Buffy was avoiding. It was kind of irking him as he watched her do everything else but deal with the very reason she was there. She had slept until almost ten then taken a long shower, breakfast had been next and now she was on the computer checking her email.
Enough was enough. Spike cleared his throat loudly until she glanced at him over her shoulder. Their gazes collided and he almost had to look away from the intensity of the fear in her eyes.
“We need to get started, pet,” he said as calmly but as sternly as he could. If she needed a push and hand holding then he would do it. Whatever it took for them to get through this, he was willing to do.
Buffy nodded and closed out of the computer. She sat on the floor by his feet and pulled the files over to her. Her hand hovered over them for a moment as she looked back and forth between the police file and the one for the trial.
“Okay, we need to find anything that would help clue us in to this other girl,” Spike said, leaning over with his forearms on his legs. “So, why don’t you start by reading through his statement and testimony? I know it’s going to be hard but he might have said something that will trigger your memory. And I’ll be right here with you.”
“Thank you,” Buffy whispered, pulling the police file closer to her.
It was hard for him to watch her do this. He felt like he was sending her back into the hell he had found her in. If he could take it away from her he would but he couldn’t. She was the only one who could take this journey and all he could do was be there for her.
Spike pulled his legs up until he was sitting cross-legged and turned on the television. He kept the volume low and waited while she read through Peterson’s initial interview with police. Spike knew what it said. Everything in those files was etched in his mind. He hadn’t been with her physically for those two days but those nights had been filled with reviewing the horror of those weeks she’d gone through. Hopefully, she’d be able to handle reliving it.
“I…Spike…he said,” Buffy said, with a trace of panic in her voice. “He said I wanted it…that I had…” She stopped her hand covering her mouth.
“I know what he said and I know he was lying.”
“But he wasn’t,” Buffy mumbled.
“He wasn’t, what?” Spike asked, his feet hitting the ground as he leaned forward. Confusion littered his mind as he tried to figure out what Buffy meant by saying Peterson wasn’t lying. The perpetrator had stated that the relationship with Buffy was consensual. The chains had been part of a game they made up that had gone horribly wrong. No one had believed him. “Buffy, what wasn’t he wrong about?”
“I remember them…having orgasms,” Buffy whispered. Her hand fell away from her face but her eyes were tightly shut. “Not at the beginning but toward the end…”
“Do you even know what a…orgasm feels like?” Spike bit out as nausea hit him with the force of a tidal wave.
“Yes,” Buffy said. “I was a bad girl…that’s why he picked me. He saw me making out with my boyfriend, Riley. He said girls like me…we’d give it up to anyone.”
“You weren’t a virgin?” Spike blurted. The implication of her words raced through his mind but after the initial surprise he realized that it didn’t really matter if she had been or not. She was still the same girl he had carried out of the basement that day.
“Yes, I was still…a virgin,” Buffy stuttered with her face flaming. “I just…know. Okay?”
“So, you had…you,” bloody came from being raped?” Spike was able to stop the hateful words before he actually said them. He almost bit his tongue with the force that he closed his mouth.
Images darted through his mind.
The hungry look on her face the night before when she gazed at him. The fantasy hovering in the back of his mind of her beneath him and shuddering from the pleasure he was giving her.
There was rat poop on my leg…after awhile it didn’t matter anymore.
Peterson’s statement…Hey, the girl wanted it. Flirting with me…she liked it rough…
Buffy chained to a wall, half-starved and half-crazed. And the stark terror that would have brought no pleasure but only self-preservation to a young woman forced almost beyond endurance.
But she misunderstood the silence that had lasted too long.
“You think I was bad, too,” Buffy said before he could correct his mistakes. “Oh, god…I wish I hadn’t…”
She jumped to her feet, prepared to run when everything snapped back into place. Spike grabbed her and pulled her down onto his lap. He could lose her; lose everything if he didn’t pull himself together. She struggled to get away but he tightened his grip.
“Don’t pet, don’t,” Spike said. “Please don’t leave…I’m sorry. I don’t think you’re bad.”
“Only a bad girl would react like that,” Buffy spat, the self-loathing evident in her tone. “My fault. If I hadn’t been…easy, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“No, no, that’s not true.”
Buffy had stopped struggling and he loosened his hold on her. She stayed, perched on his knees, facing away from him. Her body shook from her tears while he made small soothing circles on her back.
“Listen to me, okay, pet?” Spike asked, softly.
She nodded.
