide wetly across each other.

The bathroom is poorly ventilated, exaggerating the heavy humidity of the day's weather. It's stuffy and moist in here, even without the new sweat springing up on Faith's arms and the back of her neck as the weirdly intense one-armed guy gropes her. She likes the authority in his fingers, his tongue in her mouth; she likes the assurance in his touch, the way he doesn't hesitate. He moves his hand off her breast and suddenly plunges it down the front of her jeans and she moans into his mouth, pressing her hips forward. She drops a hand down to twist open the button of her fly, letting the zipper slide down, letting his hand get farther inside. Her entire vulva is already damp, and his fingers slither easily between swollen lips to stroke her with a firm, confident touch. She grinds herself against his fingers, at the same time using her toes to shove her shoes off.

Faith gasps and twitches suddenly as the unnatural cold of the fake hand touches her overheated ribs. He's using the prosthetic to push her shirt up again, exposing her breasts to the sweaty air. His tongue trails across her chin on the way down and then his beautiful soft mouth is on her nipple, sucking hard, rolling the tip against his teeth. She groans and shudders, reaches between them to run her fingers over the throbbing bulge in his jeans. Now it's his turn to gasp, and he shoves her hand away with his shoulder and the prosthetic elbow. Almost simultaneously, one of his real fingers slides slickly inside her, just an inch or so. She narrows her eyes at him, but he glares back, unmoved.

"Watch it, not too fast," he mutters huskily against her breast, his words slurring together with lust. Faith scowls. Her entire body is pulsing with desire, and normally she'd be happy to take it slow, but normally she isn't fucking in a tiny stall in a dark bathroom in a sleazy bar in a strange city. She grabs his real hand by the wrist and yanks it out of her pants, his fingers and palm glistening slightly in the dim light.

"No such thing," she hisses at him, yanking his fly open with one flick of her wrist, giving him a good shove. She still has hold of his good hand, so he has no way of balancing, and he falls abruptly backward to end up sitting on the closed toilet lid. Before he can react, Faith is straddling him, her navel staring him in the eye as she pushes her jeans down over her hips. She lifts one leg and then the other, and the jeans fall to the floor. The guy inhales hungrily as the scent of her arousal reaches him, but before he can act on it she sits, spreading her creamy bare thighs across his. His erect cock points upward, trapped between her lower belly and his.

Faith still has his right wrist in her hand and she twists it around behind his back, pulling it just to the point of pain, watching his lips tighten. His head stretches backward a bit, exposing his throat, making her think of vampires again. His dark eyes hold hers.

"I'll decide what's too fast," Faith tells him, enjoying the way her bare nipples brush against the rough flannel of his shirt. He sucks in air; his breathing, already rapid, is speeding up even more. She can see how much it turns him on to have her take control, to feel the strength in her arms and her thighs. So they have something else in common.

He nods acquiescence, quickly, his eyes wide with lust, his fake hand scrabbling at her bare side. She lets go of his real hand and bends her head down to kiss him again, loving the feel of his mouth, the way his lips move more urgently as he struggles to breathe without giving up ground. He puts his hand back on her breast, kneading strongly again, scraping his fingernails on the soft tender underside. Faith hisses and reaches down between them, lifting her hips, pulling his cock back, lowering herself onto it.

He cries out softly as her wet heat slides down around him, tosses his head back again, so she can see the sweat gleaming on his face and neck. Her shirt is bunched in her armpits and her breasts bounce freely as she leans back also, shaking damp hair out of her face, steadying herself with her hands on his shoulders so she can grind herself against him. He watches her hungrily, his hips thrusting up into her; then he leans forward again and wraps both arms around her -- the fake one feels weird, cold and unyielding against her back -- and fills his mouth with her breast again. Faith reaches down to put her hand against her clit, right where it gets a good hard grind each time she thrusts down. She moves faster, harder, and even faster, and suddenly the edge is there and she sails off it, biting her lip to keep from making too much noise as waves of pleasure roll over her.

When the sparks before her eyes begin to recede she sees that the guy has just reached his edge, and she keeps her hips moving in their insistent circle while he climaxes. Finally he stops moving and leans back against the back of the toilet, gasping, gazing at her with something like awe.

