*****

I'm here because I have never been very good at ferocity. I know this. I get so worked up and then I crumble into it. The anger clouds my voice and my thoughts. It feels like my bones turn to cartilage as I can't help but mold to the anger when it rises up from my inner harem of repressed emotions.

It's not me; I get sifted away. What did the doctor say? I can't remember, but the leggy receptionist, an earnest psych student, had it all figured out. She told me over drinks she thought that since everyone else around me had such easy outlets for anger I never quite figured out what to do with mine, worried about acting unacceptably until the anger, now coupled with indignation and alienation, boiled over. The friends who were so important to me had outrageous violence, bilious snobbery, and the vague 'chemical' outlets (she smugly assumed to be illicit drugs -- ha!), and then there I was -- demurely stuck in the middle. Restraint and redirection. That causes bad, bad things, baby. Yeah, well, fuck you, sister. You think you can just flatten me out and shove me or them into some stainless steal cookie cutters some respected, educated adult gave you? Slice me up into little pieces, baby, am I good enough? A++? Do my curves push your buttons? How do I look through the thin ice? You don't know a thing about my world.

I look back over my friends, and I know the pull of the Hellmouth warped the equations of life and all that good stuff...

On that note, worthy of such stuff as goatee stroking and single raised eyebrows, how does it go, Xander; how did we turn out. Buffy died. Bang. We did not take to that well. It's fair to say her death, natural as the birds and the bees and coconut trees, catalyzed our dissipation. When the Hellmouth was making us feel the worst, we were given an opportunity to carve it out of our lives. Willow Rosenburg's a doctor and a professor or assistant professor or something of Classics in New England. She's married, because how could someone so sweet, beautiful, intelligent, and true not hook True Love (tm). Rupert Giles is in India, doing a Peace Corps or something. He's afraid of Americans; he's afraid of the world -- he still hasn't made it back to grand old England. I never understood why he cares. It's just country. You're either on the Hellmouth or you're not. Cordelia Chase is an agent. She plays blackjack and genii with doe-eyed models and actors up her sleeves and under her thumbs. My proud Morticia... She always was a damn fine calculating bitch.

And I, once Xander now Mister Alexander Harris, am frantically exhausted and miserable, stooping and staring at the knocker on one Oz Addam's front door.

Otherwise (and I believe I am too worthy of a pleasantly-shaped paragraph that trivializes all the good, bad, and behemoth decisions I've made, all the pain, all the work, and all the sacrifice, for someone else's convenience) I am a newspaper columnist. Well, what I do is advertised as wobbling between fable, fiction, and regular newspaper columnist rambling. But I have the column -- it's syndi-ma-cated. Aw, yeah. Don't you love it. Instead of a photograph, I use a sketch by Edward Gorey. T is for Titus who flew into bits. They love it. They love the contrast between the demure schoolboy and my "scathing" (New Stork Post) columns. They love my "fanciful imagery that resurrects the familiar, mythical characters of childhood into the epic of adulthood" (BC Times), or they love my "slick, astute observations and engaging introspection amidst the fanciful teenage wildlife of [my] acid-flashback reflections of [my] youth" (Sea Cattle Tribune). They love me.

My old friends? They love me, they love me not. When the real world overrode our cinescape of hell, and money and prestige for all of us, so talented, started to matter like nothing else, we fell apart. We were a gorgeous jigsaw puzzle. We fit together so well. Then the card table turned to a dollar bill balanced on our rolled diplomas, and as we each grabbed at what we had earned, we broke it apart. Ripped apart, fell out, all the king's horses and all the king's men rolled their eyes at our naivete, and we each continued on our separate ways.

However, Oz loves me. I think. Oz never takes much. Oz never really made any sense.

Here I am, and even here I feel nervous and edgy, understruck by a mild nausea. Willow (Rosenburg) had once explained to me that you can get dizzy when the liquids in your ear are swirled by repetitive movement into a whirlpool. So here I am, and even here I feel nervous and edgy.

I get fucked up, and so I come back.

On a regular basis I think I'm losing my mind, my hope, my reason to live. Yeah, if I make it dramatic enough will I be worth it to him? Oh, everything -- it's falling apart. Believe me like no one else does. To get good at writing, you know, you have to open yourself up to criticism. The public generally likes my writing, but of course they never take it at face value. It's always a metaphor, a satire, or clever juxtaposition. What is this prejudice?!

On the airplane, I couldn't make eye contact with the stewardesses. I was afraid I might lose it, stab the stupid bitch who thinks VAMPIRES DON'T EXIST. Ah, stake through the heart like a knife through butter. They gave us margarine with our rolls. I could have screamed.

