Chapter 2
It was nine o’clock by time she emerged from the subway on Lexington at 86th Street and headed west and south to the house. Once she left the lively cross-street, the neighborhood had a hushed feel, the shops shut on Madison Avenue, their windows full of pricey merchandise lit up for no one. It seemed like all the apartments above were empty, their normal human inhabitants away at beaches and mountain lakes, and there was no one but the shop mannequins forming a gauntlet for her to walk through, taunting her.
She climbed the marble steps slowly to the house door, and rang the bell.
Reese opened the door. “Good evening, miss.”
She offered him the shopping bag in her hand. “I brought back the robe.”
“Thank you, miss, it was quite unnecessary.”
“Whose house is this?”
“My employer is a Mr Vaux.”
“William Vaux?”
“Your friend is a guest here. Mr Vaux is abroad.”
“Spike’s not my–where abroad?”
“Mr Vaux has various houses. He travels a great deal.”
“He’s another vampire, right?”
“This way, please. You’re just in time for supper.”
He led her into a room she hadn’t visited before, a small glassed-in breakfast room that overlooked a walled garden, its flowers and shrubs illuminated by artfully-placed spotlights. A table was set for one with pretty gold-rimmed china and silver that glowed with the low burnish of the good and old.
“I thought you’d be more comfortable in here, miss, rather than in the dining room.”
“Where’s Spike?”
“You’ll be joining him later.”
That’s what I’m dreading. The … joining. She was going to say that she wanted to see him now, but Reese was pulling out the chair for her to sit.
A moment later he was back with a demi-baguette, a bowl of pale soup, and a large green salad. “Is there anything else you’d like?”
“I … can’t think of anything.”
“Very good, miss. When you’re ready, please step upstairs. Your bath will ready, and of course the clothes you left here the other evening will be awaiting you.” Reese took a thin book from the sideboard, and set it down at her elbow. “I will leave you now, but there’s one final thing. I was asked to give you this–you might wish to turn these pages while you enjoy your meal.”
When she was alone, Buffy sniffed suspiciously at the food, but the soup–cold creamy potato with tiny herbs sprinkled on its surface–smelled wonderful, and the salad was very fresh. Might as well eat. She’d need her intestinal fortitude in a little while.
The book looked hand-made, like something you’d find at an antiquarian’s. It contained colored drawings, on rag paper. The drawings were very delicate and detailed and pretty. The first one showed a man and woman in evening clothes–like the people in the painting she’d seen the other night. The man was kissing the lady’s hand. On the next page, he was in her arms, kissing her mouth. There was only one drawing on each set of two pages–the back of each sheet of paper was blank. In the third, he’d drawn up the skirt of her long satin dress to caress her thigh, as he kissed her neck.
What the hell?
In the fourth drawing the woman was reclined in a chair, with the man kneeling between her parted legs. She clapped the book closed, and pushed herself away from the table. God, what was this? What was Spike thinking? She hated that Reese knew exactly why she was there. He probably thought she was some kind of call-girl, or–
A moment later she snatched the book up again. In that fourth drawing, the woman’s head lolled back against the cushion. Her small pink mouth was half open, as if she was gasping–she looked tipsy and blissed out. Buffy turned a few more pages–the couple went on from there, more naked and abandoned on each leaf. They did everything, in every position. She’d seen dirty pictures before, who hadn’t?, but never quite like this. These were … delicate, polite even, in an old-fashioned way, like even while they were fucking they were calling each other mister and miss. And the woman always looked so into it. In spite of herself, she went on looking, turning the pages back and forth. The expression on the woman’s face as the man knelt to her, the languid lines of her body, her small tapered hands, one on his head and the other caressing her own breast, drew her eyes over and over, even as she flipped between that and a later drawing, where she lay on her side while he entered her from behind. Her legs were spead wide, one knee up, and the man’s hand was starfished on her mons, her pink clit showing between two fingers. Her own was twitching now.
This was too much. She wouldn’t let him manipulate her like this!
She tore out of the room, taking the stairs two at a time, up both flights.
She didn’t have to search for Spike. He was standing, as before, in the doorway of the master bedroom.
Buffy lobbed the folio at his head.
“Whoa!” He snatched it out of the air. “Careful with that, it’s rare, an’ my host wouldn’t like it if it got damaged.” He smoothed the covers with his fingers. “Thought it might help put you in the mood.” Spike sniffed delicately at the air. “It has.”
“Don’t do that. Pig.“
“Can’t help it. Come here, Slayer. I’ll show you something.”
Loathe to seem intimidated, she followed him into the room. This time she’d brought a stake; it was tucked into her waistband at the back; she felt for its reassuring bulk as she crossed the threshold.
All was as before in the room, with the lamps lit, the bed turned down, and Spike undressed down to his jeans. But this time, as he gestured, she noticed something she hadn’t seen before.
There were bolts in the walls beside the headboard, and trailing from each, a stout chain ending in a shackle.
“Oh, no way! No way are you putting those on me!” She drew the stake, brandished it at him.
For a second, he looked surprised. “Slayer. Meant you to chain me up. So … so you’ll feel safe.”
“W-what?”
His voice went liquid. “Said I wouldn’t hurt you.” He turned his back.
Oh no, is he crying?
Her gorge rose. She hated this.
“Stop–stop feeling sorry for yourself!”
“What do you know about it?” His back was still to her. “All those people … the ones I hurt, killed … they’re here.” He tapped the side of his head. “They’re here.” He threw an arm out, to indicate the room, all the space around him. “All the time, I feel them, every moment. It’s hell. It’s hell. Dunno how he stood it.”
“You can’t talk about him!” She almost shouted. Then more quietly, “I decided … we’re not going to talk about him.”
“Yeah, well, I am feelin’ sorry for myself. An’ my Dru. Can’t exist like this. Got to get shut of this scourge inside me.” He thumped his chest.
Eyeing the chains, fingering the stake, she wailed, “Why can’t you just live with it? Why can’t you just be good, and–“
At once, his energy changed. He came at her, frowning. “Would rather have five seconds of bein’ myself again before you dust me, then go on like this.”
When he laid a hand on her shoulder, she shivered. She shivered, and her nipples stood up hard. She knew he was aware of it. She punched him. He regarded her for a moment with an expression almost of tenderness, and a slight smile. “Seein’ me suffer gets you hot, does it, Slayer? Well, well.”
“No. It’s not … it isn’t that. I mean … I’m not!” She prodded a finger against his cheek. “How did you get these?” The bruises were a little less than that afternoon, but still livid; she could see that he was half-starved and not healing.
