*****
He`s sleeping on my couch when I come downstairs. Shirt off, boots on, bloody knuckles just starting to heal. The blood in the corner of his mouth is not disappearing, so I suppose it isn`t his. I don`t even want to know where he has been, or what he has been doing there while I was working today. Of course, he`s going to tell me anyway. Just to watch the look of horror on my face when he regales me with the latest Spike-Does-the-LA-Demons tale.
The last time he came home bruised and battered it was after going four rounds with a Lung-Wang Demon in China Town. He narrowly escaped having his entrails cooked in his own juice. Additionally from what I understand, that species likes to wear vampire skulls around their necks. Spike`s head would make a fine looking piece of jewelry, but *I`m* the only one who gets to wear it.
I suppose I should cut him some slack. He lives with an old, broody vampire with whom he has little in common ...well...not things one can discuss in public arenas, anyhow. If he needs to blow off steam by taking down some monster or other, he`s only doing me a favor by lightening my caseload. And who am I to argue anyway?
So I`ll just stand here and watch him sleep. Watch his naked, hairless chest as it does not rise and fall. Watch his face, pale and still and silent as the tomb. His muddy foot hanging precariously over the edge of my couch, his small, powerful hand resting lightly on his upper thigh. His yellow hair catches the light from the kitchen, and I can see the faint return of the dark auburn locks stubbornly pushing their way from his scalp. Sometimes I wish he would leave the fiery color untouched.
There are several things I would alter about him if I could, just as I know he has a running list of things he wishes were different about me...but there are far more things that I would not exchange even it meant attaining that elusive ideal `Perfect Happiness`.
The way his hands always reach for mine, in the public of a theater or the privacy of our bed. Forever seeking out the blue veins on the backs of my hands, the sharp bones of my knee, or the scant hairs on the nape of my neck. Then he draws a lazy, black tipped finger down along the flesh and I fall to pieces. He has no shame, my boy.
No shame, and no guilt and none of the other socializing emotions that make us..human...because, of course, he's not. And he revels in it, in the pleasure that comes with it. The unabashed joy of physicality; of eating, and drinking, and smoking, and killing and fucking. He elevates mammalian and demonic biological needs to an art form with his frenzy, and his lust for everything tangible.
He is ever eager to try something else..something new, and exciting and ``just different, Peaches, we`re gonna be alive forfuckingever, we gotta shake it all up a bit, ay?`` So there have been `shags` in movie theaters, and video arcades, zoos and public parking garages. There have been blow jobs in dressing rooms and phone booths, in sewers and alleyways and - gods help me - bowling alleys. Angelus was never half the exhibitionist, nor nearly as inventive, as is my Favoured Childe.
So too there have also been feather dusters and popsicles in our bed, along with champagne and ...wheatabix...and let me assure you, noone else has ever gotten crumbs on my Indian wool and lived to tell the tale.
But then when I take him, and he can only make certain sounds... ones in the back of his throat, or open mouthed vowels, as if he's unable to even close his lips around the pleasure of it...
And when he comes his eyes finally fall shut for a moment, just a moment, at last relinquishing his fragile hold on control. Those long, sooty lashes fall against his cheeks, and his eyes dart back and forth behind translucent lids. I wonder every time what he is watching inside there, what visions lurk beneath the surface of marble and ice and sweat. Whatever they are, I only hope they include me.
His voice in the night, when we are alone together in the otherworldly stillness of my apartment.... whispers and shouts, mocking and seducing. He calls me by name then, in the intimacy of our bedroom. And it is the Olde name, the one which I would not tolerate from anyone else. From him it is a caress, whether he is screaming it in fury or in passion. It is a reminder of the only thing about my past which I cannot bring myself to regret with a penitent heart. Him.
To know that I can breathe deeply and inhale the scent of him on my sheets, in my hair, on my clothes...To mortals I know he smells like alcohol and tobacco, leather and quite possibly, dirty socks. To me he smells of history...every faint undertone another chapter in the narrative of two hundred years spent together and apart. The lingering scent of London`s poorer districts, the salty air of seas and sailing ships, the sweet, autumn smell of uncut grass and clover. The aroma of Druscilla`s incense, and the telltale imprint of her skin still clings to him; clove and myrrh, sugar cookies and chamomile tea. Sometimes I can even catch Darla or Penn on him, her a cloying perfume, and he a bitter herb. And when I bury my face into the softness of his neck, right above the jugular vein, there is me. I wonder what I smell like to him.
His mouth never tastes the same twice; under the high nicotine cigarette smoke is the flavor of whatever bizarre combination of human foods he has decided to partake of, and the ever-present tang of thick, fresh blood. In two centuries he is still the only person I have ever kissed who can simultaneously taste of anchovies, chocolate, cinnamon and a recent feed.
And beneath the obvious, his kisses flavored by tragedy and exultation, by certain death and savage hope.
And his blood....oh....there is a world inside his blood. And it is ripe with visions of bawdy song and dark ale, drunken brawls and wet, burning embraces. To swallow that blood is to take in some of his vitality, some of his fierce desire for...*living* ; it is to touch, even if only for the moment it slides cool and syrupy down my throat, the Essence of the boy he was, and the man he will never be again.