So I hang with the frantically literary, crazy, lush angel-headed hipsters whom I intrigue. We are all cigarettes and berets, we think think think and we write write write. They are my brilliant literarycomrade-in-arms; they admire, entertain and stimulate me. When I've got my act together it's a great life, but when these hallucinatory bouts of depression sashay in, they are a brittle, outside and nothing, just as real to me as the Boca Del Inferno is to them. None of them can touch me. Reality winks and bites down on goodness-only-knows which half of the Caterpillar's mushroom, the floorboards gently curve me here.

I fall apart like this, my two realities, my NY and my Hellmouth, entwine around one another and I can't cope with it by myself or with any of my friends uptown. I ricochet away from all of them; it's the apex of the narcissism born from being foreign but being too dignified to let anyone else know how essential to my identity that is. I can't prove all my fairy tales of creepycrawlies exist to the entire world. To begin with, I've been warned by the Council that my writing, in respect to my history with the slayer, is watched and that I will be censored and censured if what I publish threatens their operations. Even if I did it, then what would I be? My columns and my ideas wouldn't be so fantastic and original; I wouldn't have anything left to offer. I've worked hard; I'd get my fifteen minutes of fame and then I'd be nothing. That's not really it... I think, moreover, I'd just feel terrible if I infected the lives of the masses which other humans already make violent enough with yet another threat. We said that a lot in high school, but I think what we really meant was we didn't want to share the glamour, the thrill, and the purpose it gave us at an age when everyone else was pretty listless or expiremental. Out of Sunnydale, vampires really aren't a big enough problem to be worth the stress I'd inflict upon all the single mothers, starving artists, et cetera. So I have decided to just keep my winks, "well, do you think it's real?"s, and mystique, and keep failing to balance my two realities, have breakdowns like this, et ceterae.

So I just totter back and forth, and now mad as a hatter and faster than a hare I come home.

Sometimes I want to kill or tell or deport everything that doesn't just understand that my monsters are real. Truth is god; I'm surrounded by heathens. Beautiful heathens, kind, fascinated heathens -- I love my job and I love New York but sometimes I can't take it anymore. Sometimes.

He understands, he knows, he *is*. I go to Oz to get my fix. Always.

Really, now. It is so easy to get carried away. Put your hat back on! His knocker is a snake. I wonder if it means something. It's all silvery and clean. I stand in the threshold of gratification and the ridges of my brain are dissociating into lithe snakes. They start to slither away, out my ears, and down my front. They tug me forward. I wince and coax out a headache to blare out the back-of-ye-head mutterings that he's probably sick of this, and I knock on his door. It's a little apartment, but nothing tried to kill me on the way up so I guess it's a pretty good neighborhood. Yeah, I guess he's doing all right.

Why does he put up with me? Why does he let me use him? Because I am, I'm sure. I love him, but I love the fast, furious artiverse of New York City more. I don't call, I don't write, I don't care until I wind up on his doorstep. He takes me in, strings me out, kisses out the knots, we're friends for a few hours, and then I itch for my NY life again as much as I initially itched for him.

-

I can't leave now; the sun just rose so he might see me walking away and it has just started to rain. Lord knows if you stay out in that acid slush you'll pop out a tentacle or two. Like he'd even care about that. I don't think he ever figured out he wasn't living in a comic book. And hey, the raggedy, buffeted bums are always the ones with most beautiful stories and the most intense kisses.

So surprise, surprise, when he sees me he bats his eyes and ushers me in with a sparkling little twitch of a smile.

I know he can smell moods; I wonder if can detect more. Maybe he can explain this to me. Why do I keep coming back to him? Why can't I balance my past and my present? I'm zipping through starscapes, and I'm drowning in a puddle of oil in a parking lot. What the hell is wrong with me?

Inside, the door locked tight, and his face cracks into a bigger smile as he crushes me against the wall and snakes up for one of *those* kisses. He's rather short and has garnered a delicate gait in the past few years, but nevertheless he's always been damn good at those empassioned, earth-stands-still, DON'T YOU GET IT -- I WANT YOU kisses. It's been eight months since I've seen him, but he still melts me into his greeting. Maybe he's as lonely as I am, maybe not, but this is our ritual. Our lips meet, and I am back home. What liquids on his tongue calm me so easily? It's witchcraft, it's black magic voodoo. It's familiar territory. It's an honest love of the world around him. Here I am, and I remember how to understand. I learned how to love as I learned how to live with the supernatural. Why did I think I could ever unbraid these twin battles? They were the two most important things in my life for a good eight years. They are a part of us all.

I felt worthless for a good deal of my high school and college years. I think I may have invested more into the whole slay gig then anyone else. I found my ambition, my honesty, my good arm, my cool hair, and my unabated passion in the avant-garde dream scene, but I'd built everything else of myself up about the good 13 square miles that is the Hellmouth. I take a deep breathe; the fear here has a different texture. It gets to me like velcro and before I know it, here I am back in the wilderness, back to my wolves. Well, only one person, just Oz, really. But he gathers me up in his arms so quickly and fades out that world with his pot and love addled nonsense and strictness that it's like a whole gaggle of friends.