“What do you care? Aren’t they what I deserve?”
“Yes.” But she was still dissatisfied. “How did you get them?”
Spike’s lip curled, and he laughed. ” … like … like when I ran into you, the other night.”
“And did you save her?”
He hesitated, and she could see that he hated the word ‘saved’, hated admitting he’d done a thing to help a stranger. “No.” His eyes flashed again. “No! An’ what’s more, I finished the dregs they’d left. I was so hungry ….”
“Oh God.” She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t. She was in over her head. He was out helping people … but then he’d drunk from the victim … how was she supposed to judge him, decide about him?
It still wasn’t too late to leave.
“Disgusts me as much you. Soul makes things cloudy an’ pathetic. Which is why you’ve got to put me right.”
His hands were on her shoulders again, barely touching, and he nudged her backwards, not towards the bed, but towards a low deep armchair in the corner. Before she could stop him, he’d reached up under her skirt and pulled away her panties; they snapped between his fingers like bubble gum. “Sit.”
She sat. He seemed to melt to the floor; one second he towered over her and the next he was at the level of her knees, gently coaxing them apart. The pictures from the book flashed in her mind; already she felt whoozy. “Let me. You’ll see. An’ when you’re ready, we’ll clap me in irons and get on with it.”
“N-n-no.” She sprang up. Felt again for her weapon.
Maybe, if she asked him, he’d want to be dusted? She could do it, couldn’t she, soul or not, if he wanted it?
He seemed miserable enough, maybe he’d say yes.
Spike raised a scolding finger. “Ah, ah, pet. Not ready to die just yet.”
“Did you get a mind-reading power too?”
“Got quite a tell. You keep handlin’ that stake like it’s–“
“Okay, okay!” She held up her hands. “Leaving it alone now.”
“So sit.”
“Spike! Do you have to be so … so one-track?” She didn’t quite know why she was stalling–she certainly had meant to get this over with quickly–the sooner it was done, the sooner she could add it to all the other things she was working so hard to blot out of her mind.
“What, you want me to get out my Spanish guitar an’ serenade you first? Take you out on a date? Drinks an’ a show? You want to be romanced, Slayer?”
“You … you play the guitar?”
He rolled his eyes. “No.”
“Well, how was I to know? You said I didn’t know you. I don’t.” She hesitated. “Pardon me for not just wanting to get Down Tonight with someone I don’t even know.”
“You said we were mortal enemies.”
“Like that’s any better!”
“Look–not gonna fill out a questionnaire for you! Told you I’d lick out your cunny long as you like, an’ then believe me, all you’ll want to know then is how quick we can do the other thing. Ought to be glad of a chance to have a good time with no strings an’ no risk.”
“You’re proposing to maybe put your fangs that close to my … down there … and that’s no risk?”
“Can’t put you up the spout, can I? Can’t give you the clap. An’ I already promised not to hurt you once you’ve put me right. Ought to be glad of a chance like that, to learn a thing or two.”
Oh God. She froze. “He … Angel … he told you about me. Didn’t he?”
Spike backed up a little, jammed his hands in his pockets. “You said he wasn’t to be mentioned.”
“Answer me!”
“Well … yeah.”
“What did he say?”
“D’you really want to know?”
“Tell me!”
“Slayer … Angelus an’ me, we never saw eye to eye where women were concerned.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means if you sit yourself back in that chair an’ open your girlish dimpled knees for me, you won’t be sorry.”
***
The chair. She glanced at it, and almost instinctively moved off in the other direction. The room was a generous size, but the bed was large, and she wasn’t ready to go there either, so she ended up drifting towards a door in the opposite wall. Spike kept up with her, at a distance. She could feel his mounting impatience, but there was nothing she could do about that.
She halfway expected the door, with its ornate glass knob, to be locked, but it opened easily, into a small dark room that smelled of cedar and sandalwood. She felt for a lightswitch, and found the two-button kind, like in her mom’s bedroom, that lit up a small convolvulous fixture in the ceiling. The room appeared to be lined with wood panels, etched with art nouveau designs.
“That’s only the dressing room,” Spike said from behind her. “Nothin’ in there for you.”
“Mr Vaux’s dressing room? Who is this Mr Vaux?” She felt along the edges of the panels.
“An’ old old comrade.”
“Someone you used to rip throats with?”
“Hosts fabulous parties for our sort. Always admired Dru–her style, how she’d dance. He was kind enough to offer me refuge when he heard about her bein’ no more.”
“Kind?” When were vampires kind? “So you told him you had a soul? Was he kind about that?” The panel opened; it was a closet. Inside it, dark suits hung in transparent plastic garment bags; highly polished shoes, each containing a cedar shoe-tree, were lined up on slanted shelves beneath. She opened another. It was like a dresser inside, lots of drawers, but no mirror. She started to go through them. They were beautifully neat: a drawer of white handkerchiefs, another of pocket squares, another of undershirts, snowy and pressed.
“Told him I’d lost her. He didn’t ask for the details. He’s not a details man. But he understands the things of the heart.”
“The things of the heart? Geez Spike, you sound like a soap opera promo!” She made a deep voice, like a TV announcer: “Next on The Young & Restless: explore the Things Of The Heart.“
“You don’t know about devotion, an’ loss.”
She wheeled around. “Wha-aa-at? How can you say that?”
Spike leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. “You’re a child, you are. You an’ Angel, what was that, maybe six months of kissy-face among the grave markers? Teeny-bopper stuff. Me an’ Dru were together for more’n a century. We ranged over five continents ….”
“You said yourself she was a slut!”
Spike’s growl seemed to circle the tiny room before climbing right up her spine. “She made me. I belong to her. That’s real love.” Gingerly, he fingered the bruises on his face. “Real tragedy.”
“You’re sick.” She threw a punch that he dodged, but his return caught her in the cheek.
“That’s it. I knew this was a lousy idea! I’m out of here.”
He blocked the dressing room doorway. “Tsk tsk. Slayer in hiding. Slayer on the run. You want them back in Sunnydale to know where you are?”
“Huh?”
He ticked them off on his fingers. “Can write a letter. Can send an email. Can make a phone call. Giles an’ those watcher types’d be down on you like a ton of bricks for walkin’ out on your calling. Am I right?”
“I hate you.”
“Keep your side of the bargain, an’ I’ll keep mine. Go sit in the chair an’ we’ll get on with it.”
