He's quieter now. He doesn't have much to say. He rarely jokes
or smirks at his own cleverness. That insufferable cockiness
of his is all but gone. The way he used to strut, his coat flowing
out behind him, that cock-of-the-walk swagger, that's missing
too.
He seems sad. Like the joy he used to take in his unlife has
been drowned in some secret shame. Something he remembers when
he looks at me. I still feel his eyes following but when I look
at him now he usually looks away. A man down the street had
a dog that used to look like that. Poor sad thing. Finally they
came and took it away cause the man had been beating it.
He's touched me a couple of times. He made a joke at my birthday
party. Enough to show that he still wants me.
But he's stopped pushing it.
When I look out my window I never see his shadow under the
tree in my front yard. Never the red glow as he inhales his
cigarette. No smoke rising through the branches of the tree
to reach my window.
He's stopped seeking me out.
I know when it began. That night in the alley. When I beat
him till he couldn't stand and left him lying there.
At first that night was all about Katrina but once I knew I
hadn't killed an innocent I felt absolved of all guilt. It seemed
over. I pushed Spike out of my mind. Until I talked to Tara
and it came flooding back. The shame I feel at my surrender
to his flesh. The guilt I feel at my treatment of it.
That night fills my dreams now. The first night the dream was
about Katrina, Katrina and Spike. Now the dreams are only about
Spike. About hurting him, hitting him, punching him, kicking
him, burning him, biting him, about every cruelty I have ever
visited on his flesh. I wake up sick with shame and every morning
when I open my eyes the day seems a little darker than the one
before and my heart seems a little heavier. One day I know my
heart will be so heavy I won't be able to lift myself out of
the bed.
He's not drawn to me now. Instead, like a compass needle, I
turn toward his north. I go out on my porch in the dark and
turn toward the cemetery, toward him. I watch the moon rise
over the trees while I ache to see him coming toward me in the
dark, his pale hair shining like the moon.
But he doesn't come anymore.
His insufferable arrogance, his infuriating confidence, his
stubborn persistence, his unbearable presence is now an even
more unbearable absence, an emptiness, in my mind and in my
body, and, I'm beginning to accept, in my heart.
Come to me Spike. Come annoy me. Come make me mad. Come kiss
me, touch me, come make me come. Come fight me, fuck me. Come
make me smile. Come make me laugh. Come make me feel alive.
Just come.
But he doesn't come.
I left him and now he's leaving me. He's pulling out of my
life, pulling me out of his life.
I thought I'd be glad. I should be glad. He's everything I
hate. But there's an ache in my chest that gets a little worse
every day.
He used to stand outside my house, looking up at my window,
thinking of me. Now I stand inside my house and think of him,
think of looking for him. I walk out in the night. And I don't
find him.
I patrol and I don't find him.
I've even been to his crypt but I don't find him. There's the
smell of smoke, and once a still warm cup of blood but nothing
of the blood-sucking fiend, of my evil fiend. Is he still mine?
I think I understand. I'm channeling Spike. I'm starting to
feel what he feels. The obsession. The desperate desire. The
love? I want his arms around me again. I want him in me again.
As each day passes, as each sun drowns in shadows, I'm willing
to pay a little more to get it, do a little worse to have it.
That's justice, isn't it? Poetic justice.
I imagine telling him I'm sorry. I imagine asking him to forgive
me. Imagine begging him to forgive me. Imagine myself on my
knees begging him to forgive me. Totally pathetic. All about...me.
What I want. I imagine him looking at me with contempt.
I went to the cemetery. Like I was irresistibly pulled there.
It's different in the day. Friendly. All soft sun and shade.
People visiting the graves of their loved ones. They pull flowers
out of the dirt then leave them to die and rot on some other
dirt. To show they cared.
I drifted around the paths, not thinking about where I was
or where I was going, but each time I looked up I knew exactly
where I was in relation to his grave. I pulled a dandelion and
twirled it in my fingers as I walked. The wind was nice. I could
feel it pulling back my hair, running its soft fingers over
me.