I can't face any of the others. They got out of the whole Hellmouth gig okay. I can just see them, looking over the manicured landscape, their eyes skirting around to see if the neighbors have noticed this poor excuse for a human being begging to be loved in that heedless, rough way you do when you think your about to lose it all. Of course they'd let me into their home. We'd sit in the sitting room or parlor or one of those rooms you never allow the kids in. Their eyes would narrow, they'd lean back into the chair and close their legs, the dress riding up her smooth (moisturized) leg, sniffing as she brushes her pride and joy, her husband's weakness, that *gorgeous* auburn glory over her shoulder. We'd talk. She'd try to *fucking* figure it out. Like Hell I'd face that.

Jesus. I see the lararium next to the umbrella rack. I see marijuana, strawberries, and that stuff that tastes like licorice growing along the bright kitchen, which I can see because the apartment hideously splays out from the small hallway. There is no TV. I can see a mouse hole from here. The curtains are linen, but the window has been watercolored.

Lightening fast I can feel Ozness drug me up. Bippity boop. Just a little kiss. Here I am; here I go. It's just a little pinprick...

*****
Part 2:

I am his. The genuineness of this world flushes me through. I can smell the herbs of musty spells, see the sigils of long ignored gods, and feel the taut muscles of someone who still has to use his body for survival. It's all real, and it's damn happy to see me. Oz has broken off and is running his hands through my hair. I don't think we've said a word to each other, yet. It scares me that I've chosen words to be my life, and yet for the first time in months I feel sane, peace, etc. etc. and words are no where to be found. Mister Alexander Harris has fallen asleep, and oh my, he, made of little type print letters, possibly words, if not in our language then in another, has fallen down the rabbit hole. Oh my, oh my, oh my. Oz is glowing white in the sun as we row away. He lowers his eyes; his lashes are pale and I don't remember what he does, who his friends are, if he's fallen in love with anybody else. He puts on Pink Floyd, and we slide into his couch. I'm hot and cold and losing control and fucking sobbing. His eyes are closed, and he gathers me up in his arms. Soon he's crying, too, because that's just what we do.

I cry because I'm confused. This confusion makes me feel fake, used, a waste, styrofoam, wrong in the life I thoroughly enjoy until I break down like this. I let it go. In his arms, I am nothing but honesty. He isn't a person, an individual, but a creature, a season, a dream, a shade of grey, just a little pinprick. What else is he, why doesn't it bother him that unless I make myself, I don't care. When I'm with him, nothing else matters. Why does he just offer himself like an overcoat to me, a note or a phone number in the pocket and the rattle of hidden treasure in the lining? Great, now I *am* as selfish as I am neurotic. Great, fucking great. Great, great, great...

***

There's blood leeching up under my nails. I come to him, I give in completely, and I wake up feeling silvery and clean.

***

It's about three o'clock , and I'm looking in the mirror. I'm so goddamn beautiful. This mattered to me a lot in high school; I hazarded the magnetic fields of Buffy, Cordelia, Faith, and Willow because of the draw of beauty. To admire it, to touch it, to be worthy of it, and to get my grubby hands on it meant a lot to me then. Now, it is silly. Anyone can be beautiful. You can, I can, I am, and I'm sure you are. Wait a while, someone will fall in love with you, you'll find your niche, whatever. You are magnificent, feel it grooving down in you, let it out, blah blah blah. I dare you (fool) to make it your everything. Now I'm laughing outloud. I'm an artist, I'm more self aware than I ever was, I'm a mess, I'm smiling into my reflection. New York is the bitch queen of beauty, but in the reflection of this place through the mirror, covered in cartoon stickers and bits of black bridal veils, there's something special here. More magical, of course, but there's more. Oz's swaying hugs are more personal and warm and breathless, his Hunan-pecan pancakes are fluffier, and Oz's carpeting scrunches up in my toes just the right way. Everything about him feels better; when I close my eyes, Oz is one of the few things I know that is still beautiful.

We were never much for each other in high school, in the sacred alter of the red headed switch-witch goddess. Sure I loved Willow, but I never got caught in her orbit. Desire's a bitch, and the vortex is a woman, once he sighed when it was clear the slayerettes were falling apart.

He lied.

Now we are close. I want to stitch us together, hip to hip. I want to be seared into a cocoon of him. I want to slice his head open and eat his brains with a oyster fork. He tells me he'd be honored, that I can cut him open and take every square inch of him if it'd make me happy. I get so high on writing, and I crash down. He's the only one still stuck deep enough in the muck of beasties and mysteries that he can reach my damned carcass. I crawl into his arms and when he's nursed me back to health, I crawl back up into my life. He's lightly kissing my shoulder right now.