“Your…you said you didn’t have them in the beginning, right?”
“Uh-huh,” she whispered so low he could barely hear her.
“The human body is made to be touched,” Spike said, searching his mind for the right words that would reassure her that it wasn’t her fault. “It’s also made to protect itself. Your body was adjusting to what he was doing to you. Trying to find a way to make it bearable for you and to protect itself.”
“Protect me?”
“When…,” he could feel his face suffusing with color. This conversation was one of the most uncomfortable he had ever engaged in and he was grateful she wasn’t looking at him. “When a woman has an orgasm, she releases fluids, which would make it easier for him to…and it would be less painful for you.”
“I didn’t want it, Spike,” Buffy said. “I fought him…I did…until I couldn’t anymore.”
“I know you did. Didn’t the doctors explain all this to you?”
“I never told them about that,” Buffy said.
“Didn’t they bring this kind of stuff up?”
“A woman came to the hospital, said she was a victim’s advocate. She said a bunch of stuff,” Buffy said, softly. “But I wouldn’t talk to her,” she sniffled. “Couldn’t talk to her…I was so lost, Spike. Nothing made sense for so long and I just wanted to hide. Didn’t want anyone to know what I did.”
“You didn’t do anything, Buffy. It was done to you…no matter what you had to do to protect yourself it still didn’t make you a willing participant.”
“But…I let him…I just went away…to this place in my head,” Buffy whispered. “I can’t even remember what we did…what he did. I wished so many times that he’d just kill me.”
“I’m glad he didn’t,” Spike said, squeezing her arm. “I take it you never talked to a rape counselor…later when you were getting better?”
“No,” Buffy said, shaking her head. “I only dealt with my doctor and he was someone that had been recommended to my father. He specialized in teenagers with emotional problems…”
“He? Your parents didn’t even get you a woman therapist? Didn’t you get any help with dealing with what happened?”
“I was in the hospital for almost three years,” Buffy said, turning to look back at him. “I learned how to cope…how to be,” she chuckled. “I learned how to play their game so I could get out.”
Spike laughed with her because he knew that’s exactly what she would do. Buffy was a survivor and she would do what she had to do to get through whatever was thrown at her. It was one of the reasons he admired her so much. She was tough even though she appeared to be fragile.
“I still think you should have seen someone that dealt specifically with…well…with women who…”
“Have been raped,” Buffy said, flatly. She flashed him a tiny smile. “None of it was offered or shown to me. I think they were just so happy that I was talking and acting halfway normal they forgot what had gotten me unbalanced in the first place.”
“Do you think that maybe you want some help like that now?” Spike asked, twirling the end of her braid around his finger.
“I found a website that’s helped some,” Buffy said, turning her face away from him. “It’s called RAINN. They had a lot of information and I found an online support group when I got out. That’s how I met Willow. We talk a lot over the ‘net.”
“You didn’t read anything that helped you deal with the guilt?”
Buffy picked at her nails. “They’re just words.”
“Not the same as having a real honest-to-god man tell you that he doesn’t think you’re to blame, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Spike cupped her face so that she was looking down at him. “You’re not dirty, Buffy. It wasn’t your fault. I don’t blame you and I think you’re sweet, innocent, and beautiful.”
“Really?’
“Yeah, I do.”
Suddenly the fight went out of her and she turned to him. He opened his arms and let her in as she burrowed against him. For a long time he just held her as she cried cleansing tears as she let go of the guilt she’d held onto for years.
He knew she was there even before she called his name.
She had come to him just as he knew she would. The catharsis of her tears earlier that day had been the dawning of a new part of her life. It was time for her to start living again, to start feeling again. The room was illuminated from the light in the living room and he opened his eyes to find her standing next to his bed wrapped in a blanket.
“What’s up, pet?”
Spike decided to play the game. Let it follow its natural course. Let her be in control.
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“I don’t either. Been alone too long myself,” Spike lifted the comforter so she could slide in beside him. He kept it tucked around his nude body in case she wasn’t after sex but only to be held. He shouldn’t have worried as Buffy dropped the blanket. His eyes opened wide at the beauty of the woman standing there with nothing on. She met his eyes briefly before she slipped under the covers.
“You have girlfriends?” Buffy asked, but they both knew she already had the answer. She rolled onto her side, facing him as she waited for him to agree with her.
“Yes, I have women in my life but none of them fill that empty place inside of me.”
“Do you want me to?”
“You could,” Spike said honestly. “But you have that life waiting for you. We both know that’s what’s best for you.”
