Means To An End by Barnabas

Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Everything's owned by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, blah- blah-blahdy-blah-blah...
Distribution: The Mystic Muse /mysticmuse.net
Author's Site: /www.geocities.com/barnabas930
Feedback: I'm not too proud to beg for it. I've spent a LOT of time with this story, so hearing from anyone who actually happened to like it would make my whole damn month...
Spoilers: AtS Season 4.
Author's Note: I recently came across a story called "Kink Out the Curves" by SlayCandy which was written in response to a challenge, and one of the optional guidelines in that challenge gave me the idea for this little tale...
Pairing: Fred/Other

Summary: Tequila, a beautiful stranger, and the aftermath.

Liquor was a good thing, Fred decided, but the downside to it was that at some point it always ran out. Like some cut-rate magic trick. 'Step right up, folks, and watch the drunken barfly make one double after another disappear! Now you see 'em, now you don't.' She sloshed the few remaining drops of tequila around, debated whether to order another or just head back to the hotel, and cursed Charles for her being here in the first place.

It had been three weeks since their fight, and two weeks since they had decided to 'take a break.' 'God, we're living on 'Friends,'' Fred thought. Nearly every night since, she had been sitting right here at this bar, drinking herself into a near-stupor and trying to work up the courage to pick someone out of the crowd and take them off somewhere for a few hours of carnal fun.

It wasn't shyness or nervousness that had kept her from doing it – hell no. Though her friends back at Angel, Inc. would scarcely believe it, in the days before Pylea, doing this had been old hat for her, an almost nightly routine; a couple of hours with a stranger was better than spending those two hours all alone, at least. But now she still felt this annoying loyalty to Charles, felt that they would make up sooner or later – probably sooner – and her responsible side didn't want to do anything stupid to wreck that in the meantime.

As she signaled the bartender to give her another, her eyes were again drawn to the mirror behind the bar, and she snuck another peek at the dark- haired girl sitting next to her. And 'girl' was the right word. Though she had gone to a lot of trouble to look older – dark eye makeup, dark lipstick, black leather jacket – Fred doubted she was twenty yet, and wondered how she'd gotten in here. And how she'd gotten that bottle of beer she now held in her left hand. Whoever had checked her ID obviously didn't mind gambling with their liquor license.

Fred blushed furiously and looked away. Her drink arrived, and she took a long, grateful swallow of it. Her eyes kept wanting to go back to the mirror, but she struggled and succeeded in keeping them fastened on her glass. Before long another guy approached the girl, and she chased him away, just like she had the first three.

"Assholes," she said, and when Fred looked up, she saw that the girl was looking right at her reflection, talking to her. "What is it that just because I'm sittin' here by myself, they think that's like a fuckin' invitation to push in on me?"

"I mean, how do they know that you and I aren't here together?" The smile she gave her was more than a little suggestive, and Fred felt herself blushing again.

She didn't have any better answer for this question than she'd had for the first one, so she repeated herself. "I don't know." She went to take another sip of her drink, and realized that it was empty again. 'Presto, folks!' she thought with a giddy mental giggle. 'Abracadabra!'

The girl chuckled, tossed a ten on the bar, and signaled the barkeep. "Give her another," she ordered.

"Thanks," Fred said, not sure what else to say for a few seconds. Then she remembered her manners – here this girl had just gone and bought her a drink, and she hadn't even introduced herself yet. "Hi, I'm Fred," she said, correcting this oversight. She turned and looked the girl in the flesh for the first time, offering her hand.

"Oh, it's short for Winifred, but everyone calls me Fred," she explained. "I s'pose it sounds strange if you don't know that ahead of time, but it's still a long sight better than some other things people could call ya, don't ya think? I mean, I knew this boy back in school named Hancock Dickins – well, you can just imagine the nicknames people had for him." She giggled, and knew that this mini- babble was mostly the result of the alcohol. Oh, well, that's what it was for, wasn't it?

"Yeah, poor bastard," the girl agreed with a lopsided grin. "I'm... Hope," she said after a couple seconds' consideration, and smiled again, as if she found this amusing for some reason.

Fred was more than a little drunk, but was still a long piece from stupid, and knew that this name was about as genuine as a New Jersey cowboy. But she didn't think anything of it. That's what people did in places like this, right? You didn't want anyone knowing your real name – or at least your last name, anyway – 'cause God forbid they should ever want to track you down a couple of days later.

