Chapter Three: Ghost of Women Present
“Blondie bear, it’s time to wake u-up!!”
Spike shot up in bed once more, his eyes wide. He felt more than just a little disoriented and seeing Harmony standing at the foot of his bed caused him to feel even more disoriented.
“Harm? When did you get here?” he asked groggily, rubbing his eyes.
“I just got here.”
“Oh? Why don’t you let yourself out, eh? Your blondie bear needs some sleep,” and he nestled back in bed.
“Oh, I don’t think so, Mister!”
His bed started to shake and her laughter filled the room.
Spike was up and out of bed in a flash and, staring down at himself fully dressed; it all started coming back to him. He looked up at Harmony. “Shit.”
Spreading her arms wide, Harmony the Ghost sang, “Ghost of Women Present!”
“Oh fuck me,” Spike muttered and sank back onto the bed that was no longer shaking.
“Nope, sorry, not here for that!”
“Okay, I realize that you’re taking her form or whatever, but could you refrain from talking in constant exclamation points like her?”
Harmony the Ghost glared at him. “Fine. Let’s go.”
Spike fell to the ground when he was no longer on his bed, but nearly falling off his desk at work.
“Arrggghhh!”
He spun to find himself getting the customary daily blowjob from Harmony. He watched himself cum in her mouth and then watched her stand, having to crawl from under the desk as if she were some kind of slave.
“Harm?” his other self said and pointed to his cock.
Immediately, Harmony knelt down and cleaned him up. Spike, the real Spike, grimaced. Why did she do that? Why did he do that? God, he was treating her like a piece of meat! He’d never realized how awful it was until he saw it, outside of himself.
“Now be a good girl and run off to work,” his other self said, patting Harmony on the head like a dog.
Harmony sighed. “But Spikey…” she pouted.
“Come on now, I’ve got calls to make.”
Harmony nodded and turned to walk slowly out of his office.
“We follow her,” Harmony’s ghostly self said and led him out of the room, following Harmony who ran to the break room and sobbed.
“Oh Christ,” Spike swore, watching the girls shoulders shake. “I knew she liked me, but I always thought she was just clingy!” he exclaimed, defending himself. “I didn’t know she cared this much!”
“So it was all right when you didn’t know she cared this much?” Harmony the Ghost asked, gesturing to its human version.
“Harmony?”
Spike whirled to see Tara, a fellow co-worker come in. “Are you all right?”
“I – I just want him to love me!” Harmony exclaimed and sobbed harder. “I try so hard, but he only wants me to blow and fuck him.”
Tara’s soft chocolate eyes were sad as she patted Harmony’s back. “Why don’t you try not doing those things?” she suggested gently.
Harmony shook her head, “Then he’d just find someone else. At least I’m part of the line up,” she said sadly.
Spike wanted to throw up. God, that was disgusting. Of him! That was disgusting of him!
“And now,” and Harmony the Ghost snapped her fingers. Suddenly, they were back in his office and his other self was pounding Darla into the desk, her screams spurring his other self on.
It was erotic, Spike had to admit, and yet, he was finding the whole experience surreal and any stirring of lust he might have felt had been tamped down by the knowledge that Harmony was in the other room at that moment, sobbing, while he fucked Darla.
Sure Harm was annoying; a nag and a bother and was pretty much a ditz, but…but she had feelings too. She loved him for Christ’s sake. Him! That in itself proved what a ditz she was, and yet, it tore at him. He thought she knew the score…
Okay, so she did want him to meet the parents and she did always try to spend more time with him, but he thought she knew…
“Oh, that was sinful!” Darla gushed, pushing his other self off her and immediately reaching for her clothes.
Naked Spike sat watching her appreciatively. “It was. So, maybe you want to come over later and have a repeat of that?”
“No can do, babe. I’ve got to attend some charity benefit,” she rolled her eyes.
“So, come over after then.”
“Are you getting soft on me now?” Darla smirked at him, zipping up her skirt.
“Tonight’s my birthday,” his other self whispered.
Spike shut his eyes. He remembered that time; it had been just a few months before. He was feeling particularly low that day and was reaching for Darla to keep him company outside their arrangement. He remembered the hurt he’d felt when she accused him of going soft; as if he weren’t allowed to, as if he weren’t allowed to have other needs beyond sex.
And really, had he ever allowed himself to? How sad was it that he had been feeling particularly alone and low that day and Harmony was in the next room feeling alone and low as well? All because of him. He reached for the person that didn’t give a shit about him, while he shoved away the one that did.
“Christ,” he swore and as soon as the words were out, he was in a place he only vaguely recognized. “Where are we?” he whispered as he fought to remember why this place looked so familiar.
