The Stool Pigeons

Chapter 1

"I want to bear your children. Plural. Children, as in I plan to bear several of them. We're young, gosh, I know we're young! But this is how it ought to be."

No. Too old fashioned. No one says 'ought' anymore. Or 'gosh', for that matter.

"I may be young but I am ready."

No. Sounds too much like Stewie from Family Guy.

"I've been able to deep-throat since I was seven and that's why you, my fellow civilian, should elect me as your permanent blow queen."

Um. Well, perhaps starting out with a lie isn't impressionable. It's a lie about the whole deep-throating thing. Also seven is sort of young, that might sound a little freaky.

"Your pants must be made of mirrors because I can see myself in them!"

Raylan isn't entirely sure how that one even goes but she's almost positive that's not how that goes. So that rules that one out. Unfortunately. Because doesn't everyone like cheesy pick up lines? Raylan certainly does, swears she'd even date someone who introduced themselves with one. It's endearing, goddammit. Perhaps she needs to aim for even more endearing, something like a compliment.

"But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and you are the sun. My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite."

Is it too soon to quote Romeo and Juliet? Is it ever opportune to quote Shakespeare in a relationship? Especially those lines, potentially two of the most popular lines in the play, rolled into one heap of mushy love and Victorian-era speak. Raylan's reflection in the mirror stares back at her with a blank expression. Her reflection is probably exasperated. It's been mimicking her as she practises her seduction tactics for nearly an hour.

Honestly, men complain about women being difficult. Raylan doesn't understand how liking to cuddle on the couch looking as homeless as one with a couch and Netflix can look is considered difficult. Men are the difficult ones. You can't play hard to get but you can't be easy to approach. You can't do this too much or that too much. Men are easily spooked, intimidated by a woman's mere appearance. Raylan wishes she could be thinking of this in an entirely obnoxious way, thinking as if she were only a woman who was angry with the entire male gender, but she's actually mulling over this with logic. In the 1700s, wearing lipstick was actually forbidden because it was considered so lustful to men that it would drive them nuts. Women who wore lipstick were witches, the act of wearing lipstick was witchcraft. Raylan laughs to herself, amused, women just wore colourful fish scales on their lips and were dubbed too sensual for men to handle. Raylan laughs to herself a little harder, men are terrible. Why is she even putting all this effort into seducing one?

Normally Raylan wouldn't even bother with trying to speak to him. In any other situation Raylan would have sources and would be able to find out everything she could possibly need to know through all of her sources. Why would she date someone if she already knew their blood type, the exact minute they were born, and everything they liked and disliked? It was more fun, more exhilarating to find things out about a person in every way except blatantly asking them. Every boy Raylan's ever liked has never spoken to her, and she has never spoken to them. It's rare that she ever even knows what their voice sounds like.

Levi is different though.

Levi is different. Not in the way he makes her feel, but in the way the SPs feel about him.

Levi should probably be scared, terrified for his whole life. The SPs have singled you out, there's no looking back now. Run, Levi! Run for your fucking life! Raylan stares at the tip of her nose, imagining Levi running. The nest of butterflies in her stomach, once still and resting, all at once flutter to life. A mass of them at once, tickling her inside to out, the brilliant colours decorating their wings all a blur, as if a rainbow threw up.