Yay, sex.

This started a long time ago, I think as his fingers trace down the lengths of my arms. I think he had a crush on me as his sweetddove-eyed girllove started to drift away; did I seem as hopelessly fucked up and heading nowhere as he did? I was wasting away in Sunnydale community college for a while; the other slayerettes were thriving. When no one else believed I would amount to much of anything and seemed almost ashamed to associate with me, the failure, as they flourished, Oz's constant gentle touches and cheeky kindness were the appreciation I needed to find myself. To identify what I could be and should be, to start keeping journals, and to work hard in my writing classes. He, quietly, with slight of hand and tongue, made me glow. No wonder Willow switched off that juvenile, awkward obsession with me for his delicate adoration in high school. It was wonderful. It got me through the worst of it all then as it does now. We all graduated from our first four years of college, Buffy died, and we skidded away faster than rats from a burning building. Well, most of us did.

We're both naked now, our breath and body heat trapped under a big goose-feather comforter. It's all sensation, giggles, gasps, and I Love Yous. In New York City, I'm another tall, dark and handsome the cement jungle dryads hunt for sport. Here, I step up and I'm radiant. All I see is white, and all I feel is pure.

***

We're both staring at a mobile hanging over his bed, made of little rubber sardines and famous people's guitar pics and dried lavender that crumbles slightly over us when the wind drift in.

"Xander," he whispers, "I've got to go -- you know, lock myself up."

He looks up, apologetic. He doesn't get it. Of course I know it's the full moon. Fool moon. Any fool can see the little circle on the calendar. He still looks vaguely sorry; I guess I haven't smiled at him or anything. I should probably say something. Please let this come out right...

He walks away to get the chains, and I just up from the bed and grab his hand. I kiss him delicately, like we're fifteen, straight, and in the park on a Saturday afternoon. Without a word we sit on the floor and shake out the chains. They lie loosely on the floor, clasped to a purposeful iron bar on the wall and to his wrists. He folds his knees and rest his head on them, staring out over the room. He looks so small and sad and ashamed. I wish there was something I could do to make him understand how much the little time we spend together means to me.

He softly asks me not to leave tomorrow until he can see me.

"Um, yeah, sure," I reply. "My flight's at 8:30."

He's crumpled on the floor and with my response his composure slid off his face. All afternoon he's been lightly cheerful, but he's just collapsed. I don't remember him ever looking so hurt when he changed; I don't understand why he does now. What would it be? This flashes through my head; I do have to leave, yeah, but I wouldn't just jet. Really, you'd think he'd know me better by now. I can't imagine what else would make him look so... anguished. Through our dinner conversation -- art scene and slay scene (apparently he helps out the new girl & her watcher with his library, as well as odd jobs, writing songs for fun, etc) over baked apples and cream soda, everything sounded okay. He loves to hear about my work; he rested his head on his palms, all dreamy, asking questions in a swirl. I'd say he wishes he could live such a fast, cerebral high life, but he doesn't seem to care about any of the other kids I know or what they do. It's like he wants to understand what makes me so enthusiastic and inspired and happy...

Jealous? Could he be jealous? Oh god...

Spasms are suddenly rolling over his body, and the whole world bows out from this savagely stunning metamorphesis. I'd forgotten how bizarre it was. I'd forgotten how beautiful genuinely bizarre things are -- not stuff that's been calculated as 'strange', but the utterly, innocently otherworldly. Gods, it feels so good to be back here. Every day, in every way, I will not eat Red Riding Hoods. Every day, in every way, I will not eat Red Riding Hoods. I wonder if I asked if he'd bite me. Give me something permanent. Give me proof. Give me identity that the New Yorker can't dismiss. It'd be just a little pinprick... Oz has a way of making the littlest actions so significant. Would he? I itch for my notepad, and the wolf is nuzzling my shoulder. I freeze, and before I can panic �because I didn't *fucking* get away from the goddamn *wolf*-- it's left a sloppy trail of a lick on my stomach and curled up next to me with its head on my leg. It's been getting calmer and calmer around me in the past few visits. It's touching me... It's lying here like a golden retriever... Wow...

Soon, we are glazing his couch with pen scratchings and ear scratchings and purring, as we ride off into another about-to-be acclaimed, refreshingly original piece from Mister Alexander Harris. My siamese realities sit in my lap tonight. The sun will rise because it always does, and tomorrow I'll leave because I always do. The world will spin around like it's had too much tequila because it always does, and Oz'll kiss me to my car because he always does. He makes 'always' seem like such a little thing, and little things so important. I close my eyes and start to drift into sleep. The warmth against my leg promises to chase away all the scarybad sadbad dreams away.

He's my little wolf, my little love, my little always.

*the end*