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AN: Remember the drinking contest in 'Life
Serial? Yeah? Well, it never happened.



Part nine: Ace In The Hole


This isn't funny anymore.

I wish someone would invent a time machine. With
all the other stuff they're coming up with, you have to
wonder what the frigging hold up is.

I need one badly. If I could lay my hands on one, I could
go back a few nights and duct tape my mouth shut before
taking on this miserable bet.

Every day I feel a little more worn away. It's like being
nibbled to death by ducks.

But I'm not ready to give up yet. If there's one thing I'm
not, it's a quitter. I'm also the stubbornest person on the
face of the earth.

Spike doesn't put it that way. He says I'm "irritatingly
obstinate...bull headed to a level that doesn't exist for
other people...unable to see anyone else's point of
view...head strong beyond the telling of it" and a whole
bunch of other five dollar words like, "obdurate, intract-
able, recalcitrant, tenacious, inflexible, and immovable."

He always see the glass as half empty.

I prefer to think of myself as persistent, resolute, purposeful,
and unshakable. It just sounds better.

But anyway you slice it, my stubbornness is taking a
real pounding. I just know that soon my body is going
to stage a revolution and kick my brain out of office.

Take last night for instance....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the 'cookie baking' incident, I'd taken a long bath
and reassessed my position.

The only possible reason for my failure, so I'd figured,
was that chocolate chip cookies are just too wholesome
to plan a successful seduction around.

I mean, really...who equates cookies with sex?

Well...I do. But that's just because I'm equating every-
thing with sex ever since I stopped getting any. And I
DO mean everything.

Washing dishes, I squirted out a glob of Ivory into
the running water and for the first time ever I noticed
that the spurts of white soap looked a hell of a lot
like the stuff a certain vampire produces when I give
him a hand job.

While grocery shopping, I see penis'...peni?...everywhere
I look. Bananas, cucumbers, dill pickles, popsicles,
chocolate eclairs, and don't even get me started on the
kielbasa.

Around the house? Yeah, there, too.

A turkey baster, a rolling pin, candles, the pepper
grinder, my stakes, even my electric TOOTHBRUSH
for god sakes!

I can't even just sit in my room and listen to the
damn radio. The minute I switch it on, I hear 'Let's
Get It On' and 'You Shook Me All Night Long'. I
change stations and hear, 'Let's Make Love' and
'Get mine/Get Yours'. I switch it again and have to
listen to 'Big Ten Inch Record' and 'A Piece of Your
Action' and 'She Goes Down'...which REALLY drives
me nuts!

Then there's the "Do Me/Do It" songs. 'Do Me Baby',
'Do Me Baby ALL Night Long', 'COME Do Me', 'The
WAY You Do Me', 'Do It', Do It To Me One More Time,'
and the always popular and about as subtle as a shovel in
in the back of the head, 'Why Don't We Do It In The
Road?'

I can't tell a clean joke to save my life. I tried to come
up with one I could tell Dawn during breakfast and all
I could remember was the one about the bride and groom
on their wedding night. The bride's a virgin and she's really
shy about "doing it", and isn't sure she really wants to. So,
her husband says, "Got an idea. If you want to have sex,
pull my dick once. If you DON'T want to have sex, pull
it fifty or sixty times."

Ba-da-boom.

Then there's the one about Jack and Mary. They work in
the same office, but times are hard and the boss has to let
one of them go. So, he calls Mary in and says, "I'm sorry,
but I'm going to have lay you or Jack off. She thinks it over
and says, "Could you please jack off? I have a rotten head-
ache."

You may be wondering where I learn such jokes.

Take a wild guess.

I think about sex during the day and I dream about
it at night, which doesn't surprise me...I mean, if I was
hungry I'd be dreaming about food, wouldn't I?

*******

So, cookies are out. Also out are ice cream sundaes,
macaroni and cheese, pudding, apple pie and meat loaf.
Lovely comfort food, but hardly seductive.

