Chapter 4: Folly
Dawn breezed through the lobby of the hotel with her Union Jack emblazoned tote bag stuffed with interesting tidbits from her day out with Giles. She bought some horrendous knick-knacks just because being a tourist demanded ill-conceived trinket purchases.
A small statuette of Big Ben with a thermometer in it, some souvenir fridge magnets from Windsor Castle, a Beefeaters leather book mark, and a bobble head doll of her future husband, Prince William, jostled together in her carry all bag.
She couldn’t resist buying a small reproduction booklet entitled ‘Dr. Hopper’s Scientific Methodology for the Prompt Relief of Hysterical Malaise in the Female Person’ for Buffy. It was a suggested regimen for the development of womanly powers from some nineteenth century quack. The earnest cautions in the text made Dawn giggle with fiendish delight. Spirited walking was recommended if a lady was unmarried. If the lady in question was five and twenty years or older and still unmarried, spirited walking was amended by daily doses of Dr. Hopper’s ‘Invigorata’. Dawn figured that was Victorian speak for 100 proof alcohol.
Dawn bought a David Beckham bobble head doll for Andrew because he specifically requested it. She couldn’t find a Timothy Dalton bobble head doll.
The day passed pleasantly in Giles’ company. Dawn just couldn’t get over how young and with it Giles seemed here in England. She figured he probably would have had more girlfriends stateside if he had unclenched a bit in Sunnydale. Granted, the Hellmouth and all tended to tighten everyone up, but unclenched Giles was a sight to behold.
As the elevator door to the sixth floor opened, Dawn paused. She knew exactly what Buffy and Spike had been up to during her absence. She wasn’t going to be shocked if the room was totally trashed due to their supernatural horniness, just as long as all nasty action was completely finished for the time being. Just to be safe, Dawn slipped off her shoe and flung it at the door from a safe distance.
The door opened and a fully dressed Buffy looked down at Dawn’s shoe.
“Ha, ha, Dawn. Very funny. Come in.” Dawn walked into the room. It was clean and tidy. Not a speck of dust was out of place and hospital corners practically screamed on the neatly made bed. Hospital corners! Talk about obvious. Dawn stuck her head into her tiny sleeping space and found it exactly the way she’d left it. Her bed was unmade and the top lay strewn with her suitcase and her clothes. She breathed a sigh of relief. No man’s land had not been breached by the horn dog express. She decided not to torture Buffy and Spike. They were only hapless prisoners of their hormones after all and Dawn really wanted them to stay together. Ambivalence seemed the sensible and obvious choice.
“How was your day, Nibblet?” Spike sat in a relaxed position on the side chair looking particularly Buffy addled.
“Good. Giles and I stalked this lady down the street for seven blocks. She was some actress he had a crush on when he was a teenager. Diana Rigg, have you heard of her? You should have seen Giles’ blush Buffy, it was awesome. He made me ask for her autograph because, you know, Giles and the chick thing?”
“Diana Rigg?” Spike’s eyes grew animated. “She was quite the dish in her day, Bit. Star of this show, ‘The Avengers’. God was she sexy with her leather body suit and karate moves.” Buffy raised her eyebrows.
“Imagine Dawn, a man turned on by a woman in leather doing karate moves. I am shocked and appalled, shocked and appalled.”
“Giles actually watched television, Buffy. My illusions are all shattered.” Dawn tossed her purchases on her bed. “So, what’s the plan?” She looked hopefully at Buffy who was dressed for a night of wicked fun in a short suede pleated skirt, a fitted blue, long sleeved satin blouse and her naughty librarian suede lace-up ankle boots.
Dawn looked at Buffy’s outfit. “Ooo! Flippy skirt! Are we going out dancing? We are, aren’t we?”
“Yes.” Buffy paused for Dawn’s enormous squeak and bizarre Snoopy dance. It looked more like a Tweety Bird dance. “Spike knows some places and he wants to show us the town.”
“Yay us!” Dawn’s head nodded as if her neck was a broken hinge. “Demon bars, Spike? Lots of rough ‘n’ tumble joints where desperate fiends drink mysterious fluids and bob for entrails?”
“Steady on, Bit,” Spike’s eye twitched involuntarily. Where did Dawn come up with this crap? “Nice clubs. Nice human clubs. Dancing and such.”
“Okay, that’s cool too. I’ll need to change into something vile and skanky.” Spike balked. Buffy spoke up quickly sensing some mild panic in the Spike seats.
“Not too skanky Dawn, we don’t want to offend Spike’s blushing eyes.” Buffy winked at him.