Fred's drink and Hope's change showed up, and as she sipped it and looked off toward nothing in particular, she sensed the girl's eyes crawling over her. She felt herself growing warmer under those eyes, and knew that this feeling didn't have anything to do with the liquor.

Yet another guy sat down on Hope's other side and tried to strike up a conversation, but got swatted down even faster than the others. The girl sighed. "I've had enough of this shit for one night. You feel like getting out of here?"

They were halfway down the alley alongside the bar when Hope grabbed her, slammed her up against the wall with amazing strength, and crushed her lips into Fred's. Her tongue battered its way inside the surprised woman's mouth, and hands came around to cup her ass, pulling their bodies tight to one another, pressing their breasts deliciously together.

"What – ?" she started to ask when her mouth was momentarily released, but before she could get anything else out, Hope covered it again. Fred's tongue was putting up a spirited defense now, meeting the other one, blocking it, thrusting against it, thrusting alongside it, sliding over and beside it...

"You didn't think I was asking you to come back to my mom's house to watch videos and eat ice cream, did ya?" Hope breathed into her ear, then bit down on the lobe almost hard enough to draw blood. Her tongue poked back out and licked its way along her jawline, then dipped down to her neck. "And don't even tell me that gettin' it on with another chick freaks you out." She didn't seem too worried about the answer she would get, because she didn't stop what she was doing. Her lips fastened around Fred's pulse point and started to suck; there would be a mark there for a few days afterward.

Fred laughed right out loud; she couldn't help it. Fred Burkle freaked out about sex with another girl? God, what a laugh all her old friends would get out of that! She wondered what her new friends- -Cordy, Wes, Lorne, Angel... Charles – would say if they knew that once upon a time back in San Antone there'd been a girl who'd had most of the boys' high school basketball team, and almost as many of the cheerleaders. And there had been that party on graduation night, with who-knew-how-many naked bodies covering the floor of the rec room at Booney's house. She'd had a little too much wacky tobacky that night to say for sure, but she had a dim memory of having a go- 'round with nearly everyone in that room before the sun had come up the next morning. She laughed again.

"What's so funny?" Hope pulled back to look her in the eye, and there was a trace of anger in her voice now. She didn't like to be laughed at.

"The stuff under the surface," Fred responded with a drunken grin. "The stuff people ignore just 'cause they couldn't deal, 'cause it would get in the way." She grabbed Hope by the hair and pulled her into another long, heated kiss.

"Yeah, people can be really dense assholes sometimes," she agreed a moment later, and if Fred had been a little more clear-headed, she might've sensed something slightly 'off' about the way she'd said this. Almost like she was laughing inside at some private joke.

"Anyway," Fred slurred, "what I was going to ask you was, what are you doing? We can't do this in an alley fucking. Or I mean, a fucking alley." She giggled. "No, maybe I did mean an alley fucking. But uh-uh." She shook her head vigorously, causing her brown hair to fly everywhere. "We need to go someplace nice...er."

"Nicer than this?" Hope looked around at the scummy puddles, discarded appliances, graffiti – names, slogans, male and female genitalia – and dumpsters and trashcans belonging to the two neighboring businesses. A rat scampered from one to the next. "You think we're gonna find someplace nicer than this?"

"We'd better, or you're not getting any nookie tonight," Fred grinned, then hiccupped.

Hope smiled back, and again, there was something in that smile. Almost a 'You think you could stop me from taking what I wanted?' But when she spoke, she gave in. "I've got a place near here." She cocked her head in the direction they had been going, and then started off that way. Weaving only slightly, Fred followed.

The hotel room was bare, clean, and obviously incredibly cheap. The only furniture was a narrow steel-frame bed, a wooden chair, and a dresser with four drawers. The view out the single window was of a large red neon letter 'E' which flashed on and off constantly, briefly turning everything in the room red every five seconds.

"Take off your clothes," Hope ordered simply, and moved over to the dresser without even a glance backward.

'Golly. Just like that,' Fred thought, startled by the suddenness and the bluntness of it. But her hands were pulling her shirt over her head, and she was kicking her shoes off. Within seconds all her clothing lay in a pile beside her.