Faith steadies her breathing and stands up, feeling her thigh muscles twinge ever so slightly. As his cock slips out of her she realizes that she doesn't even know his name, this strange dark guy whose combination of confidence and submissiveness so turns her on. She reaches over to where he's still slumped, looking boneless and a little dazed; puts her hand in his jacket pocket and takes out his wallet. He makes no move to stop her as she brings it up into what little light there is and flips it open to see his FBI identification card glowing up at her.

"Shit," she says aloud, more in amazement than alarm. She grins slightly as she wonders whether he knows he just committed statutory rape. And whether there are harsher penalties for that sort of thing if you're a federal agent. Not that she thinks he would care, on either count, judging by the immediate tactile memory of his deft fingers on her tits, his hard cock inside her.

She glances up and finds him still watching her, looking a little more alert now. He gives a little grimace at his wallet, and says coolly: "Didn't think that's what it was about."

She doesn't understand for a moment, following his gaze, but then she realizes what it would probably look like, standing there with his wallet in her hand and his semen between her legs. She scowls in sudden anger and disgust, and throws the wallet back at him. "It wasn't," she snaps.

The guy (okay, now she knows his name, doesn't mean she has to use it) sits up a little, unperturbed by her anger. Takes the wallet and stuffs it back in his jacket. "'Swhat I thought."

Faith jerks her shirt back down over her breasts with a quick displeased movement, as the guy tucks his cock back in his jeans and fastens them -- awkwardly, with the fake hand, but she makes no move to help. But then she reaches down for her jeans and he stops her.

"Wait ... hold on," he says, looking up at her from under soft, long lashes. She frowns in irritation.

"What?"

"You're still hot," he says, slipping his flesh hand between her thighs again. In annoyance she wants to push him away, is about to push him away, but he's touching her just right, and she realizes he isn't wrong. Her labia are still swollen and aching with need. He stays still, not moving except for his fingers slipping between her folds, his eyes staring up at her. "Let me," he near-whispers, almost an entreaty. She feels her thighs ease open a bit more, feels one of his fingers press inside her, and she decides, why the hell not? She lets herself fall back against the closed stall door, feeling the back of her shirt sticky with sweat squishing against the metal door. The guy slides off the toilet and onto the floor, on his knees, the fake hand braced against the floor for balance. Now he has three fingers inside her and his thumb rubbing her clit, exactly the right speed and pressure, following the tiny bit of flesh as it moves slippery away from side to side. Faith reaches up behind her to grab the upper edge of the stall door with both hands, arching her back in ecstasy as he brings her back to the edge, teases her there for just a brief eternal instant, and then tips her over the peak. For a moment her ears ring with the pleasure and she doesn't know anything. When she resurfaces, he's licking her juices off his fingers with a small smirk.

"Been called worse," he comments calmly, getting to his feet. Faith frowns in confusion, not sure what he means, what she might have said just now when she came.

"Worse?" she repeats stupidly, her lips and throat dry. Her entire groin throbs and twitches in relief.

"Devil, even," he says with a one-shouldered shrug. Faith blinks. He runs his thumb lightly across her lips and then shifts her gently aside, opening the stall door and going to the sink to wash his hand. Faith bends over to retrieve her jeans, and as she pulls them on, she realizes what she's known subconsciously for at least a few hours now -- maybe more: that she is going back to California. To LA, to reopen old wounds, revisit unfinished business. A little startled by this self-revelation, she puts her shoes back on and emerges from the stall to wash her hands too, as the dark guy leans against the next sink over and watches.

Faith dries her hands and turns to leave. Suddenly timid, the guy says tentatively, "Do you wanna-"

"No," Faith interrupts curtly. He nods, to say it's what he expected. They go out into the dark hallway. Faith glances to her right, the lights and noise of the dance floor; to her left, the emergency exit, leading no doubt to a seedy alleyway. She turns left, pauses and turns back. The guy is still watching her.

"Nice knowin' ya, Alex," she tells him. "Don't ever look back."

He shakes his head. "I won't."

Faith's hair whips out around her head as she turns and strides out into the night.

Well, I talk about it talk about it talk about it talk about it
Talk about, talk about, talk about movin'
Gotta move on
Gotta move on