Well...maybe the pudding.

If food is out, what's next on the agenda? Obviously the
answer is drink. Not milk, orange juice, or root beer floats,
either.

No, I'm talking about alcohol. Hard liquor. Strong spirits.
Demon rum.

What makes people drop their guard faster than a little
of the hard stuff? A lot of the hard stuff. Which is what I'll
need. Being a vampire, Spike has a strong tolerance for
alcohol. I've seen him polish off enough beer to float a
battleship in the high seas...then follow it up with a few
shots of Jack Daniels...and never even slur his words a
bit.

The problem is, if I invite him over and ply him with booze,
he'll shut me down fast. There's really only one way to
do it. Another challenge.

Challenge Spike to a drinking contest?

One of these days, I'm gonna have to get my head
examined.

*******

I got home from the liquor store around six. Luck was
with me, and Dawn was invited to spend the weekend at
her best friends house.

Things got even better when I'd noticed that the sky was
clouding up. By the time Spike arrived for patrol, if
anyone up there was still on my side, it would be raining
like hell.

Spike hates the rain. Ever since he took over Giles'
condo and rediscovered how pleasant it is to live in water-
tight accommodations. He says if he wanted to be cold and
damp, he'd have stayed in his "bloody crypt".

It wouldn't be hard to keep him here.

I'd pulled a bottle out of the bag and examined the
label: Craganmore Single Malt Scotch

The stuff is twelve years old, and it costs an arm and a
leg! Thank god for credit cards.

The owner of the liquor store actually kept it in a locked
cabinet in his cellar. He'd promised me that it's one of the
best, then gave me a lesson on the origin of Scots and
Irish Whiskey that had me tapping my foot to stay awake.

Apparently, sometime in the 12th century, some alchemist
or other discovered that distilling the mash of grains like rye and
barley could produce a tasty little drink. The Gaelic word for it
was "Woosk'akei", which meant "the water of health". The
Scots shortened it to "whiskey". Up until a few years ago, most
of the Scotch whiskey consumed was blended. People mostly
felt that unblended malt Scotch whiskey was distilled by and
meant to be drunk by those strong and burly highlanders. (You can
add a certain vamp I know to that select group. Talk about a
constitution!)

The old guy threw around terms like "full bodied" and "well-
balanced" , with "a honey like sweetness on the palate".

Opening the bottle, I'd taken a whiff. Honey like? Yeah. Right.

I'd dumped a tiny amount in the sink to make it look like I
had the bottle just laying around, then stuck it in the back of
the pantry. On the top shelf of the cabinet over the sink, I'd
located a couple of shot glasses and rinsed them out, then
put them back.

After that, there wasn't much to do but wait. And get nervous.

Fortunately for me, Spike is reasonably prompt. When he
promises to be somewhere at a certain time, he nearly always
is.

At five past seven, the doorbell rang.

I'm gonna have to give him a key.

*******

"Is it raining?"

I'd sounded way too delighted, and he'd given me a
suspicious look. "Not yet, but it's about to" he'd
replied. "You want to get a patrol in, we'd best go
now."

Nooooooo!!! That wasn't part of the battle plan. Don't
wanna patrol! Wanna win this bet and get laid! If it
doesn't happen soon, I'm not going to be as pleasant
as I usually am.

Yes, I have a battle plan. Got it all written down on
a neat little sheet of paper, too. I call it 'Operation:
Win the Damn Bet!!' Two exclamation points.

The battles we've fought over this so far have just
been little skirmishes. I'm itching for a real good
tussle.

My uniform consisted of a pair of white sweat pants
and a pink cashmere sweater. Soft and silky to touch.
He likes that sort of thing. It's not the sexiest thing
I own, but it's comfortable and loose fitting, easy for
him to get his hand up under or down into.

I'd shrugged as casually as I could. "Maybe we
should just skip it tonight. Any vamps with half a
brain aren't gonna be trotting around in the rain."

