A VERY LITTLE TALE – CHAPTER 3
Dance music and fake fog drifted out of the gymnasium at Sunnydale High. So far the Senior Prom was the usual mixture of clichéd lameness, along with unexpected irregular bursts of sentimentality. A girl stood in line at the entrance with her friends. A boy stood off to the side observing her unobserved. Everyone was smiles and laughter. Everyone except for the boy and the girl.
Senior year had been rough on Buffy. After the heart-wrenching badness of back-to-back two-timing boyfriends, she was ready to seriously consider joining a convent, or possibly even taking a swing at that whole lesbian thing. After much coaxing though, her friends got her to come to the prom. She was sure it was a bad idea, but there would be the fun of the giant limo, and promises that they’d all dance with her.
It was a plan, but Buffy saw on the ride over just how much of a seventh wheel she really was. Anya spent the whole time in Xander’s lap lip wrestling with him. Cordelia and Wesley yapped at each other incessantly. Neither one was listening to the other, and per usual, they were both talking about Cordy. Willow and Tara sat pretty much just giggling at each other. Buffy imagined that they’d prefer to be smooching too, but they were probably afraid it might make the others uncomfortable.
So Buffy was the odd man out. She was the last of the group to present her ticket. But before she could, the boy came out of the shadows. He took her arm and led her away from the ticket table and over to the other end of the trophy case. Out of view of casual observers.
“Spike! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Buffy slapped at his hands until he let her go.
He planted himself in front of her and said, “Nothin’, Buffy. Just thought it was time you got what you deserved.”
The sudden Spike encounter had the same effect on Buffy it always did. It jacked up just about all of her emotions all at the same time. It was instantly exhausting and impossible to correctly interpret everything that he was making her feel.
“What are you talking about? What I deserve?”
“Yeah,” Spike said. “You deserve a proper prom date. With proper dancing. Proper spiked punch. The cutesy picture. More booze and then a good shagging.” He ran one finger up and down Buffy’s arm suggestively. “That’s what you girls want from your prom, isn’t it? God knows I do. The good shagging part, I mean.”
Buffy was getting redder and redder from various causes. She slapped at his hand again. “A proper prom date! That’s a laugh. How many times do I have to tell you, Spike?”
“Tell me what, luv?”
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I will never ever touch you, Spike! Never!”
She stepped to move around him, but he cut her off. “Oh, then you’re not countin’ those other times then?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Spike. Because I would never…”
“We kissed, Buffy. I think that qualifies as touching.”
“It was only once!”
“Twice.”
“Whatever.” Buffy slumped her shoulder’s a little bit. She knew it was stupid of her to try to deny their past minor hook-ups of the kissing variety. She had tried to forget it ever happened, but seeing Spike every day at school made that impossible. Her anger lost some of its steam. She was getting tired and losing the ability to deal with his shit at all. She sighed, “Spike. Why do you keep doing this to me? This is the last fling before we’re all out of high school. I just wanted to have some fun with my friends.”
“And do you think you’d really have fun without a date? I saw how coupley they all were with each other. It’s their night too, you know. They all want to be with their respective honeys. If you hang around stag, don’t you think you’d just be bringin’ ‘em all down? It’s not your fault, luv. It’s just the way things turned out. Let ‘em be for tonight. You and I can have a bit o’ fun ourselves, and they can all concentrate on the business of gettin’ into each other’s pants without worryin’ ‘bout poor little Buffy.” Spike slipped a hand around Buffy’s waist and moved her a little closer. “Come to think of it, pet, that should be our goal too.”
Buffy was thinking about what Spike said and half-consciously permitted his touch. Of course she didn’t want to be a drag on her friends. It was the main reason she hadn’t wanted to come in the first place. But she had gone along with it because somewhere in the back of her head was still the desire to have the perfect high school experience. But with no date, there would have to be the horse-riding prince-swooping-in-to-sweep-her-off-her-feet thing. She looked up into Spike’s eyes. She sighed to herself. No horse. He was sort of swooping. But definitely not a prince.
Buffy put a hand on his chest. She said, “Spike? How come you always come around me when things are at their worst? It’s because you think you can take advantage or something, right?”
“That hurts, Buffy.”
“I’m sorry. I mean, come on. You can take it. Just tell me it’s the truth, so I can keep hating you.”
Spike said, “Here’s the thing, Buffy. When you’re down, when things are bad… and let me tell you, pet, that’s not an inconsiderable amount of the time… but when you hurt, it turns out that I actually hurt too. And are your friends really much of a help to you when you really need ‘em. They’re bloody useless on that score, if you ask me. Tell me I’m wrong. As for me? All I want, luv, is to make you feel better.” He brushed his hand across her cheek, down her soft neck, and over her bare shoulder. He leaned in and kissed her for the third time. It was warm, but short. And then he said into her ear, “And trust me, Buffy, there are any number of ways I can make you feel a *lot* better.”
No, Buffy thought, there would be no perfect high school experience for her. She couldn’t just go in there with Spike and start dancing. Especially not in front of her friends. She didn’t want a cheesy photo of them together, and she didn’t want to get drunk with him either.
But, on the other hand – one of which of his was now and not unpleasantly caressing her backside – the Spike of the last five minutes was different from the Spike she thought she knew. It did sound an awfully lot like he actually cared about her. There was no way to be sure either way. Not tonight anyway. And, on the second thing, the thing about making her feel better, well, other than the obvious things about his physique, and full lips, and sculpty face, Buffy had heard more than a few stories about Spike and his… Buffy thought for a word and then decided on *prowess*.
So it boiled down to a few things. And his lips on her neck were definitely doing some boiling of their own. If she did the thing she was thinking about doing and he really did care about her, was she using him? Or, if he was lying to her, then was he using her? Or maybe they were just using each other. Or neither one was. There were just too many combinations for Buffy to sort—the reason being her thoughts were getting cloudy while Spike’s hands and lips moved to other parts of her body.
It was silly, Buffy thought. There were two people with obvious and suddenly increasing feelings of lust and so forth. What with the breathing, and the hardening, and the tingling. But was there more than that in either of the two? She hadn’t a clue. And she was one of the two!
Buffy pushed Spike away long enough to tear up her prom ticket and drop it to the floor. In the back of the limo, in the parking lot, they tore up some more things pretty good. Including her pink, satiny dress. She wouldn’t be able to go back into the prom even if she’d wanted to. But in the next few hours, even though Spike did, more than once, make her feel a *lot* better, she couldn’t help thinking that the whole good shagging thing was a huge mistake.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This is the first actual story I’ve ever posted anywhere. Hope I haven’t scared you off already. It’s short and it’s finished. There are four chapters and I will post one per day. Any and all comments will be helpful and appreciated. Thanks for taking a look. And thank you, B.