Still with her back to Fred, Hope shrugged out of her jacket, then pulled her black tank over her head. Fred's eyes goggled slightly when she realized that the girl hadn't been wearing a bra. She was doubly surprised when the girl turned around and revealed what she'd been gifted with. 'How can she carry those around all this time with no support?' she wondered. Two of the most perfect breasts Fred had ever seen stood proudly out from the girl's chest, nipples already hard and erect, and Fred's mouth filled with added saliva at the thought of getting her hands and mouth on them. Again, if she'd been a little less drunk, and a little less fixated on the large amount of skin that had just been put on display for her, she might've thought to wonder what the dark- haired girl had been doing by the dresser. That she didn't was something she would come to rue in the days following.

Well, duh. Fred obviously knew that better than anyone else, and didn't need anyone pointing it out to her. And of the countless partners she'd had since toddling onto the sexual playground at age fifteen, until now none of them had ever been rude enough to say so. She felt her cheeks burning in anger and embarrassment, and her hands came up to cover her chest. Before they got there, her wrists were caught and held within ten very strong fingers.

"I like 'em," the girl whispered, and leaned in and gave Fred's left cheek a long, hard lick, starting below her jawline and moving almost to her eye.

"Damn right. Nothing worse than a chick with those huge scary porn- star tits. Anything from flat-as-a-board to, well, these," She looked down at her own in obvious admiration, cupping them and pressing them up into Fred's much more modest ones, "suits me just fine." And to prove her point, she bent down and virtually attacked Fred's right breast, laving the skin with her velvet tongue, suckling at the hardened nipple. Before long Fred could hear soft moans coming from deep within her own throat. She snuck a hand down towards her core, needing to do something about the throbbing there, but again it was captured before it could reach its destination.

"Uh-uh," Hope whispered. "That's my job." And the next thing she knew, Fred was flying through the air, crashing down on her back on the lumpy mattress. She hadn't even fully realized what had happened yet when Hope was suddenly straddling her, grinning down at her like a predator that has just caught itself one hell of a tasty morsel. The bare skin of her chest turned red as the E went on again, and Fred pulled herself into a sitting position, fastening her lips around one of those gorgeous nipples even as her hands went to work undoing the girl's leather pants.

Hope groaned, chuckled, then caught Fred's wrists and forced her hands up over her head and flat against the pillow. In this position, her breasts were nearly level with Fred's face, and she took the opportunity to bury it in the valley between them. Hope gave another of those lazy chuckles.

"Damn, girl, slow down," she breathed. "The more you hurry, the longer I'm gonna make you wait. So chill." She sat back up, moved off the other woman for a second, and shucked out of her pants and panties, leaving her as nude as Fred, who's eyes got even wider. "See something you like?" she asked for the second time that night, and getting a mute nod in response.

She kissed her way up Fred's body, giving her clit only the briefest notice – much to Fred's disappointment – and spending much more time around her bellybutton, then at her breasts, then her neck, and finally engaged her mouth in a long, slow, sensuous kiss that left her gasping for breath when it was over.

She was soon gasping for a very different reason as she felt the touches – almost light enough to be her imagination – brushing over her clit, which was now almost weeping out loud for attention. Hope was teasing the hell out of her, and if she didn't get busy for real soon, Fred knew she was going to be doing some actual weeping, pleading to be touched in the right places, in the right ways.

The touches got harder – much harder – and with no build-up. One second there was almost nothing, and the next Hope was pressing down on the nub full-force, turning small circles with her fingers as she did so. Fred's eyelids, which had been nearly closed, snapped open like over-tightened window shades. "Oh, fuck!" she gasped, using a word that seldom passed through her lips except in situations like this.

"Yeah, that's what I'm doing," Hope reminded, and quickened her circles. Fred's panting quickened to match. "You gonna come?" she asked, frowning slightly as she stared intently down into her face.

"Not yet, babe." And the hand stopped. Well, not stopped, but it went back to those 'Am-I-there-or-aren't-I?' touches, and now Fred DID cry, a choked- sounding sob that forced its way out of her even though she tried her best to stop it.

Hope bent down to her neck, alternately kissing and sucking at the now- sweaty skin there, occasionally darting up and working at the earlobe. The hand not between Fred's legs moved up and started on her breast – which, now that she lay flat on her back, had ceased to exist in all but theory – pinching and pulling at the nipple. Fred didn't even realize she was crying, silent tears spilling down her cheeks.

