Sunday Girl

by Dead Soul

Rating: NC-17
Genre: Angst/horror
Pairings: Spike/Drusilla, Spike/Sunday, Drusilla/Sunday, Spike/Drusilla/Sunday Warnings: BDSM, non-consensual sex, violence, bloodplay, language, f/f slash, inappropriate humor - all the good stuff
Disclaimers: Story and chapter titles are titles of Blondie songs. (I thought about being careful with song dates and such but, like Spike, I got bored. Any anachronisms are either intentional or so the hell what.) The usual disclaimers for both characters and song titles. The only things I own are the things I steal from dorm rooms. No, that sweater doesn't make you look fat. It just makes you look purple
Distribution: Want? Take, have. But please let me know where
Feedback: Keeps the bloodlust in check, mailto:deadsoul820@aol.com or drop me a comment on my LiveJournal, Dead Soul

Summary: Spike, Drusilla and Sunday in New York City, 1977. Ever wonder where Sunday (BtVS, Season 4, "The Freshman") came from? Why her fashion sense seems familiar, not to mention her attitude? She tells her story.

Prologue - Detroit 442

Scene: 1998, an all-night diner in Detroit, Michigan, 4:42 AM. A young woman huddles over a stale cup of coffee, chain-smoking Marlboro Reds, hardpack. She's dressed all in black in a style ten to fifteen years out of date. Like a very young Madonna in a badass mood. It's a look that's making a comeback. She has long blonde hair and heavy makeup, especially around the eyes, which, if they had looked at you would show nothing but contempt and emptiness with maybe just a spark of world-weary humor.

A young man approaches her, asks to share her table, orders his own coffee. Nothing special about him except for a desperate extroversion and an unwillingness to take no for an answer. She's laughing bitterly at something he's said, you overhear her reply, "What am I doing in a place like this?" The mirth doesn't last long. She stares long and hard into the man's eyes and comes to a decision. She begins to talk.

Chapter One - Will Anything Happen?

I was just another stupid little girl from Longisland. We said it just like that, running the "g" at the end of "Long" into the "I" in "Island" so it sounded like "Lawn Guyland." Secularly Jewish and right out of high school, enjoying a last summer of spending Dad's money in an amateurish way, as opposed to the professional way I'd be spending it when I started NYU in the fall.

It was the weekend before the big Labor Day weekend and a gaggle of us old high school friends was going to hit the city one last time before we scattered to our respective schools, jobs and shotgun marriages. Well, only the one shotgun marriage; my best friend Debbie had let herself get knocked up in order to finally pin down her longtime boyfriend, Steve. Oldest trick in the book, but it seemed to have worked for her - I'd already been fitted for the horrendous peach monstrosity of a bridesmaid gown that I'd be wearing in her "Harvest" themed October wedding. Early October, or her genuine knock-off Vera Wang wedding dress wouldn't be able to be let out enough. So this weekend was also to serve as Debbie's bachelorette party. Chippendales, here we come!

And there we were, Debbie, Tanya, Rachel and me, waiting on the platform for the LIRR train to the city as the sun was nearly completely set in the late summer sky. To the east the sky was blue jewel black with pinpricks of white. Our little high school clique - together since Hebrew School, but I was realistic enough to know that there was little chance we'd stay so tight. Debbie was the blond cheerleader marrying her high school quarterback sweetheart, Tanya was the slut and Rachel was the good girl. I'm sure there was more to them than that, but I really don't remember. I was the quiet, bookish one with a wild streak - the one who thought up the pranks and whispered the dirty things during class that would break the others up and get us all sent to after school detention where we'd whisper and giggle some more under the bored eyes of whatever teacher was unlucky enough to get stuck supervising.

They'd carefully coordinated their Saturday Night Fever outfits - similar enough to show that they belonged together, but different enough not to look too, they thought at the time, "tacky-twinny." I'd managed to misplace the memo and was dressed far more casually. Tanya was already passing around a flask of peach schnapps and we were well into the giggly stage. That the throwing up stage would be reached that night was a given. Debbie was passing the flask to me when something caught her eye and she poked me and pointed, snickering.

A little way down the platform stood an entwined couple. They looked and dressed completely differently, yet appeared made for each other. She was wisp thin, dark haired and dressed in a high-waisted, ankle-length white dress dripping with lace. He wore faded jeans, holes in the knees and ass, worn and pale. A black t-shirt with the arms ripped off and stuck through here and there with safety pins, heavy black belt and boots, silver bracelet, chunky silver or steel chain with a padlock as a pendant around his neck and something, another safety pin?, flashing from his black left eyebrow. Heavy black eyeliner and bleached white hair completed the, I snorted to myself, 'ensemble.'

I fancied that I wasn't a complete suburban bimbo - I'd heard of the growing 'punk' scene just catching on down in the Bowery at clubs like CBGB's and Max's Kansas City. There'd been the odd freak at my high school who'd wear the ripped clothes and petulant attitude. I even stayed up late one Friday night to catch a British band called "The Police" on the Midnight Special. Some song about a prostitute. To an ear used to smooth, over-processed glib disco, it sounded rough and amateurish.

But I had had to admit to myself it had something other music lacked - anger, passion, frustration. Things I felt but couldn't articulate. If I looked at my friends and wondered at their glassy-eyed acceptance of whatever they were fed, I would stop and remind myself that they were my friends, my best friends, and I'd buy whatever they were buying, listen to whatever they were listening to, wear whatever they were wearing. In my secret heart I was looking forward to making a life that didn't depend on their approval. So this one last night as part of the foursome I planned to make one to remember. As a kind of good-bye to them and the me I was around them.

Seeming to hear my snort, although surely he was too far away, the man in the jeans and torn black t-shirt looked over at me and his eyes snagged mine in one of those looks that lasts less than a second and stays with you forever. A stray headlight flashed across his pale face and the blue of his eyes leapt out in startling clarity. The strobe of light also broke our connection as it coincided with the arrival of the train. He and his companion entered one car while my drunken friends and I entered another.

By the time we rumbled into Penn Station, even tipsier from Tanya's schnapps, I had completely forgotten about him and the moment our eyes met, but I was filled with a strange kind of restlessness. I felt like I was outside myself - looking down with a kind of bemused affection at the four silly young things stumbling up the escalator into the hot humid smelly streets of Manhattan.

We cabbed it to Chippendales and it was all I'd expected it to be - loud, tacky and utterly boring but the others seemed to be having a good time so I let them get on with it. For a while, anyway, but my restlessness was increasing to the point where I couldn't sit still another moment longer. I grabbed Debbie and dragged her to the bathroom.

"I gotta get outta here," I yelled into her ear. Stray strands of her hairspray-stiff, smoky smelling Miss Clairol hair stuck to my lipstick, her spiky fluffy bangs threatened to take an eye out, and I pulled my face away in frustration. "I got the headache from hell and I think I'm gonna heave."

Thank god she was drunk enough not to care that I was leaving by myself at nearly midnight in the middle of New York City. Thank god she didn't know where I was planning to go. She just wanted to stuff some more bills into the g-strings of the dancers and drink two or eight more Lawn Guyland Iced Teas. She just said, "Whatever - call me tomorrow," and teetered on her Candies back to the action.

I paused as I left the club and took a deep breath of the hot exhaust-laden air. By myself, finally, and ready to find some trouble to get into.

Chapter Two - 11:59

An old yellow cab screamed up to the curb and disgorged four loud middle-aged women wearing too much make-up and perfume and clothes way too young for them. They looked like our mothers or what we could grow up to become. Picturing myself like them made my determination to escape that possible future all the more desperate. Their raucous laughter screeched in my ears as I fought through them to grab the taxi. "CBGB's," I told the driver. He gave me a "why would a nice girl like you want to go there" look but headed downtown.

I thought about what I was wearing. I must have known that I might want to ditch the girls and do some exploring on my own. I was the only one of the foursome to insist on wearing jeans and sneakers and a plain white t-shirt. Debbie had been adamant about doing my black hair like hers, but in the cab I rumpled it up, the heavy hairspray she'd used making it stay in crazy rattails and odd spikes. I pulled out the black eyeliner and dark red lipstick I had stashed in my back pocket and did the best I could in the bouncing car. If the liner went on a little jagged and thick, all the better. Taking the sharp nail file from the other back pocket, I used it to gash some strategic holes and rips in the t-shirt. I'm sure I looked exactly like what I was - a stupid girl from the suburbs slumming for a cheap thrill. But at the time I thought I'd pass.

The cab entered the Lower East Side and the Bowery and stopped in front of the club. The torn and dirty white awning over the entrance said "CBGB - OMFUG." There was a small crowd out front and I couldn't hear any music - just voices raised in loud conversation as the people milled about catching a breath between sets. I had no idea who was playing, probably hadn't heard of them anyway. I just wanted something different; something rough, not slick; something that would grab me and yank the good quiet bookish girl right out of me. My stomach in my mouth, I paid the driver, stepped out - and promptly tripped over the curb.

Praying that no one was watching, I hauled myself upright. No such luck. Applause, laughter and catcalls followed me as I ducked towards the club door. In a wild, reckless, if you can't beat them join them attempt to outface the embarrassment, I laughed myself and gave them all a pair of stiff middle fingers. Both my knees were bloody and my jeans were torn. As I turned to bow to my audience, still backing towards the door, I bumped into someone. Great, I thought, Queen Clutz strikes again.

Chapter Three - A Shark in Jet's Clothing

Red-faced I turned to apologize, nose to chest with a torn, sleeveless black t-shirt studded with safety pins. Can't be, I thought. But it was. I slowly looked up, same heavy chain and padlock, same sharp chin and full-lipped mouth. I tore my eyes away before they could meet the blue ones that had fascinated me on the train platform. Mumbling a belated apology, I ducked around him and into the dark, hot smelly club.

I could see that the stage was lit but empty as the bouncer checked my fake I.D. and took the cover charge, stamping my hand with a big black X. I fought through the crowd at the bar and ordered myself a beer. I wanted something stronger, but I also wanted to keep the amusing stumbles and bumps to a minimum. Some hope. Not a drop of the beer went into my mouth, it all went down the front of you know who's black, torn, safety-pinned t-shirt the minute I turned away from the bar. Jesus.

"What'd I ever do to you, you stupid cow?" he snarled, trying to brush some of the liquid off his shirt before it had a chance to soak in. Why don't earthquakes, fires and other natural disasters strike when you want them to? I'd have given anything for a small bomb to go off anywhere in the vicinity - anything to take his irritated blue eyes off of me so I could slink away in shame.

I muttered something, god knows what, and tried to get away, but while I was humiliating myself for the third time in about as many minutes, the band had come onto the stage and were getting ready to play. All the people from the street streamed into the club and to the bar, anxious to get another drink before the band really got going and it would be impossible for the bartender to hear their orders. I was pushed up against the wet, torn black t-shirt, completely unable to move in the press of hot bodies. A particularly strong bump from behind knocked me off my feet and he caught my elbows in strong hands while I struggled to get my feet back under me. His hands were surprisingly cool in the stifling heat.

Looking down at my flaming face, he started to laugh. "What say we get out of this crush, cutie," he said into my ear, cool breath tickling my ear. He grabbed my hand and, like an eel, he squirmed us through the crowd, down a hall with graffiti-covered walls and out the back door into a quiet, dank alley.

There were some wooden crates in the alley. He sat down and patted the one next to him, indicating that I should sit, too. This was a little more adventure than I had been looking for. I scanned the alley for other people, but we were alone. I was getting a little adrenalin rush, but wasn't yet spooked enough to bolt. He hadn't done anything to make me afraid and, indeed, he was taking the drink I'd spilled on him in quite good grace.

What's the worst that could happen? I thought. A little stand-up sex in a dark alley with a sexy Brit? Doesn't sound so bad. This was before AIDS had been heard of outside of the gay community, before herpes had become an epidemic and I was already on the pill. I almost felt that it was the least I could do for the guy. I sat down next to him, the crate teetering under my weight, threatening to dump me on the ground again. He caught my arm and quick as thought, pulled me into his lap.

"You're not safe to let go of," he said, laughing at me again.

I finally had had enough embarrassment and was getting mad. I struggled in his arms, trying to leap up and leave him. His arms tightened and my squirming was remarkably ineffective. He was having less trouble holding onto me than I would holding onto a week-old kitten. Well, I reminded myself, kittens have claws. I took my long sharp nails to his hands and arms, digging them in hard.

He stopped laughing. "Do it again," he breathed into my ear. Shocked, I stopped scratching and wiggling. I craned my head around to look at him. He had a slight smile on his face, full lips curling smugly and his eyes were heavy-lidded. I could feel something growing under my leg that hadn't been there before. My heart was beating quickly from something other than shame, fear or anger. He looked at me through his thick lashes and relaxed his hold on me. Not breaking the eye contact I dragged my nails back down his bare arms, leaving, I was sure, long red stripes on his white, white skin. His left hand moved down my side and over my thigh while his right hand came across my chest, over my breasts, reaching around to stroke the side of my neck closest to his face as I sat sideways on his lap. My breath was becoming short and shallow. The hand not on my neck continued down my leg, brushing over my skinned knee. I shrieked a little and jumped at the sudden pain.

His hand left my knee immediately. He brought it, red-stained, to his mouth and licked my blood off his fingers. His eyes widened. Then changed color from blue to yellow a fraction of a second before his whole face changed.

Chapter Four - Eat to the Beat

As his face changed, becoming something monstrous and fierce, my panic surged and increased exponentially, but the shock had left me paralyzed. His arms tightened hard around me and he buried his deformed face in my neck. I stiffened, then struck out, struggling wildly as he sank his long jagged fangs into my throat. The pain was unendurable, yet seemed to lessen as I stilled, an ancient place in my brain telling my muscles that this was what they should do - go limp like a mare when she's mounted and the stallion bites her neck. An ancient mating reflex stimulated by this creature's teeth in my throat, draining my blood.

A cloudy languor stole over me, my eyes closed, my fists unclenched, then caressed his head, my fingers running through his crisp yet soft blond hair, tracing the edge of his ear. What blood was left in me was hardening my nipples, swelling my sex. A steady beat was throbbing between my legs in time to the music I could hear through the walls of the club - something driving and frantic, tempo rising, quickening, both in my ears and my cunt. He loosened his death grip on me and clutched my breast roughly, kneading it in time to the music, in time to the sucking of his mouth, in time to the throbbing of my slickening center.

He grabbed my nipple roughly, twisting it, pinching it, sending stabs of arousal to my crotch. This was no unsure high school boy, so afraid of hurting me that I could barely feel his touch. His hands demanded, they wrung cries, gasps and moans from me. I was no longer still, I was writhing, my hips pumping the air, my hands clutching his hair, pulling it, pressing his head harder into my neck. Out of sheer cussedness, I thought, he slid his teeth from my throat and pulled his head away, shaking it slightly. He let go of my nipple and turned my face to his. His face was normal again and I was sure I'd imagined the monster - save for the blood I could feel trickling down my neck and chest.

He swung me around to straddle his body, I clutched him around his neck. He pushed my body back but didn't disengage my arms. Reaching for my shirt he tore it from the neck to the waist leaving my braless breasts completely bare. He licked down my neck and chest, cleaning away the blood his bite had let flow. He licked lower, bathing my left breast with his cool tongue, but, maddeningly, not touching the nipple. His hands had a hold of my ass, kneading and massaging it as his tongue circled closer to where I wanted it.

As he finally (finally!) took my nipple between his teeth, he moved his hands to the button and zipper of my prized Calvins. Drawing my nipple deep into his mouth, sucking strongly, rhythmically, he popped the button of my jeans, unzipped the zipper then took both halves of my open jeans and ripped them apart, breaking the bottom of the zipper and tearing the denim along the crotch seam halfway up my ass. And since, you know, nothing could come between me and my Calvins, there was nothing between me and his hands except the warm August night air.