She was halfway across the room again when she stopped. “No. No chair. I don’t want to be here all night. I don’t want to be here at all. Let’s do it quick before I change my mind.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” Matter-of-factly, he skinned out of his jeans. She tried not to look, to keep focused on his face, or at least his shoulders, but her curiosity betrayed her. She’d never really seen a naked man before–with Angel it had been dark, and were under the covers all the time anyhow.
In the low light his slim body was the color of the pages in the folio, parchment. He almost glowed. The bruises were everywhere, his chest, his belly, arms and thighs, like he’d been pummeled and kicked over and over. He wasn’t aroused; her gaze skirted the dark patch of hair, took in the dangling length and width of him, made hasty comparisons that brought up her blushes.
Calm, and deliberate, Spike snapped one shackle on his right wrist, climbed onto the bed, and held out his other arm. “Key’s in the bedstand drawer if you need it later.”
She stepped to him, laid her stake on the table, and secured the other shackle. He was half-lying, half-sitting now, against the plump pillows, his arms out on either side. There was enough play for him to move some, but not enough to bring his hands up more than six or seven inches from the mattress, nor to hold her, or attack her, when she was astride him.
Astride him. That’s what she’d have to be, to get this done. She wanted it to be over, but she didn’t know how to begin.
To get it done, he’d need to be erect. Which he completely wasn’t.
He was watching her with amusement, taking in her hesitation. “Show me your tits, Slayer. Or could do a little dance, maybe.”
“No!”
Didn’t want to undress, or be naked, in front of him. And wasn’t in a whole lot of hurry to touch him either. Maybe she could turn out the lamps. Though she knew he could see in the dark.
Spike gestured towards his groin. “Might give him a kiss hello. Would be the friendly thing to do.”
“No! No friendly. This isn’t friendly.”
“I’ll say.”
“Shut up.”
“You climb up here, then. Just as you are, can keep your clothes on.” He slid down until he was supine. “Come sit on my–“
“Ugh, don’t say it.”
“Fine. Come on now. Need the taste of you to get started. An’ you need to be juicy for me.”
This was beyond embarrassing. She didn’t want him to see her from that angle. Well, from any angle, but especially that one. Still, there was one thing to be said for straddling his face–she didn’t have to look at it.
“Like–like this?”
“View’s great, but my tongue’s not that long. Just relax, said I’d make you like it, remember?”
Okay. Let’s just do this. It’s just one of those demon-related tasks that you motor through until it’s complete. You’ve made it through worse. Eyes screwed shut, heart racing, Buffy firmly rejected her own mental image of what she must look like kneeling over him, and what he must be seeing ditto, gripped the headboard and let herself down until she made contact. Her imagination was serving her up big scoops of vamp-face, teeth teeth teeth tearing at her; her whole body was so tense it hurt. But what she felt was completely different.
“Ahhhhhhhh!”
He laughed. The chains rattled as he tried and failed to reach for her. He did the same thing again, his tongue, slithering … and this time she sank into it, felt his lips moving against her, and the rumble of his amusement vibrating through her.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw his cock filling out, lifting. Result!
“Okay, stop!” She scooted back.
Spike’s mouth was all slick, like he’d been into the lipgloss; he waggled his tongue and made eyes at her. “Was just getting interested.”
“I see that. So, we can get this over with now.”
Again, she realized, she’d have to do this herself. Would have to climb across him, and put him inside. And then she’d have to–
“Lemme bring you off first. It’ll go easier then. C’mon, Slayer.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“All right, Miss Anne. Come back here. Was gettin’ into it, your sweet little notch.”
“Stop that.” The way he talked, made her so self-conscious. Her skin was fiery. Avoiding looking at this face, Buffy stared at his cock. It was … it was … erect. It was there. That was all she was going to think about it. It was there, and that was all.
She did it then, in one swift movement, threw her leg across, like getting on a bike–that’s what this was, just like riding a bike–took his erection in her hand, and sank down on it.
She hadn’t remembered Angel’s skin feeling so … tepid. Maybe because they’d been under a blanket, and she’d been so warm.
Spike felt inert. Like a big doll she was fooling around with.
But then he stirred under her, and grunted, and she could no longer pretend this wasn’t real. She started to move. It felt awkward–she wasn’t wet enough. Couldn’t find an angle that didn’t ache. It didn’t matter how it felt to her. She just wanted it to be over. Squeezing him with her thighs, she shifted forward, trying to get more comfortable.
“Oi–careful there! Bruise.”
She stopped. “Am I hurting you?”
He grimaced, but it turned into a grin. “Yeah, an’ it’s not bad for a beginner. Go on, then.”
Be quiet.”
He was looking at her. Taking her in, like she was wide open, like she was naked. A straight-on gaze that evaluated her.
Penetrated her.
It made her squirm inside.
“Yeah–so warm an’ tight. That’s lovely. Now just keep up the pace. Set me free.”
“I said, be quiet. And stop–stop–looking at me!”
“Nothin’ to be ashamed of, Miss Anne. Know you like to be checked out. Seen you at the Bronze, switchin’ your little tail at the boys. Like to pretend you’re all demure, but you’re a hot one, you are.”
Buffy stripped the case from a pillow and threw it across his face. Like putting the cover on a parrot’s cage–to shut him up, shut him out.
It worked. She didn’t have to endure his gaze, and he didn’t speak anymore–though he breathed, and grunted, straining at the chains, and once made a noise that was sort of like a sob.
The effect on her was immediate. The urgency, the anxiety, eased. She could sort out what she was doing.
She could look.
At Spike’s body, which was kinda whoa without a face, and with the chains, but … intriguing too.
And at what they were doing. She lifted her skirt to get a peek.
She was starting to feel a little overdressed.
Spike wriggled then, groaned.
“What?”
“Losin’ focus, Slayer. Come on, do your worst.”
“I said–be quiet.”
There was something kind of silly about him talking from behind the pillow case. She wished she’d thought to blindfold him before they started. Maybe gag him too.
That would, in general, be … an improvement.
She moved faster, working the long muscles in her thighs, up and down, up and down, remembered to squeeze with her inner muscles–in Cosmo she’d read that that was key–and counted down silently from one hundred. She’d make him come before she reached one. And then she’d leave.
Beneath her, Spike bucked and rippled; inside her, his cock seemed to expand. That had to be good. He’d come soon. She speeded up, lost count. Do it hard, do it hard, and then you can leave.
Spike’s head snapped back, he seized up, and …
… it was over.