Buffy nodded slightly. “What happened to your girlfriend? The one you said that you were living with.”
“It was after I found you. Everything changed. The way I thought…the things I believed in,” Spike said. His fingers picked at the threads in the comforter. “Everything hurt and I wasn’t…couldn’t be there for her like I had been. I didn’t want to have sex, make love and she didn’t understand why.”
“Why couldn’t you?”
Spike tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled. “Because I knew first hand how bad things could be…how sex could be used to hurt someone and I was afraid of it; of its power for a long time. I was lost in that basement and couldn’t find my way out. Dru couldn’t handle…didn’t know how to handle it and she left. I don’t blame her. I wasn’t the man she fell in love with anymore.”
“You’re still the man I knew,” Buffy said, shyly covering his hand with her own.
“Don’t Buffy; don’t make me out to be more than I am. I’m just a man. Not a knight on a white horse or the hero with wings. I’m just a man…sometimes a very fucked up man who doesn’t know how to let people close to him. I don’t like people getting inside my head and you’re the only person who’s been in my apartment this long.”
“You’ve been alone too.”
“Yeah, I have been.”
“You’re not tonight,” Buffy said, scooting closer to him.
“Are you trying to seduce me?” Spike asked with a chuckle even as he pulled her closer. Their bodies were flush against each other and she slipped an arm around him.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure, Buffy?” He asked, kissing her forehead. “You’re so young. Don’t you want to fall in love with some boy your age and let him show you everything?”
“You think I’m beautiful.”
“Yeah I do.”
“You think I’m beautiful in spite of the ugliness that is still inside me.”
It wasn’t a question but a statement of fact. And he understood. It was time to erase the past. Erase the damage that had been done to her and he willingly went to her.
The first kisses were awkward. Literally two strangers, but yet more familiar than couples married for a lifetime, were meeting in a yearning to find passion in the wasteland of their souls. Naked bodies pressed together as they searched for the comfortableness that already existed between them. Buffy was eager. Her tongue met his, chasing, and playing as the desire was stoked. He held her tight while her hands skittered over his body.
Spike wanted to give her pleasure. He wanted to be the hero she imagined him to be and he rolled her on her back. Kisses were placed on the soft flesh of her body in every place he could remember a bruise or a cut being. He was trying to replace the pain with gentle adoration. Her soft sighs spurred him on in his exploration. He rolled her over to cover her back with caresses and kisses. She shivered at the licks on the back of her knees.
His hair was pulled and petted when he brought her back over so he could come up between her thighs. She was sweet just like he knew she would be. He teased her with his tongue, almost growling in satisfaction at how ready she was for him.
“So long without touch,” Buffy whispered. “I’m drowning in the feel of you against me.”
“Drowning in you,” Spike whispered back. “You’re taking me under.”
Covering her, settling between her silken thighs, he reached for a condom. It was then that the trace of fear showed behind the passion and he slowed his movements. Every motion was waiting for her to stop it.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Buffy said with conviction. She brought her legs up so that her feet were planted next to his hips. Her hands gripped his shoulders and her eyes stared into his as he entered her slowly. Every thrust heightened the tension in her. Spike waited for her to fall apart; waited for the cries and the screams that never came. It was worse. She left him. She retreated behind her wall so that he was alone.
“Do you want to stop?” Spike asked again. Trying…wanting to break through the barriers between them.
“No,” Buffy said, staring up at him with wide eyes. “You have to finish.”
“I can make you feel good, Luv. Please let me make this good for you.”
“No…please, Spike just…do it,” Buffy whispered raggedly, while her toes kneaded the bed and her tears streamed across her cheeks. Hating himself and hating her, he buried his face in the crook of her neck and lost himself in the feel of her body. The sensation of her tight cunt gripping him, the hardened nipples poking his chest, the grip of her thighs on his sides and her hands hanging on for dear life was all he allowed his mind to register. His thrusts sped up as he succumbed to his own lust until with relief he shuddered in a minimal orgasm.
“I’ll be right back,” Spike said, sliding off of her. He kissed her forehead and hurried into the bathroom. There were so many things he wanted to say to her. So many reassurances he needed himself but when he returned to the bedroom she was gone. The door firmly shut to let him know that she didn’t want to be with him. And when he crawled back into the bed she now haunted, he knew he had never been so lonely in his life.
to be continued…
Author’s Note: RAINN (Rape Abuse & Incest National Network) can be found at: http://www.rainn.org/