The fingers moved away, returning a moment later at the entrance to Fred's sex. "You ready for me yet?" Hope asked in an almost-mocking voice, as the fingers aimlessly swirled themselves around the wetness gathered outside. Her thumb flicked at Fred's clit, whose whole body bucked involuntarily at the touch.

"Please what?" Now the voice bordered on cruel. "What do you want me to do, bitch?"

"You want me to make you come until your eyes cross and you forget your own fucking name?"

Two fingers pushed into Fred and she groaned, long and low. They slowly withdrew, almost all the way out, then slid back in. Another groan, this one a little shorter. Hope gathered some of the wetness on her thumb, smeared it over the erect nub, and continued randomly pressing, flicking, and stroking it. The only sounds to be heard in the small room were the hum of the neon light outside the window, the steady panting of the two women, and a soft wet clicking.

When it became obvious that Fred was teetering on the edge, Hope twisted her hand slightly and curled her pumping fingers upward. As soon as they hit that magic spot, Fred's body went rigid, she let out an unintelligible shout, and then she began to buck, shake, and quake nearly hard enough to have pitched Hope off if the other girl hadn't already moved to lie beside her. Once she'd completely ridden it out, Hope withdrew her hand, bringing it to her mouth and beginning to clean it, loosing a soft moan of her own as she got her first taste.

"Pretty good," she allowed, rolling onto her back beside the still- recovering woman. Her dry hand started to trace lazy designs across the sweaty skin of her own hardened stomach. "I gotta admit, better than I expected, even. And you taste amazing. Here." She leaned over and daubed some of Fred's arousal on her lips. Absently, as if with a mind of its own, her tongue came out and licked it away.

A few minutes passed where the only sounds were their slow, steady breathing and the light's hum, and the only movement was the slow rise and fall of their chests and the leisurely round and round of Hope's hand along her stomach. Every few seconds their bodies were bathed in red, then darkness, then red, then darkness. Fred had fully recuperated after just a couple of minutes, and knew it was her turn to get Hope off, but couldn't bring herself to move yet. She hadn't felt this relaxed, this at peace with herself since her big fight with Charles, and she wanted to bask for another few minutes.

Just as she was getting ready to move, the other girl got up, instead. With a frown, Fred asked, "Where are you going?"

"Nowhere – yet. You just wait right there." She moved over to the dresser, where a couple of backpack-type things rested atop it. Fred watched her hungrily, drinking in the sight of her bare body, marveling at what an amazingly firm ass this girl had. Hell, firm EVERYTHING. She was already eager for her to get back over here so she could get her hands on some of those goodies.

When Hope returned, she put something down on the bed, and grabbed Fred's left arm. With a start, she saw that the object was actually three coils of rope, and the girl was tying a fourth one around her arm. Fred had done a lot of stuff back in the old days that would cause Cordy and Wes to drop their jaws nearly to their shoes, but she had never let anyone tie her up before – or she didn't think she had, anyway. The idea began to fill her with panic.

"Wh-what are you doing?!" Stupid question, she knew that, but it was all that would come out.

"What's it look like? The vanilla portion of the program is over, babe. We're gettin' down to business now." The hand was tied off to one of the bedposts, and the other wrist was seized, in spite of her efforts to keep it away from this girl.

"But... but..." she sputtered as her ankles were bound, leaving her spread- eagle on the damp sheets and feeling horribly exposed.

"Oh, you wanna see it again?" the girl asked sweetly, turning around and displaying her ass proudly. "Pretty fuckin' nice, ain't it? Hell, it always looked good, but ever since I sorta fell into this sweet deal a few years back, it's, like, unbelievable now." She was running her hands over it as she said this, craning her head around as far as she could to try to get a look.

As she watched this show, Fred's fear gradually... well, it didn't exactly fall away, but it was met and then exceeded by her renewed arousal. The girl WAS incredibly hot, and that orgasm a few minutes ago had been – no offense to Charles – the best one she'd had in... well, since her pre-Pylean days. It was crazy, considering that she was currently tied to a bed, but she hadn't felt this free in as long as she could remember. And she supposed being like this WAS kinda sexy. Curiosity was ever her biggest curse, and she did sorta want to see what would happen next.