I stopped for a moment. Relishing the breeze. Taking a deep
breath. Then I turned toward my north. Spike was standing out
side his crypt door, watching me, his body protected by a long
shadow cast by the afternoon sun. Shocked me for a minute, seeing
him outside, almost in the sun.
Vampire senses. Hard to sneak up on them. At least hard it's
hard for me sneak up on Spike.
It made my heart ache to see his face and its fading bruises.
It made me feel...something. Maybe not love but such tenderness.
My creature of darkness with his sky eyes and sunlight hair.
Hurt. If only I could hurt the one that did that do him.
I caught his eyes and joined him in his shadow. Stopped in
front of him and reached up and stuck the dandelion behind his
ear. His lips twisted into a half smile. Flowers for the dead.
I leaned up against his body and watched his face as it shifted
from amusement to tenderness to desire. His face is always so
open. He can never hide, never tries to hide what he feels.
Then his jaw clinched and he looked away from me with a flash
of anger and resentment.
It wasn't over. That night was still there between us. Its
shadow morphing from pain to sadness to bitterness to...hate?
Does he hate me now?
Or himself?
Because I treated him like he was beneath me. Wrapped up in
my own anger and pain. Because I beat him and left him like
a dog left to die on the side of the road. Like he was nothing.
Like I owed him nothing. Not even the kindness I would have
shown a dog.
The darkness is growing. It's falling over him. It's suffocating
me. I can't think of anything that can hold it back. It's darkening
both of our lives. It's blighting our connection. It's smothering
even the pleasure we took in each other.
I'm sorry Spike. I've said it in my mind so many times. I'm
sorry Spike. But sorry is only sorrow. My sorrow. About ending
my sorrow, my shame. It changes nothing. It makes no amends.
So I leaned against him. I felt his hard flesh and his hardening
flesh against my body. He still wanted me. I could feel it.
But he grabbed my shoulders and held me away from what I wanted.
Held me away while he looked into my eyes. Then he took me roughly
by the hand and pulled me through the open door into the dark.
He shut the door then pushed me up against it. I could feel
the rough texture against the bare backs of my arms. He held
me there, his hands on my shoulders, looking at me like he was
looking for some dark answer to some darker question.
Then
he took one of my of my wrists and his other hand came back
with the handcuffs. He snapped them shut chaining my hands together.
He didn't ask this time. I didn't stop him. Or even pull back.
If only whatever he wanted to do would be enough.
He turned and pulled me with him, past the coffins to the stairs
and down into the ground, closing me in with him, under the
earth.
The dandelion fell.
He stepped on it as he dragged me down into the black.
There was only one lit candle in the darkness. Its waving flame
was moving the shadows across the walls, across the bed, across
his face. He pulled me into the middle of the floor. I didn't
resist.
He stopped, still holding the chain. He stood there for...what
seemed like a long time.
I felt my gut knot up. Not fear exactly. The not knowing.
Finally he turned. His back to the candle. Just a shadow, a
shaped darkness in a room of waving shadows. No face, no features.
Just darkness.
He held me by the chain between the cuffs, my hands pulled
out from my body. I had my feet apart and braced.
I saw him pull back his hand, his fingers curled into as fist,
his body tense. He stood there a moment so I knew what was coming.
So I could twist away or dodge or kick. So I knew.
I made myself stay still. Finally his fist crashed into my
cheekbone, hard enough that darkness blotted out my vision.
That was followed by tiny bright stars racing across the black.
I staggered and half fell. He still held me by the chain.
He pulled me up. Waited for me recover. My cheek felt like
I'd been hit with a baseball bat. Pain and I could feel the
skin tightening as it bruised.
Spike pulled his fist back again. His darkness facing me. I
froze as I waited for it. I made myself welcome the punishment
I knew I deserved. He lowered his fist slightly then pulled
it back again. Twice more. Without hitting me. Finally he spit
out the word, "Bollocks," and lowered his arm.
He pulled me over to the bed and sat me down on it. Sat down
next to me. His body pressed beside mine. His arm around my
shoulder. I felt his fingers on my face, his feather kisses
on my cheekbone. Then he rested his forehead on mine and with
a soft laugh gave a bitter whisper saying...
"I am so whipped,"
as he wrapped his darkness around me.