She scrambled off him–there was a smeary sensation that made her wrinkle up her nose–and grabbed the stake from the table before she lifted the pillow case away.
She wasn’t sure what she expected to see. Spike’s eyes had been closed; he opened them–in the glow of the bedside lamps, they were so blue; had she ever noticed their color before? Azure. Like the sea in those commercials for Caribbean cruises. He narrowed them, his nostrils flaring.
“Get these shackles off me.”
She drew herself up. Between her legs, something softly squished. “Why?”
He closed his eyes again. Spent, pale, bloodless–he seemed on the edge of a faint, but there was a fury in all his lines and sinews that reminded her of what he was. The monster.
“Didn’t do it right. Still got this thing inside me.”
“I told you–“
He roared. “Didn’t do it right! You didn’t come. An’ was no good, me bein’ chained up–got to run it. That’ll be the ticket. I fuck you, good an’ proper, so you spend, an’ then I’ll be all right. That’s it, isn’t it? Get these off me, an’ get your kit off, an’ we do it again.”
***
Do it again? It was going to take days of scrubbing and soaking and exfoliating and possibly douching to get over having done it once.
No no no. She had to get out of here.
Buffy picked Spike’s jeans up from the floor. Felt in all the pockets while Spike struggled with the shackles, imploring her to unlock them. Where was that nice big wad of money he’d had before? It wasn’t stealing, really, was it, to take money from a vampire? Who’d certainly stolen it himself? It would take him a little while to pull those chains out of the wall. With money she could get away from Manhattan meanwhile, so that by the time Spike tipped Giles off, she’d be gone.
The pockets were empty.
Spike made a frantic rattling ineffectual grab in her direction. “Think again, Miss Anne. Either I’ll find you, or they will. You’ll never be able to relax.”
Again with the mind-reading! She threw the jeans at his face.
“So you’re stuck in a situation you hate! Join the club! Suck it up. That’s what people do, they quit crying about it and they deal!”
“Oh yeah, like you are. You’re a cheat, Slayer! When are you gonna quit screwing me over?”
“No one asked you to come to Sunnydale.” She glanced around the room. What could she steal, and pawn for ticket money? There was a clock and ornaments on the mantel, some small gilt-framed pictures on the walls.
“Had no choice! Dru was sick. Had to fix her.”
“See how I care. It’s your fault, for being all moony over someone so … unreliable.” Going to the mantel, she hefted the clock. Was heavier than it looked, not that that was a problem for her. She tucked it under her arm.
“What the hell’re you doing?”
“I’m leaving.”
He threw himself against the chains. “Slayer.” The muscles stood out on his arms and chest. “You mind me!” He reset his expression. A smile appeared, that didn’t reach his eyes. “Pet. Come back here. There’s a good girl.”
As if. She tugged at her skirt, which was feeling too short. His spunk was dripping out of her now, it was disgusting. She needed a quick wash before she fled–maybe she could find her clothes from the other night.
At the door she glanced back. “Have fun with those shackles, Spike.”
The knob wouldn’t turn.
She tugged at it. Nothing. Stepped back, and gave it a sharp kick that should’ve sent it swinging on its hinges. Her sandaled foot crashed into what might as well have been solid rock. Over her own harsh gasp she heard Spike chuckle. Grabbing her ankle, she hopped. Should’ve worn her patrolling shoes.
“Didn’t think I’d just give you the run of the house, did you? Now you get back here an’ keep your bloody promise!”
The rattling, and his face, his abject nakedness, would’ve been funny, if she wasn’t so angry. How dare he lock her in? She’d come here willingly, they’d had an agreement!
A phone? There was none. A bell to ring, to call Reese? She looked in all the places she could imagine–based on her extensive viewing of movies and TV shows where servants were so summoned. Abandoning the clock, she went back to check the dressing room. The panels all opened up to closets–enough clothing for five Beau Brummels–and the last one let into a bathroom, only a little smaller than the one she’d visited the other night. She scanned for a window, but there was nothing.
Back to the bedroom, then. There had to be windows here.
She dragged back the thick velvet drapes.
The windows here was triple-thick, sealed, unopenable. She threw herself against the glass, and got nothing but a sharp pain in her shoulder. Next she grabbed up the chair.
“Forget it, Slayer. Mr Vaux’s thought of everything.”
“No.” Suddenly she was on the verge of tears, not that she was going to let Spike see her break down. She drew a deep breath, counted five. There had to be a way out. There had to be.
“Unlock these, an’ I’ll open the door.”
“Wha–?”
He was so calm. His voice sounded almost … almost soothing. When she looked at him, he’d stopped straining, was sitting up, the sheet pulled across his groin, watching her with eyes that were … sympathetic.
“Let me out of these, and I’ll let you out of here.”
“W-w-why?”
“Just do it.”
She approached him slowly. Undid one shackle, and put the key in his hand. “Ta.” He rubbed his wrist.
“Even with a soul, you’re a shit.”
He freed himself, and immediately wriggled back into the jeans she’d thrown at him before.
“That I am.” He didn’t seem annoyed. He went to the door. It opened easily at his touch–she couldn’t see how he did it. But it was wide open now, and Spike was standing back from it.
“Go on then, Slayer.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“An’ right you are. Not lettin’ you off your promise. But go on, you’re no-one’s prisoner in this room anymore.”
She walked past him, onto the landing. All around her, the house was silent–it dripped with silence. As if it was suspended, from the street, from the city, maybe from the whole universe.
She glanced back at him. “Newsflash, Spike. We can go to bed together a million times, but it’s not going to work. It’s never going to work.” She needed to pee. She needed to run away. Why am I talking to him? But now she’d said this much, she was rooted to the spot. A chill ran through her.
She could flee from here, but then what?
Go back to her grotty shared flat, her job at the market, and then what?
Oh God, then what, then what? What is my life? What am I doing???
He was leaning on the doorknob now, watching her out of his bruise-ringed eyes, his fatigue apparent in every lineament of his body.
“Sure it will, it’s got to, when we do it right.”
His voice, and her own, echoed in her head. They both sounded so tired. Detached, like the other night.
“You’re missing the whole point.” She hesitated.
The point. She’d shied away from thinking about it very much, because it was like stabbing herself repeatedly with a rusty knife. In her mind the scene played back–Jenny telling her and Giles about the curse. How just one moment of perfect happiness would pull the soul out of Angel.