My hands were no longer around his neck, I was struggling frantically with his own jeans, but I was having a damn hard time with his belt - the buckle seemed to be around somewhere to the side. I didn't want to reach around for it lest I disturb what his mouth was doing, what his hands were doing as he wormed one cold finger along my slit, rubbing back and forth, spreading my wetness.

Disappointed, I brought my hands up his sides, reaching under his arms to find his nipples, scratching my nails over them, pinching them. He sucked more frantically on my aching nipple and rammed a sudden finger deep inside me, plunging it in and out as he rubbed the heel of his hand hard on my clit. I scratched my nails over his denim-covered cock as he let go of my left nipple to attack the right one. A second finger joined the first pumping into my hot clutching cunt.

I was approaching a meltdown, but I couldn't get to what I needed. I was whimpering, pawing at his crotch, trying to find the tab of the zipper but it was covered by the smooth leather of his belt. Sensing my predicament, he suddenly stood, dumping me into a panting heap on the filthy alley floor.

He reached around to the buckle, unbuckled it and whipped the belt out of its loops. He roughly pulled me to my feet, spinning me around, pinning me against the club wall. He wrapped the belt around my arms, halfway up to my elbows, drawing my shoulders back and thrusting my breasts forward. Pushing his jeans down his thighs, he sat back down on the crate, restraddling me across his lap, his cock rubbing against my wet slit.

I squirmed and wriggled, trying to get that long thick piece of hard flesh inside me, rubbing my clit against it. He leaned back against the club wall, his hands behind his head, watching my desperation with amusement gleaming in his eyes. "Damn you, you prick," I hissed at him. "Help me or untie my hands so I can do it myself."

He reached down to where our bodies were touching. Lifting me slightly in his strong hands, his cock sprang upright and he lowered me onto it. Its cool length stretched me and touched places that had never been touched before. It hurt, but it hurt so good.

He leaned back again to watch what I would do. Grumbling and giving him dirty looks, I moved my hips around in a circle, getting used to the size of him. The crate was low enough that I could reach the ground with my toes. Slowly I pushed up, feeling his cock sliding out of me. Before it could escape I slid back down on it, over and over, faster and faster, driven by the music pounding though the walls of the club and by the blood boiling in my veins.

He tried to maintain his smug attitude, but it was getting to him, too. With a snarl, he gathered my bouncing body close to him, taking control, moving me up and down on him, grinding his pelvic bone against my clit on each downstroke. A storm was building in me as orgasm came closer and closer. My head was thrown back, my breath gasping, a red blush spreading across my chest and breasts.

Clutching my outthrust breasts against his face, I felt first his tongue then his teeth on my nipple. He caught it between his strong teeth, pulling it out, stretching it. The pain shrieked through me, intensifying the pleasure of his plunging cock and coarse pubic hair as it ground against my clit.

As I screamed my fulfillment, he plunged those sharp fangs into the flesh of my breast around my nipple. Before I passed out from passion and blood loss, I heard him growl, "God, Dru's gotta get a taste of this."

Chapter Five - Dreaming

I was having an absolutely terrific dream. I was Kate Nelligan playing Mina and Frank Langella was playing Dracula, like in that movie I'd seen a couple of years ago, when I was awakened by someone speaking very close to me.

"Did you bring me a present, my Spike?"

I came awake to see two dark eyes peering into mine from about an inch away. My head jerked back, cracking painfully against the hard brick wall. I blinked to clear my focus but the face was so close that the two eyes looking at me blurred into one big eye. I never was able to decide for sure what color Dru's eyes were - in different lights they could look blue, green, or gray or some unnamable mix of the three. Whatever color they were, they weren't eyes you could look away from.

Trilling a laugh, she backed far enough way that I could get a look at all of her and give a thought to where I was. I recognized immediately that she was the woman from the train platform who had been with, um, I never had gotten his name. Her long dark curls fell in ringlets from an elaborate hairstyle and she was impossibly thin. On other girls the thinness might have made her look scrawny but it made her look delicate and fragile. Her white dress also looked delicate and fragile and impossibly out of place in the dark dank basement we appeared to be in.

When she broke her eye contact with me, I became aware of a screaming pain in my shoulders. I tried to lower my arms and found I couldn't. My wrists were held over my head and I could hear a chain rattling when I tried to move them. I looked up - they were held in what looked like steel manacles and the sharp edges of the cuffs were biting into my skin, breaking it, thin lines of blood trickling down my bare arms.

My all of me was bare, I realized with a start. I struggled harder with the metal cuffs, drawing a breath to cry out, but my head went fuzzy, waves of darkness surged across my vision and my head was throbbing too hard to struggle any more.

Strong hands tilted my head back and something lovely, cool and wet was poured into my open mouth. Water. I swallowed greedily - suddenly I felt so dehydrated, and my head seemed to clear a bit. I opened my eyes and saw the man holding a glass of water, my jaw in his other hand. He gestured with the glass as if asking if I wanted more and I nodded. He released my face and gave me another drink. Gulping it down, I was still terrified and confused and in pain, but I no longer felt like I was about to pass out.

"Why are you bothering to water it, Spike?" She wound her arms around him from behind, running her hands across his chest and down towards his belt. "Let's just drain it, then you can put me in the chains and we can play." She was British, too, but her accent was different from his - more flower girl and less Sex Pistol.

"Dru, honey," He disengaged her hands and, after setting aside the glass, took them in both of his own. He drew her a little ways away but I could still hear him. "Do you remember that vamp we met in Boston, used to be a doctor?"

She nodded, "Told us all about the different kinds of blood."

"That's right, pet. He said that the reason that different people's blood tasted different was that there were different types of blood. And he said something about one of the types, the tastiest type, being the most rare."

"I remember," She put a finger in her mouth, sucking on it lightly. "He gave us a little taste - yummy. But we haven't had any since." She pouted and took the wet finger from her mouth and held it to the man's, Spike's, mouth. In the darkness I could see the red gleam where she'd bitten it. He licked it gently and sucked it deep into his own mouth.

"Now we have," he said around he finger. He removed it from his mouth and pointed it at me. "And if we keep her alive, we can have as much as we want."

Funnily enough, especially what with all the panic, I knew what he was talking about. Last year at the school Blood Drive, I'd found out that I had a very rare blood type, AB-, a type that only one half of one percent of the population has. The blood bank staff had fussed over me and were forever calling to ask me to donate again. It wasn't that I didn't want to; I just never seemed to get around to it. Looked like I was going to be donating now - whether I wanted to or not.

Funny what your mind can get used to when it has to. While I was unconscious, my brain seemed to have taken the available facts and brought itself around to believing that, yes, Virginia, vampires are real.

The two vampires, Spike and Dru, were looking at me, all but licking their chops. 'Oo Spike! Can I?" Dru asked.

"Just a taste, my precious, I got a little carried away before I brought her here and she doesn't have much left. If we're careful, we can have her blood for dessert every night."

Dru came to me. She ran a black-painted fingernail down the side of my face and on down my neck. With a strength that belied her seeming frailty, she twisted my face aside, tilting my head to bare the side of my neck that hadn't yet been bitten. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her face change in the instant before she drove her fangs into my neck.

Just like back in the alley, first I felt the stabbing pain, then the woozy limpness. As my knees buckled, I could feel, distantly, the pain in my wrists, but I was once again passing out. My last thought was at least I'd never have to wear that peach bridesmaid's dress.

Chapter Six - Kidnapper

Much to my surprise, I woke up again. God, I thought, this passing out shit is for the birds. I cautiously opened one eye, then the other. I was by myself, on a bed, not chained up and dressed. Sort of dressed. I was wearing Spike's torn black t-shirt, smelling of beer and cigarette smoke, and nothing else. From a barred window high on the wall over the bed, I could see daylight. I scrambled to my feet, well I tried to scramble to my feet, but got dizzy and had to sit back down. I was not, I told myself sternly, going to pass out again.

Next to the bed there was a table with a pitcher of orange juice, a glass and a plate with some fruit on it. The juice felt wonderful sliding down my throat - I could feel the nutrients and glucose rushing into my system, tingling through my veins. Thirst momentarily assuaged, I bit into the apple, its juice running down my chin. It tasted unbelievably good. I felt like I hadn't eaten in weeks. I made short work of the rest of the fruit and juice. Now, when I stood, I didn't feel like I would fall over.

Feeling pretty ridiculous, but also realizing how ridiculous I'd feel if the door had been open and I hadn't tried it, I crossed the room to do that. The concrete floor was cold under my bare feet. Of course the door was locked. And so solid that all my jerking and pounding didn't even budge it a fraction of an inch. There was another door along the same wall but when I checked, it only led to a windowless bathroom. I was grateful to know it was there.

I went back to the bed, standing on it, but my head was still a yard away from the small window. Even jumping, I could only see the back of some trashcans that were set out along the curb. As I jumped, I pounded on the window to see if I could break it and call out for help, but it was covered not in glass, but with some thick plexiglass or other transparent plastic material. Even after having drunk the juice and eaten the fruit, my head still wasn't up to all this bouncing around. I sank back down on the bed, thinking furiously.

The last time I'd seen this t-shirt that I was wearing, it had been covered with safety pins. Maybe I could use one to pick the lock on the door. I looked down; all the pins had been removed. Damn. I checked the pitcher, glass and plate thinking that I could use a glass shard as a weapon - nope, all plastic. I looked the room over carefully. The ceiling was a good fifteen feet high, covered with pipes running this way and that. Later, when my head was little clearer, I thought, I would see if I could reach those pipes. Maybe one would be loose and I could use that as a club. I stored the idea away. I was down on my hands and knees checking the bed for loose springs or anything sharp when I heard the door open.

Turning too quickly, I fell over on my ass, t-shirt riding up to flash whoever was at the door. I wasn't at all surprised when he laughed.

"See you've woken up, love," Spike said. At least I remembered his name from last night. And the other one's name was Dru. But she wasn't there with him. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt again, but this one, while also black, said "The Ramones" and still had its sleeves. His white-blond hair was rumpled and curling, as if he'd just woken up.

Before I could get up and lunge for the door, he closed it behind him, making a show of locking it and putting the key in his pocket. The bastard.

I opened my mouth to say, I don't know what, something pathetic and useless, I'm sure, like "Let me go and I won't tell anyone," or "What do you want from me?" I knew what they wanted from me - they were vampires and I was just brimming with tasty blood - apparently tastier blood that most and has promising not to tell ever worked for anyone?

He cut me off, "These are the rules. Don't try to escape, don't make a fuss and we'll leave you alive - for now anyway. Who knows, Dru might get bored and let you go. Can never tell with her. She also might get mad and kill you anytime, best thing to do is be as quiet as possible and hope she forgets about you. I don't much care either way. Be a treat to have your blood available to round off an evening's hunting, have on hand when I'm feeling peckish, but nothing I can't live without." He looked at me as if expecting me to say something. I didn't so he cocked an eyebrow, collected the pitcher, glass and plate from the table as I shrank away, and left. I heard the locking mechanism of the door engaging solidly.

It wasn't that I didn't have anything to say, it was just that I knew that nothing I said would matter and, since it didn't appear that they were going to kill me immediately, I thought it might be better to pretend to play their game for a while. To save my breath for cooling my porridge, or rather, for screaming bloody murder when there was someone around to hear and help.

I've always been kind of cool that way - I never go off half-cocked. Instead, I have a tendency to hang back and watch events unfold. Most times, things will take care of themselves, or a better time to act will present itself. That attitude has gotten me out of more than one jam. I wasn't sure if it would pay off now, but having hysterics certainly wasn't going to help.

I picked myself off the floor and went to the little bathroom. The juice, having done its job, was anxious to leave my body. I snapped on the light and thought about glass light bulbs, but the fixture was too high to reach and enclosed in a metal cage. There was a sink, a toilet and a narrow shower stall without a door or curtain. Nothing but a showerhead, two taps and a drain sunk in the floor. There was a roll of toilet paper on the back of the toilet tank next to a worn but clean towel. On top of the towel were a small bottle of shampoo, a bar of soap, a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste.

As I sat to use the toilet I ran a hand through my hair. Or rather, I tried to. It was stiff with hairspray and solid with tangles. I wiped a finger under my eye and looked at the running eyeliner I'd wiped away. I could also see the smudgy remains of the big black X the bouncer last night had stamped on my hand. The shower was looking awfully damn good. I stripped off the t-shirt and stepped in. The water, once I got the hang of the knobs, was wonderfully warm and the shampoo he'd left smelled good. But the thing about showers and bathing in general is, they leave you time to think while you're going through the mechanics of getting clean.

For the first time since this had all started I thought of my family and friends. They must be terribly worried. Or at least my family would be, god knows if any of my friends were even awake yet or able to think past their hangovers. My mom would be calling their moms who would be waking up their daughters to see if any of them knew where I was or why I hadn't come home last night. They might have already called the police. I realized I had no idea what time it was. Tears began to trickle down my face, mixing with the warm water and before I knew it I was sobbing for all I was worth. Or had been worth. Now, it seemed I was only worth the taste of my blood.

Chapter Seven - Pretty Baby

Slowly, as the water started to run cold, I pulled myself together, got out of the shower and dried myself with the worn towel. It was barely long enough, but I wrapped it around me and went into the other, the only other, room. I glanced up at the high window but it was dark, must be nighttime, I thought. My hair was clean but it was still a tangled mess. There was a drawer in the table next to the bed and when I checked it I found a comb and some, I sniffed to make sure, clean panties. I stepped into the panties and pulled them up. They must have been Dru's because they were a little tight and would have a tendency to ride up, but I was grateful to have anything clean. I was struggling to get the comb through my hair when the door opened again.

"Find everything you need?" Spike asked, closing and locking the door behind him. I felt a hysterical giggle rise in my throat at his polite question.

"Well, the TV doesn't get cable," I said, not thinking, "but then this would never be mistaken for the Ritz." I know I said before that I'm kinda cool and think before acting, but sometimes my mouth doesn't know this. Most of the jams I've been in have been caused by me being such a knee-jerk smart ass.

He looked a little surprised, but not unpleased by my attitude. He snorted a little laugh. He had a bundle of clothes in his hands and he threw them onto the bed next to me. Jeans and a t-shirt, but a clean t-shirt, black with "Never Mind the Bollocks" on it and a pair of delicate looking ballet slippers. An odd ensemble, but I was in no position to complain. Right?

"Ballet slippers? What am I, a ballerina? We rehearsing for Swan Lake? Where's your tutu?"

"Fine!" It took him two steps to be looming over me, prepared to grab back the clothes. "If you want to be bleedin' naked in front of the others, that's just fine with me." I guess one impertinent remark was okay, two and he felt he had to slap me down. He snatched back the bundle and turned to leave.

"Wait," I said, grabbing at the clothes. "I'm sorry. Thanks for the clothes." He let me take them from him and stood, waiting.

"I'm not going to get dressed with you watching," I said.

"Seen, and felt, everything you've got, sweetie," he smirked. "No secrets left to keep from me."

I could feel my face flaming as his words reminded me of the previous evening. How I'd behaved, what I'd done, what I'd let him do to me and where and how I'd found myself hanging at the end of it all - naked and in chains, his girlfriend biting into my neck. My hand stole up to feel the bite marks, one on each side, one from each of them. I looked away from him and quietly got dressed.

The jeans were a pretty good fit, a little tight across the hips. They must have been his. He was a lean man. Broad across the shoulders, muscular arms, but very narrow and tight in the hips. Even with all I knew about him, all he'd done to me, I still found him a beautiful man to look at. The t-shirt was fine, a little baggy, but the shoes fit perfectly. They looked pretty silly under the dragging hem of the jeans, but it beat going barefoot.

Spike handed me the paper bag he'd left by the door when he came in. Looking inside I saw another plastic bottle of orange juice and a sandwich wrapped in butcher's paper. I unwrapped it, I was still terribly hungry, and saw ham, cheese and lettuce on white. I hesitated for a second before biting into it. True, my family wasn't orthodox, but we didn't eat pork or mix meat and dairy. It was just a second's pause, though. I was too hungry to worry about keeping kosher.

