The Muse and I sat on the front porch, in the dark. The rain fell, a steady patter on the cars in the driveway. She puffed silently on her clove cigarette. With each inhalation, her face lit up in a red glow.

"I don't know why you smoke those things," I said. "They smell like ass."

"And you would know how ass smells because..?" She trailed off insinuatingly.

I leaned back in my chair and put my feet up on the porch railing. "It's a fetish. Ass-sniffing. I'm as bad as a rabid poodle."

"You're definitely a freak, at any rate."

We were both silent again. The shushing sound of cars driving by on the wet pavement lulled me. I shut my eyes and dozed lightly.

"I've decided that not only boys are stupid," the Muse said finally. "Girls are just as dumb. We just smell better."

I didn't open my eyes. "Dancing night not go as well as you'd hoped?"

"Oh, I don't know. It was fine, I suppose. Danced a little, made out a little. This awfully cute girl with fishnets kept grabbing my ass. It was fine enough. I think I was looking forward more to the dancing than the general idiot level of the clubs."

"Didn't Eliot go with you? She's not an idiot."

"Yeah, she's great, but she was doing her thing and I was doing mine. Some little Goth boy hauled her off into the corner in the dark, and that was the last I saw of her for about a half hour."

"Let her have her fun, Muse," I said. "She's a little disconnected right now. A hot Goth boy is just the thing she needs to re-establish herself."

"I'm not picking on her at all. I like her. She's smart and yummy. I'd kiss her myself if she liked girls."

"I think she does. At least, I seem to remember her talking about it once."

"She does?" The Muse hummed. "I'll remember that and give her a nibble someday."

I cracked one eyelid and peered at her. "Play nice, Muse. You're something of a heart breaker."

"I always play nice," she said. "At the very least, I play bad with a safe word."

"Don't want to hear it, thank you." I shut my eye again.

"Afraid of a little pain?" she asked, and chuckled.

"I work in television, Muse. My entire life is pain."

She snorted. "You need a new job. The TV thing goes entirely against everything you believe in."

"I know, I know." I sighed and shivered just a bit. The cold was starting to settle in my bones. "I just enjoy it too much."

There was a soft and quick hiss: the Muse putting out her cigarette in her soda. She knew I didn't like her tossing the butts in my driveway. "I've lost count of the number of times my heart's been broken. It's only fair that I break a few in return."

"It's not really fair to the people whose hearts you're breaking."

She hummed again, and followed it up with nothing this time. The rain continued to fall. Before too much longer, I knew, we'd have to go back inside the house. The spring chill came on fast these days.