Buffy bit her lip to keep herself from verbally hitting back. During the past week she’d learned that saying no to Faith resulted in very painful treatment. Her body still had the cuts and welts to prove it.
It made her sick to recall the ‘training’ that Faith had put her through. For the past few days she’d been forced to do things that she didn’t even know existed, things that she found not only disgusting but also morally reprehensible.
But Buffy was quickly becoming an expert at repression. It was easier not to think about things than to confront them head on. She figured she could work through her issues in very expensive therapy when she turned forty. If she actually managed to live that long.
Right now she had more pressing worries to confront, like the fact that Gwendolyn had auctioned off her virginity to the highest bidder and within the next few minutes she would give up her innocence to a nameless, faceless stranger.
“I don’t want to do this,” sighed Buffy in a childish voice.
Despite her heavily painted face and skimpy clothing she was still the epitome of innocence. Even Faith’s harsh training couldn’t wring the innate guilelessness out of the adolescent.
A tear trickled down her haggard face, causing Faith to scowl at her.
“Don’t mess up the face paint, B,” Faith warned her, wiping away the tear with faux tenderness. “Gwen’s boy paid big bucks for your little gift so you can’t fuck that up. Now shouldn’t you be flexing your Kegels for your upcoming performance?”
“You’re so gross, Faith,” Buffy snapped back, her lip creeping out in a pout. “Not that I expect anything else from you.”
“Are we back to the ‘whore’ thing again? ‘Cause I gotta tell you, B. That’s getting wicked old now.”
Buffy opened to mouth to reply but snapped it shut when the door was flung open. A sour looking Gwendolyn was standing in the door way, panting slightly.
“Mr. Balthazar is here and he’s waiting,” Gwendolyn informed Faith curtly not even glancing in Buffy’s direction.
The blonde felt lead fill her gut. So that was his name, huh? ‘Mr. Balthazar’? He would be the first one to fill her, to experience the way she felt inside. Buffy knew that Faith’s sadistic training should have prepared her for this moment but nothing really could have done that.
All of her life she’d dreamed of losing her virginity to the man she loved in a big fluffy bed while the sun streamed through the windows. Instead it would be torn from her in a seedy brothel by a man she didn’t even know.
“Come on then, girl,” Faith encouraged her, grabbing the blonde’s wrist and pulling her to her feet. Buffy tried to resist, even considering kicking Faith in the shin and making a run for it. However, the other girl was older, bigger, and stronger than her. Not to mention streetwise as hell. Buffy might have had courage, but she wasn’t an idiot. There was no way she could get out of this place alone.
At that moment she sent a prayer up to whoever or whatever might be listening to save her.
She needed a miracle.
Buffy felt scared and yet numb as Faith dragged her down the hallways and pushed her through the door of one of the ‘meeting’ rooms, as they were so euphemistically named.
The teenager stumbled through the door and tried to steady herself as she was confronted with the man who was going to take her innocence. She vaguely heard it slam in back of her but she wasn’t even really aware of anything but what she saw in front of her right now.
She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting when she’d found out that her virginity was being auctioned off to the highest bidder. Maybe deep down she’d been hoping for some dashing young prince who would make the experience a lot more pleasant. Or at least a lot less abhorrent.
What she actually found in front of her eyes was a chubby, balding middle aged man. His shirt looked as if it was at least one size too small for him as the buttons strained and tore under the pressure of his stomach. The swollen pouch looked like it was plotting its devious escape from his overly tight shirt. Sweat patches were peeking through at the armpits too but he didn’t even seem to care about any of that. Buffy couldn’t help but wonder just how this man had afforded the price of her virginity.
Unless she’d been sold cheaply!
Oh God, that would be just the ultimate humiliation.
“You must be Buffy,” the man said, breaking through her thoughts. His voice was nasal and shrill, instantly setting her nerves on edge.
Suddenly all the training that Faith gave her seemed to fly out of her brain and she stood in front of him like a deer caught in the headlights. Her mouth opened and closed like a guppy but she couldn’t seem to form words. She couldn’t turn on the seduction with someone that repulsed her.
“I-I’m Buffy but…”
“Get on your knees and suck me, bitch,” he ordered her. But she couldn’t move, couldn’t think. She could barely even breathe. Suddenly she was underneath five thousand feet of water and it was filling her lungs.
As he started to walk toward her, she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how she was going to get through this.
Buffy gulped.
With a murderous look on his face, Spike Pryce peeled to a stop in front of the gates of the huge white mansion.
The guard, Scott, who was also known as ‘the gatekeeper,’ didn’t even bother to ask him to stop. Whether that was because of his irate expression or simply because Scott recognized him, Spike didn’t know. Not that he cared. Whatever the reason, he apparently didn’t do a very thorough job of guarding the brothel gates.
Right now Spike would happily have beat him down if he’d had to. The peroxide blond had only one thing on his mind and that was finding the girl who would help him achieve bitter retribution against his father.
Squealing through the open gates into the main driveway he stopped right in front of the entrance to the brothel. He hopped out of the old Desoto and jogged up the steps into the house. The doors were never locked there which Spike found a little ironic in itself.
Everyone was welcome apparently.
For the right price.
A familiar blonde was sitting at a makeshift desk in the lobby filing her nails and he bounded up to her. When she caught sight of him her eyes lit up and she primped her platinum blonde curls.