“Dawn, I thought you were coming home. We’ve had this planned for months!”
Buffy. Buffy’s studio apartment! Of course. He had taken her home one time when she had been violently ill and he’d worried that she wouldn’t make it home in one piece. Her place was small and a tad on the dark side. He could see homey touches here and there—a worn out sofa with an inviting afghan draped over it, ratty chairs that promised to swallow you whole. Pictures of her mother and Dawn scattered the walls interspersed with arty posters much like he owned.
Like a moth to his flame, he sought her out, whistling low when he caught sight of her. She was sitting on her full sized bed, her phone pressed to her ear. Her hair was down, just the way it had been when he’d seen her at eighteen, and she wore light makeup that accentuated her eyes. What she wore really blew Spike’s mind. His eyes traveled up her form starting at the black stiletto’s she wore to the black hose to the short, black, flared velvet skirt to the shimmery red v-neck that was speckled with gold. She was simply breathtaking and he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She truly was a wet dream come to life!
And now she was pouting into the phone, a sadness crossing her features that was reminiscent from earlier that day.
“Is this happening now?” Spike asked, concerned.
“Well, it happened earlier,” Harmony told him.
“Dawn, I know you love him. But, Dawn…I really wanted you to be here,” Buffy was saying into the phone.
“What’s happening?” Spike asked quietly, watching in despair as a tear made its path down Buffy’s cheek.
“Her sister has decided to spend the holidays with her boyfriend instead of with Buffy.”
“What about her mum and dad?”
“Her mother died a year and a half ago and her father left the girls; he remarried and started a new life in California.”
“God, no,” Spike whispered. “I didn’t know any of this.” His eyes swept the room. “I remember giving her a raise after seeing this place. Surely she can afford something bigger!”
“She is paying for more than an apartment now,” Harmony informed him.
“What else is she paying for?” he demanded.
“Dawn is in college and Buffy is helping put her through.”
“What about their father?”
“He wants no part in their lives.”
“That sodding wanker--”
“I’m sorry…No, I don’t mean to make you feel guilty. I know…I know you need to relax and have fun.”
“God, no,” Spike whispered hoarsely as he watched Buffy crumble and fight to not let her sister on to it.
“I gotta go, Dawn. Yeah, I’m gonna call Tara. Call me--” she held the phone from her ear, staring down at it. “Tomorrow.”
Shutting her phone, Buffy gave into the tears.
“Can’t I do something instead of just stand here and watch? Can’t I touch her? Hold her? Something? Anything?” Spike demanded of Harmony who kept shaking her head. “What kind of fucking ghosts are you? How can you show me this—all of what you’ve shown me and not let me do something?”
“There is plenty you can do,” Harmony said cryptically.
“Like what?”
“Just watch,” she said and pointed to Buffy who was now uncorking a bottle of wine. He watched her pour the red liquid into a nice, but plain wineglass and then down it in one gulp. He couldn’t help but smile. Then she did it again. And again.
“Fuck me, she’s gettin’ pissed!” Spike chuckled.
Walking to her bed, she bypassed her stand up mirror and stopped. She peered into it, holding her head high. “Well, hello, Mr. Pratt…”
Spike gulped.
“No, no, I insist. I will call you Mr.-- What’s that? You want to be my friend?” She broke into laughter that chilled Spike to the bone. It was derisive and haughty, and it did not coincide with Buffy’s personality at all. “You are not my friend, Mr. Pratt. I am a lady, you are,” she wrinkled her nose, “a whore.”
That punched him in the gut harder than anything he’d seen thus far. That was worse than reliving Dru. Tears rushed to his eyes. “No,” he whispered.
“I am not here for your amusement, Mr. Pratt. I am not here for you to stare at and ogle. You are here for my amusement. If you’ll excuse me, I have a date to attend to,” and she trotted off from the mirror, nearly tripping over the pink oriental in the middle of her wooden floor in the process. Almost spilling her drink, she plopped onto her bed and looked up sadly, meeting his eyes. It pained him that she could not see him. If she could, she’d see the sheer regret in his eyes.
No amount of money in the world could buy Buffy Summers’ respect. He hated it with a blind passion that that was how she saw him.
“I’m not really like that, Buffy love,” he started to tell her, his tone taking on a pleading quality, “I’m really not. I am a good guy. I know I am, at least I know I can be--”
The phone ringing interrupted him and he watched her reach for it with limp arms, her expression one of defeat.