“Did you pack a sweater Nibblet? You always looked right fetching in a big bulky sweater.” Dawn closed the door to her small cubby of a room and started changing.
“Ha ha, very funny, Spike.”
“She could be a while,” Buffy finished the last touches to her hair and then sat against Spike’s leg. “We might as well get comfortable.” She draped her arms around his neck. Neck nuzzling began on schedule.
“Can I kiss you?” Spike whispered.
“Mmm hmm, lipstick has yet to be applied.” She smiled coyly into his mouth.
“That’s my smart girl.” The words were out of his mouth before Spike realized what he had said. My girl. He hadn’t wanted to break the spell. Intimations of possession did not go over well with Buffy. This he knew like the back of his hand. However, the soft smiling press of Buffy’s lips in answer to his statement comforted him, and then a fragrant curtain of hair fell across his cheek.
My girl. My sweet girl.
Dawn heard no sounds. That was worrying. Something worrying was occurring just beyond her door. She dressed quickly in her best rendition of a skanky suit of armor: a tight red camisole with a red see through blouse paired with an asymmetrical fringed denim skirt and bulky metal ringed belt. Steeling her nerve she announced her intentions.
“Innocent bystander coming through,” Dawn hollered and opened the door. She was relieved to see Spike and Buffy just sitting quietly together on the chair.
“What do you think, Spike? Bad to the bone?” Dawn raised her eyebrows for his reply. All he could see was his little Bit all tarted up in something tight and tempting, something that would catch any man’s attention; something he may need to draw blood to protect. Spike had no idea what the proper response would be. Dawn helped him out.
“Say you were a guy, Spike,” she began. Buffy put her fingers to her mouth to hide her grin. “Buffy! Stop that. I’m talking to Spike.”
“Yes Bit?”
“Okay, you’re a guy and you see me. Do you ask me to dance based on this outfit?”
“Yes, I’d ask you to dance. You look lovely, Nibblet.” Okay, that sounded positive yet neutral.
“Lovely?! I’m supposed to look dangerous. Cagey like a panther ready to pounce–“
“Okay, danger girl,” Buffy stood up and rescued Spike to his great relief. “Now you’re just scaring Spike. Are you ready? Or do you think you’d like to change your Snoopy earrings?”
Dawn’s fingers flew to her ears. “I’m still wearing my Snoopys! Thanks Buffy, that would have been embarrassing.” Dawn ducked back into her room and emerged wearing silver hoops.
“Now, there is a dangerous female.” Spike appraised her again, knowing at last what she wanted to hear. Dawn chuckled breezily and dipped into the bathroom to reapply her lipstick.
“Hurry up Dawn,” Buffy urged and grabbed her purse.
“I’m ready, willing and able to dance you two under the table!” Dawn emerged with a million-dollar smile. The night held its charms within easy reach. The girls walked down the hallway. Spike shut the door and followed them to the elevator. It had been a long time since he’d seen these girls so free and easy. The night would be a memorable enchantment for all of them. Spike would make sure of that.
*
“Why don’t we go in there and ask for directions?” Buffy knew the futility of her statement as soon as the words left her mouth. Vampire status aside, Spike, like any man, was biologically incapable of requesting directional assistance.
“Mulligan’s?” Spike read the pub sign and twisted his face in disgust. “That’s an Irish pub, love. You won’t catch me dead in an Irish pub.” Spike’s mind journeyed back and he felt the need to amend his statement. “Well, maybe once. But Angel forced me and I didn’t enjoy it. Much.”
“Hello? Underage here. Watching drunks swigging the hooch doesn’t even crack the top 100 of my Midnight Train to Adventure short list.” Dawn drew her mouth together in a knot and wiggled it at Buffy. Exasperated, dance crazed Dawn could be a problem if she didn’t intersect with a dance floor soon.
“Bloody Harry Potter’s given you kids right realistic expectations of adventure, Nibblet.” Spike looked down the street again, trying to get his bearings.
“What?!” Dawn burst with offended pride. “Hard core adventure chick here, Spike. Mystical manifestation, Sunnydale 2000, class of one, thank you very much.”
Buffy pulled a petite pocket travel guide from her purse and began thumbing through it. Perhaps Spike’s non-existent club was in the index. “Don’t be offended Spike.”
“I don’t need a bloody guidebook to know where the action’s at.” Spike twisted his face into an expression of extreme distaste. “This is my home turf after all. Londoner here, girls, I do know where I’m going.”