As I ate and chugged down the delicious juice, Spike wandered about the room, never standing still for a moment. He reached into his pocket and brought out a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo lighter. He lit up, looking at me to see if I'd object, although I couldn't imagine that he'd put it out if I did. Hell no, I thought, I'm gonna bum one off of him as soon as I finish eating. I swallowed the last bite of the sandwich and drained the last mouthful of juice and headed for the bathroom. He looked at me, a question on his face.

"Brush my teeth," I mumbled, sucking a stray piece of lettuce from between my teeth. He nodded and let me enter the bathroom. After I'd brushed my teeth I drank handfuls of water, still feeling dehydrated from the blood loss.

I came out of the bathroom to find him lounging on the bed, watching the smoke as it spiraled towards the ceiling. Even though he was lying still, I could feel him thrum with energy, feel it coiled up inside him, waiting to spring. I cleared my throat, "Can I bum a cigarette?" I asked. Silently he dug the pack and the lighter out of his pocket. I worked a bent and rather crumpled Camel out of the pack and lit it - handing the pack back to him. Hoping he wouldn't notice, I slipped the lighter into my own pocket. Sure enough, he stashed the cigarettes away and didn't seem to see that I hadn't returned the lighter at the same time.

Dragging in a grateful lungful of smoke, I said, hoping to distract him from his lack of lighter, "What happens now?"

He got up from them bed, big cat muscles flexing and said, "Now you get introduced to Drusilla. Properly."

He stood up and dropped his cigarette, stepping on it to put it out. He grabbed my arm. I gestured with my smoke that I wasn't done yet and he let me suck in a couple more drags before plucking it from my fingers, dropping it and stepping it out like he'd done his own. He took both my wrists behind me in one of his hands and frog-marched me to the door. He unlocked it, opened it and pushed me through a long dark hallway into a larger room - the room where I'd previously been chained.

I hadn't had much of a chance to look at it the night before. It was about twenty feet, by thirty feet. At one end was an old-fashioned, Edwardian looking fainting couch and a big cordovan leather club chair. There were overlapping oriental carpets on the cement floor and small tables with small, fringed lamps on them. The dim lamps were lit, providing the only illumination in the room. Posters for various punk acts papered the walls: The Sex Pistols, The Stooges, Richard Hell and the Voidoids and the Dead Boys among many others. The Sex Pistols were the only ones I'd ever heard of. The other end of the room, the end with the chains, was still in darkness.

Spike plunked me down on the couch and took a couple of lengths of rope from his back pocket. He tied my wrists behind me and my ankles to one of the legs of the couch. He fell into the club chair and just sat, drumming his fingers. I squirmed around, trying to get a little more comfortable while we waited.

He looked up suddenly, all his attention on the dark hall we'd come down. After a moment I could hear a small voice singing a nursery rhyme growing louder as it approached.

"Run and catch, run and catch," she sang tunelessly as she entered the room, "the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch." Her dress tonight was again white, but from the various embellishments, I could tell it was a different one than the one she'd worn the night before. Spike stood and she came to his arms, leaning in for a long kiss. She didn't appear to have noticed me yet.

"Dru, poodle," Spike said, "do you remember the present I brought you yesterday?" He turned her to look at me.

"Oh yes, the yummy treat," she said. "But why is it still here?"

"Remember," Spike said, "she tasted so good we thought we'd keep her around for puddings."

"Will it be like a pet?"

"Yes, she can be your pet, precious, and you can dress her and do her hair and when she's naughty you can punish her. And if we take good care of her and feed her an' all, we can drink little drinks of her yummy blood. Would you like that, my love?"

"Oh Spike, just like Miss Edith, only all life-sized and full of delicious blood. Can I name it?" As Dru came closer, bells started ringing outside. We must be close to a church, I thought. She looked up, listening to the bells. She appeared to be thinking. She turned to me, smiled and said, "It's Sunday, so your name shall be Sunday."

She stroked a gentle hand down my face, turning it up to look at her. "My Sunday's such a pretty baby. I'll take ever such good care of it."

Chapter Eight - Rip Her to Shreds

I feel like Alice in freakin' Vampireland, I thought. Either that or a life-sized Barbie doll. Spike had left to "hunt" he'd called it and Drusilla had spent the last hour and a half playing with me. She'd fixed my hair just like hers and done my makeup just like hers. She'd wanted me to wear one of her dresses, but none of them would fit me.

I had the usual American girl's hang-ups about my body, I wished my boobs were bigger, my waist smaller, all that, but I was by no stretch of the imagination fat. All the boys back in high school seemed to think that what I had was more than all right. But Drusilla was so thin; her bones so delicate that the one dress she'd tried to get me into would not even begin to meet across my back. She'd given up on the dress and put me back in the jeans and t-shirt Spike had given me. She was searching in her vanity case for a ribbon to put in my hair when Spike came storming back.

"My lighter, you stupid cow!" he yelled, getting right down in my face. "You've got my lighter and I want it back, right now!"

I shrank back, trying to decide whether or not to deny I had it, although I knew that he'd find it on me easily enough. Dru didn't seem to be at all concerned by Spike's rage. She acted as if he'd stopped by for a cup of tea and to discuss the weather. "See how pretty I made it?" she said. "Its hair was in an awful snarl, but I brushed it and brushed it and now it's all shiny and smooth." She found the ribbon she was looking for and held it out towards me. Spike snatched it from her hand and wrapped it around my neck.

Pulling it tightly enough to frighten me, but not tightly enough to totally choke off all my air, he said, in a much calmer tone, "Drusilla, my dearest love, Miss Sunday here has been very naughty. I fear she must be punished."

This new, cold tone of voice scared me more than his yelling had. I was opening my mouth to plead with him when Dru squealed, clapping her hands. "Oh yes! Let's punish it now. Bad Sunday!"

Spike dragged me up by the ribbon around my neck. After Dru had given up trying to dress me up, she'd retied my hands and feet so, as Spike pulled and I couldn't move my hobbled feet, I fell against him so hard and suddenly that I knocked him down too, landing heavily on top of him. Uh-oh, I thought, that's not going to make him any happier with me.

He pushed me off him irritably, but took the opportunity to dig in my pockets for his lighter. He fished it out and held it, lit, in front of my face. "Little girls who play with fire get burned," he hissed. He jerked me up and slung me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing. Dru had gone ahead to the far end of the room and turned on the single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. He put me down next to where the manacles hung - leaning me face first against the wall.

Dru untied my hands and feet. She grabbed my left wrist and stretched it towards one of the steel cuffs. Spike stopped her. "Let's get her undressed first, love. Those are my clothes she's wearing and I'm rather fond of that shirt."

At that point I lost it. As they stripped the clothes off me, I struggled and screamed, tried to fight with everything in me but they were just too strong. As they hauled me to my feet and closed the manacles around my wrists, I was crying pathetically. I was stretched out face first against the cold brick wall, it chilled my wet cheeks and the roughness scraped my sensitive nipples. Drusilla took the wide red silk ribbon from around my neck and tied it over my eyes.

"Want your crop, sweetheart?" I heard Spike ask. "She's your toy, you get to punish her."

"What should I do to it, my darling?" she said. I could hear a swishing noise and got a very strong visual image of her swinging the riding crop back and forth, getting ready to lay into me.

"Rip her to shreds," came the cold reply. A shiver went through me. I knew I might very well not survive this. She was too crazy to know when to stop and he was too angry to care.

The first blow landed across my shoulders. It stung like hell, but the pain faded in a few seconds. But I knew that she was just getting warmed up. The following blows fell harder and faster all up and down my back, leaving me no time in between to recover. I was silent at first, trying to hang onto a tiny last shred of pride, but in no time I was screaming and writhing, trying uselessly to avoid the crop as it slashed across my back time and time again. I could feel the warm wetness of my blood trickling from the welts, I could hear, in between my screams, the drops of my blood flying off the end of the crop and splashing against the walls and the floor. The blows were being aimed lower, striping my ass and upper thighs now. I could no longer move to avoid them and the familiar blackness was creeping along the edges of my consciousness.

One more blow fell and I tensed myself for another, digging my nails into the wall. But instead of more pain, I felt a soothing wetness tracing the fiery streaks of pain on my back. "Mmm, it tastes like pain and fear," Drusilla said from right behind me. As she was licking the welts on my back, I felt two large hands on my hips and another tongue licking its way across the wounds on my ass and thighs.

I shuddered and sighed. It felt so good. The stinging turned to tingling and I could feel a warmth building inside me that grew as they licked the blood from my body. I let myself float, lulled into submission by their cool rough tongues, but, too soon, they stopped.

I was turned around, my back screaming again as it came into contact with the wall, and the ribbon was removed from my eyes. I blinked and saw Spike and Drusilla kissing, licking the blood, my blood, off each other's faces. When they were all clean, Spike whispered to his lover, "My turn to play with the pet, Pet?"

She smiled and nodded, turning to give me a cat that ate the canary look. "As long as I get to watch," she said.

Spike stalked towards me, fairly radiating menace. He dug the infamous lighter out of his pocket, once more holding it, lit, in front of my face. My eyes were drawn helplessly to the flame, watching as it came closer and closer. "How do you feel about your pet having no eyebrows, Dru?" he asked conversationally. I closed my eyes, not able to watch for another second.

"Don't hurt its pretty face," I heard Dru say in the background. "I want to play dress up with it and I can't if its face is all burned up." I opened my eyes hopefully.

Spike waved the flame towards my face once more and I jumped, but he lowered it. "What about her tits, my love, can I hurt her pretty tits?" I could feel the flame licking at the underside of my breasts as he moved it back and forth - never leaving it in one place long enough to actually burn me.

"Oh yeah, Spike," Dru said silkily. "Don't like her tits, they're bigger than mine."

"But not nearly as dainty and pretty, my plum." He clicked closed the lighter, extinguishing the flame and went over to Drusilla. He stood behind her and ran his hands over her small perky breasts, tweaking her nipples into stiffness. I could feel my own hardening as I watched. She rolled her head back into his neck and moaned a little, then opened her eyes to look at me.

"Look Spike, our pet likes to watch us play. But we're not done punishing it yet."

"Right you are, pumpkin. I'll finish with her and then you and I will have a good, long shag until the sun comes up."

Dru leaned away from him and he released her, going to a trunk in the corner that I hadn't noticed before. He withdrew a long black taper candle and lit it with his lighter. I'd seen colored tapers before and usually they were white on the inside with the color just a thin skin on the outside. This candle was black all the way through.

"I see you're noticing the special candle," he said as he got right up to me. "Black ones burn hotter, the darker the candle the hotter the wax." As he said this, he tipped the candle so a fat blob of molten wax fell onto my left breast. It burned like fire - the candle had been very close to my skin and the wax had had no time to cool before it hit me.

Chapter Nine - Rapture

Searing hot drops fell across the tops of my breasts until they were covered in a black crust of solid cooled black wax. Spike paused his torment for a moment to pick the crust off, ragged fingernails painted black some time ago, but with most of the polish flaked off scratching my irritated skin, leaving long red streaks along the hot pink flesh. Reaching above my head he tightened the chains, pulling me up on my toes, arching my back and making me thrust my breasts out. He tilted the candle again.

My scream rang out in the cement basement room, bouncing off the walls, seeming to grow in volume and timbre as the first drop of hot, hot wax fell on my right nipple from only an inch above it. He quickly hit the other one with a drop and I screamed again. Dru was standing right next to him and she reached out, picking the wax off my nipples with her frighteningly sharp nails, baring them for repeated assaults. The fire in my nipples spread throughout my body and I could feel, to my shock and horror, my sex swelling, moistening as my nipples stood up to take even more torture, swelling to reach the pain, hardening to intensify the sensation.

"Spike, my love," Drusilla crooned, "It likes it."

He leaned closer to me. With his free hand he felt my crotch, bringing his fingers up to smell my arousal. "Not another bloody one," he muttered, shaking his head. "Let's see just how deep it goes, then." He passed the flame of the candle itself across my nipples. I jerked and writhed but the feelings of arousal just intensified and grew.

He drew the flame, flickering, down my stomach towards my center. The acrid scent of burning hair filled the room. I couldn't see past my red, engorged tits, but I felt the heat burning close to my throbbing clit as it poked its way from under its hood. With two fingers, he opened my slit, driving the burning candle deep inside me. I was so wet the fire was extinguished immediately and I groaned, churning my hips as he drove the candle in and out of me, his thumb reaching out to flick my clit with each stroke.

First Dru and then Spike morphed into their vampire faces. Dru plunged her fangs into the red, inflamed skin across the top of one of my breasts while Spike bit the other one right on the nipple. I screamed again, but not from the pain. Well, not only from the pain, which I welcomed. As they drank, Spike continued to plunge the candle into me, working my hot clit.

I came, shuddering and groaning. Spike withdrew both the candle and his teeth, kissing the tip of my bloody nipple tenderly. He drew Drusilla off me, turning her to face him as, both still wearing their true faces; they kissed each other gently and delicately, licking my blood from each other's lips.

As their faces returned to their human guises, their kisses deepened and they sank to the floor in front of me, Spike drawing up Dru's skirts, revealing her long slender legs and smooth white mound. She made quicker work of getting his jeans open than I had the night before. His thick white cock stood up proudly as he rolled onto his back. She straddled him and sank down onto it, her eyes closing and mouth opening as she rode him, strange keening noises issuing from her as she drew her sharp nails first down her own chest and then down his. He gasped again, like he had the night before when I'd attacked him with my own long nails.

Ignoring me, they fucked long into the night. The last image I had of them before I fell into exhausted sleep hanging from my chains was Spike's face buried between Drusilla's long white thighs while she reached down and clawed bloody gashes across his back and shoulders

Chapter 10 - Cautious Lip

They left me pretty much alone for more than a week - letting me recuperate, I guess, letting my body replace all the blood they'd drained, letting some of the wounds heal a bit. The next day was hellish. I was stiff and sore from hanging, even sleeping, in the chains and the pain from the welts all up and down my back, ass and legs made the slightest movement torture. Compared to this, the bite wounds on my neck and breasts were trifles, but they could still complain pretty loudly if I accidentally touched them.

The only times I saw Spike, and I didn't see Drusilla at all, were when he brought me food and juice. He was apparently giving some thought to my health - no junk food, all food groups represented in the appropriate ratios, plenty of fluids. He also cared for my injuries. When I woke up the first time after the whipping, my wounds had been cleaned and dressed and at least once each day, he'd clean them again and re-dress them. I came to look forward to those times, although he seemed distracted and hurried at first - like taking care of me was a chore to be accomplished as quickly as possible.

After the first couple of days when all I could think about was the pain and sleep was the only way to escape it, I was bored, bored, bored, bored, bored. I paced the room (it was eight paces by eleven), tried jumping on the bed to reach the overhead pipes (they were still out of my reach), counted bricks in the walls, sang all the songs I knew, making up lyrics to replace ones I'd forgotten, and generally acted like a restless animal in a zoo.

I was still too nervous at first to complain about my boredom, but on the third day, while Spike was perfunctorily washing my back, I said, "It's awfully boring in here. Is there any chance of getting some books, or a TV?" I looked back over my shoulder to try to gauge his reaction.

He looked surprised. I didn't know why he should. Three days of being cooped up in a concrete and brick cell would be enough to drive a world champion Zen Buddhist meditator around the bend.

"Dru's never complained about it," he said.

"You lock Dru up in here?" I was very surprised - he seemed so solicitous of her, in fact, it seemed like she was the one in control of their relationship. Like all that mattered was her pleasure, catering to her whims. For god's sake, I was nothing more than a gift he'd given her.

"Sometimes have to." He looked down as he said this, making it plain that he didn't want to talk any more about it. But when he returned later that day with my dinner (steak that was cold and over-cooked, an unimaginative salad with thousand island, blech, dressing, a couple of slices of whole wheat bread, a glass of milk, double-blech, and a pitcher of grapefruit juice), he also brought, thank you god, a couple of beers, a pack of cigarettes, a small black and white TV and a tape player with a handful of home-recorded audio tapes.