“Hello?...Oh, hi Tara. No, she’s not here…She’s with her boyfriend and his family…No, I’m fine, really. Long day and all…”
Harmony snapped her fingers and Tara’s voice came through. “So, what did he say to you to make you leave?”
“Who? Mr. Pratt?” Buffy asked.
“Who else? He has a penchant for making the females in our office cry – and not over their jobs either, over him.”
Buffy sighed, “He didn’t say anything, really. It was what I said, what I almost …admitted.”
“What did you almost admit?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Buffy!”
“Tara, really, I’ve had a crap day. I don’t want to get into it.”
“Buffy, if you almost admitted what I think you admitted, watch yourself. He breaks hearts. That’s what he does. He’s ruthless – just like the women he seems to sleep with – with the exception of Harmony. That Darla and Anya don’t seem to have hearts at all.”
“I don’t know, Tara. I don’t think he’s really all that ruthless…I think he’s lonely.”
Tara snorted. “Lonely? You have seen the women come in and out of that office in the past year, right?”
“How can he be happy like that?”
“He’s a man.”
Money doesn’t buy you respect at all, Spike thought, hating that this was what his employees thought of him. This is what he showed the world: You can have money and power, but it doesn’t mean that those things don’t make you a gigantic arse. Seemed he was that and then some.
Buffy shook her head, a determined and knowing look on her face. “Something happened to him to make him like that. I know it’s kind of clichéd, but I really don’t think he realizes it. Maybe he doesn’t want to face it and deal with it. That man is sad. I can see it in his face. He might have a lot of women, he might even have a lot of friends, but I can see the loneliness in him. I feel sorry for him.”
“Why?” Tara asked incredulously.
“I know what it’s like to be lonely. I know what it’s like to feel sorry for yourself.”
“Buffy, come over here. Come and spend Christmas with me and my family.”
Buffy shook her head, “Not tonight. Maybe I’ll come over tomorrow okay? I’ve had too much wine right now and I think I just need to get some sleep. Maybe put on ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ as I drift off.”
“You are a brave soul, Buffy. Call me tomorrow, or I’ll call you. Good night.”
Clicking her phone shut, Buffy sighed heavily, staring off. “I’m not brave. Just too proud,” she murmured. Lying down on her bed, she curled herself in a ball. “Just like William.”
Coming over to her, Spike knelt by her side and reached out to caress her face, only to go right through her as if he were the ghost. Tears dropped from his eyes. “If I were with you, you wouldn’t be alone. I am going to make sure you’re never alone, Buffy, okay? You’re right about me…you’re right…”
An inhuman roar sounded from Spike’s throat when he found himself back in his apartment, kneeling before his own bed.
“Never thought you’d kneel before anyone, Spike,” Harmony mused.
Turning, Spike settled his eyes on her as she crossed her arms across her chest and gave him a knowing look.
“I’m sorry--” he started.
“Don’t say it to me,” Harmony told him. “Say it to them.” And with that, she was gone.
Spike knelt there, staring at his empty and lonely bed. Buffy was right. He was lonely. No matter how many women he had, he was alone. He had no one to call his own, no one that truly cared, and no one that truly saw him.
Tara thought he was happy; hell, all this time he’d tried to convince himself he was happy. But he wasn’t. Darla and Anya came to him to screw and anything outside that arrangement was laughable in their eyes. Kind of like how he treated Harmony – and look how hurt Harmony was by him. How awful was he to her? He treated her like dirt! He might as well have made her spit shine his shoes while she was down on her knees servicing him. God, why did she put up with that abuse?
Because she cares for me. She fancies herself in love with a git like me.
Harmony was going to get a raise first thing Monday morning, and an apology. Possibly a bouquet of flowers, though, that might be giving the wrong signal. Their affair was over now, as far as he was concerned, but he would make it as easy on her as possible. There would be no more hurting and abusing Harmony Kendall.
As for Anya and Darla, well, they were going to have to go. He’d quit them cold turkey. It was going to be hard, but the alternative was a continuance of the derision he received from his colleagues, and a continuance of the derision he received from Darla and Anya. They didn’t care for him; he was just a body. He did it to Harmony, they did it to him, and he was through.
Then, of course, there was Buffy. Buffy who was alone in the world, Buffy who saw through his machismo façade, Buffy who was an angel as far as he was concerned, and he wanted nothing more than to be worthy of her.
Right now, as he was, he wasn’t worthy of her. He was worthy of the scum on the bottom of her shoe maybe and that was about it.
Crawling into bed, feeling the lowest of the low, Spike planned how he was going to make Buffy Summers happy, and hopefully himself in the process. The night’s events soon took their toll and once again, he was fast asleep with visions of Buffy dancing in his head.