When she finally won, it came as a surprise, even to her.

If she was someone else, she might have been disappointed she didn't make it herself, through her wits and such, but as it is she's not exactly sorry about how things turned out. She went to sleep with a foolproof plan to sucker her latest husband, and the old fool was dead by the time she woke up. On his own, even. Suddenly she's Elias Budd's charming widow, complete with her own ship, a surprising load of cash, and nothing but freedom ahead of her.

It was more than a mite unsettling.

It took about two weeks before she was about ready to kill the next sweet young crewmate eager to take her away from all this trouble and work and unwomanly business. None of them were particularly good at the act, though most gave it a good try -- if she were a bit less good herself, she might have been tempted to give a few of them pointers.

She's been living out on Odell the last couple months, a couple miles out from one of the town. It's comfortable enough, at least, and the folks keep their distance away from her. They might be half convinced she's a witch. There are rumors already about on the kind of "widow" Mrs. Budd really is.

Isn't like it really matters, because she's not going to be here so long. This is just a resting point till she decides where she's going next, and what she's gonna do there. She's not used to being without a plan of some sort. She'd been doing this since she was a bitty girl, and thinking about it before that even. It'll take a bit to get accustomed to the difference.

Today's she's gone into town. Girl's got needs, after all, and she can afford to indulge them now, any way she likes. Any time she likes, even, so this morning she put on her dark dress and her best bonnet and drove in.

She picks out some sweet-smelling soap, some fresh fruit and a new pair of slippers, puts it all in her basket before she heads up to the room over the local tavern. It's none too big, but it's clean enough, and private, so she has figured it worth the few credits it takes to rent each week.

She looks around the small room, checking the corners and shutting the windows. She slips out of her dress and bonnet and she's waiting on the edge of the bed when the girl arrives, slightly out of breath.

"You're late," she says to the girl, sadlike, and the girl's eyes widen and she flushes pink.

"I'm sorry, I--"

"Shhh," she says, before the girl can hardly speak, "it doesn't matter. Come here." She holds her arms out, and the girl's face dissolves to a sweet pleasure as she comes forward.

The girl's young, lovely and pliant, which is all she asks these days. One rut, she's found, is pretty much like the next, and it's never been too hard to make people want her. She hasn't been much interested in men folk lately -- they're more trouble than they're worth, and they always feel like work. Girls feel just as good.

This one's not far out of school, with dark straight hair that hangs in her face and an endless desire to please. The girl spilt her whole life story in bed the first afternoon, and she'd put on her sincere face and listened to the whole thing, but there wasn't much of any use or interest in it. In a few years the girl will marry and help her husband with his farm and have children and grow haggard. Her looks are still here now, though, which is all *she* cares about.

She lies back, pulling the girl along with her. The girl gives a shy smile and kisses her daringly, first her neck and then down her breasts.

She closes her eyes and pets the girl's hair, both to encourage her and so she doesn't just stop midway through. Which isn't unheard of, especially back the first few times, when she was still wearing down the girl's nerves about sin and unnaturalness.

This will probably be the last time she takes the girl to her bed, she thinks, as the girl's sweet mouth closes around one nipple. The girl is pretty, but there's plenty of pretty around. There's not much else to keep her from getting bored.

It's a shame. It's been too long of a time since she had a bedmate who wasn't a rutting fool. All of her husbands were, of course, even the ones she never went to bed with, like the damn bastard Malcolm Reynolds.

He'd been one of the worst, which just made it all the more intolerable that he'd gotten the better of her. *Twice*. That crew of his wasn't much more to speak of, either.

The companion, though. A gorram bitch, and she'd as soon kill her as look upon her again, but all the same. You have to have a certain respect for a woman like that.

The girl moves her hand towards the crease of her leg and pelvis, gently through the curly hairs and down to her cunt. She squirms lightly at the touch, adjusting first to the sensation and then to the pleasure.

She wouldn't have minded a tumble with that one, she thinks, and she lets her imagination replace the girl. Stronger fingers, more elegant and sure. Curlier hair beneath her hand, and sweet perfume instead of yeasty bread dough.

Though it *is* a shame about the whoring. She doesn't mind whoring, of course -- she's not been so far away from it sometimes herself. You do what you need to. But Companions, though, that's another matter. Rutting is rutting; there's no need for all that ceremony and fuss over it.

She shudders as the girl's strokes quicken, and her thoughts start to leave her. She moans deep in her throat. The girl gives a shaky "Oh" beside her, but she doesn't attend, twisting to get the angle she loves, grabbing the girl's wrist to hold her fast as the joy spreads all over her, the whore's image still in her head.

The girl barely gives her a few second to recover before she's on her, cuddling up close. "Oh, I do love you." It's whispered into the skin of her chest.

She rolls her eyes where the girl can't see and starts refining her escape plan.

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