She still didn’t know exactly how it happened. At what moment. They’d barely said five words to each other while Angel made love to her. It just happened, in a way that felt inevitable, because they were both aching for each other. She’d been too excited, too scared and eager and, yes, happy, to do anything but follow his lead. They’d wanted this for weeks, and it was her birthday, and she’d almost lost him that night. All she wanted was to be his, and that seemed to be all he wanted too. He’d been so gentle, so smiling and tender and sort of worshipful of her, but it felt like everything they needed to say was said in kisses, in caresses. And then they’d gone to sleep. And when she woke up she was alone, and the next time she saw him, he was horrible. Her mind still shied from retrieving that first post-bed meeting–how he’d surprised her in his apartment, the callous words, the easy, mocking expression on his face. I’ll call you, he’d said. Like she was trash.
And ever since then, that’s what her life had felt like. Something gone down the crapper.
But what did it? Exactly what combination of sex and pleasure and acceptance and love had the fatal effect? All she knew was that it was her fault. She’d caused Jenny’s death, and the deaths of she still didn’t know how many others. She’d unleashed that menace on the world.
Why tell Spike?
Well … telling him wouldn’t give him any advantage. He was no more likely to have that moment of happiness with her if he knew that was required. Less likely, in fact. Like when you heard ‘Don’t think of a white elephant’ and of course couldn’t think of anything else. No one could be happy on demand.
He sighed, and for a moment she thought he might just shut the door in her face. “What point?”
“You still don’t get what it was that made Angel lose his soul.”
“Yeah, well, think I’ve got it figured. Angelus told us all about his one night of bliss with the Slayer. You just let me out of these chains–“
One night of bliss. Could Spike know? Had Angel known? About the happiness clause? She didn’t think so … some instinct told her he’d have mentioned it in their subsequent clashes. That was the kind of thing Angelus would find ripe for the taunting, wasn’t it?
No … he couldn’t have known. Spike was just talking. Spike thought it was sex with her, in some particular way … he wasn’t thinking about emotion, he was thinking about positions. Climaxes. How many times, in how many ways ….
A little voice, that sounded remarkably likes Giles, popped into her head: If you tell him the truth, he may go seek happiness elsewhere, and succeed.
But if I tell him only part of the truth, he never will. “The curse is very specific. It’s not just having sex with me. There has to be a moment of perfect happiness.” A further inspiration took her. Why not? She realized she was smiling. “It has to be simultaneous. In order for you to lose your soul, Spike, we both have to be perfectly happy at the same time.”
His expression then was anything but happy. His eyes flashed gold, the ridges started to rise in his forehead. Then abruptly, as if something inside him had snapped, his face fell into defeat. “Fucking hell.”
“It really really will be. For both of us.”
***
He’d let her go and shut herself in the bathroom after that.
Beneath the hot shower spray it came to her, with the same sort of surprise she always felt when she did well on a test at school, or noticed that she’d gotten away with something with her mother, that she was in no hurry to leave Mr Vaux’s house.
Maybe she’d just stay on here indefinitely. Cool air, no rent to scrounge or bad smells to endure, and no annoying roommates or customers to deal with–just Spike, who transcended annoying to the point where she could start to tell herself that dealing with him was, after her monumental FUBAR at home, just about what she deserved.
When she’d emerged from the bathroom after an hour’s dawdling, wrapped once more in a fluffy robe, Buffy began wandering through the house, trying to make up her mind about what she was going to do next, trying to still her anxiety about the indeterminate future–which would start in the morning and stretch on indefinitely, lonely and alone.
She encountered Spike again in the library, where he was sprawled in a chair, still bare-chested in jeans, staring into space, a crystal tumbler containing a finger of scotch dangling from his hand as if he’d forgotten about it. He’d washed too–his hair was wet, and his bruises seemed revived by scrubbing. His pale bare feet were stretched out before him, looking strangely naked against the intricately patterned rug.
When he saw her, he seemed mildly surprised. “Thought you were goin’.”
“Not yet.”
She continued to explore, trailed by a disconsolate, watchful Spike, peering into all the dark, neat, dustless rooms. In the basement kitchen she helped herself to a banana and a glass of milk. There was no sign of Reese, but the huge stainless steel refrigerator contained an unmarked bottle of what she assumed was not beet soup. Spike didn’t go near it, but collapsed again into a chair.
“What’re you doin’ here, anyway?”
“I’m here because you’ll just stalk me if I leave, remember?”
“Here. New York.”
“It was as far as I could get without falling off the edge. Or needing a passport.”
“Ought to go home. No place for a girl all alone, without money.”
“Oh, now you’re giving me survival tips?”
Rolling his shoulders, he craned his neck, one way and then the other, rubbing at it with his hands. He wasn’t looking at her. He looked like he wished he was dead, or dead-drunk. Now she thought of it, she wondered that he wasn’t drinking. It seemed like the kind of thing a vamp like Spike would do. Maybe he’d done it already–if vamps could get drunk–been blotto all June and July and come to the end of what drink could do. She thought of how her father used to get drunk after those fights with her mother. And then he stopped doing it.
And then he moved out.
“S’sad here, is the thing,” he said, as if making a concession.
“Everywhere’s sad when you’re sad.”
“Don’t I know it.” He threw his head back, sighed. “Shouldn’t have ditched your friends an’ family over Angelus. Even with a soul he was never any good for you. Your mum’s worth more in her little fingernail than Angelus or Angel ever would be. Don’t you miss her?”
“I get what you’re doing. Don’t try to make me go all Stockholm Syndrome, with the probing sympathetic questions.”
Even as she said it, Buffy knew it was already too late for that. Her comfort-level had subtly shifted in the last hour; whereas before it was directed only at getting outside, now she dreaded returning to the wild, overpopulated, overheated city. Here in this quiet deserted place she had company. A mortal enemy, but one who would at least look her in the eye.
“Never heard of a slayer before had people like you do. Leavin’ them behind’ll get you killed. Bloody hell, you’d be dead right now on Avenue D if I hadn’t come along.”
“Don’t pretend to care.”
“Why not? You’re a fool is what you are, leavin’ a sweet mum like that. An’ your watcher–he’s a stout fellow, all in all.”
“Oh, shut up. Quit pretending to be sincere.” She peeled another banana, and willed away the tears that threatened to well up. She’d been doing so well, not thinking about her mother, not specifically, longingly. Why did Spike have to go mention her little finger, so that now all she could see in her mind’s eye was her mom’s hands, those soft, caressing, careful, capable hands, and along with them, everything else came back in 3-D and full color, sensurround, the works–the soft cologney smell of her hair, and the different, sort of floury scent of her neck when they cuddled together on the sofa.