And for the third time that night, Fred's best asset – her brain – failed her. She was so caught up in the excitement of this sexual adventure she had stumbled into that it never even occurred to wonder how this girl just happened to have four pieces of rope ready to go. Or, for that matter, how she'd had this ROOM ready to go, paid for ahead of time and with some of her stuff already here. There wasn't enough of her stuff around, so she obviously didn't live here, so why did she have it? But Fred's higher brain functions had tripped right on down memory lane to the good ol' flesh-filled days of San Antone, and weren't around to help raise questions like this. Though to be fair, by this point it was probably too late to have made a difference anyway.

Hope climbed back onto the bed, kneeling astride Fred's face and lowering herself down. "Well? Get goin', Texas. Show me just what else you can do with that tongue besides yap."

Her tongue cautiously poked out of her mouth, probing the area around the other girl's moist dark curls. It had been awhile since she'd explored this type of territory, and Fred was a little unsure of herself. But some things really are like riding bicycles, and in no time at all she was as deep into Hope as she could go, thrusting in and out for all she was worth, getting drunk all over again on the girl's juices. When she began to feel the sensations that signaled impending orgasm, she pulled out and wrapped her lips around the clit, sucking at it softly and making Hope cry out, long and loud. She scraped her teeth along it, sucking harder now, and Hope came, bathing Fred's face in a near-deluge. Her hands flew out and gripped the headboard, preventing a collapse just in time.

"Damn," she whispered in a soft, admiring voice, dismounting and laying herself overtop the other woman. "Ride 'em, cowgirl, huh? Real nice, Texas. Not exactly a rookie at this, are ya? Gee, who woulda figured that?" Her head was just below Fred's, and she started kissing and licking along one of her collarbones. One of her hands was absently teasing a nipple, causing Fred to start thinking about her own needs again.

Hope could tell. "Wanna go again, babe?" she asked, looking up at her with mischievous, dancing eyes. "Already?"

Another of those lazy chuckles. "What'd I tell you about patience?" After a single hard, fast lick along Fred's chest, she got up and headed back to the dresser. She came back carrying one of the two backpacks that had been sitting on it. "I've got plenty of shit for us to play with, and we've got hours to try it all out." She emptied the contents on the bottom of the bed, and Fred's eyes nearly bugged out of her head...

She woke up the next morning with a killer hangover, which she'd somehow expected even though she had no immediate memory of what had happened the night before. Then it came back to her. Tequila, Hope, lots and lots of sweat on bare skin, rope, silicone, leather... The details were all mixed up, or entirely missing in some cases, but she knew that all those elements had come into play at some point in the evening's festivities. She groaned and rolled over.

Even before she opened her eyes, she knew she was alone. Hope was gone. Not much of a surprise, really, but Fred still felt disappointed. It wasn't like she'd necessarily ever wanted to see the girl again, but even so, waking up beside her and getting the chance to say goodbye might've been nice. Oh well. With a weary sigh, she sat up.

The room was even less attractive in daylight. It looked naked somehow, like she was seeing it in a way that had never been intended. The red pulsing light from the E was gone, and harsh white light poured in through the window. Hope's bags were gone too, of course, and Fred's small pile of clothing over there on the floor was the room's only decoration now. She got up and made her way over to it, trying her best to ignore the throbbing in her head. With one last check to see if Hope had maybe left a note for her – she hadn't – Fred opened the door and walked out.

Angel was just crossing the lobby of the Hyperion when she walked in, and he turned to smile at her. If he noticed the mark on her neck that she had lamely tried to hide under a mass of hair, he was too polite to say anything. "Morning, Fred," he said with a smile.

"Really? Oh gosh, I'm so sorry I wasn't here for that! I'd better – " She was halfway to her desk before she got it. "Oh. That was just you funnin' with me, wasn't it?"

"Little bit," he admitted, smiling at her again. Wow, that was a month's worth of grins for him; he must be in a good mood. "Seriously, nothing's been..." He trailed off, a strange expression crossing his face.

"Hmm?" He looked at her in surprise, as if just remembering she was there. "Oh, I just thought I smelled something familiar... Couldn't be, though. Crazy," he muttered, walking off and shaking his head.

She watched him go, shrugged, and sat down behind the hotel's main desk, ready for another day of helping the helpless.

'Or I will be, just as soon as I get something for this headache,' she decided, heading for the nearest medicine cabinet.