He waited, smoking from the pack and drinking one of the beers, sitting at the foot of the narrow bed while I sat cross-legged at the head with the tray of food. When I finished eating and had set the tray on the floor, he lit up one of the cigarettes for me. My own damn fault, I told myself, for ripping off his lighter last time. He didn't need to worry. I'd never try that again. Twinges every time I moved were still reminding me of that lesson. I sucked in the smoke and sighed happily.

"Thanks," I said. "I've been dying for a smoke - although, not the nearly literal type of dying I did for the last smoke I had."

His eyes crinkled as he turned towards me and smiled a slow lazy smile, "Yeah," he drew the word out licentiously, "Quite a time we had. Gotta remember to go a little easier on you in the future. Forget sometimes how breakable humans are." He moved a little closer to me.

I blushed. I hadn't thought through all the implications of what I'd said. I felt a slow warmth begin to spread from my face and down my body as I remembered that night. The pain and the pleasure I'd felt through the pain, because of the pain.

"Betcha never knew that about yourself," he said, tilting his head to the side and giving me a long look up and down, his eyes returning to mine, gleaming smugly.

I looked away. "I don't know what you're talking about," I said primly, although I knew the redness of my face made me a complete liar.

"That anything that hurt so bad could feel so good." He leaned in closer. His face was inches from mine, my breath quickened. He whispered into my ear, his breath stirring the wispy strands of my hair, making it tickle me, "That this," I jumped as he suddenly bit my earlobe, "can feel just as good as this." He licked the lobe softly, sucking it gently into his mouth. I could feel my newly replenished blood supply driving my pulse to a quicker tempo as his cool tongue swirled in my ear.

He trailed his tongue slowly from my ear along the line of my jaw and, for the first time I realized, he kissed me. Gently at first but with increasing intensity his lips played mine, teasing them open, licking around them then thrusting his tongue deeply into my mouth. I sucked it in, giving myself completely to the sensations he caused in me, teasing it with my own then, remembering how he'd gasped when I'd scratched him, I bit it.

I felt him pause, then his mouth smiled against mine as he drew my tongue into his mouth and nipped it gently at first, then more sharply. Because his mouth was so cool, from a sudden increase in heat, I could tell that my tongue was bleeding. His teeth suddenly felt different, jagged, sharper. My eyes flickered open and he was wearing the face of his demon. I started to pull away, but he sucked more strongly on my tongue, nursing it, and the familiar drowsy pleasure suffused me and I leaned back into the kiss.

He broke the kiss way too soon for me. I blinked, in a daze, as he stood up, and then stooped to pick up the tray from where I'd put it on the floor when I was done eating. I watched him as he wordlessly left my cell, while every cell in my body screamed for him to come back and finish what he'd started.

The teasing went on for the remainder of the week. He'd come several times a day to bring me food and to attend to my injuries, which were healing very quickly (too quickly, it seemed to me). We'd kiss and grope a little and then he'd leave. Each time we'd go a little further, each time the feelings would be more intense, each time he'd mix a little more pain into the pleasure, completely blurring the line between them.

A careful caress along the underside of my breast would be followed by a sudden vicious pinch, and then the caressing would resume. Gently salving the fading welts on my back, he'd unexpectedly drag a fingernail along one of them, opening it, then licking the blood away. Likewise, while attending the welts on my ass, already nearly healed, as I lay stretched on my stomach and naked, he'd give it a flurry of slaps that would leave it bright pink and my cunt throbbing.

Because I had hours to think about it, I knew what he was doing. He was using the pleasure to make me crave the pain - mixing them up in my head until they were virtually one and the same. Still, he never gave me the release I needed. It made me furious. He could leave me, take his hard-on and use it on Dru while I had nothing but my fingers. The orgasms I could give myself were pale, weak things compared to the ones he'd given me - first in the alley and then with the candle while he and Drusilla drained my blood as I hung in their chains. Indeed, my self-induced orgasms were so disappointing that I soon stopped bothering.

On the seventh day, when he came in with my lunch, I was watching the small black and white television, trying to get involved in some soap opera, trying to figure out what was going on. He set the tray on the bed and seated himself next to me, pulling out a cigarette. He glanced over at the TV then surprised me nearly speechless. "Has Marlena figured out about Jon Black yet?"

"You watch this?" I squeaked, forkful of potato salad halfway to my mouth and hanging there. "You watch soaps?"

"Well, you try being stuck indoors all day with a bunch of useless, boring minions and you'd appreciate a good story on the telly, too."

I couldn't help it, I started laughing. The image of the big tough punk vampire watching the afternoon soaps was so incongruous, such a non sequitur. It was like thinking of John Wayne tatting antimacassars, Vincent Price pruning roses. I was laughing so hard that Spike snatched the tray off the bed and set it on the floor before I could upset it. I realized I was laughing longer and harder than the image strictly deserved, but I couldn't help it - it felt so good and it had been so long since I'd had a good laugh.

He stared down at me frowning, but eventually started smiling himself. As I wound down, gasping and wiping the tears from my face he said, "Never seen you smile before. Should do it more often. Looks good on you."

Of course, that just made me smile back more, almost made it impossible to stop smiling. "You should, too," I said. "It makes your eyes crinkle around the corners and look all warm and friendly."

He mock-scowled at me and said, voice low and growly, "You'd do well to remember I'm a big bad vampire who'd sooner kill you than look at you."

'Well, big bad, if you're not going to kill me today, sit down and tell me what the hell's going on on this show. Which one is Marlena?"

He gave me back the lunch tray and settled down next to me, explaining while I ate who Marlena was, that Jon Black was really her missing husband Roman (or something) and what the villain of the piece, Stefano (whom he really seemed to admire), had done to split them up. It all sounded like horseshit to me, but I played along, asking questions and hanging on his every word. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had decided to test me on it. And punish me if I got the answers wrong, although who knows, I might have gotten the answers wrong on purpose. I smiled to myself at this thought.

***

Oh fuck, I thought. My period.

The conversation I really, really didn't want to have would go, I imagined, something like this:

"Um, Spike?"

"What now?"

"There's something I need, women's things...."

After that, I didn't know what to say or what to expect - I mean, what is the male vampire's take on menstruation, anyway? Blood is blood? Or just Ewww! But in the meantime, I really needed tampons because the blood was positively gushing out of me. It was the heaviest period I could ever remember having. Probably because my hormones were all in a jangle from having, of necessity, gone off the pill.

I stuffed a handful of toilet paper into my underwear and nervously waited for Spike to show up with my dinner.

I was perched on the edge of the bed, chewing a ragged cuticle when right on schedule I heard the key in the lock. I stood up. This was a question I felt more comfortable asking while standing. Spike came in carrying a brown paper bag, but he dropped it immediately and rushed me, pushing me back down onto the bed then dropping to his knees on the floor. I squeaked in surprise when he grabbed my legs, yanking them apart and snuffling his face between them.

"You finally started," he growled, rubbing his demon face against my jeans-covered crotch. There was a loud ripping noise as he tore through the heavy cloth with sharp teeth. He ripped apart my panties and tossed aside the bloody wad of paper then paused. I looked down at him curiously. His eyes were closed and his nostrils were flaring as he took deep breaths.

"What in the world are you doing?" I asked.

"Smelling you," he said without opening his eyes. "Been smelling this coming on for a couple of days and now it's finally here."

"So I guess blood is blood. I've been wondering what the vampire reaction to this would be."

'More'n just blood. It's sex, it's meat, it's got texture, feel to it. Something to sink your fangs into." With rough, impatient fingers he pulled me open and buried his mouth in my bleeding cunt. First he licked up all the blood that was on the outside then positioned his mouth directly over the opening to my vagina and sucked. Sucked so hard it felt like he might pull me inside out. As he sucked, he thrust into me with his tongue, licking all around the entrance and jabbing it in as far as it would go, his fangs nicking me and still he pushed his face harder against me.

My back was bent like a bow as I raised my hips to meet his mouth, my breath coming in little gasps and moans. I could feel the pull of it all the way up to my eyebrows, rolling my eyes back in their sockets, sucking the very air out of my lungs. I was clutching the bedspread and rolling my head back and forth faster and faster as he drew the blood out of me, I knew that there must be a lot of my other juices mixing with the blood now and wondered if that made it taste better to him or if the taste of the blood itself overpowered it. It was the last thought I would be able to have for a long while.

Long, long minutes, hours went by as he sucked and licked, twisting his face against me to get deeper, get a better angle. The muscles in my back, hips, all the way down my legs and into my toes were screaming with the strain, held tensed and rigid, pushing me against him. I was making little yelps and squeals, alternating with deep moans and sighs as he kept me balanced forever on the pinnacle, on the edge, of coming. I wanted it so badly tears were beginning to leak out from under my eyelids and I grunted as I shoved my crotch up at him, trying to shift it to get my clit under his mouth, but he wouldn't let me. With strong, bruising hands he held my hips still, pinning them to the bed as he sucked and licked and sucked and licked until there could be nothing left - no blood left in my cunt, no blood left in my body.

Finally he pulled his face away. Crawling over me, he rubbed his bloody face on my torn jeans, raising my shirt to nuzzle my stomach. I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him up over me. All brow-ridged and fanged, his face smeared with my own blood, I seized him around the neck and kissed him hard, kissed him deep, tasting my blood and my wetness on his lips. I dug my fingers into his thick hair and wrapped my legs around his waist, plunging my tongue into his open mouth, putting all of my want and need and desire into the fierce combat of our mouths.

He pulled up against my grasping legs enough to get a hand between our bodies to knead one of my breasts, mauling it with strong fingers, digging his short nails into my flesh, pinching my nipple hard and twisting it. I tore my mouth away from his to take a deep ragged breath and he let go of my breast long enough to take the collar of my t-shirt in both hands and tear it all the way to the hem. As soon as it was out of the way, he kissed his way down to the other, so far untouched, breast and sucked my nipple deep into his mouth, nursing on it, pulling on it with a strong steady pulse. I looked down to watch his face as he suckled me, watched the demon retreat and the human part of him reemerge. As it did so, he became gentler, more tender.

It's not that he sucked any less powerfully. Maybe it was only the change in his face that made it seem that way. Or maybe seeing that face against my bosom, eyes closed, long dark eyelashes fanning his cheekbones made me feel more tender. I stroked his head and felt my frenzy being drained away with each pull of his lips. My pulse and heartbeat slowed to match it and my eyes closed of their own volition.

Inside my head, in the dark, I was only that feeling, that slow, steady, throbbing that grew stronger and deeper, like a relentless undertow pulling me down and out to sea, washing over me, shushing in my ears. The primal pulse of the universe, of things needed and needs sated yet never satisfied, the yearning beneath the fulfillment, the restlessness within contentment. I floated in it, in the blood warm sea. I could have stayed there forever.

Chapter Eleven - Little Girl Lies

I was up early the next morning, full of restless energy, busting out of my skin. I unplugged the TV from the single outlet in my cell, and plugged in the tape player. Grabbing one of the unlabeled, homemade tapes at random, I put it in the machine and punched the play button. The volume knob was twisted all the way to the right and loud driving guitars and frenetic drums filled the room. I winced a bit at the sonic assault, but quickly gave into the raw energy and enthusiasm of the music, bouncing around the room, dancing like a speed freak.

I was pogoing to "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" when Spike came in with my breakfast. I didn't see him at first, hadn't heard him opening the door. As he came over to set the tray down on the bed, I caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye and came to a screeching, embarrassed halt. I quickly turned the tape player off.

"Feeling all better, hmm?" he said, smiling at me. "Ramones really rock, don't they?"

I was sweaty and red-faced, gasping for air. "I guess they're okay," I said. I pulled up the hem of the seventh black t-shirt he'd given me and wiped my face with it. He'd brought me a clean shirt and underwear every day that week. This one said 'Eat the Rich." I guess he meant that literally.

Suddenly I was flying across the room as he tackled me, piling me onto the bed, sinking his teeth into the tender flesh of my bare stomach. Only his human teeth, though. He didn't break the skin, but he sucked and bit a huge purple hickey there. I was sighing and stroking his hair when the pitcher of juice on the tray he'd placed on the bed decided to tip over, soaking my face and hair.

I shrieked and jumped up so suddenly that I took him by surprise and was on my feet before he had a chance to hold me down. He fell back onto the bed himself, landing in the puddle. He jumped up too, the butt of his jeans soaked through. I stood there, feeling the trickles of juice running from my hair down my neck and back and started laughing at Spike as he twisted, trying to look at his ass while also trying to hold the wet denim away from his skin.

He looked up at me, laughing at him. He didn't look amused. I stopped laughing and started backing away from him as he stalked me around the room. "I-I wasn't laughing at you," I said, trying to placate him. "I just remembered this joke I heard. Wanna hear it?"

Apparently not. He grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder, smacking my ass hard as he walked us to the bathroom. He put me down, none too gently, on the closed lid of the toilet and turned the shower on. While his back was turned, I made a dash for it, although I have no idea what I hoped to accomplish. I just knew that sitting in a puddle of juice had seriously annoyed the vampire and the best thing to do with an annoyed vampire was to get the hell away from it.

I only got as far as the bathroom door. He grabbed me by the waistband of my jeans, his jeans actually, and yanked me back, shoving me into the shower, clothes and all. He quickly shucked his own clothes and stepped in with me.

This was the first time I had seen him completely naked. When he and Dru had fucked in front of me, they'd only moved aside their clothes in the necessary places. When she'd used her long sharp nails on him, she hadn't removed his shirt - she'd scratched right through it, leaving it in ribbons. He was magnificent. I'd never seen a body so white, so perfect. Think Michelangelo's "David," only leaner and harder. Although what he had between his legs could never be covered with a fig leaf. More like a banana leaf.

He let me stare for a minute, he knew how good he looked, then took the hem of my sopping wet shirt and pulled it over my head. He knelt in front of me and unbuttoned the button-fly of my jeans. Wet denim is a bitch to get off, and I nearly fell when he tried to yank the heavy cloth off my feet after peeling it down my legs. He steadied me with one hand on my hip as he tossed the jeans out to land with a squelch on the bathroom floor. Starting at my knees, he began kissing his way up my bare wet legs.

By the time he got to my crotch, I was completely noodlized. Weak as a kitten and limp as cooked spaghetti. He parted my legs and buried his face between them, pulling apart the sides of my slit to fasten his mouth directly onto my throbbing clit, as if to make up for avoiding it the previous evening. My knees let go completely and I had to grab onto his shoulders to stay upright. He sucked my clit hard, flicking it with his tongue, nibbling on it with his teeth. As my orgasm grew more and more imminent, I knew what I wanted.

"Bite me," I cried, "Bite me there, suck my blood from my cunt."

My words seemed to have the opposite affect to the one I wanted. He removed his mouth, pausing to give my clit one last, non-blood-drawing, nip. He stood. "Can't, love," he said, stroking my wet hair and kissing my neck. "Dru's remembered about you and wants to play with her pet again tonight. Gonna need all your blood for that."

"Well then, fuck me at least. You've been driving me apeshit all week and I don't know how much longer I can stand it." I was nearly crying with frustration. I reached between us to try to grab his hard cock that I could feel pressed up against my stomach.

He let me touch him, feel him, pump him for a minute while he kissed his way to my breast and suckled at my nipple. But he pulled away. "Can't do it, pet. Save it for tonight. It'll go easier for you if you're all hot and bothered. It's kind of a good-bye party and'll likely get pretty intense."

"Good-bye party?" I echoed, stupidly. "Who for?"

"I've got to go away for a little while, someone I got to find. I'm hoping that if I show Dru a really good time tonight, she won't take it out on you once I'm gone. Though she can do anything she wants to you, I gave you to her, after all."