“Okay, okay.” Buffy raised her hand slightly in surrender. She knew how important it was for Spike to show them a good time but so far they’d just walked the streets of London searching in vain for hot spots that obviously were no longer in existence. It was a warm evening with no breeze. Dawn grabbed the friendly looking ‘What To Do in London’ book from Buffy.
“I looked at this on the plane Buffy, there’s plenty of good stuff.” The image of the three of them wandering the streets in an aimless mental fog filled Dawn with dread. She rifled through the well worn pages of the guidebook before stopping on one. “Look, if we can’t find Spike’s place, here’s something cool,” she began reading aloud. “The Midnight Jack the Ripper walking tour…visit the haunts of this mysterious Victorian gentleman…there’s a phone number. It says every midnight but Monday, we’ve got lots of time.” Dawn looked up hopefully.
“No, Dawn, that’s just ghoulish.” Buffy wrinkled her nose.
“Well, d-u-u-h? I thought ghoulish was us. It could be cool.” Dawn was sure they’d never agree to her suggestion, but she wasn’t going to give up.
“Bit, listen to your sister, you wouldn’t find it fun.”
“Why is that Spike, or should I say…Jack?”
Spike stopped and stared daggers at Dawn. “That guy was human and an amateur and a bloody sadist. And Bit? Believe me, for me to say someone else was a sadist? Especially a human? Well, that’s something.”
Dawn leveled a sigh in Spike’s direction. “Okay, so you weren’t Jack the Ripper. But it’s a mystery. I like mysteries, kind of researchy puzzle girl here.”
“Dawn,” Buffy interrupted smoothly, “I thought you wanted to go dancing.”
“I do. Let’s just pick some place and go. Only you two have to keep your distance once we get to wherever it is we’re going. Unchaperoned hotties get asked to dance. So when we get there, you two don’t know me.”
Spike opened his mouth to protest that he was no chaperone when Buffy tapped his arm. “Just say, ‘yes Dawn’, believe me, it’s easier that way.”
“Yes Dawn.” Spike answered obediently.
*
“Okay, no worries ladies, I know there’s a club around this block.” Spike looked around animatedly, trying to quell his growing panic. Things couldn’t have changed that much. He was just in London, wasn’t he? Spike thought about the last time he stayed in London for an extended period of time.
It had been a while.
“Bloody Hell!” His curses filled the bustling streets. “Bloody, buggering, boarded up, closed down, moved…fuck,” Spike’s voice dwindled to a wisp. He started to pace and mutter through clenched teeth. Pacing Spike was not a good sign at all. A pacing and muttering Spike was something to be avoided at all costs. Buffy took Dawn’s arm and pulled her aside.
“He just needs a few minutes, Dawn.”
“Buffy, there’s a place here,” Dawn held up the guidebook. “It’s called Exotica. It has eight stars. Eight stars Buffy, that’s good. Let’s get a cab.”
“Exotica? Let me see that. It sounds like a strip joint.” Buffy took the book and read the paragraph.
“See? Dance club,” Dawn looked over Buffy’s shoulder. “Let’s go there and dance before Spike goes completely postal.”
“I’ve got it!” Spike erupted with a light bulb moment. “Just in the next block. Dancing and everything, I promise.” Spike’s elated expression looked so sincere. He desperately wanted to show his girls a good time and he knew a place so…fingers crossed.
A short distance away the trio came upon a neon lit façade that appeared to have people bursting from its seams. It certainly was a club, and for all appearances a popular spot. Brutal, uncompromising dance music flowed from its doors. Buffy saw some hot looking guys enter under a sign that blinked ‘The Jungle Room’.
“Must have changed names, but this is definitely the place.” Spike bounced eagerly on his toes, ready to dance the night away. They entered the crowded club.
Spike began moving to the heady beat of the music. Yeah, he’d show them a good time, something to remember. Buffy smiled and Dawn ogled the near ocean of hot, sweaty, tanned, coifed, shaved and tightly clad men. Hot, hotter and hottest specimens of the most illegally gorgeous men Dawn had ever seen occupied every space imaginable in the bustling club.
“Whoa, Buffy look at these guys, they’re…” Slowly clueing in to the total absence of female patrons, Dawn looked around and finally heard her insistent gaydar beeping beneath the drone of some seriously raw dance beats.
“Gay.” Buffy finished Dawn’s sentence. “This is a gay club.” She turned toward the head bopping vampire. “Spike?”
“Gay? Pshaw!” Spike sputtered in denial as he took a closer look. “This was a gentleman’s club, there were girls, honest.”
“A gentleman’s club? What are we talking? Hugh Hefner? Did you want to take my underage sister to a…” Buffy hushed her tones unnecessarily, “…peeler palace? That’s just great. Where once there were girls, now there are boys. That’s called karma, Spike, and it’s just taken a big bite out of your ass.”