The distraught woman's voice hitched as she told her tale, anguishing over how the green slime-covered demon had eaten her dachshund, going on and on about what a great dog Oscar had been, how cute he was, and so forth and so on. Fred sat in Angel's chair and listened to her, grinning the whole time behind her hand. Oh, of course it was horrible about the poor puppy, but even a story like that couldn't ruin her super-swell mood. She and Charles were together again.

They had finally broken down last night and admitted how stupid they'd both been acting, and made up right there on the spot, in the center of the hotel lobby. And then it had been up to Fred's room, where they had spent most of the night making up some more. And this morning Charles had brought her breakfast in bed, and a single red rose. He was such a big softie inside, and no one knew it but her.

"So... can you help me?" the woman asked, startling Fred out of her happy thoughts. "I still have one other dog, after all, and I don't know what I'd do if something happened to her, too. And I want to make sure this monster doesn't do this to anyone else's pets." She covered her mouth and nose with her Kleenex again, cutting off a small sob.

"Oh – sure! You bet! Angel and everybody can track down this thing, no sweat! Just as soon as they get back from the case they're working on now. Here, if you'll just fill out this form, we'll get right on that for ya this afternoon." She handed over a clipboard, and got up when she heard someone ding the bell out on the counter.

"Thank you!" Fred yelled, stepping out of the office just in time to see the mailman's back as he opened the front door. He raised a hand in acknowledgment, then was gone.

She looked through the stack of stuff as she waited for Mrs. Breen to finish with the paperwork. Bill for Angel, bill for Angel, catalog for current resident, bill for Angel, CD-of-the-Month selection for Lorne. Oh, and something for her! She loved getting mail, since it wasn't something that happened very often.

It was a padded manila envelope, with 'Fred Burkle' scrawled on the front and no return address. Curious about what this could be, she ripped the end off of it and reached inside to pull out the contents. When she saw what they were, the smile practically FLEW off her face, her blood ran cold, and the hand holding the objects began to tremble.

There were several five-by-seven black-and-white photographs, maybe a half-dozen in all, and a videotape. All of the stills showed the same thing: her, naked and tied to a bed, with all her most private areas way-too-plainly visible.

'Okay. Okay, maybe this isn't so SO bad. I mean, you can't even see my face here, so – ' That hope died when she got to the fourth photo. There she lay, grinning up at the camera as if she was having the time of her life, and undeniably Winifred Burkle.

'When did she do this? I don't remember anything like this. We did some wild stuff, sure, but...' Then it came back to her – sort of; a hazy memory of Hope saying something like, "It'll be awesome. Pretend you're gonna be in 'Penthouse,' and think of all those teenage boys jerkin' themselves, lookin' at you." And at the time, had this been a huge turn-on for her? She was ashamed to remember that yes, it had been.

There was one more thing in the package, tucked between the tape and the pictures: a small piece of paper, blank save for a street address, a date, and a time, written in the same hand as the address on the package. She looked at it for a long moment, as if trying to puzzle out what this strange thing was. The date was today, and the time was later that afternoon.

"Excuse me? Miss?" Mrs. Breen stepped into the doorway of Angel's office, looking out at her. "I'm finished with this. What would you like me to do with it?"

"Uh-huh," Fred said dreamily, moving out from behind the counter and heading for the stairs.

For Fred, Mrs. Breen had ceased to exist. There was only one thought in her mind as she climbed up to her room: she had to see what was on this tape. She already knew, but in truly morbid fashion, had to see for herself for some reason. It was like driving by a car wreck – as much as she didn't want to, she couldn't NOT look.

She closed her door behind her, crossed the room and switched her TV on, and put the tape in the VCR. She pushed Play, and after a couple of seconds of snow, the image of that now painfully-familiar room appeared. It was red, then it was dark. Red, then dark. The E outside the window blinked endlessly on and off. And she saw herself, her nude figure standing there nervously, waiting to see what would happen next.

"Wow, you've got small tits," Hope said again, and stepped into the frame, nothing visible yet other than her bare back. Unconsciously, Fred's hands came up and covered her chest as she watched the nightmare continue to unfold.

'That's what she did when we first walked in!' she realized suddenly. 'She went over there and turned a video camera on. She must've had it hidden inside one of those bags.'

She sat and watched for over twenty minutes, asking herself over and over, 'Why did she do this? Why did she send me these things? How did she know where to send them? I didn't give her my last name, did I?'