My blood ran cold at his words. Even though Spike's anger over my theft of his lighter had been the reason for my 'punishment' the other night, Drusilla was the one who truly scared me; the one who had turned my back into so much raw meat with her riding crop. From what I'd observed and what he'd told me about her, I knew she was completely unpredictable, at turns savage and gentle. I desperately didn't want to be alone with her.

"Don't leave me with her," I begged, clutching at Spike. "You can let me go, tell her that I died from her beating."

I'd forgotten what he was, who he was. He turned a snarling face to me, grabbing my hair and pulling it hard, violence and rage in his eyes. I could see the visible effort it took for him to calm himself. He threw my head away from him, bouncing it against the concrete wall of the shower. "Get washed up before all the hot water's gone," he said in the coldest voice I'd ever heard him use.

He stepped out of the shower, turned around to face me and continued, "Never think I won't give Drusilla whatever she wants, whenever she wants, whomever she wants. She's my dark Goddess, my black beauty and you're a stupid little slut lucky enough to have good-tasting blood. But if Dru wants to drain you and throw you away tonight or any other night, I won't miss you and your mouth at all. You think I like taking care of you? I'd rip your throat out right now if Dru didn't still want to play with you some more." Still naked and dripping wet, he strode out of the bathroom. I heard the door to my cell slam behind him, shaking the very foundations of the building.

Numbly I finished the shower, washing the juice out of my hair, the final rinse in freezing cold water. Shivering and goose-bumped, I wrapped myself in a towel and left the bathroom. I had nothing to wear that wasn't wet and couldn't even get into the bed to warm up because it was a soaked, sticky mess. I slid down the wall to sit on the floor and began to cry.

I was an idiot, I told myself. I had let myself think that because he took care of me, he was coming to like me, even to care about me a little bit. I had forgotten who he was, what he was. I'd been telling myself lies, deluding myself. Like a little girl making up stories of nice monsters under the bed that would protect her from the nastier monsters in the closet. Monsters is monsters, I told myself. No such thing as nice ones, only nasty ones that want to eat you. I giggled feebly at this thought as I remembered the way the Spike-shaped monster had just been 'eating' me.

To my own deep shame, I couldn't stop thinking about him. And instead of being afraid of the coming ordeal, I was, god forgive me, becoming aroused.

I heard the door opening and I looked up hopefully. Maybe Spike had regretted what he said and was coming to assure me that everything would be all right and that he wouldn't let Dru kill me tonight. But, no, it was a vampire I'd never seen before, in full demon face. I drew the small towel closer around me and stood up.

He leered and tossed me a bundle of clothes, "The Mistress wants you to wear these tonight." He had trouble talking around his teeth. I almost laughed, a little hysterically, but kept a straight face and thanked him solemnly. He just grunted and left, making sure I heard him locking the door - the bolt sliding home with a resounding clunk.

From the position of the light coming through the small window high on the wall, I could see it was still morning and there were many hours to wait before the evening's festivities. Many hours to wait and worry and wonder if I'd survive. I slid back down the wall, burying my face in my hands.

Chapter Twelve - No Imagination

I must have spent hours huddled up against the wall, my ass chilled and numb from the cold floor. I was motionless, but I was thinking hard.

Dispassionately and rationally, as if I were a case to be analyzed, I reviewed the events of the last week and some days. The answer to my behavior presented itself pretty quickly - Stockholm Syndrome. What had happened to Patty Hearst when she'd been kidnapped by those terrorists and had become one herself. Subconsciously I'd been trying to like my captors in an effort to be more likable to them so they wouldn't kill me. We'd studied it in Psych class. I wondered how many opportunities to escape I'd let slide by unnoticed because of it.

None, really, that I could recall, but that didn't mean that I mightn't have failed to recognize one if it had presented itself. I gave myself a good mental shake. Now that I knew what was happening, I would be that much more alert, that much more prepared to act. Their guard had to be let down sometime and if, in the meantime, I'd shown that I wasn't trying to escape, they wouldn't be expecting it when it happened.

From the way Drusilla had treated me before Spike discovered my theft of his lighter, I thought that she might be craving a little female companionship. I could play on that, flatter her, do girly things with her. Show Spike I didn't need him, or expect him to protect me. Maybe even come between the two of them, get Dru on my side, get her to.... I stopped this train of thought in its tracks. I was supposed to be plotting my escape, not my revenge on Spike for not feeling about me the way I was coming to feel about him. Work on Dru, yes; revenge on Spike, don't bother - just get the hell away from him. That would be revenge enough.

That decided, I examined the clothes the unnamed vampire had brought me. I hoped that Drusilla had remembered that her clothes didn't fit me. I was surprised to find that they weren't like the doll clothes she wore. These looked more like something Spike would have chosen - punk bondage hooker wear. There were black fishnet stockings, complete with matching black garter belt (but no panties); high, high, stiletto-heeled black patent leather shoes; a short black leather mini-skirt and a black leather bustier that fastened with a silver zipper up the front. There were also zippers running under each cup in semicircles from where they met the vertical center zipper, dipping under my breasts and rising again on the outsides of the cups - exactly where the underwire would be on an underwire bra. There was a small zippered bag that had make-up in it. I spent the remainder of the afternoon trying on the clothes and experimenting with the make-up, trying to find just the right look to go with the ridiculous outfit.

I was dressed, made up and pacing nervously when the same vampire who'd brought the clothes to me came to take me to Drusilla. He was dressed exactly as I imagined a proper English butler would be dressed. I guess we all get costumes for this party, I thought. Before we left my cell he pulled my hands behind me, clapping a pair of handcuffs on my wrists. He also took the opportunity to try to play a little grabass until I stepped back heavily on his foot with the sharp heel of my shoe. Grumbling under his breath, he shoved me out the door and down the hall. As we emerged into what I'd come to think of as the 'main room' I set my face into an impassive expression, but my heart was beating a mile a minute.

The room was filled with, well I guess they weren't people. Vampires, then. Some were wearing their vamp faces, some weren't. I suppose I was only guessing that the ones with human faces weren't actually humans, but somehow I didn't think that Spike and Drusilla would be socializing with them if they were human. Slow music that I later learned was The Velvet Underground played the song "Venus in Furs" in the background and there were lit candles everywhere.

Along the three walls of the dungeon end of the room women were chained, some already looking pale and dead, bites all over them. As I watched, one huge, hulking brute of a vampire, dressed like a trucker, leaned over a young girl and literally tore her throat out with his teeth. My stomach flipped - not only from seeing it, seeing the blood sheeting down her front, but from the memory of Spike threatening to do that same thing to me. I stumbled on my high heels and nearly went down. With an exasperated sigh the butler vamp pulled me up by my handcuffed wrists and pushed me forward.

As we came a little farther into the room, Drusilla noticed us. With a few quick words, she detached herself from the small group with whom she had been talking and came over to me. "Sunday," she said warmly. She looked delighted to see me and pressed a kiss on each of my cheeks then, to my amazement and embarrassment, she kissed my mouth.

Frozen with shock, I stood still while Drusilla moved her soft mouth on mine. Over her shoulder I could see Spike, along with everyone else in the room, watching. My eyes narrowed then closed. If he wanted to watch, I'd give him something to see, I thought. I kissed Dru back. I kissed her passionately, frantically, my mouth open, my tongue tangling with hers. Soon I wasn't thinking about Spike at all. I'd never known that kissing a girl could be as sexy, as arousing as kissing a man. Her long delicate hands danced over my body and I longed to be able to embrace her, give her back the caresses she was giving me, but the handcuffs forced me to put all the passion I was feeling for her into the kiss itself.

Inevitably the moment came for the kiss to end. She pulled away, smiling and satisfied looking. She gave Spike her own long look over her shoulder. Turning back to me she said, "Oh dear, its lipstick is all smudged." From the dainty beaded purse that hung from her wrist, she took a handkerchief and wiped my face. She pulled out a lipstick next and carefully repainted my mouth.

When she had finished and was returning the lipstick to her purse I took my life in my hands and spoke to her. I had never dared before. "Please, Mistress, may I fix your lipstick, too?"

Her hand flew to her face as if she could feel how her makeup looked. I was so afraid that I had made her angry, said something about her appearance that she might consider disparaging. Stomach in my throat I waited while she considered. When she smiled and pulled the handkerchief and lipstick back out of her purse, my relief must have been palpable. She held them out, expecting me to take them. I gestured with my handcuffed wrists, twisting to show them to her. She snapped her fingers and pointed and the butler vamp unlocked and removed the cuffs.

Not pausing to rub my sore wrists, I took the handkerchief and lipstick from her. She held her face forward to me like a small child would hold a dirty face up to her mother. I gently wiped the smudged lipstick from around her mouth. As carefully as I could, as carefully as if my life depended on it, as well it could, I applied the dark red lipstick to her soft lips. Putting the lid back on the lipstick, I handed it and the handkerchief to her - raising her hand to my lips to place a reverential kiss on it. "Thank you, Mistress."

After replacing the items in her purse, she brought a caressing hand to my cheek while holding the other out imperiously to the butler vamp. Digging in his pockets, he brought out a black leather collar with a silver buckle and attached leash, which he handed to her. She placed the collar around my neck, adjusting it so that it was tight, but not too tight. Turning, leash in her hand, she walked, I followed her as, of course, I had to, to the fainting couch and sank down gracefully. When I began to sit next to her, she frowned and pointed to the floor. I sat on the floor and the party resumed around us. Show over, I guessed.

From my place on the floor I watched as all the attending vampires came up to Drusilla one at a time to exchange a few polite, respectful words. She was very much the queen holding court. During a pause in the stream of polite visits, she raised my hand. She drew a long sharp black nail along the vein on the inside of my wrist, making a break in the skin about an inch long. She raised my wrist to her mouth and sucked on the cut for a slow minute. Even without the pain of the bite, even though it was my wrist and not my neck, the familiar pleasure of being drunk from oozed through me and my eyes closed, my head fell back against the side of the couch. After she stopped drinking with a long lick along the length of the cut, she continued to hold my hand in hers, her thumb tracing the soft skin of my inner wrist, her other hand stroking my hair.

The music was soft and slow, Saint-Saens now, the lighting dim and low and all conversations were held in quiet tones. Drusilla, the girls chained to the walls and I were the only females there. All in all not what one would think a vampire party would be like. Not unless you noticed the comings and going from the far end of the room where the "refreshments" were. Even Spike seemed subdued as he went from group to group. Occasionally he'd take someone aside for some intense whispered talk. The someone would listen and nod, as if receiving instructions of some kind.

Spike finally came to Drusilla. He was dressed as he had been at CBGB's, the first time since then that I'd seen him with his platinum hair carefully spiked, black eyeliner and jewelry on. He sat next to her on the couch, shoving me out of the way with a black booted foot. "Dru, love," he said, "'bout time I shoved off."

"Must you, Spike?" Dru asked. She looked peevish.

"You know that we only have a little time left here before we meet Darla in Rome."

"Italians," Drusilla complained. "They always taste like garlic."

"You know that's just a myth, poodle. Anyway, garlic can't hurt you and you've been at me to go see Darla for ages now. Master doesn't let her leave the Hellmouth very often. Afraid if we went to see her there, the Master wouldn't let us leave and I'm not going to get stuck sucking up to his bat-facedness for the next fifty years."

"He thinks his freedom comes with the shaking, but only his doom shall follow."

"Shall it then? Well, never too soon for me. Can't stand these traditionalists, they've got no imagination."

He sat in silence with his arm over Drusilla's shoulder for a moment, but his heel was tapping a frenetic beat on the floor and he was drumming his fingers on his knee. He was looking in exasperation at the other vampires maintaining a cautious distance from him. "Bugger this for a game of soldiers," he muttered under his breath. He leaned over and spoke in Dru's ear, "What say we send the minions away and you and I can play with the pet? Reward her for her good behavior."

Drusilla looked down at me. I was careful to display no emotion, but I leaned my head into her stroking hand. "It has been a good little doggie," she said. "Yes, Spike, let's reward it."

Chapter Thirteen - Slow Motion

With a few claps and sharp words, Drusilla dismissed the minions who fell over themselves in their haste to obey her and leave. They left me alone with Drusilla and Spike, wondering what my reward would be. With them, there was no telling.

Oddly for that time, although I find nothing odd about it now, of course, I paid no mind to the poor humans chained up at the other end of the room. There was nothing I could do for them, the ones who were still alive anyway, and nothing I could think about besides how to survive, myself. I had no doubt that making any appeals on their behalf would quickly see me joining them. I resolutely put them out of my mind.

Dru stood and jerked on my leash, pulling me to my feet. Spike stood as well and took the leash from Drusilla. "I'll hold her while you get the toys," he drawled, surreptitiously running a hand under my skirt and over my bare ass. "Just the little box should be enough for now."

Dru fairly skipped to the far end of the room, pausing there only long enough to have a quick bite from one of the chained women before rummaging around in the large trunk from which Spike had taken the black candle the other night. She pulled out a small, highly polished wooden box and skipped back to Spike and me. By this time Spike had two fingers deep inside me and while I was careful to let nothing show on my face, I could feel my knees weakening.

"Oh, do pull your fingers out, Spike," she said fussily as she put the box down on the table closest to the couch. "It's not ready for that yet. You're always so impatient." He withdrew his fingers casually and brought them to his mouth. Between licks he said, "Just warming her up, sweetness. And nice and warm she is."

Dru wasn't paying any attention to him; she was rummaging in the box, pulling items out and laying them aside on the table. To herself, she said "I'll have this and this and, no, not this, and maybe this. This I'll save for later...." When she had everything she wanted, she closed the box and set it on the floor.

The first things she used on me were a pair of leather manacles, or whatever manacles for ankles are called, with ropes attached. While Spike held me steady, she took one ankle and after fastening the cuff around it, tied it one of the legs of the couch. She repeated the action on my other ankle, tying it to the leg at the opposite end of the couch. This caused me to stand with my feet very far apart and forced the leather mini skirt to ride up high on my hips, barely covering my bare pussy and ass. Spike held me for the moment it took for me to find my balance in such an odd position.

Next Dru passed an odd glove-like looking thing made of black leather to Spike. It mostly resembled a long tube that laced up the side. He took this and threaded both of my arms behind me into it. As he laced it shut, it covered both my lower arms up to the elbow, pulling my elbows together and drawing my shoulders back in a way that pushed my leather covered breasts up and out to the point where they were only barely covered by the leather anymore. Looking down, which wasn't easy with my arms in that position, I could see a little of the dark area around my nipples peeking over the edge of the bustier.

Dru took each of the tabs of the zippers running under my breasts and pulled them. The leather cups fell away; leaving my breasts completely bare above the black leather that still covered my midriff.

I was helpless, frightened and very, very turned on. My nipples were stiffening in the cool air and I could feel that same cool air caressing the wetness between my legs. Drusilla stepped close to me and again kissed my lips. I felt no shock or shame this time. I returned the kiss immediately, opening my mouth to her, sucking on her tongue, then thrusting mine into her mouth to flick the roof, trace her teeth, twine with her cool nimble tongue.

She was holding my head as we kissed, her hands plunged into my hair, long spidery fingers massaging my scalp, but I felt two more hands reach from behind me to close over my breasts, wriggling between our two close-pressed bodies. Spike was kneeling on the couch behind me, his chest pressing against my back, his hard cock grinding against my ass, next to my bound hands.

He kneaded my breasts, twisting my nipples as I arched my back to push them into his hands. I moaned into Dru's mouth as Spike began to bite my neck and shoulders, taking small nips and nibbles, worrying the sensitive place where my neck joined my shoulder, then licking up my neck to my ear, biting the lobe, breaking the skin so a thin trickle of blood started which he quickly lapped up.

