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Behind Door Number 1..

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Chapter 2: Amends

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.



 

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