Chapter 6
Sitting in the hot classroom, watching Othello, Buffy falls in love with Spike as he quotes Shakespeare from memory. In a moment of clarity, she sees how miraculous, how beautiful he is, hiding under the sharp remarks, bleached hair and shiny leather. From that moment, she is lost.
But in the next breath, he turns away from her to bestow his brilliance and beauty upon Drusilla.
Buffy pines for him, aches for the smallest crumb of his regard. Every day, she watches him from beneath the curtain of her hair during class, and from behind the gauzy lace of her window drapery in her room. She memorizes his every move, as he postures and poses, full of macho bravado. He is remaking himself, with new punk clothes, bleached hair, a cocky attitude, and a scary goth girlfriend.
He buys himself a motorcycle in May, revs the engine in the driveway and rides off like a hellion, burning rubber all down their street. Most times, Dru is on the back of his bike, her rail-thin thighs pressed tight against his muscular ones, her arms coiled about his lean waist. Her hair trails behind her like a bridal train as they speed away, her wild laughter carried up to Buffy’s window on the wind.
Most afternoons, she waits for him in their old haunts- in the woods, at the theater, at the library, and in their tree house. He never comes.
One day in late May, after waiting nearly an hour in the library, she comes home from school to find her father’s car in the driveway. She’s delighted he’s home early- he is rarely home anymore, busy with work, business trips. She races into the house, throwing the front door open, hearing it bang against the wall as she rounds the corner into the living room- to find him kissing a strange woman, his hand down her blouse.
She is struck dumb at the sight- frozen in shock. She blinks hard, feeling tears well up. Her father fumbles himself away from the woman, stumbling over words. Hearing his voice is like a slap, bringing her round. She turns and runs blindly, through the kitchen and out the back door, the screen door banging behind her. She runs and runs, tears blinding her sight. But she doesn’t need to see. She knows the path, every stone a part of her cellular memory, embedded with the thousand steps she’s taken upon it.
She reaches the run down tree house, knowing no one but him remembers this place anymore. She lies down on the soft wood floor and buries her face into her forearms, cries until she is empty. Then she sits up, hugging her legs to her chest, and stares at nothing, feeling hollowed out, betrayed.
The sky gets dim. She knows it’s been a few hours, that she should go back, but she’s too tired to move.
Along the path, she sees a flashlight swinging. It’s his walk; she knows by the way the light moves.
He knows this is their place, their refuge.
“Hey,” he snarls as he clambers his way in, “what the fuck are you doing out here? Your mum’s going mad worrying about you…” His words cut off as he looks at her- really looks. Sees she’s adrift. She can’t bring herself to look up, can’t let him see that his presence is breaking her open again. But the tears start, and she can’t stop them. As he crouches before her, brow furrowed, she covers her face with her hands, desperate to hide looking ugly and weak before him.
“Whoa, what’s this then? Tell me. What’s happened?” His voice is so soft. She can’t resist when he talks to her like that. She hasn’t heard his voice so tender in such a long time. She blurts it all out, everything she saw. She hiccups and sobs her way through, hating herself, hating her father even more.
She’s surprised when he slides down to sit beside her and awkwardly pats her shoulder. Then he heaves a sigh, and the tension in his body shifts, melts away. He loops his arm around her shoulders and draws her in close to his ribs, whispering, “Shhh.” She can feel his hard muscles against the side of her breast, and the sensation is enough to take her mind off what her father has done.
He smells so good. She brings a shaking hand up to rest on the flat plane of his chest. His heart thud-thuds under her palm in a soothing rhythm. His thumb is tracing small circles over her shoulder, his skin hot through her clothes. She feels that familiar rush of excitement between her legs, a flush spreading up her neck and over her face. When he tilts his head to rest his temple on the top of her head, she can’t help sighing, breathing in time with him.
They sit a long while like that, until her arm grows tired, her back a little stiff. But she waits for him to move, to pull away. She wants to stay here as long as he will let her, burn this memory into her brain, so she can erase the others from this day.