Although it was awkward, I used my bound hands to rub his cock, scratching it through the denim. He removed one hand long enough to unzip and free himself, then reinserted his hand between me and Dru, only this time turning it to fondle her breast - I could feel the back of it against me, rubbing me. I drew one of my long nails along the underside of his cock, making it jump; he bit my neck harder in response. I pinched the head of it, feeling slippery fluid ooze out between my fingers, just a few drops. I spread the fluid over the head, as more oozed out, spreading it farther, using the slipperiness to pump his cock between my tethered hands.

Drusilla ended the kiss and stepped away. Her gown was disarranged where Spike had been fondling her breast and she left it that way, one breast uncovered. Small, white and round, the nipple was hard and pale pink. I wondered what it would taste like. "Spike," she said warningly, distracting him from what he was doing to me, what I was doing to him. He straightened and stepped off the far side of the backless fainting couch, zipping himself up as he came around to stand next to Dru. He rearranged her dress for her, pressing a quick kiss on her bare breast before pulling the bodice back over it.

She scrutinized me, looking me over as I stood there, legs far apart, arms tight behind my back. "It needs something pretty, something sparkly," she said, turning to the table where she'd lain the things she had taken from the wooden box. She selected something and turned back towards me. "Hold it still, Spike," she said, "This will hurt it."

Spike put one arm around the back of my shoulders, holding the one opposite to him and held me tight across the waist with the other. Dru held what looked like a long delicate chain with rhinestones between the links between her hands. She took one end of the chain and held it to my left nipple. There was a wicked looking alligator clamp with sharp teeth attached to the end of the chain. Spike moved his hand from my waist and pinched my nipple, stiffening it, holding it, and me, still. She pressed the ends of the clamp together, opening its little, vicious-looking mouth. I shrank back against Spike's arm, a spasm of fear and desire shooting through me in anticipation of the bite.

I wondered if it would be easier if I closed my eyes, but I couldn't. I could only watch in horrified fascination as she positioned the open toothy mouth of the clamp around my hard nipple. The action of her releasing the clamp came through my eyes and into my brain almost in slow motion, I saw the teeth bite into my flesh seconds; it seemed before the message of pain got from my nipple to my brain. But when it did get there it was screaming and so was I.

My knees crumpled, I would have fallen on my face if Spike hadn't held me up. With every beat of my heart, with every pounding pulse, my blood would try to force itself through my clamped, bleeding flesh and new waves of pain would scream through me. At this point, passing out seemed like something much to be desired. But no such luck. As I came to learn during my time with Spike and Drusilla, the point at which the pain could make me faint would be pushed further and further each time I was tested.

I had screamed myself hoarse while they stood and watched until I finally came to a gasping silence. The throbbing in my nipple was just barely more tolerable. I took a deep breath and steadied myself on my feet. I wished I hadn't. Spike immediately took hold of my other breast, thumbed the nipple to erectness and Drusilla quickly clamped it, too. I won't bore you repeating the description of the pain; suffice it to say that it was no less intolerable the second time around.

When I was once more in control of myself, Dru came to me and stroked my cheek, crooning, "There, there, dear. All better now, all pretty. See, Spike, how pretty it looks?"

"Pretty as a picture, love. Can I fuck her now?" came the leering reply as he reached around to gather some of my blood from the tiny rivulets running from my nipples. In my left ear I could hear him suck it from his finger before he reached down to give my nipple a gentle brush that sent fresh waves of pain zinging through me.

"Spike, Spike, always so impatient. Will you never learn that what comes before is more fun than the carnal relations?"

"Guess not. You'll have all the time you want to play with Sunday while I'm gone, but I've got to head out before dawn. Places to go, slayers to kill. Tell you what, I promise you that if Sunday's still alive when I get back, we'll play with her as long and hard as you want - make a party of it, a dead Slayer party."

She turned and spoke to me, "My Spike's going to kill another Slayer. I'm so proud of my darling." I tried to look properly impressed, I had no idea what she was talking about and was myself more than ready to be done with the before stuff and get on with the fucking. As the pain had ebbed to a tolerable level, the continuing throbbing was sending my cunt a message of lust, of need, of emptiness needing to be filled.

Drusilla sank gracefully into the leather club chair and waved a languid hand at Spike and me. "Do whatever you want with it. I shall just watch you."

With a growl, Spike leapt on me, tumbling me back over the couch. My ankles were still tied to its legs and my head and shoulders were hanging over the back of it, my bound hands trapped underneath my body.

He slid down my body, the rhinestones on the clamps and chain catching in the fabric of his shirt, tugging my nipples painfully. He continued to slide down between my knees and pushed up my short leather skirt. Using both hands he spread my pussy open and attacked it with mouth, tongue and teeth. Sucking my clit into his mouth, he let go with one hand long enough to reach up and wrap the chain attached to the clamps on my nipples around it. When he returned his hand to my cunt, the chain pulled hard on my nipples, but the pain became only one part of the pleasure he was giving me with his mouth, one part in the overall harmony of lust and need and blood and sex and mouths and cunts and fear and want and death and pain and pleasure and pleasure and pleasure.

I was screaming again, my breathing harsh and ragged. I was so close to coming and I could tell it would be an orgasm to make all previous orgasms seem as about pleasurable as a good sneeze. I was almost, almost, almost.... He stopped.

My growls of frustration lasted only as long as it took him to rise up on his knees, unbutton, unzip, push down his pants and plunge his thick cold cock into me. He fucked me so hard it felt like it would come out my throat. He fucked me so fast that I imagined all Drusilla would be able to see would be the white blur of his ass as he pounded me. He reached up and yanked a clamp off one of my nipples, replacing the clamp's teeth with his own, chewing it like a stick of gum, sucking it like a narrow straw in a really thick milkshake.

The force of my orgasm began in my toes, traveled up my legs and hit my cunt with the force of all of god's natural disasters rolled into one. But it didn't stop there - the waves continued to rise up my body and just as the tsunami force of it was about to blow out the top of my head, he sank his fangs into my nipple and drew great whopping mouthfuls, cupfuls, bucketfuls of my blood out through my tit, flooding my cunt with his cold semen.

Fainting seemed the only logical thing to do at this point, so I did. The last thing I remember was the sound of Dru's delighted applause.

Chapter Fourteen - One Way or Another

Waking up someplace different from where I had fallen asleep, or passed out, whichever the case had been, was becoming the norm. And each time I managed to be surprised to be waking up at all. Yet, every time I did wake up, it made my determination to survive that much stronger. I wasn't going to end up like the refreshments at the party, like the girl hanging in chains with her throat ripped out. One way or another I was going to survive this and I was going to be stronger for it.

I did a lot of hard thinking and desperate acting during the two weeks that Spike was gone and I was alone with Drusilla. There were times when I felt like I'd found a new best friend and times I thought that my new best friend was going to rip my head from my shoulders.

To say that Dru was hard to get along with is like saying that jeans with those little appliqus sewn on them probably should never come back into style - each a masterpiece of understatement. Sorry, appliqus are a pet peeve of mine. You should have seen the number of them on the peach bridesmaid dress. Half made me glad to have been kidnapped if it meant I wouldn't have to wear that thing in public.

What I mean is that walking over acres of eggshells is easier than trying to get along with Drusilla, trying to guess her moods, knowing how to behave at any given time, trying to guess what might set her off.

Frankly, I'm surprised to have made it through with only the one scar to show for it. It's this little one here in my right eyebrow. Doesn't look like much now, thought I was going to lose the eye at the time.

Oh, you want more specifics about it? Well, at first it wasn't too bad. As long as I kept my mouth shut and let her push me around, dress me up and pet me like a dog, I seemed to do okay. But as the days went by, she got stranger and stranger, more mercurial, less, well, sane.

A typical day during that first week? I don't really remember a lot of the specifics - I was pretty weak still from the blood loss. Spike had drained a lot and when I woke up, curled up on a rug in the floor at the foot of Drusilla's bed, I had a fresh bite on my neck, so I guess Dru had had some too.

Not too long after sunset, Drusilla would wake up. She'd kick me awake and unlock the chains holding me where I slept on a rug at the foot of her bed. She'd send me off back to my cell with one of the minions who would lock me in while I showered. When I was done, I would knock on the cell door and he'd, all the minions were males, hand me some clean clothes. Each night I had a new costume: French maid, punk whore, tavern wench, prom queen, little drummer boy, cheerleader. Frequently, they'd be clothes last worn a night or two ago by whomever had been dinner.

I never let myself think too much about where the clothes had come from and why there was a never-ending supply of them. I did wonder, however, why, if there were all these clothes available, Spike had brought me only his own clothes (except the panties and shoes) during the week I was recuperating from the whipping. I could only conclude that in some way he was keeping my presence a secret from Drusilla, waiting to see what state of mind she'd be in when she did remember me. But I can only speculate.

When I was returned, clean, dressed and made up, to Drusilla's frilly, girlish bedroom with its lace-covered canopy bed, she'd be dressed in one of her sumptuous white lace gowns, usually playing with one of the dolls from the shelf-full of china dolls she had. Sometimes she'd have her makeup on, sometimes she'd have me do it. (I'd figured out about the no reflection thing being true one day when Spike surprised me in the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth. That's a funny story; remind me to tell you sometime.) She'd put the collar and leash on me and lead me on my hands and knees into the main room.

I never did learn exactly how many rooms there were in that rabbit warren of a basement. There was my cell, the main room, Drusilla's room where Spike would sleep when he was there, but he had another room for his things, his television and stereo. There was a utility room with a washer and dryer and, presumably, there were rooms where the minions slept and did whatever they did when they weren't following Dru's orders. Dru kept me by her side all the time except for the half-hour each day that I was allowed for showering and so forth.

There had been upwards of twenty vampires at Spike's good-bye party, but only five were around day to day. First thing each evening she'd see them, get reports on what they'd been doing, tell them what to do that night. Mostly mundane things like getting rid of the bodies, cleaning up the dried blood, doing laundry - finding out who hadn't gotten the bloodstain out of her favorite dress, things like that.

At that time I didn't know why she never went out and hunted for herself, as far as I knew at that time, she never did. I learned later that she'd promised Spike not to leave. So she'd tell whoever was doing the grocery shopping (read catching and dragging the live meat back to lair) what she wanted for dinner. It seemed to me like a twisted version of the grand lady of the manor giving her servants their instructions. I mainly sat at her feet wearing my collar and leash and pretending to be invisible. Just the grand lady's lapdog. The other vampires ignored me unless she ordered them to do something or get something for me, which was just fine with me.

She wasn't too good at remembering to feed me. One time she'd have them bring me a plate of sliced lemons, other times it would be pomegranates or custard. Always just one thing and usually no more than once a day. I learned to eat whatever I was fed and be grateful for it.

After the minions had received their instructions and gone off to fulfill them, there would be a couple of hours when Drusilla and I would be alone. This was always a nerve-wracking time for me. If things were going well, all tasks performed to her satisfaction, no arguments between minions to be settled, Dru would either ignore me or play with me like a big doll. If things hadn't gone well, I would spend the next couple of hours huddled in a corner, protecting my face and ribs from vicious kicks as she paced, muttering to herself.

But this wasn't always the case. Sometimes she'd shrug off some minion's fuck-up and spend the evening having me do her nails and sometimes, even if things with the minions were going well and she was pleased with them, she'd turn on me, drive me into the corner with kicks and slaps, rail at me for crimes I'd not only never committed but that I didn't understand. Saying I'd put snakes in the woodshed, or that it was my fault that ants had ruined her picnic. I could only apologize over and over for things I hadn't done and do my best to be as small a target as possible.

The times I liked best were when she would tell me stories about the adventures she and Spike had had during the nearly one hundred years they'd been together. There was this one story about a town in California called Boca del something or another. It never did make any sense, but it sounded like they'd had a grand time fighting the demons that worked for an evil mayor, searching for something called a glaive. But then she'd get to the part about naming stars and moving castles and I'd lose track of the story. Somehow the glaive did these things or helped her do them, she'd start singing a song about crutches and chameleons and caricatures (and she really couldn't sing at all) and go off into some other world. I'd just be quiet and wait for her to come back.

A couple of times she started to tell me about something that happened in Seville in Spain, but she would always break off, saying, "Spike doesn't like me to tell that one."

But her favorite story was when Spike killed something called a slayer in China around the turn of the century. One night, when she was in a particularly good mood and I was gently brushing her long black hair, I asked her what a slayer was.

"Slayers," she said, grinning a particularly malevolent grin, "Slayers are what Spike likes to kill."

"Are they, like, uh, vampire hunters? People who try to kill vampires?" I asked. Trying to have a conversation with Drusilla was like algebra to me. It made a weird sort of sense up to a point and then I'd get lost. Okay, I never said I was a genius. Barbie was right; math is hard.

"Only one, a Chosen One, then, snicker-snack," she gestured abruptly, making

violent scissor motions with her hands, "she's dead and there's another one. Pretty maids all in a row. My Spike is the gardener, snipping off their pretty heads so newer, prettier heads can grow. But, poor Spike, the prettiest of them will snip him." She gave me a sly, sidelong look, "Snip you too, if you're not careful."

Her voice trailed off and she got a very sad look on her face. To distract her, I asked, "The slayer is a girl?"

"Just a little girl, no older than you, Miss Sunday, but much less naughty." She reached up and gently removed the brush from my hand and guided me around to stand in front of her, then gestured to me to kneel. She brought my hand to her mouth. She ran her tongue along the back of it, then turned it over and licked my wrist. If it's quiet and you listen carefully you can hear it when their faces change. A soft crunching noise, like rubber stretched tight and moved against another tight piece of rubber. The sound you'd imagine shifting bones and muscles would make. Her face changed and she bit into my wrist.

I sighed and melted with the pain. Weak with pleasure, I leaned my head into her lap; my other hand curled around one of her ankles, stroking it tentatively. When she didn't kick my hand away, it got bolder, stealing up her leg under her dress to caress her smooth white thigh. Her soft sweet sucking on my wrist paused for a second then continued, which I took to be tacit permission to go on doing what I was doing.

My heart in my throat, I raised my head from her lap and reached for the smooth skin at the apex of her thighs. Her legs parted, allowing me to gently trace the line of her hairless slit. I had never felt skin so smooth and soft and perfectly cool. Applying just a little more pressure, I parted her and found the little swelling bump. I wiggled my finger tentatively. Her thighs parted a little more and she sucked a little more strongly on my wrist as I gently rubbed her.

She detached her teeth from my wrist and licked the wound. I had noticed that when they licked my bites or other wounds, the blood would clot faster and they'd stop bleeding almost immediately. Pushing me away for a moment, she daintily raised her white skirts and spread her legs wider. She reached out for me, grabbing the back of my head and forcing my face into her pussy, clutching and pulling at my hair. I took as deep a breath as I could, seeing as I was face down in her wet flesh, closed my eyes and started licking.

The taste wasn't unfamiliar or even particularly unpleasant to me. I had curiously tasted my own excretions on occasion and she didn't taste all that different. I used my hands to open her, as I remembered Spike had done to me. In fact, I tried to reenact on Dru what he'd performed on me. Only gentler at first, tongue only, no teeth. I sucked on her clitoris, lashing it with my tongue then sliding it down to lick at her entrance, thrusting it in as far as possible. Rolling my eyes up I stole a glance at her face.

Rather than looking happy or like she was enjoying it, she had a look of frustration on her face. She shoved her hips harder at my face, grinding my face harder against her. Experimentally, I took her clit gently between my teeth and nipped it. She gasped and stilled then, as if asking for more, opened her legs even wider. I began to nibble on it and then moved a hand to her weeping hole. As I began to bite her a little harder, I pushed a finger into her, then another, pumping them in and out of her.

She began chanting in a guttural voice, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah. Harder, harder." Scraping my teeth over her clit, sucking it hard, I added a third finger and, unbelievably, a fourth. Her cunt seemed to suck on my hand, drawing it in deeper and deeper. Just to see what would happen, I carefully inserted my thumb along with my four fingers and pushed. With almost a gulp, her pussy swallowed my hand whole, the strong muscles at the entrance strangling my wrist.