“Spikey!” she exclaimed, pushing out her ample bosom as far as she could.
“Harmony,” he greeted with a little apprehension. He didn’t have time for the annoying bimbette today. She’d provided him with a warm body to enjoy during some of Drusilla’s extended disappearing stints but he couldn’t stand the girl. Harmony was more irritating than nails on a chalkboard. He was surprised that any sane man would pay to spend time with the woman but he figured that in times of desperation it was any port in a storm.
“Looking for some fun?” Harmony batted her eyelashes and pushed out her more than ample breasts. “I have a free slot right now.”
“Actually, I’m looking for someone in particular.” Spike didn’t pay a lick of attention to her exposed bosoms, causing Harmony to pout unattractively.
“Oh.” Harmony sighed in disappointment. “I guess you want Faith.”
“No, you stupid chit. I don’t want Faith. I want Buffy.” At her perplexed look her clarified. “Young, honey blonde, skinny. She’s new here.”
“Oh! You mean New Girl?”
“Yes,” he hissed from between tightly clenched teeth. “Where is she, Harmony?”
Harmony knitted her eyebrows and chewed on her bottom lip. She was lost deep in thought for a few moment, which was apparently the extent of her depths. “Oh!” she exclaimed with a sudden flash of recall. “She’s upstairs with the guy that won the auction.”
“What bloody auction?” Frustration was seeping from every pore as he waited for Harmony’s answer. He could tell she was on something from her slow movements and the dilation of her pupils and it was really starting to grate on him.
“The auction that Gwenny held duh. Some old guy won and he paid big bucks to have sex with her. They’re probably going at it right now so you’re gonna have to wait.”
However, waiting wasn’t Spike’s strong point and without so much as a goodbye to Harmony he strode up the stairs, taking them two at a time. The peroxide blond didn’t even pause when Harmony’s warnings that he couldn’t go up there reached his ears. Didn’t the girl realize that he could make her disappear forever if she pissed him off? Harmony was sailing perilously close to that.
He burst into one room after another, leaving more than one rutting couple feeling slightly embarrassed. Well the men looked embarrassed and the prostitutes mostly looked mildly amused.
It didn’t take long before he kicked open the right door and Spike stormed into the room, feeling his ire increase when he saw Buffy pinned under the chubby, balding man. She was clearly struggling underneath him, and from her state of undress it seemed like she was losing the battle.
He didn’t waste any time in tearing the older man off of her and tossing him against the wall as if he were nothing more than garbage.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the chubby man demanded, massaging his bruised shoulder as he thrashed about to regain a standing position.
“I should be asking you the same bloody thing, mate,” Spike remarked, glaring at the shorter man.
“This little bitch is mine, Mister.” Balthazar glared at Spike warningly. “I paid for her and I intend to have her.”
“Yeah, well you’d better take your little dick and introduce it to Mary bloody palm if you want to keep it.” He squared his shoulders threateningly. “Unless you want to try and touch the girl again. In which case I’d be happy as Larry to rip it off and stuff it up your fat arse.”
Balthazar looked affronted but apparently the man didn’t have much in the way of brainpower as he came marching toward Spike, wildly swinging his fists.
Drawing his hand back, Spike slammed his own fist into the older man’s face before Balthazar could even get a punch in. The crunch of bone echoed in the room and blood streamed from his damaged nose as he hit the ground unconscious.
“That’ll bloody teach you,” Spike smirked, stepping over the rotund man and finally turning his attention to Buffy.
The blonde was shivering and shaking as she sat half curled into a ball on the ground. She was only wearing a tiny skirt and the remnants of a bra and Spike felt his pants tighten around the crotch area in spite of himself. Although the circumstances were horrible, Spike couldn’t deny that she still looked a vision.
When Spike kneeled down next to her, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder, Buffy leveled shocked and tormented eyes to her unlikely savior.
“Spike?” she asked, as if she was waking up from a horrible nightmare.
“Yeah, love. It’s me.”
He reached for her hand and pulled her up from the bed. She struggled to stand on shaky legs so he steadied her. Seeing that she seemed cold Spike hesitantly slipped off his long, black leather duster and placed it around her shoulders.
She hugged it around her but kept lifeless eyes trained on the ground.
“It’s alright now, pet,” Spike tried to reassure her, frowning when she didn’t respond.
A feeling of unease settled on his chest at her seeming disassociation from the situation. He didn’t know much about the psychological side of trauma, in spite of how much he’d had to endure himself, but he was pretty sure that being half catatonic wasn’t a good sign. No doubt the cumulative effect of everything she’d been through was finally reaping its toll on her.
The blond couldn’t identify why he suddenly felt so much concern for this girl. He’d already firmly decided that she would be his best ally in bringing down his father, so he needed her, but he didn’t need to care about her.
Caring about others only brought pain and hurt to him.
Steeling himself, he grabbed her upper arms and shook her. “Listen to me, Buffy. We need to leave now. Any minute now and I have no doubt Gwen’s going to come charging in her with bloody gorillas. We can’t be here when that happens. She’s not going to let me toddle off with her merchandise.”
“That’s right,” Gwendolyn said smugly, appearing in the doorway flanked by two men that could have been in training for Sumo wrestling. “She won’t!”