He'd shot me a look that said "Thanks ever so," but
he'd been happy enough to stay in.

Then, he'd totally floored me with his next comment.

"So...you're looking awfully delectable tonight, little
girl."

Well! I'd surely liked the sound of that! Then, he'd
ruined it.

"You look like you're just about ready to cave in and
beg. Are you, love? Do you want your Spike to make
you scream the house down, right here and now?"

Inside, I'd whimpered, "yes...."

"Hell, no!" I'd said loudly. "Like I said before...I will
always beat you at anything we do. Always.
Every...single...time!"

He'd tossed his jacket down on the chair and gave me
that "you're full of shit" look. "Is that a fact?"

"That's a fact, baby. I can out-slay you, out-wait you,
out-drink you, and...."

"Hang on a second, slaybelle..."

Isn't that cute?

"...there's no way in hell you will EVER be able to out-
drink me. You are the biggest light weight I've ever
seen."

"Oh yeah?" I'd asked, a little pugnaciously. "Well, I've
got nothing better to do tonight. Let's see who's still left
standing."

He'd laughed....HE'D FUCKING LAUGHED AT ME!

Oh, this was SO on!

I'd scampered out to the kitchen and came back with the
shot glasses and the scotch. A bit of my pride came back
when he'd admired my selection, and I'd told him that it was
the sort of scotch I always preferred.

Problem: I'd never tasted the stuff in my life. My alcohol
preferences ran more to fruity tasting drinks with little paper
umbrellas and some produce hanging on the rim of the
glass. I'd gotten a sniff when I'd opened the bottle, and
it nearly made the hair on the back of my neck stand
straight up.

Still...desperate times and all that.

We'd made ourselves comfortable in the front room. I
set the glasses on the coffee table and he'd poured the
first shots.

'Through the teeth and over the gums, look out stomach
here it comes' I'd chanted in my head, adding my own
postscript. 'Please don't send it right back up.'

Well, it hadn't...but just barely.

*******

"Bleaahhggg." I'd shuddered and shaked from top to toe.

He'd smiled at me like I was the cutest thing he'd ever seen,
then tossed his shot down without turning a hair. "Another?"
he'd asked.

"Another," I'd replied, after I'd cleared my throat.

He'd refilled the glasses and waited for me.

"Bleeaahhggh." It was the foulest tasting thing I'd ever put
in my mouth, but I did it.

Then, Mr. Smooth tossed his down like it was lemonade.

Four more times we'd performed the little ceremony. I started
getting a little light headed with the third one. By the time I got
to the sixth one, I was flying high! Oh, man did I feel good!

So good, I almost forgot my purpose.

"You having fun, kitten?" he'd asked, giving me another one
of those too cute for words grins. God, I'm nuts about him.

"Oh, shiiiiit, yeah!" I'd announced. "I should have tried this
a loooooong time ago."

"Mm-hmm," he'd said skeptically, refilling my glass.

My seventh shot went down pretty smoothly. I was
actually proud of myself. Of course, I'd started acting
a little silly, but....who fucking cared?

"Know what?" I'd said, leaning in close.

"What, baby?"

"There's something I been meaning to tell you for a
reaaallly long time." I'd giggled. "D'ya wanna know what
it is? Huh? Do ya?"

"If you want to tell me," had been his reply.

"You're really cute," I think at this point that I was
simpering. "I always thought so....ya know?"

Oh, God...the smile on his face just made my head
spin. Okay, maybe it was the scotch.

"You're really cute, too," he'd said, scooting a little
closer to me.

My soused brain sensed that victory was at hand.

It was time. Time to tell him everything he'd been wanting
to hear. I was absolutely ready to do it, to stop all this
game playing and pussyfooting around. Time to come clean
about my feelings...my love...for him.

I'd picked up my glass. "Spike...I got one more thing to
tell you," I'd said, then tossed back my eighth shot.

I don't remember anything after that.



TBC.....

Next...Part 10: Dealer Takes All





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