Bette checked her watch.  It was already three in the morning.  She needed to get home. Not everyone in this club worked a nine to five, but she did.

“Don’t be.  Listen, Tina, if you’d like maybe we can go out sometime.”

“I’d love to.” The two women exchanged numbers.  Tina ran her hand across Bette’s shoulders, feeling the skin on her shoulders raise to goosebumps, “Goodnight, Bette.”

“’Night.”

~

Helena leaned against the wall on the outside of Milk, lifting a lit cigarette to her lips.  She knew Bette would be outside eventually and she intended on waiting all night if she had to.  When Bette finally came out, Helena felt her before she could see her.

The hair on her skin stood at attention, she couldn’t stop the urges that had appeared.  These feelings were confusing, as Helena had never had this sort of reaction to a woman before, not one that she considered prey.

There was something different about this one.

“You know, it’s dangerous for a woman like you to be out on the streets alone this late at night.” Helena said, seductively and slowly and making sure that Bette knew where to look.

“And you should know that it’s impolite to buy a woman a drink and then disappear.”  Bette walked in Helena’s direction, taking a stand right beside her.  The balmy night air whipped across her face.

“You had a guest.”

“Doesn’t mean you couldn’t say hello.”  Helena shrugged, taking another drag.  As she took the cigarette away from her lips, she motioned it to Bette.  Bette’s eyebrow raised and she took the cigarette.  She sucked in the toxin.  She passed it back, “Cigarettes can kill you.”

Helena chuckled at the woman and her nonsensical statement, “Helena Peabody.” She flicked the butt of the cigarette to the wind.  She stuck her hand out to be shook.

“Bette Porter.”

“It’s a pleasure, Bette.” Helena held the soft, warm hand in her palm.  If she had a heart beat, it would be rapid, “Do you need a lift?”

“No.  I called cab.” She said as the cab pulled up, “Thanks anyway.”  Helena nodded.  The Brit opened the door for the taller brunette, “Thanks for the drink.”

“Don’t mention it.”  She closed the door for her and tapped the hood of the car.  The car pulled off into the dark, “You, Bette Porter, are something special.”

~

It took Helena only a few minutes to track Bette down.  She followed her scent in the air to an upscale apartment in West Hollywood.  She slowed her Mercedes to a stall just in front of her window.  Bette could be seen in her robe.  She was freshly showered.  Helena smiled slightly, rethinking this whole game that she and Tina were playing.

They played this game entirely too often.  “Search and Destroy.”  That was what it was called.  They searched and they pillaged.  But she didn’t feel like she could do that with this one.

She pulled off and drove home.

She drove to her lonely home.

She unlocked the front door of her mansion and made her way inside.  The apartment was warm and dark.  The blinds were slightly parted, as she had left them during the night.  She locked the door behind her and began stripping herself of her clothes.  Honestly, the past one-hundred and some odd years had been good to her body.  She was able to work on it, perfect it.  She took a quick shower and dried herself off.

She didn’t know about Alice or Shane or Tina, but she knew she got lonely.  She longed for companionship of the human variety.  That’s what she missed the most—the feeling of someone’s warm skin against her own, the taste of a woman’s lips in the morning after a long night together, and the way a heartbeat felt against her own.  All the things she’d never feel again.

The sun was starting to rise.  She shut the blinds tighter, trying to keep the light from penetrating the house.