“What are you saying, Buffy?” Dawn strained to hear.
“Spike wanted to take us to a strip club.”
“Is this a gay strip club? Interesting choice: bold and unconventional, which is, you know, so you Spike. I vote to stay.” Dawn’s eyes clouded over as a sweaty expanse of chocolate chest resplendent with glitter breezed by her face. “Can we stay Buffy? Please?”
The neophytes were soon spotted by an aging drag queen in a blue bouffant wig who seemed to have every imaginable make-up product on her face at the same time. Now that was a body not made for a skintight mini dress, Buffy observed as the creature approached. She looked like a pleasant enough bedazzled sausage as she oozed up to Spike and Buffy.
“Hey girlfriend,” the creature spoke in a deep but refined upper class baritone directly at Buffy. “You and Mr. Leather-Me-Wonderful can stay, but the female?” She looked askance at sideshow obsessed Dawn. “She has to go. This is a non-hetero zone; absolutely no females allowed.”
Buffy’s eyes widened to saucers. “Hey…HEY!” Buffy turned on a dime. “Spike,” she hissed into Spike’s ear. “That big fat guy doesn’t think I’m a…drag queen, does he? DOES HE?”
It had been a long time since Buffy had been so thoroughly insulted by a human that her mind stumbled. The correct reaction would be…right cross? Left uppercut? Stingingly brutal verbal jab? The thing stepped back into the bosom of her people — vacuously beautiful buff and tawny underwear models all.
What fucking planet was this again?
“Let’s go sweetheart.” Spike put his fingers on Buffy’s elbow. All vampire machismo evaporated. He hadn’t even the presence of mind to growl in defense of his woman. Never had he wanted the ground to swallow him up so much in his life.
“What? What’s going on?” Dawn yelled in Buffy’s ear.
“That guy thinks I’m a guy,” Buffy spoke agitatedly and then erupted, slayer style. “HEY!! YOU!! FYI GIDGET! I am a WOMAN! 100% WOMAN HERE!” Impulsively she opened a few buttons and unclasped her bra, flashing her breasts at the blue haired queen standing not six feet away among a gaggle of regulars.
“BUFFY?!!” Dawn squawked in disbelief. This could get ugly really quick.
“Work it girl! Attitude is everything!” The aging queen snapped her fingers in defiant sisterhood with Buffy. Ugly landed with a big fat plop.
Buffy reddened and closed her blouse. Authentic surgery free female breasts did not seem to be persuasive. Dawn grabbed Buffy’s arm and led her from the chaos.
“Come on, Mr. Sister,” Dawn spoke in even tones, “let’s go.”
“Did you see the shoes on that stick?” The drag queen spoke conspiratorially to an acquaintance. “The nerve…”
Buffy quickly did up her bra and blouse and grabbed Spike’s wrist as they left the club.
“Dawn, give us a second.” Dawn kept her squealing guffaw at bay when she saw on Buffy’s face the shaky remnants of Freakzilla, her scary and mostly retired alter ego. The Freak, no stranger to Sunnydale, had showed her face once in Rome when Dawn was late arriving home from a night out with a boy.
Dawn followed them for a few steps and then stopped as they turned a corner. Spike was preparing for something acutely painful. This was bad. Really bad. All kinds of bad. Approaching Drusilla bad.
“Buffy love, I didn’t– I wouldn’t– I–” Expecting broken bones, Spike resigned himself to his fate. He should have consulted that Nancy-boy guidebook. He knew that now. Should have it tattooed on my bloody forehead, Spike thought, too late smart, too soon bloodied.
Buffy flung Spike back against a brick wall. He steeled himself for her fists. “Kiss me,” was all she said. He obeyed. Nobody was going to insult the womanliness of his angel. They leaned deeply into each other, dipping and surfacing with hands everywhere, completely oblivious to Dawn’s presence.
Dawn chanced a peek around the corner and gave them a little leeway. Rousing from a demanding connection, Spike stroked Buffy’s cheek softly. “Look at me, love,” he whispered with tenderness. “I know what you are and I know who you are. Say the word and I’ll go back in there and rip that wanker’s wig clean off and beat him bloody with it.” Buffy burst into giggles.
“Spike, that girl –guy– whatever that person was, was a person. Human. So no beating up allowed.” She snuggled into his mouth for another deep kiss. Buffy was readying herself for a spontaneous ascent of Mount Spike when Dawn cleared her throat. Leeway was over for the time being. The night was young and Dawn had her dancing shoes on.