Wait – something strange had just happened. She rewound the tape to figure out what. There! There was a cut in the action. At one minute, the two women had been lying side-by-side, almost dozing, and the next, Fred was tied up and Hope was climbing onto her face. She thought about it for a few seconds, and then was pretty sure she understood. She had resisted for a few seconds when the ropes had appeared, and this – for whatever reason – was obviously supposed to look like she had been a willing partner all along.

She stopped the tape. Fast-forwarded. Pressed Play. Now Hope was on all- fours facing toward the camera, with Fred – now free of her bindings – kneeling behind her. Thin black straps were fastened around Fred's pelvis – she surely knew what THOSE held in place – and she was slamming forward into the younger girl, who was screaming out a nearly-unbroken string of obscenities, grinning the whole time.

Stop. Fast-forward. Play. Fred was blindfolded, standing beside and bent over the bed, with her feet free but her hands tied behind her back, and now it was Hope wearing the harness, pounding into her. She had stopped the tape just in time to see herself come loudly and impressively. Hope reached up to her own breasts, not slowing the movement of her hips, and seconds later she was coming, as well. The two of them fell forward onto the mattress.

Stop. Fast-forward. Play. Hope was kneeling on all-fours again, this time facing away from the camera, and Fred knelt beside her. She held a looped- over black leather belt in her right hand, and as Fred-in-the-hotel watched in horror, Fred-on-the-tape swung it down, landing it with a loud 'thwap!' against Hope's toned ass. A bright red welt appeared, and she cried out in pain. Fred- in-the-hotel thought that would be it, and Fred-on-the-tape apparently thought the same thing, but after a few seconds Hope's muffled voice could be heard: "What are you waitin' for, Texas? C'mon: again. You know you wanna." That was all that Fred-on-the-tape needed; she went totally to town, delivering one after another, leaving no speck of skin unmarked. Hope cried out with each one, but never told her to stop. And when Fred-in-the-hotel realized that her counterpart on the tape was smiling as she rained down blow after blow, she couldn't hold it any longer. She made it to her small bathroom just in time to put the toilet seat up and get the vomit in there where it belonged. She heaved and heaved, long after anything had stopped coming up, and eventually sank to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.

The address on the paper belonged to an out-of-business meat-packing plant. Fred arrived at the given time, just before sunset, and found the girl standing on the rear loading dock, leaning against the wall and smirking at her.

"Good, I guess you got the package in time. Never know with the fuckin' post office, ya know."

Fred hadn't broken stride as the girl greeted her. She marched right up to her, drew her hand back, and slapped her across the face – hard. "You bitch!"

"Nice to see you again, too, sweetheart," she said, rubbing her cheek. "By the way, I probably oughta introduce myself. After all, since you spent half the night with your tongue in my pussy, seems like you should know my name. I'm Faith." She offered her hand, which went untouched. After a few seconds, she let it drop, looking a little hurt.

At first, the name meant nothing to Fred. Then she remembered the stories; stories told – rarely – by Cordy and Wesley during late nights at the office, about the evil psychotic slayer from Sunnydale. Faith.

"How could you do this to me?" Fresh tears brimmed in her eyes, and started to trickle down her cheeks again.

"Aww, stop crying, princess," Faith warned. "I have to watch much of that, I'm gonna start cryin' too, and people who've seen me cry don't usually have long life-expectancies. Bad for the image and all that." She grabbed the lapels of her leather jacket and pulled it tighter against herself. "And don't act like this is all my fault, either. It's not like I had to force you, or even do much convincin'. You were totally into it right from the jump."

"You didn't WANT to know. 'The stuff under the surface;' remember that? 'The stuff people ignore just 'cause it would get in the way.' Your words, Texas, not mine. You wanted to get your hands on these – " Her hands came up and cupped her breasts through her jacket, " – and you wanted to see how loud I could make you scream. You didn't care about the fine print that night, the little 'You Ain't Ridin' For Free' at the bottom. And now, it's time to pay up."

She grinned; on her evil face, it was a frightening expression. "If you knew me better, you wouldn't even ask that question. But in this case, no, I'm not gonna kill you – yet, anyway. 'Cause then I wouldn't get what I want. But what I WILL do is send copies of those pictures and our little home movie to all your friends. 'Magine what they'd think, seeing sweet innocent little Fred not only fucking some chick, but me of all people! Or whipping my ass until you were so turned on that you were nearly coming just from watching me. I'm guessing that they'd be just a little surprised by what a kinky bitch you are at heart, don't ya think?"