He does pull back though, as darkness falls and the spring peepers start their chorus. “Ready to head back? Expect your mum’s halfway to a breakdown by now.”
She can’t help but chuckle. “Yeah. I’m gonna be grounded for half a lifetime for this.”
He snorts but is smiling softly at her. “Not like you ever go anywhere or do anything, anyway…”
She socks him in the arm, and he flinches, laughing.
“C’mon. Let’s go. Made me late for my date, you know.” He turns and heads out of the tree house, walking down the path toward her house. She’s glad he’s turned away because she’s not smiling anymore; she feels sucker-punched again.
* * * * * * * * * *
In the weeks that followed, Buffy hadn’t seen her father again. She had gotten home that night to a long lecture from her mom, and the explanation that he had been called away on business that afternoon, and wouldn’t be back for several weeks.
The last day of junior year ends, and summer begins, hot and sweltering right off the bat. She buries herself in Harlequin romance novels, imagining herself and Spike in the lead roles, and replaying that night with him in her head, over and over.
One sticky day at the end of June, she is flopped on her bed reading when she hears Dru’s cackling laugh from below her window. Getting up, she peers through the lace of her curtain to see Spike and Dru lying out beside his pool in his back yard.
Dru is lying face up, propped on her elbows, wearing a red bikini with black stars on it. Spike is beside her on his stomach, his back glistening in the sun with hundreds of tiny water droplets, his hair wet and sticking up every which way. Her breath won’t move through her constricted throat, as she looks upon him, aches for him.
But then Dru unties her bikini top, folds it down, and pinches her nipples. Buffy can see them, dark brown and peaked under her sharp black fingernails. Spike’s head lifts, then lowers over her breast, taking the nipple in his mouth.
Buffy stomach roils at the sight. She wants to back away, run away, but she is paralyzed, barely breathing. She can’t tear her gaze away as Spike slides his long fingers down Dru’s belly. She watches his fingers disappear into the bikini bottoms, the fabric tenting over his knuckles. Dru’s head falls back as she moans over what Spike is doing to her.
They don’t kiss. It’s all Buffy can think. She latches onto the thought, like a life raft. At least they aren’t kissing…
Dru rakes her nails down Spike’s back, leaving long welts. He makes a pained sound but doesn’t stop. Buffy thinks it’s strange, how like animals they sound. Then Dru arches her back. Spike clamps a hand over her mouth, and she jackknifes forward, shuddering and digging at his arm and back.
He is bleeding when she is finished.
He stands, starts to pull his wet shorts down over his ass. But Dru laughs again and jumps up, wrapping a towel around her torso. She walks away from him, toward the house, then turns to crook a finger, beckoning him to follow.
When he turns toward the house, Buffy can see he looks almost angry, and his shorts are tented with a huge erection.
She knows they are headed for his room. She wants to run away. Go back to her book and her daydreams. But she can’t move. She has to know.
She watches as they slam shut the door to his bedroom. Dru shoves him hard into the door and drops to her knees. Yanks his pants down and exposes him.
She sees him suck in a breath, his mouth open in anticipation. Then his erection disappears under the curtain of her hair, into her mouth.
Buffy thinks she’s going to be sick. She is on the brink of crying, her chest tightly constricted. He suddenly yelps out in pain- loud enough that she hears it. He fists her hair and yanks her up, while Dru laughs in his face. She stops laughing when he lifts her up and tosses her on her back onto the bed.
Buffy covers her mouth with both hands, one on top of the other. She watches his hands shake as he grabs a silver foil packet, ripping it open with his teeth. Rolls the sheath over himself as she opens her legs wide, thrusting her hips up at him.
He pauses then, crawling on knees between her thighs. Lines himself up and then presses his hips forward. She sees his buttocks flex. His head drop back. Hears Dru moan as she digs her black nails into him, making him bleed more.
Then Buffy starts to cry.