She’d made such a mess at home. Telling her mother off, shoving her.
She could never recover from that. Never return.
“Just chatting to you, Slayer. Passin’ the time. No need to get your back up.”
“What about you? As long as we’re having this sincere chat. What’s it like, huh? Getting your soul back. I’d really like to know.”
“So far it’s a bad acid trip that just. does. not. stop.” He paused, staring at his hands. “It’s all gone. Everything I relish, an’ need. My girl, an’ … my self.”
“So start fresh.” Huh. Vamps have acid trips?
“Oh, ta. You first an’ I’ll be right behind you.”
She wolfed down the last of the banana, avoiding his eye. It was not fair that Spike could tease her about what they had in common. They had nothing in common.
God, we have everything in common right now. She got it then, what he was saying about needing to get things back in their proper line–him pure evil, with nothing to interfere with his nefarious urges, and her pure righteousness, dedicated to taking him down. That was always, as Angel once said to her, simple.
“What’s in here?” A door at the other end of the kitchen gave onto a downward flight of stairs. “I thought we were already in the basement.”
She descended, expecting to find at last the dungeon this wealthy vampire’s house must certainly contain, with all the whips and restraints and harnesses she imagined as the playthings of the ancient undead.
But instead the air grew moist as she went down, and she was aware of a gentle susurration, an echo of non-sound, that affected the resonance of her own tread, and Spike’s, on the stairs. She came out into a vast chamber, the same size as the footprint of the whole house, whose walls and ceiling and floor were covered in glimmering tiles inlaid with mosaic designs of Grecian maidens playing lyres and dancing in groves, all surrounding a pool faced in gold, gently glowing with undulant underwater lights.
“Oh my God.”
Buffy stared, then turned to confront Spike.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me this was here?”
He gestured. “Other things on my mind.”
“Wow. This brings a whole new meaning to flooding the cellar.”
“Have a dip, Slayer.”
She glanced around at him.
“You going to try to drown me?”
“If I wanted to kill you, I’d have done it already, and not by drowning. I’d have drunk you dry.”
True. She wasn’t seriously worried, but challenging him seemed like the thing to do, even as in her imagination she was already immersed in the glittering, tempting water.
“Turn your back.”
“Just fucked you, think it’s a little late for you to be clutchin’ your modesty.”
“Turn your back.“
He sneered, but he turned. She went to the lip of the pool, dropped the robe, and slipped into the water.
It was perfect. Not cold, not warm. Deep. She swam out to the middle, in calm, deliberative strokes, and looked up at the ceiling, which featured more intricate designs from antiquity.
This was the height, the pinnacle, of luxury.
How weird was it, to find herself in a place like this, at the same time she was dangling over the abyss, empty-hearted, empty-pocketed? Weird.
Then Spike was in the water, cutting close to her, rounding and splashing.
She threw up an arm. “No! Don’t do that. Let’s just … let’s just swim, okay?”
Again he gave her that narrow-eyed, assessing look. “Yeah, all right. Just swim.”
She kept her distance from him, but after a while it got boring, just paddling around.
How ’bout a race,” Spike said, “will you condescend to race?”
She was on the verge of saying and the winner gets–? when she realized it was probably better not to open that subject. “Okay. To the end and back.”
“Go!”
Head down, she surged forward.
Spike won, so they had to race again. And then she won, so he had to change the race–twice up and back, with a different stroke.
After the seventh race and many lengths, Buffy called time out. She’d forgotten to worry about concealing her body, and floated on her back, even though he could see her breasts that way, and her … everything. After the exertion, her limbs were just pleasantly numb. Spike treaded water nearby; she felt him watching her, always watching her, but tried not to show that she knew it.
“So … what’s it take to make you happy, Miss Anne? Gimme some pointers.”
The question was the blade sinking into the chink in her armor. It blasted through the lovely numbness with a queasy headrush. She headed for the edge.
Spike swam lazily closer. “Know what made my Dru happy. Simple things, really. Pretty dresses, presents, dances in the moonlight, an’–“
“Yeah, well, I will never be happy again.”
He moved to her, where she clung to the edge. “There’s different kinds of happy, though.”
She understood just a moment too late what he was going to do; by then he was already submerged in a barrage of bubbles as he expelled the air from his lungs.
She could’ve kicked him away, kicked herself away.
But no one had ever done this to her before, and she wanted to experience it. What better way than in this underground chamber in this secret hidden house, in the water where she could hold her head above what was going on under the surface, where no one would ever know that she was giving herself, again, to a vampire?
***
She squirmed.
It wasn’t like anything she knew–it wasn’t like fingers, her own, or his, or Angel’s. It wasn’t like a cock. It wasn’t–yet–like her fantasies. At first she had to fight against her own pesky squeamishness–That’s Spike’s tongue down there! His TONGUE!
Then it began to feel good. Her legs were over his shoulders, and he held her in place with his hands, exploring her in a way that felt first delicate, then hungry. As her excitement grew, he set to licking over and over, inexorably, at the one hot spot. She forgot about it being Spike, it was just this amazing sensation going on under the water line. With her eyes closed, she could let this be Angel–who so would’ve done this for her, and more, if only they’d had time.
She thrashed, but he kept her in place, and then her own loud moan startled her, and it all began to rush–she couldn’t hold back anymore–all the reasons for holding back evaporated. It didn’t matter.
Didn’t matter.
Didn’t matter. She was humping his ever-moving mouth. He stayed with her, never pausing, never coming up for air. She came all at once, before she was ready, her breath sawing the air, her body snapping, water slapping up her chest.
He didn’t let her go. His hands shifted; she felt his fingers slide inside her, probing at her vaginal walls as she squirmed and gasped, and now he was sucking on her clit, and it happened for her again, from there and from inside.
And again.
Finally she screamed no more! and dragged him up by his hair.
Spike surfaced in front of her, his eyes a little red, his nervy smile replete with I-showed-you satisfaction. Mind reeling from what her body could do, from the wildness of it, she tugged him in, pressed her mouth to his.
He slapped her aside so hard she went under, her nose filling up with water.
“The fuck you thinkin’, Slayer? We don’t do that–my kisses are only for Dru.”
In one sleek movement he vaulted out of the pool.
Her vision clouded, heart hammering even as she couldn’t feel the rest of her body, didn’t know if she was right side up, breathing air or inhaling water. She needed to make him know that she hadn’t meant to kiss him–it was reflex. But what came out when she screamed was, “That’s not the way to make me happy!”