Fred wanted to start bawling all over again, but remembered Faith's warning and held the sobs in – barely. The thought of Angel and Wes and Cordy seeing that tape... And Charles! Oh God, they had just patched things up and gotten back together. What would happen if he saw her, acting like such a... she couldn't even finish the thought. That side of herself, the Fred she'd been back in high school and college, that was something she never wanted him to know about. He thought of her as sweet, innocent Fred, and to have him find out about the other side of her like this...

But as her mind continued rolling it over, thinking about all the different sides of it, she realized something: this girl was evil, and whatever she wanted from Fred, it would be for a no-good reason. Giving in to people like this wasn't what she and her friends did. Their job was to fight evil, at any cost to themselves. Usually that cost came in the form of various physical wounds, but in this case, it would be a wound to her pride and to her image – both her self- image and the one others had of her. Could she survive that? Yes, she thought she could. And Charles... well, she would try to make him understand, try her best to explain. She thought he loved her enough that he would get past it – eventually – but even if he didn't, she would know she had done the right thing.

"I said no. Forget it. I won't help you." Her voice was full of confidence now, believing she'd faced this evil monster down and come out the winner.

Faith glared at her for several moments, looking like she was about ready to pull a weapon and end Fred's life right then and there. But then she began to grin again, and Fred's momentary feeling of victory evaporated. A hand disappeared into one of the pockets of that leather jacket, and came back out holding a slip of paper.

"'Roger and Trish Burkle,'" she read, and Fred, who hadn't thought this day could get any worse, knew just how wrong she had been. "'342 Maple Street, San Antonio, Texas.' Hmm, what do you think the letter should say? Maybe something like, 'Dear Mr. and Mrs. Burkle, I'm a friend of your daughter's, and I'm very worried about her, and think you should be, too. These new friends she's got here in LA are definitely a wicked bad influence on her – just look and see for yourself – and I think you should maybe come bring her back home.'" She stopped her musing, looked at Fred, and widened her grin even further. "And I've also got this friend who can get 'em up on the internet for me, and make sure they get real good circulation. With your name, address, and phone number on 'em, too. Sweet, huh?"

Fred could no longer hold back her tears, and let them silently fall, not much caring at this point if Faith decided to just go ahead and kill her. It might actually be the best way this could end for her.

"Wh-wh-what do you want?" she asked at last, hating the sound of the words falling from her mouth, hating the sound of the defeat they conveyed.

"Ah, finally!" Faith exclaimed happily, obviously relieved. "Okay, check this: see, I just did this job for this freaky law firm here in town, and after they paid me, this lawyer bitch – what a great fuckin' lay she is by the way, if you're interested – gave me your name. Sorta like a Christmas bonus. Said you knew everything there was to know about portals. At first I was just gonna grab you off the street and MAKE you help, but then I got a look at you, and had a much better idea. Gotta say, nerds sure have changed since I was in school. Maybe I dropped out too soon, huh?"

"P-portals?" Every time she thought she had struck bottom, the ground opened up beneath her and dropped her even lower.

"Ever hear of the Vlarn'kesh dimension?" Fred shook her head, so Faith explained. "Sounds real nice, from what my new friend Lilah has to say about it. The demons there have all sorts of fun – fun for them, anyway – uses for human girls. And they're supposed to be wicked strong, too strong for even a slayer to take."

Faith laughed. "Oh, yeah, that sounds like my idea of fun! Not quite, princess. But I have a friend who I think might enjoy it there. So you're going to help me give B a nice long – like, LIFE- long – vacation there. Whaddaya say?"

Fred shifted from one foot to the other, hating herself for every second she stood here instead of turning around, walking away, and letting this evil thing do whatever the hell she wanted with her little blackmail attempt. But when she finally opened her mouth, what she said was: "I help you, and you promise not to show that stuff to anyone – especially my parents?"

Fred thought about it one last time, weighing her options, trying to figure out which road would cause her the least amount of lost sleep. Both paths were loathsome, but she decided that she really only had one choice. With a deep breath, she opened her mouth and gave her answer.

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Means To An End

by Barnabas

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