Only then can she tear herself away. She goes to the bathroom and takes a hot shower, trying to wash the image away, scald away the pain. But it won’t go. Instead, she stands under the spray and sobs into her open palm until her eyes hurt too much to cry anymore. Then she crawls into bed, exhausted, her wet hair soaking the pillow, to fall into a black, dreamless sleep.
She doesn’t speak to him again for the rest of the summer. Some nights she hears them rutting in his bed, making those animal sounds. Just as often, she hears them shouting at each other. Brutal words of hate and poison; some she’s never heard before.
She retreats inside herself and her house. Avoids the two of them and places they might turn up. She doesn’t want to know this new Spike. She holds on to the memory of her Will, her Spike, holding her and comforting her in their tree house. She thinks he is gone forever. Consumed by Drusilla.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Buffy spends the morning tiptoeing around his sleeping form, going up and down the stairs to the basement to run the laundry through, sorting mail piles at the table. Each time she walks by, he is in a new position on the couch. But he’s sleeping so soundly that he lets out an occasional snore.
Lunchtime comes and goes, and she finds herself hungry. She reheats more of the casserole for herself and fixes him a plate of lasagna from one of the meals the funeral attendees have left for him.
When she carries the plate out to the living room, she finds him sitting up, awake at last.
“Hey.”
“Hey. Sorry. Haven’t got much sleep the last few weeks. Guess it caught up to me.”
“No, it's fine. Here.” She hands him the plate.
“Oh. Thanks. But… I know I should be hungry, but I’m just not feeling like eating.”
“Ok. I’ll just put it in the fridge..” She stands, starting to take the plate back from him, but he holds onto it.
“No, that’s all right. I’ll eat it.” Buffy settles into the easy chair beside the couch to keep him company while he eats.
He pushes the layers of noodles around on his plate like a child, scooping out little bites of the filling and lifting them slowly to his mouth. She notices then how thin he is, how much his ribs are showing under his suit coat.
The silence in the room is awkward, punctuated by the scraping of his silverware on the plate. Buffy decides to try to break through the quiet, break open the strangeness between them.
“Are you still in business for yourself?”
“Yeah. The staff has been great, takin’ care of things while I’ve been here.”
“Is the center still doing well?”
“Yeah. Lots of women recovered and set out on their own from our place. We’re doing good work.”
“Yes, you are, Spike.”
Hearing her speak his name seems to shake him. He’s quiet for long minute, playing with his food, then sets the plate down on the coffee table. He looks over to her, his face tight with confusion.
“Buffy? What are we doing? Why are you still here?”
She startles at him. “What?”
“Haven’t seen you since we graduated. Since…” his voice trailed off and he looked away. “I know I was horrible to you then. Deserved to lose you…”
“Spike, no. Stop.” She sits down on the coffee table, across from him.
“’S true. I fucked things up right royally. Always do. Always have.”
“Spike…”
“And now here you are, bein’ all June Cleaver on me, fetchin’ me food, chattin’ me up, and what all. Can’t make out why. Don’t deserve it.” He hangs his head, his face long and tired looking despite the sleep he’s gotten.
She raises a shaking hand to his shoulder, squeezing the round muscle at the top of his arm. “That was a long time ago. I’m different now. And I know you are, too. My mom told me how you spent the last six months here, taking care of your mom. That’s not the guy I remember.” She again cups his face with her hand, but this time he turns away from her. “Look, I loved your mom. It’s awful, her dying so young like this. I can’t make that go away. But I can help you, Spike, if you’ll just let me. I wanna be here for you.”
He starts crying again, and it makes her feel helpless. Makes her heart ache for him.
“I hear you sayin’ it. But,” He raises his watery eyes, meeting her gaze, and the hopeless look there makes her want to weep, too. “But everyone I love leaves. I’ve got no one, got nothing.”
She smoothes his hair again, and it makes him close his eyes, crying harder.
“You have me. I’m here.”
He pulls away from her then, drawing his knees up to his chest, hugging his shins with his arms.
“For how long?” he asks her, sounding completely forlorn.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
TBC
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