He doesn`t move when I drink from him; he doesn`t struggle or squirm or cry out. He just tilts back his head, until the platinum hair brushes his shoulder blades, and allows me to drain him at will. It is the only time he is still. It is the only time he is remotely submissive. I have no idea if it is an act of love or some residual memory of when such behavior was required of him. The reasons are not anything I care to dwell on, but the act utself is something I cherish.
Of course he also smokes his cigarettes then kisses me without brushing his teeth, he wanders around clad in only his Docs and a lopsided grin when Cordelia and Wesely are certain to stop by, and he always drinks the last beer in the fridge and puts it back empty. Still, twenty minutes later, I can`t remember exactly why I wanted to break his skinny neck.
Well, I remember. But it seems I just don`t *care* as much about actually breaking his neck when my fangs are embedded in it, and he`s making those back of the throat sounds again. Then I grin against the fountain of blood, and think how endearing those noises are. And the only thing that keeps me from telling him so is the fact that he`d likely rip my larynx out and wear it on his keyring.
Fine, he`s got me wrapped around his...lips...finger....whichever. But there are tricks to winning the Spike trade which I have gleaned during two centuries or so of knowing him.
For instance, the right kind of glance can make the adam`s apple in his long, white throat bob up and down with a quick and involuntary swallow. But I have to do it just so...face straight ahead, pretend to be looking at something else, turn my eyes to catch him out of the corners...lower my lashes..and then.... A small gulp before he can even help it.
And if I watch him intently, rocking back and forth on my heels, and smile...just a flash of teeth..just enough ... I can make the tiny tremors travel up his spine.
And if I stare at him in the dark, study him while he sleeps, it never takes long for his eyes to snap open and catch me... then I am graced with that look that simultaneously claims me his lover and the world`s biggest pouff. I still have no idea how he manages that.
He has a repertoire of facial expressions that convey a multitude of hidden meanings, most of them too subtle to be caught by mortal eyes. It is not because they flicker too quickly across his chiseled face...no, quite the opposite. Spike`s smile is slower than molasses and winter sap; I can count to ten sometimes before the wrinkles move from lips to sculptured cheeks, before finally alighting at the corners of his eyes. And god knows when he pouts, *that* can last days.
But to really ken his moods, you have to know how to read his body. You have to remember from centuries back that a hand in the pocket means he is nervous, the fluttering of lashes means he is lying, and the curve of one corner of his lip means he is aroused.
It`s that curved lip I aspire to whenever possible. I get it most often of course when he`s underneath me, and I am inside of him, and we are laying face to face, my hands cupping the back of his head, my thumbs pressed against the delicate indentations on either side of his brow. Then I hear him pant, and I watch him struggle against the closing of his eyes.
Watching me, always watching...watching my face to see what I will do when he reaches around and digs his fingernails into the curve of my back, or arches up his body until I am so deep inside of him, I can`t quite get his name past my lips from the pleasure of it.... and then he laughs at me.
His laugh is enough to send me over the edge every time. He is the only being on earth who could successfully turn harassment into a component of foreplay.
He likes to have the soft skin behind his ear nipped, and the bump joining his skull to his spine massaged. A harsh smack to the back of his thighs will earn a moan, but slap him on the ass and all bets are off. He prefers a leather belt on his flesh to any other form of pain. But when he`s topping he can`t be bothered with paraphernalia. It`s just his open hand against my naked skin.
He will tolerate foreplay for only so long; he likes it fast, and harsh and hard..he likes to feel the sweat drip off my forehead and onto his chest, to lick the salt off my neck before sinking in his teeth. He likes to bury his hands in my hair in the beginning, and then slide them down my shoulders, to my hips, and my waist...I can tell how close he to is to coming by where his hands are...and how desperately he sets a rhythm with that unyielding grasp.
I have tried on numerous occasions but with little success to hold him *still*. When I was un-souled I would just tie him down. All right, sometimes I still do that, but at least now I check periodically for marks on his faultless skin. It`s the only way he lets me set a pace. Otherwise, half the time I`m on my knees in front of him before we make it out of parking lots.
Then his hands tug at my hair while my mouth works its way down his chest...and the feel of him...muscles like living creatures, lithe and lean, encased in an alabaster shell. The slim hips and narrow waist, the soft downy hairs on his arms and legs, so misleading...the illusion of youth, and frailty. Angelus chose him for that. I used to love the look of innocence and beauty corrupted, the mockery it made of all things the living held dear.
Even with his current bad-ass dress and attitude, a tall or well built man could look at Spike and think about how easy it would be to overpower such a little punk. Sooner rather than later, that mortal would find himself with a few anatomically misplaced holes....
Now imagine the days before the killer moniker, when William wore his auburn hair long and free, curls hanging loosely about his face. Imagine turning to find him behind you on a dark street, and he smiles at you...and looks for all the world like a blameless child. Imagine dancing with him, letting him slip those slender arms about your waist. Imagine laying with him, feeling that delicate weight press against you, those traitorously soft lips brush yours.
Surely he is harmless. Surely such a wisp of a man with eyes so blue could never molest you. Surely you could bend those long, slim fingers back if he were to try.
Surely you never see the morning.
An illusion. Such a lovely, heartbreaking illusion, my boy. But my illusions are as precious to me as he is. And in the end, I will change neither.
~Finis