“Um, earth to heteros, earth to heteros…come in heteros. Equilibrium has been established, it’s time to hail a cab.”
Spike and Buffy parted slowly. “A cab sounds good,” Buffy admitted.
“Yeah, a cab and then some dancing.”
“Dawn,” Buffy finally looked into her sister’s amused expression. “This NEVER happened…okay?” Dawn was struck by the vulnerability evident in Buffy’s face. This was a fragility Buffy rarely admitted to herself, let alone revealed to anyone else. Dawn wrinkled her forehead in thought, like it mattered one jot if some stranger with weird hair and bad make-up thought Buffy was a guy. She nodded her head in agreement.
“Relax, sis. It’s not like I’ve never been to a gay club before–” Reconsidering that sentence, Dawn abruptly ended it and moved off down the street in order to hail a cab.
“Andrew is so going to get a piece of my mind when we get home…” Buffy shook her head and followed.
“Hurry up Buffy! Spike!” Dawn held the door to a large black London cab open. Buffy and Spike piled into the back and their nostrils filled with an aroma of exotic piquancy.
“Yes, yes, good evening to you ladies and gentleman…and whereabouts can I have the pleasure of taking you tonight?” A jovial East Indian man of indeterminate age and apparent good cheer beamed at them from the driver’s seat.
Dawn spoke up authoritatively, looking at the page in the tour book again. She gave the address and glanced at the driver’s photo identification card. A Mr. Chiv Gandhi.
“If you don’t mind me noticing, Miss, you are, I think a visitor here…perhaps from the United States?” His hypnotic Anglo-Indian accent delighted Dawn.
“Rome,” Dawn corrected. “Are you related to that famous Gandhi? The peace guy?”
“Dawn.” Buffy tried to curb Dawn’s effusive curiosity.
“Oh yes, Miss. We are all related in one way or another. It is a common enough name where I come from.”
“I like your accent.” Dawn continued in a friendly manner.
“Dawn, let the poor man do his job.” Dawn turned and aimed a pointedly nasty face pinch at Buffy.
“It is quite all right, Miss,” the driver talked on. “London cabbies are renown the world over for their conversational abilities.” He reached over for a folder and pulled out a laminated newspaper clipping, which he passed back to Dawn. “That is me, Miss, featured in a London Times article on workplace magnanimity. They spoke to many cabbies and I got the picture.”
“And the most quotes, I’ll bet,” Dawn snickered as she scanned the article.
“For some of my fares I am all they see of London. I am a fount of useful and intriguing information.”
“Do you know the identity of Jack the Ripper?” Dawn wiggled closer to the front seat.
“Nibblet,” Spike spoke up this time.
“It is quite all right, sir. The famous Mr. Jack. Yes, he is quite a puzzlement. I have been thinking on this matter for some time but I have yet to solve it. Perhaps soon I shall come to the correct conclusion.”
Buffy and Spike gave up trying to stop Dawn’s yammering, which continued at a rapid fire pace. Their cabby, the intrepid Mr. Gandhi was more than a match for Dawn’s whiplash conversation as he drove the cab through the dark city streets. Buffy leaned closely into Spike’s side and entwined their fingers as they listened absently to their driver’s tales of celebrities, intrigue and humor. At least Dawn was pleasantly occupied and not pestering them. This was full service taxiing for sure. Buffy was going to give Mr. Gandhi a big tip.
Spike could not concentrate on the conversation. He stared at Buffy’s hand in his and focused on the easy way she leaned into his side. For all the sizzling sexual acrobatics they had completed earlier in the hotel room this small act of public affection was, for him, the most intimate of the day. Spike’s appetite for sex was never sated for long, but plain old tenderness spoke of a fond affection beyond words.
Buffy’s affection.
Spike closed his eyes and let William revel in this sweet charity because he deserved it. More than Spike, William deserved to hold the hand of the woman he loved because he could best appreciate the significance of such a gesture. Spike opened his eyes again and caught Buffy’s amused wink.
Such gifts. Such small gifts. Spike struggled to keep his mind under strict control. He had a bad habit of leaping off into fairyland and into that house with the dangerous white picket fence. Even William chuckled at the absurdity of that fantasy.
But it was too delicious to cast aside. He was a hero now without the asterisk. Two apocalypses fit snugly under his belt and the last one was completely accessory free. That one was all him. The deed of a hero.
His mum had a saying for everything. ‘Good things come to those who wait’ was a favorite. Deep in his soul Spike knew that the waiting was over. His good things were there already, right in the palm of his hand.