Her hands left my hair and I stole another upwards glance. She was playing with her tits, scratching them with her long black nails, twisting her nipples, pulling them. She was gasping and emitting small squeals and yelps. She seemed well on her way and the last thing I wanted to do was frustrate or delay her, so, as I continued to chew and suck her clit, I rotated my hand inside her, flexing my fingers, scratching at the walls of her cunt. I could feel the muscles rippling and spasming around my hand as she started to come. I thought she would break my wrist, but I continued to lick and bite and suck, doing it gradually more gently as her body slowly relaxed. Finally I was able to wiggle my hand free with a little slurping pop.

I leaned back on my heels, breathing deeply. I had a dark purple ring of bruises around my wrist and my mouth was numb from all the sucking and licking. Sitting up in her chair, Drusilla reached out and took my wet hand, brought it to her mouth and licked it clean like a big contented cat.

Chapter Fifteen - Platinum Blonde

A day or so after my "impertinence" as Dru called it I had finally gotten all the feeling back in my left hand. Okay, I'm exaggerating a bit, but you get your hand caught in a vise like hers and then tell me you didn't have the worst and longest lasting case of pins and needles you've ever had.

Instead of sending me back to my cell to shower, Drusilla took me into the bathroom that adjoined her bedroom. Sitting me down on the closed toilet lid (what did she need a toilet for, I wondered), she rummaged in the medicine cabinet and pulled out a box. Miss Clairol, color #30S - Flaxen Blonde; the photo on the box showed a model with platinum blonde hair.

She was in one of her silent moods and did the job without a word, but I was surprised by the efficient competence she displayed as she mixed the foul smelling stuff and squirted it over my head, working it well into my long dark brown hair. Although, if she did Spike's hair on a regular basis, I guess she'd had lots of practice. My hair was so long and thick that it took two bottles to completely saturate it. She piled the gloopy mess of hair and dye onto the top of my head and carefully wiped the excess away from my face, around my ears and on my neck. Then she left the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

I sat still as a statue, not wanting to disturb anything, but the dye began to sting and then burn my scalp like fire. I had no way of knowing how long she left me in there, if she'd forgotten me, if the burning I was feeling was going to leave me completely bald and disfigured, but I didn't dare move. Tears were trickling down my face when one of the minions eventually came in and took me to my cell and the shower there. There's no adequate description of the relief I felt as I washed the dye out of my hair and off my scalp.

The image that regarded me from the mirror was unrecognizable. It hadn't come out as white-blond as Spike's; it was a more yellow, less platinum, blonde. I'd always been perfectly happy with my hair, had never, unlike most of my friends, played with the color or even the style of it too much. I preferred to keep it long and dark. But the blonde did seem to suit me. So much so that I've always kept it this way, although I've learned a few tricks to make the dying process a little less painful.

The costume for the evening was that of a Valkyrie, straight from a Wagner opera, complete with breastplate and horned helmet. I felt indescribably silly as I braided my new blonde locks to compliment the outfit, humming "kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit."

When the minion led me into the main room to take my accustomed place at Drusilla's feet, she lifted one of the blond braids and said, "Oh, yeah, much better. Rhine maidens should have golden hair. Rhine geld, wine gold, swimming, sinking under the ice." She leaned her head down next to mine and held one of her burnished black ringlets next to my new blond braid, winding the locks around each other. Then she lost interest in me and continued berating the minions as she had been doing when I first arrived.

It seemed to me that the longer Spike was gone, the less patience she had with the day-to-day running of things and she began giving the minions stranger and stranger orders, orders that it was impossible for them to accomplish. Things like bringing her the actress Sarah Bernhardt to perform for her, or taking an invitation to the Duchess of Windsor to join her for tea. Each time the minion so instructed was unable to accomplish one of these impossible tasks, she would just wave him away and with a mischievous sidelong smile she'd write the minion's name on a scrap of paper in her tiny flourished scrawl. Eventually she had a scrap of paper for each of the minions stuffed into the bodice of her gown. Every so often she'd pull them out and shuffle through them, giggling maniacally.

Chapter Sixteen - The Attack of the Giant Ants

The thirteenth night after Spike left, the shit hit the fan. Or rather, the dust hit the floor and Dru rolled around in it.

I can't say that I hadn't felt something building in her. She was quieter than usual, only breaking her silence to titter behind a hand lifted to her mouth like a little girl with a secret plan.

I could tell something was different as soon as we entered the main room. She had found, or had had made, a dress for me that exactly matched hers, only black, with little matching button up boots. And instead of having me sit on the floor at her feet, she sat me next to her on the fainting couch, wrapping her arm around my waist and guiding mine to rest around hers. I was the negative to her positive - my black dress and blonde hair the opposite of her white dress and black hair.

Instead of all the minions being there and waiting for their instructions, the room was empty. She reached to the small table to her right, picked up a small bell and rang it. One of the minions, the great hulking one I'd seen tear a girl's throat out, entered the room. She left him kneeling in from of us for the longest time while she caressed me and took little blood kisses from a small cut she'd made along the top of my exposed shoulder.

He was shifting uneasily from knee to knee as he waited, not daring to look up. Drusilla took her arms from around me and opened a drawer in the table the bell was on. She withdrew a piece of wood, about eight inches long and whittled to a sharp point. She stood and walked around behind the minion. With no more warning than that, she plunged the piece of wood, the stake, into the minion's exposed back. He exploded in a giant puff of dust. She brushed a few stray motes from her dress, muttering something about ants being all over her, sat back down next to me and rang the bell again.

She staked the next one and the next, but when the fourth was kneeling in the pile of dust that had formed on the floor, she handed the stake to me and nodded. I stood nervously. I knew what she had done. She had given each of these vampires something impossible to accomplish and this was their punishment. While I wasn't sad to see them go, they were vampires after all and had killed who knew how many people and none of them had ever been at all nice to me, it did make me that much more afraid for myself. They had served to distract her for a few hours each night, giving me a respite from all the desperate eggshell walking being with her entailed and once they were gone, all her attention and insanity would be focused solely on me.

As I hesitated, Drusilla's expression became stern and she made abrupt pantomime stabbing gestures. Drawing a deep breath, I raised the stake high in both my hands and brought it down into the minion's back with all my strength.

Which turned out to be barely enough. It was harder than it had looked when Dru had done it to drive a thick stake which had already been dulled by the bodies of three previous minions through skin and muscle and into the creature's heart. I can still remember the feel of it up my arms as the stake passed through the first resistance of the skin, the stiffer resistance of the muscle and the grating feel as it ground between the ribs before striking the heart. As he turned to dust, the faint outline of his skeleton hanging in the air for an instant, I dropped the stake with a soft flump into his dust and the dust of the ones who had been killed before him.

Drusilla cheered and clapped, crying, "See, the giant ants. They shall have no cake with their tea!" She rang the bell one last time and the only remaining minion entered. He was a little quicker on the uptake than the others had been. When he had come close enough to see the pile of dust with the stake lying in it, he turned to run out the door he'd just come in.

Faster than I could see, Dru was there before him, standing between him and the door. Grabbing him by the neck, she lifted him clean off the floor, his feet dangling as he pried uselessly at her fingers. "Kill the ant," she said to me in the calmest, most reasonable tone I'd ever heard her use. I picked up the stake, blew some of the dust off of it and once again plunged it through skin and muscle, sliding it between ribs to pierce the heart. As the vamp exploded, the dust was caught in a stray draft and covered Dru's white dress and black hair with gray.

She grabbed me for an impromptu polka across the basement then spun me away so hard I crashed headfirst into the brick wall. The blood dripping into my eyes blinded me. When I'd wiped enough away and my vision had cleared a bit, I saw her rolling on the floor in the dust, scooping up handfuls of it and letting it rain down over her head, rubbing it in her hands, rubbing her hands down her face, laughing wildly. But the laughter turned to tears and wailing as she thrashed around, tearing at herself with her long nails, ripping her dress, making long red rents in the white skin of her chest and arms. I was frozen, I didn't think I could stand without fainting and even if I could get up and go to her, I didn't have any idea what to do for her to calm her down.

After what seemed liked hours, she had worn herself out to the point that she could only lie still in the dust, in the rags of her dress, dragging her nails over and over down her arms and moaning piteously. I was just about to experiment with creeping out of the room, ready to play dead if she seemed to notice me move when the door slammed open and Spike strode in, huge grin freezing on his face as he took in the scene.

Chapter Seventeen - Fade Away and Radiate

"What the bleedin' buggering hell is going on?" Spike snarled, taking in the scene of Drusilla rolling in the dust of their erstwhile minions and me leaning against the wall, face red with dried blood, blinking up at him blearily.

He didn't wait for an answer but went immediately to Drusilla, gathering her into his arms, holding her hands still to stop her from scratching herself. As he knelt by her side, pressing her head to his chest, stroking her dusty hair; spread around him on the floor like a black cape was an addition to his wardrobe I'd never seen before - a long black leather duster. I giggled weakly, cape - vampire - get it? Fortunately he was too focused on Dru to pay any attention to me.

"Oh Spike," Drusilla was moaning, "The ants came and I killed them and killed them but they kept coming. Can you see them? Crawling all over me?" She convulsed, struggling frantically in his arms, trying to scratch the non-existent insects off her arms and face while he desperately tried to stop her. Her wails grew in pitch and volume as she thrashed. Looking grim, he placed his forearm around her neck and pulled it in towards himself. After a few moments her struggles lessened and soon she was entirely limp, unconscious. He picked her up, stood and strode from the room down the hall towards my cell. I could hear his fading voice whispering endearments to her.

If only I hadn't felt so dizzy and nauseous my escape attempt might have been less of a debacle. I had risen shakily to my feet and was creeping along the wall towards the door through which the minions had come and gone, through which Spike had made his dramatic entrance. The door that must lead to the outside. I was still some yards from it because I'd had to lean on the wall all the way around the room for support rather than cutting straight across, when I heard the cell door shut and his boots ringing on the cement floor of the hall, growing louder as he approached. I put on a desperate, terrified burst of speed and was actually halfway through the open door when he snatched me by my hair, flinging me back across the room, much the way Dru had done. This time, though, I got my hands up in time and was able to prevent a repeat concussion.

I crumpled on the floor, too disappointed and exhausted to be frightened, all I could do was cry weakly.

"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing, you stupid bint?" he snarled. I could only shake my head weakly and refuse to look at him. Grabbing me around the neck, he pulled me upright and clean off the floor, bringing my face up level with his. In my weakened state even a few seconds of this oxygen deprivation was allowing lovely blackness to seep through the cracks. I could feel my eyes rolling up, my muscles going slack as I hung from his fist. I was just about to gratefully succumb when he set me on my feet with a jar that sent my spine poking up through my brain. Or so it felt.

Leaning against the wall, I brought a hand up to my bruised throat and croaked, "Would you just fucking kill me already? I can't stand this anymore. Let me go or kill me, I really don't care which."

"Would do, but Dru made me promise not to. Said you'd helped her kill the ants. How far did you think you'd get in this condition anyway, you dozy cow?"

"Don't care, had to get away, had to stop it somehow. The craziness, the dust, can't be careful anymore, just let me die or sleep. I'm so tired." My voice rasped into silence.

I was sliding back down the wall when he grabbed me again, this time by the shoulders, pinning me upright. He looked me over with a calculating eye. "You're skin and bones. Hasn't she been feeding you at all?"

I laughed, a weak bitter sound even to my own ears, "I think I had three lemon slices the day before yesterday. Guess I won't be coming down with scurvy before starving to death."

"Do you have any idea how irritating you are, girl? Three quarters dead and still with the mouth."

"Gotta have at least one more sensible conversation with someone before I die, even if it's just with myself."

"Honestly don't know how she put up with you all this time."

"I was careful never to say anything sensible."

We just looked at each other for a moment. Then we both started laughing. At that point it was all the same to me - laughing or crying - it was just something to do while I waited for him to kill me for not taking care of Drusilla, for trying to escape. And I just didn't fucking care. I didn't know why he was laughing - he probably didn't know any more than I did what to do, how to react. He'd had quite the homecoming.

'Look, Dru will be out for a while. How about I take you out for some real food and you tell me everything that's been going since I've been gone.

I goggled up at him, "Out? You mean like really out? To someplace outside?" My brain couldn't quite wrap itself around the concept. My whole world had been constrained to these few rooms for forever, it seemed to me. Out was something I'd dreamed of once, dreamed of so vividly that it had momentarily seemed a memory until reality had forced it's way back in.

The reality of Drusilla and her insanity, the minions and their insolence and leering looks, collars and leashes and kicks and slaps and once-upon-a-time stories and dreamy bites and biting hunger and furious thinking and the never silent drive to survive that had driven me to this now of exhaustion and passivity and incredulity and maybe this was the dream and I'd wake up in my bedroom in the 'burbs that was half packed up and empty as I readied myself for college and life in the dorms. Yes, that must be what was happening. This was just a dream and since I didn't seem to be able to wake myself up, I'd float along with it for a while, especially since this dream man was offering to feed me some dream food for which my dream body was starving.

Okay, I know what you're thinking. Spike had been only been gone about two weeks and it had not even been quite a month since that night in the alley behind CBGB's. How much of a wuss was I? I know, I'd thought it myself, telling myself over and over as I ticked off the days that this was nothing, that people had survived, their sanity and scruples intact, for months, even years in captivity and that I'd be damned it I'd let it get to me, make me give up, go crazy, do anything that wasn't smart and strong.

I wish that chronic blood loss and constant fear mixed with heady pleasure and arousing pain sounded like a more convincing excuse, but this is what happened, this is what I was feeling and this is what they brought me to - a shaky delusional mess, ready to accept anything that happened to me out of sheer exhaustion and the inability to cope with any more fear. I just didn't have the energy to care. My will to live, my will to fight just seemed to fade away. Fade away and radiate into the relief of giving up, of letting go and getting on with the damned dream.

Chapter Eighteen - Living in the Real World

Drunk on freedom, high on giving up and giving in, I floated next to Spike along the dark city streets looking for an elusive all-night diner. Stars blinked like Christmas lights in the ceiling of the sky; the walls of the buildings we passed were comfortingly close and confining along the narrow streets and alleys. Horizons and vistas were unknown and unknowable words to me. This was the real world to me now, even if it was a dream, and I would live in it because there was nothing else to be done.

Next thing I remember, I was sitting across from Spike in a booth in a small brightly lit diner in the Bowery, shoveling eggs and hash browns into my mouth, chugging orange juice and coffee and talking a mile a minute. The relief of not having to consider, reconsider and consider again each and every word had opened the floodgates and words poured out of me like a vow-of-silence monk who'd just lost his faith and didn't regret it one little bit.

"A fucking Valkyrie! Can you believe it? Metal tits, horns and all. All the outfit was missing was one of those eight-legged flying horse thingies. I'm surprised she didn't want an aria. Or the entire Ring Cycle."

Spike smiled at me distractedly but looked tired as he watched me eat and listened to me ramble on. If the sight of the half-chewed food in my ever-open mouth put him off at all, he didn't let on. He just chain smoked and listened, picking at his plate of onion rings. I'd been surprised when he ordered and even ate some of them, but shrugged off the paradox, added the question to my growing list, not letting it interrupt my wordgasm. Not even the two cops who came in briefly to pick up a couple of cups of coffee to go could distract me.

When I got to the part about Dru staking the minions and the giant ants, he began to nod, like he'd heard it all before, frowning a little. "Is this a thing with her?" I asked.

"Means it's time to move on," he said. "Be heading off to Rome soon as she's up to it."

"Did you find the Slayer?"

"Told you about that, did she?"

"She told me about the one you fought in China. Is that really where you got that scar in your eyebrow?" I reached across the table to touch it, completely forgetting I was still holding a biscuit dripping with butter and honey. He jerked back as a drop of honey fell from the biscuit, just missing his coat.

"Hey, watch the leather! Got sentimental meaning, this has."

"Must be pretty new sentiments. You didn't have it when you left."