He rounded then, tall and oddly dignified above her in his stark nudity, the water streaming off him. “Don’t really want to make you happy, do I? All I want is to want to kill you! But you took even that away from me. Devious bitch.”
Going to the wall, he drove a fist against the beautiful mosaics until they cracked. Then sank to his knees, bowed his head, and howled. The cry reverberated off the tile, the water, the curved ceiling. It chilled Buffy to the bone.
She crawled out of the pool, and approached him.
She wanted to slam him into the wall for what he’d just done. The humiliation of it filled her with stinging irrepressable shame. Every time she got to feel good that way, it was followed by something ugly, that ruined it.
“Spike.”
He glanced around. She planted her punch square in his face, and had the satisfaction of feeling his nose crunch before his head bounced against the wall.
He snarled. They exchanged a flurry of blows before she lost her footing on the slippery floor, and went down.
Spike let this opportunity go. Turning his back on her, he stood staring at the broken wall, as if his off-switch had been thrown.
Buffy rose, aware again of being naked, and found her robe. When she came back, Spike hadn’t moved.
She struck at a piece of broken mosaic with her toe. “Mr Vaux isn’t gonna let you house-sit again after this.”
His eyes were closed. Blood trickled from his nose.
“Just now–let’s be clear–I wasn’t really–I never even wanted to–“
“You an’ me, Slayer, we’re never going to be happy at the same time.”
She couldn’t think of any reply to this.
“I’m sorry.”
“You–huh?”
“Said, I’m sorry. Wasn’t ready for … overreacted.”
She wasn’t sure how to take this. Was he really apologizing. “Oh.”
“It’s just … that was our thing. How I thought of it. That we kept that for each other.” He glanced at her then. “Know you don’t care, Slayer, but I loved her. Don’t remember the last time I snogged anybody else.”
“Uh … okay.”
Spike ran a hand down the wall he’d damaged, as if assessing his work. He spoke in a musing way. “Think I’m done now. It’ll be light out soon. Think I’ll go for a walk in the park. See the sun-up from the Sheep’s Meadow.”
Good. Best idea I’ve heard all night. I’ll come along and watch. She was going to say that, when an image flashed into her mind. The Crawford Street garden. Angel on his knees, trembling, looking up at her with tears in his uncomprehending eyes. Wanting to know what was happening–overwhelmed at seeing her again. His soul returned, but too late for him to have a second chance. She’d had to send him and his soul to hell forever.
No one knew that but her.
And now here was Spike, with his soul back, part of the enormous mess she’d made.
Her fault.
“I can’t let you do that. While you have this soul … you’re something real. Don’t you see it would be wrong, to kill yourself?”
“My Dru did.”
“She was crazy. You aren’t.”
“Was plenty real before. Was a real vampire. Real killer, real monster. Was real happy then. Could get happy twenty times a night, easy-peasy. Jesus fuck, it’s all gone forever.”
“Something else could take the place of all that. Something should.“
“You sound like those poncey Jehovah’s Witnesses I used to eat.” He turned to look at her then. To sneer at her. “Don’t tell me you’re not burnin’ to see me back in my real state, so you can put your fist through my face an’ your stake through my heart.”
I’m not saying I wouldn’t enjoy that. She struggled with herself. Enjoy. Did she enjoy it? Should she? She never wanted to think about that much–slaying was what she did because she had to, and yeah, she was good at it–at the actual slaying. Not so much at the mind games required to keep her clever enemies from picking off her associates one by one.
“You told me you’ve been going out looking for people to help.”
“Told yourself that.”
“You helped me. You said there were others.” All her arguments, her reasons, were a twirling jumble she couldn’t express. And since when was it her job, to be Sob Sister to a souled vampire?
She laid a hand on his arm. “Don’t … don’t destroy yourself. Not yet.”
“An’ why shouldn’t I?”
“I just said. Because you have something now, that means you’re–“
“What? What am I, Miss Anne? Want me to be your next pet? Quite a thing for a young girl, innit, havin’ a big strapping vampire man, with his fangs an’ his muscles an’ his cock all subdued to her bidding. Makes her feel all queenly, like ridin’ a half-broken stallion. ‘Spect you miss that.”
“No!” She pulled back. “You’re not listening. I’m not saying that at all.”
“Right, ’cause you’ve walked off the pitch. Quit bein’ the slayer. So you don’t need any help, from defanged vamps or anyone else.”
“Don’t you understand? It would be more murder. Your soul … makes it murder.” She blinked back the sudden onrush of tears. “I can’t let you murder anyone else, Spike.”
He cocked his head. “Can’t let me?”
“I’m asking you. Not to.”
“What will you do to make it worth my while to go on? Gonna make me happy?”
Her cheek ached where he’d struck her, and yet for the first time he seemed different to her. Still irritating and unpredictable, but … not a thing any longer. A person.
“Spike.” She said it gently, quietly, like reminding him of something.
“Can’t do it, can you? Can’t make you happy, an’ you can’t do it for me. So I ask you, what then?”
She saw Angel disappearing into the maw of Acathla, with all that death on him, and she hadn’t saved anyone, not his victims, not him. “I … I can keep you company. For a little while. Until … until you stop wanting to go out in the sun.”
He was looking at her now, scanning her face with those hot-cool eyes of his. His gaze took her apart; it took all her strength not to avert her own. Spike looked and looked, as if he could see right down into her soul. See all her failings and insecurities, all the ways she lied to herself. But she held steady. Met his eyes, let him see.
He went on looking as his clean right hand came softly around her neck, drawing her in. His gaze narrowed, extinguished. She felt his cool considering breath against her lips. And then he kissed her.
It was a slow kiss, gentle, contemplative, and when it broke, Spike stayed close, as if warming his lips at hers. Confusion, relief, pleasure, reluctance, anger popped up like whack-a-moles as she tasted his mouth. She hadn’t been touched like this in a long time. She thought again of how Spike had apologized to her just now. The last thing she’d ever expected to hear from Spike was an apology–for anything.
He murmured, “An’ good company you can be, too.”
The remark, friendly, approving, made her cheeks heat. Why should I care what he thinks of me?
Yet she liked this moment. She nudged his mouth again with hers, to make him be quiet, and also to see if this time he would let her. He kissed her again, readily, steadily, his hand heavier on the back of her neck. He was a good kisser, not sloppy, not too wet or, amazingly, aggressive. She liked sitting in the circle of his arm, exchanging soft tonguey kisses that didn’t probe too far.
