Cropped

He'd picked her up out of uniform. The uniform was cheating, as far as he was concerned, especially in a town like this. Not that he had anything against the groupies, but it was just too easy like that. And doing things the easy way just wasn't his style.

Boisterous and drunk, she'd pressed in behind him as he tried for the bartender's attention. He'd heard her giggling behind him, her hands feeling him up and down his stomach.

"Are you groping me?" he'd asked, conversationally, loudly above the club's music.

"He's smart too! Aww, and look at the pretty face," she'd said when he turned around. Petite. Blonde. Dressed for the prowl.

Her gaggle of companions had eyed him and felt like nothing so much as a side of beef. Finding something they liked, they'd retreated, leaving her squeezed against him in the maelstrom of inebriated young people. He felt old here. He ordered her a drink and then retreated to the relative quiet of a chill out room. Someone was frakking or damn close on a couch.

"You live near here?"

"I'm actually leaving town in about 7 hours."

"Wife?"

"Father's retirement party. I intend to be as hungover as humanly possible."

"Daddy issues? Cool. Me too. Wanna screw?"

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

In the cab on the way to her apartment, she'd fumbled his pants undone with the condom package between her teeth. Slid her fingers against his teeth to stifle his protests before sucking him into her mouth. He was hard by the first stop light. Inside her by the second. It was only by sheer force of will and ambrosia that he wasn't finished by the time they pulled up outside her building.

She'd left him to pay, and he tossed the driver too large of a bill. Nearly told him to head back to the club, but then he saw her at the large glass doors, shoes in hand. Something familiar flickered in the back of his mind.

She'd stripped him, inspected him, pacing around him in a circle.

"Do I pass?"

"You'll do."

"Are you going to tell me your name?"

"Are you here to talk or frak?"

The second time she'd let him be on top.

The ring on her finger was large, glittering, reflecting the light that spilled in from the living room. He'd sat back, pulling her fingers from his cock, and sucked that one into his mouth.

"You going to tell me his name?"

"Mr. Safety."

"What's my name then?"

"Meat."

"Cute."

"In. Now."

He'd slid his mouth over one breast, and her perfume left a bitter coating on his tongue. Further down, and she'd been pounding her fists on his skull before she'd had the chance to complain. She came against his mouth, twice before he'd flipped her over and taken her from behind, flat against the bedspread. She didn't come when he fucked her then, but by that point he didn't care.

He'd wrapped her long hair around and around his fist and held it to the side. Twisted her head to the side and kept his eyes on the short cap of yellow he'd created. Kept his eyes on the way she bit her pillow and grunted. She submitted. He'd wanted to say her name when he came, but he didn't have it so he reached for another.

"You smell like sex," she'd said, sprawled across his body, investigating his face as he came down.

"I should hope so."

"You can use my shower if you want."

"Thank you." He rolled her off of him and shut the door behind himself without looking back.

He didn't smell like sex when he'd finished. He'd smelled like berries.

She was sitting in the kitchen, cigarette in one hand, robe spilling open over the leg she'd flung on the table. She closed the magazine she'd been reading and gestured at the neatly folded pile of his clothes.

"Couldn't find your socks." She pointed her cigarette at a rolled pair of white athletic socks atop the stack. Not his.

"He won't mind?"

"He won't notice."

He dressed and couldn't help smiling as she leered theatrically. "Couldn't find my underwear either?"

"Souvenir."

"Fair enough."

"You're welcome to the kitchen, if you want to eat before you leave."

He'd taken a chicken breast, a beer and a peach and consumed them to the sound of her pages turning.

At the door, he'd said, "He's a lucky man," but the words sounded as hollow as the smile she offered him in return.

He'd spent the remaining hours on Caprica at a coffee shop, sobering up. The milk had been cold and fresh and plentiful, and he'd noted the location. Several of the pies in the display case looked worthy of his attention, but he didn't have the room. He'd try them on his next visit.

"Love your cologne," Starbuck had said at some point that first day. "Very masculine."

"I'm very masculine."

"Are you hung over?"

He'd frakked with her hair until she swatted his hand away. He'd looked forward to seeing her. Looked forward to playing cards with her, if they had the chance. They'd fallen out of touch through his fault, not entirely. She was one of the only reasons he'd agreed to come, though, and he was glad she hadn't changed, except for the grieving.

"You haven't aged," he'd said.

"You have. Doesn't look horrible on you.

At some point that first week he'd inventories his possessions. The socks took a second. It wasn't until his second shower, lathered in the military issue soap that he'd noticed the marks on his shoulder. Perfect placement to hide behind the strap of his tank. Perfect bite mark. He'd traced the two arcs with his finger. She'd left a perfect dental impression, useful as a fingerprint for identifying the dead.

A week later everything had faded but the memory of her hair in the moonlight, folded, hidden, cropped by his fist.