Something else he’d just said came back into her mind. That challenge about being her pet. Big strapping vampire man, with his fangs an’ his muscles an’ his cock. Okay, he wasn’t so big and strapping himself, but he was … he was right next to her, without a stitch on, and his smooth skin, the undulant lines of him, seemed to call out to her palms. She kept her hands to herself, even as their kissing grew more urgent. If he thought that was all her love with Angel was about–well, he didn’t know them. And she didn’t want anything remotely like that with him. Even if she could ever love again.
Which she never could or would.
“I still don’t like you.”
“Right. It’s just that I’ve got this inconvenient soul, makes you so sure I shouldn’t be thrown out with the rest of the trash.” He laughed. “Same as makes me so sure I should.“
“I know.” Except she didn’t know. Even with what Angel had told her about himself, she couldn’t fathom it, the horrible acts committed as terrible deep pleasures, and then the horrible torment of constant remorse.
She didn’t understand the soul, couldn’t define it, except that it was everything, because without it one was nothing, a pestilence to be cleared away. But put a soul into a vampire, and the rules changed. That she knew. She’d learned it with pain and suffering.
He pulled her in closer, and she felt that he wanted to be taken into her arms. An answering urge took her over with a tremor, powerful as thirst, to gather him in, to hold and be held.
Everything had changed in the last few minutes. But–not that much. She might forget herself, but Spike wouldn’t–instinct warned her not to yield too much. She sprang to her feet. “I … I need a little alone time. I promise I’ll come back, but you have to let me out now.”
He looked up at her. His left hand was coated in dried blood; his cock was half erect. Would he go on keeping her prisoner, or had they really crossed back over that line?
“When will you come back?”
She tried not to let him see the relief that flooded her. The fine skein of trust that had sprung up between them in the last minutes would support her over the next few steps. “By the end of the day.”
“You’re not goin’ back to that job, are you?”
“I … I don’t think so.” Gristedes seemed impossibly far away now. She could find another job the same way she’d found that one, once this … period … with Spike was over. “I just … I need to get my things, and–I need to see the sky.”
“Thought I needed to see it too.” He bowed his head. “Still do.”
“But you won’t, because you keep your promises. And you’re promising to wait for me, just like I’m promising to be here later.” She felt almost like she was talking to a child, and there was something in the way he looked at her, with a hunger in his eyes that, despite his physical excitment, was like a child’s too, revealing more loneliness than lust.
“Got my honor there, yeah,” he allowed.
You … you sleep in the day, don’t you?”
“Used to do. Have barely slept a wink all summer.”
“Maybe you will now. Go to bed, and I’ll be back when you wake up.”
She thought he might remind her again, of how he could track her down, how she couldn’t really escape him. But he only nodded. She went to the stairs, and he didn’t follow her; didn’t follow her up through the house to the bathroom where she showered again and put on the set of clothes she’d first worn to this place.
When she went back down to the foyer, Reese was there, sketching a slight bow of good morning, opening the door to let her out into the soft morning sun. “Another warm one today, miss,” he said.
“I’ll see you later,” Buffy said, not wanting him to see her take the high flight of steps at a single jump. She waited until she was a couple of doors down before she broke into a run, the plastic soles of her sandals sounding a thwock thwock thwock as she careened around the corner onto Madison, then decided to forego the subway for a clean airy run instead south through the park.
***
In the park, beneath the trees, there was still a tinge of cool freshness to the air. The paths were filling up with walkers and joggers, people with dogs and strollers, people on skates and scooters and bikes, regular grown-ups going to their work with briefcases and backpacks. As she ran in and out among them, Buffy felt as if months had passed since she’d been abroad in normal daylight, among normal mortals. None of it felt quite real, and she herself, running and running–it was such a relief to move, after the house’s stillness–couldn’t shake off a dizzy sense of displacement.
Finally she just let herself fall, on the damp grass in the middle of the Great Lawn, and squinted up at the sky. A pale blue that foreshadowed the gathering humidity, the airlessness of the mature day. She lay still, breathing and sweating in the glare, and finally put an arm across her eyes, to block it out.
That’s when Angel started talking to her.
He’s nothing like me.
I know.
You don’t know. You don’t know anything about him.
I don’t know anything about anyone. Except what they tell me. What can I know? I’m only seventeen. Her chest tightened. It was true, it was true, how was this fair, that she should have so much responsibility, have to fend for herself alone, when she was still barely done being a child?
He wasn’t the kind of man I was.
What does that mean?
I had to teach him. I taught him everything. He was a prodigy. He was a creation.
Evil, right. You always said he was one of the very worst. I KNOW.
You’re not listening.
I don’t know what you’re saying. Anyway, you’re not even here.
When she woke with a start, the sun was high in the sky, and she had to pee. Hours had gone by–it was late afternoon. She was slick with sweat, heart hammering. When she passed a trash basket, Buffy threw up into it.
A voice behind her said, “Hey, are you okay?”
She turned. A girl around her own age, looking concerned. “I fell asleep in the sun.”
“That’s bad. Look, you’re all burned. You need some water.”
“I–I’ll get some.” She couldn’t exactly remember what had happened, but it was about:blanksomething she wanted to forget, get away from. “I’m okay, really. Thanks for stopping.”
She had a twenty and two ones, which was all the money she owned. At a cart just outside the park Buffy bought a bottle of water and two hot dogs, and ate them as she walked to the subway. Her thoughts were spotty, like her brain was blinking in a too-bright light. On the train she wanted to close her eyes again, but she didn’t feel safe. There was nothing odd going on–the car was full of late-afternoon commuters. The sense of menace came from within, and she couldn’t pinpoint it. It dogged her when she exited in Brooklyn, walking the few blocks to the shared apartment, where at this hour, her two roommates were out.
Inside the cramped, dirty apartment, she couldn’t believe she’d stayed here. Knew she’d never come back.
She washed, examined her pinkened skin, changed her clothes, and threw her things into a shopping bag. Her wardrobe was small, and except for her hair brush, it didn’t seem necessary to bring other toiletries along.
She wrote a note. “I’m moving on. Rent’s paid for the month.” She considered adding an apology or a thank you or something, but really, why? Those girls weren’t her friends.
She had no friends.
All she had now was Spike. She was his semi-hostage, and he was … well, he was her hiding place, now.
No one would ever find her, with him. She’d lose even herself.