He smiled, a slow bone-chilling smile. The kind of smile you'd expect to see feathers hanging from. "Yeah, sentiments of the new and excitin' variety. I'm a sentimental bloke." His eyes glazed over a bit like he was remembering something with great fondness. After a long moment he gave himself a mental shake, glanced back at me and said, "Look, you about done stuffin' your face? Sun'll be up soon an' I gotta get back, see if Dru's awake."

I stopped eating to consider the question. Um, yes, I was full enough to pop. The message just hadn't had a chance to get from my stomach to my brain yet. I set my fork down, wiped my hands on the napkin and said, "Are you talking me back with you?"

"Seems she's taken a shine to you. Was all Sunday this and Sunday that when she wasn't natterin' on about the ants. 'Fraid she might have another turn if she wakes up and you're not there. 'Sides, might need you if I can't get away to find someone for her to eat."

Odd as it might seem, once I had some food in me and could feel my strength returning, my first impulse was not to try to escape again; it was to go back and see if I could help Drusilla recover her wits - such as they were. Probably a whole mish-mash of psychological syndromes and whatnot happening - needing to feel needed, the pleasure of the bite, the excitement of never knowing what was going to happen next, throw in a dash of the feeling of immortality all the young have and you might have something approximating my condition. Spike and Dru could give lessons in conditioned responses to the KGB, but hey, they were never boring. And I still wasn't completely convinced that this wasn't all a dream.

He gestured to the waitress who came over with the check. I started to slide out of the booth. "Gotta go to the bathroom," I said. I was just starting to stand when his hand whipped out, grabbing the wrist of the hand I was pushing up from the table with. I yelped and fell back onto the bench.

"Not by yourself, you're not. Hold it till we get back." he hissed, shooting a sideways look across the diner at the waitress back behind her counter and a couple of solitary night owls propping it up at each end.

"Let go of me!" I snapped, jerking my wrist, but he didn't let go. Neither the waitress nor the other customers even so much as glanced at us. "These losers don't give a shit. If I were going to scream or something, I'd have done it ages ago when those cops came in." I put a little wheedle into my voice, "Come on, I really gotta go."

"Then I'm coming in, too."

"Fine, whatever!" His grip loosened enough that I was finally able to snatch my hand away. I slid out of the booth and headed for the bathroom, not even looking behind me to see if he was following.

Damn, I thought as soon as I opened the bathroom door. It was a good-sized room, but there weren't any stalls, just a toilet and sink and a rolling towel thing. The diner was in one of those old pre-war buildings with high, high ceilings and there was a small window right at the top of the wall. Doubtless to keep people from skipping out on their bills, as much as to prevent burglars from entering, there were security bars on the window. Spike came up right behind me and gave me a shove. As I stumbled a few more steps into the bathroom, he followed and shut the door, locking it behind him.

"See," I said. "There's no way for me to escape, so just wait outside until I'm done."

"You're bossy when you're not hungry anymore, ain'tcha?" Instead of leaving, Spike was stalking towards me, a wicked smile just beginning to curve his mouth. I backed away, I knew what that smile meant and while otherwise, yippee, right now there would be no ingressing of any kind, only egress and that as soon as possible. Put plainly, I had to piss too badly to want to fuck.

'Nuh uh, oh no you don't," I said. "Not before I pee."

"Well then, have your slash already. I'll just watch." He leaned back against the sink that was directly across from the toilet and waggled his eyebrows at me.

Sighing exasperatedly to cover my giggles, I threw in the metaphorical towel and carefully looking anywhere but at him, hiked up my dress (panties were never part of the costumes Dru gave me) and sat. My face had to have been as red as the blood still streaking my newly blond hair. After I had wiped and flushed, I automatically went to wash my hands, shoving him away from the sink with a sharp hip check.

The water was running so I didn't hear him behind me, I just felt him raising the lacy long black skirt of my Dru-style dress. I glanced up at the mirror above the sink, seeing nothing but my own startled face. Oh right, I'd forgotten about the whole unreflection thing. I looked back over my shoulder. Sure enough, there he was, looking down as he raised my skirt high enough to uncover my bare ass.

He held the fabric up with one hand while he placed the other between my shoulder blades and pushed so I was bent over the sink at nearly a right angle, my hair trailing, getting wet from the still running water. I grabbed the sides of the sink for balance and pushed my ass out towards him. With my back nearly flat like this, my skirt stayed up over my waist, freeing both of his hands to slide over my ass and between my legs.

He kicked my legs farther apart then stepped closer to stand between them, rubbing his groin against me, the rough fabric scraping my skin. He leaned over to grab my tits, tearing the bodice of the dress, the sides of his open leather coat tenting us. He snuffled at the back of my neck, rooting his face around in the hair covering it. I reached up and moved it out of the way, bending my head down to present it to him. He fastened his mouth on the nape, biting it, sending the familiar liquidity through my muscles. My knees weakened.

He released one of my breasts to grab me around the waist and keep me from falling. He moved his hand lower, tucking it between my legs, dipping a finger into my wetness then rubbing my clit with it in time with his other hand twisting my nipple. I closed my eyes, leaning back to grind my ass against his body, waves of pleasure rushing through me like the water rushing out of the faucet next to my head. I giggled to myself as one of those stray thoughts you have at even the most passionate moments entered my head. It's a good thing, I thought, what with the sound of all this water that I don't still have to pee.

"Somethin' funny?" he growled in my ear.

"It's nothing," I shook my head a little then gasped as he gave my clit a particularly vicious twist. "It's just, oh, um, oh, it's just... oh, god, yeah, do that, yeah, that, harder." Anything I might have had to say was swallowed by my incoherent mumbling as his fingers worked on my clit and nipple and he sucked, licked and bit the back of my neck.

I whimpered with disappointment when he released me and stood upright. With a firm hand on the back of my neck he kept me in position as he shoved his jeans down. He rubbed his hard cock between the cheeks of my ass for a minute before driving it into my cunt. He wrapped his hands around my neck and leaned over to whisper in my ear while he fucked me.

"Had the Slayer's neck in my hands, just like this, when I killed her," he rasped, his hands tightening around my throat as he fucked me slow and deep. "She was looking up at me with those big black eyes, defying me, hating me and I squeezed just a little bit harder," he fucked me faster, harder, punctuating his words, "and I saw it. Saw the moment she gave up, when she gave in, when she wanted it and wanted me to give it her." His hands tightened even more, little sparkles of light were dancing across my eyes, his fast desperate thrusts smacking my head against the mirror.

"This coat was hers. Mine now. Like her death is mine, like you're mine. Do you want it? Want me to do what I did to her? Are you seeing what she did when I had my hands around her neck, choking her, strangling her? What? Can't talk? Tell me. Tell me what you want. You want this?" He fucked me even harder. The only answer I could give him was to fuck him back just as hard. Yes, I wanted it, I wanted it all, the sex and the blood and the death; the lunacy, the fierceness, the desperation, fear and wild manic joy and the teeth and the cocks and the cunts and all and everything and let there be more, please god let there be more.

"She gave it up to me and I gave it to her, what she wanted. I twisted her head just so," an impossible pain shot from my neck all along the length of my spine and up into my head as he demonstrated the 'just so.' "And as I twisted it...just a little further...I could feel the crack of her neck breaking before I heard it." Cold semen flooded me as he came, as I came, and I truly thought it would be the last thing I would ever feel.

Chapter Nineteen - Picture This

Of course, I'd thought that a lot of times before and would think it many times after. That the end had finally come, that I'd been a smart ass one too many times, that this time they'd taken too much blood, that this time he really would fuck me to death. What a little drama queen I was. A regular Pauline, as in The Perils of. Funny that the hero and the villain were the same guy.

So, no snuff scene enacted there in the diner bathroom, although, how deliciously sordid that would have been, but then, you'd be sitting here drinking coffee all by yourself, not staring at me in open-mouthed shock wondering if I'm sincerely crazy or if I'm just having you on in a very long-winded way. But you're still here, still listening; I haven't frightened you away quite yet. Don't worry, I will. Oh, there's the waitress. Bring me another cup of coffee, this one's cold.

Where was I? Oh yeah, so picture this, Spike was strangling me as he fucked me from behind in the diner bathroom. It was only years later that I heard about gaspers, erotic asphyxiation, breath play. At that time all I knew was that I was having one hell of an orgasm and that being strangled almost to the point of unconsciousness only made it that much more intense. Seriously, what a way to go. Or come, as it were.

So anyway, Spike pulled out and zipped up. I collapsed on the dirty bathroom floor, come running down my leg, sucking in air like an industrial strength vacuum cleaner and nursing a wicked headache. I watched as he went to the roller towel thingy and ripped the length of cloth toweling out of it. He tossed an end of the towel through the security bars on the window high up on the wall (it actually took him several tosses to get the towel through the bars, swearing a blue streak the whole time) and yanked the whole thing off the wall, catching it before it could crash to the floor.

I dragged myself to my feet and shut off the taps. The sudden silence was eerie. I grabbed some toilet paper and mopped myself up. "Why'd you do that," I asked.

"I'm skint," he said. "We're goin' out the window."

"Skint?"

"Broke, no dosh, quid-free," he said, impatiently.

"Oh, you mean you don't have any money. Why didn't you just say so?"

"I did." He gave me a disgusted look and went over to the toilet. Shutting the lid, he bent over, grabbed it around the bowl and pulled. I could see the muscles of his legs straining through his tight jeans as he slowly pulled the entire thing out of the wall. As it suddenly came free, he nearly fell over backwards, but caught himself with his usual feline grace. Water from the torn pipes gushed all over the red and white linoleum squares of the bathroom floor. I backed up, trying to keep my feet out of it but the room was quickly flooded.

He dragged the toilet underneath the window, hopped onto it and jumped. He caught the edge of the window and dragged himself up, holding himself there with one hand while with the other he broke the window and knocked out the jagged glass with his leather covered arm. He pulled himself through and somehow turned around to reach back through the window towards me, one arm braced to hold himself in place. I was just kind of gaping at him; this was the most blatant display of his inhuman strength that I'd seen so far. All grace and ease and fluidity and oh god, I was thinking about sex again.

"Come on, girl, someone's gonna wonder about all the water soon."

I lifted my skirt and climbed on the lid of the toilet and then stepped up onto the porcelain cover on the back of the tank. I reached up, his hand just barely reached mine, but he grabbed it and pulled me up and through the window, jumping down and taking me with him, but catching me against his chest before I could crash to the cement of the alley that ran behind the diner.

The sky was getting lighter in the east; he grabbed my hand and began running, towing me along behind him as I tried frantically not to trip on my skirts. He ran me through a maze of alleys and back gardens, over walls and under clotheslines. It was an area of the city I was unfamiliar with, but that he seemed to know well. In one dark alley, he abruptly stopped. I crashed into his back and began to say something indignant, but he clapped his hand over my mouth. I bit back whatever it was I was going to say and contemplated biting him.

"Stay shtum," he hissed in my ear. I gave him a puzzled look. He rolled his eyes, "Be quiet."

Someone was walking up the street that the alley let out onto. As the footsteps drew nearer Spike tensed. He released me, but held a finger to his lips and frowned at me. Yeah, yeah, I thought, I get it. I shrank back against the alley wall and watched as Spike grabbed a length of pipe from the ground and leapt out of the alley. I heard a sickening crunch and a few seconds later Spike dragged an unconscious man into the alley, past me and to one of those metal double doors set into the concrete that commonly lead to the storage area of whatever business is at street level. He dug a key out of his pocket and used it to open the heavy padlock holding the two sides of the door closed. Opening the doors, he threw the man down some stairs then closed and relocked the doors behind him.

I followed Spike back out of the alley and around to the front of the building. It was a very nondescript, dirty and neglected looking building, abandoned, with the windows boarded up. I wasn't even sure if we were still in Manhattan or if all this time I'd been kept hostage out in one of the boroughs. The JAP (that's Jewish American Princess for you ignorant gentiles) in me would be disappointed if this were the case. Somehow the Bowery, the East Village, hell, even Harlem, seemed more fitting a venue for this adventure than BBQ. More dangerous, less squalid. What's BBQ? Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens. Think before you ask such stupid questions.

He pulled aside one of the boards covering a doorway with a screech of nails. "Used to have a guy guarding this door, would nail it up again whenever anyone came in or out. Guess he's dust now," he remarked.

He lit his lighter and held it up so I could see a little better to negotiate the steep narrow stairs leading down to the basement. At the lowest level there were several halls that branched out. He took off down the one going to the left and I followed him to where he had thrown the guy from the alley. Dragging him by his coat sleeves, Spike and I returned to the main room of his and Dru's "lair."

The man was showing signs of waking up, so Spike quickly chained him to the wall and gave him another crack over the head. He slumped, hanging by his wrists. It was a position I remembered well. I looked at him. He was youngish, even kind of cute. A stupid kid staggering out of an after hours club at just the wrong time. Might even have been someone I had gone to high school with. I knew I should be feeling something, I mean, I knew what was going to happen to him. He was nothing more than food to Spike and Drusilla but to me he should be another human being. Someone in trouble, someone about to be killed, someone that I should feel something for - pity, fear, anger? Something. All I felt was glad that he was here to be eaten so that I wouldn't be. To me he wasn't even as important as the good meal he represented to Spike.

I was still thinking about this when Spike caught hold of my arm. "Dru's awake. I can hear her. She might want to see you. C'mon." I couldn't hear anything, but I'd had plenty of opportunities to observe that vampire hearing was better than mine. I followed him down the hall to my cell. Or the cell that had been mine. Was he going to lock me in there with her or put me someplace else? Maybe Dru had gotten over the ant thing already and wouldn't need to be kept there anymore. I wished I knew better what to expect.

When Spike opened the door, I could tell right away that Drusilla hadn't gotten over anything. I could hear her moaning and sobbing, hear her thrashing. As I followed Spike into the room, in the dim early morning light filtering through the one small window, my dark-adapted eyes could see her and the bed. She was tied to it, hands and ankles spread to the four corners. He had used padded cuffs so she couldn't hurt herself too badly, but she did look pitiful writhing against them, her moans and sobs diminished to kittenish mewls, her hair, always so beautifully done, in wild snarls and tangles, her lips drawn back from her teeth in the obscene rictus of a skull

He closed and relocked the door then went straight to her side and began murmuring to her. I hung back; it looked like a private moment. The scene was almost too sad to watch. He was kneeling by the bed, stroking her hair, kissing her face, whispering a string of soothing endearments, but she continued to thrash and moan and whimper. I just couldn't watch it any longer. I went into the bathroom to escape.

The face that looked back at me from the mirror was pale and expressionless. I had a ring of blue bruises around my neck and a nasty looking scab on my right eyebrow where Dru had thrown me into the wall. Before Spike and I went to the diner, I had managed to wipe most of the blood off my face with a fold of the black dress since the blood wouldn't show on it, but my hair was streaked with dark rust-colored stains. I peeked out the bathroom door. The tableau of crazed woman and anguished lover had not changed. I shut the door again quietly, took off the tattered and bloody black dress and stepped into the shower.

When I came out, clean and wrapped in a towel, Dru was quiet. As I crept closer, it looked like she was asleep. Spike was sitting on the floor next to the bed, resting his head on the edge of it. His posture fairly screamed his weariness and despair. I placed a hand on his shoulder and he looked up at me. He looked like he had been crying. Or maybe was just very, very tired.

"Is there anything I can do?" I whispered.

He looked back at Dru and just shook his head. Stiffly, he pushed himself up off the floor and stood. He drew me back a little ways from the bed and said, "She'll sleep for the rest of the day now. See how it goes tonight. Maybe she'll eat something."

He unlocked the cell door and we left Dru lying shackled to the bed, tucked away in the corner, safe from the meager daylight.

"You look exhausted," I said. He was slumped against the hallway wall.

"Been a kinda intense couple of days. Not quite the homecoming I was lookin' forward to. Should've known, though."

"How could you have?" I asked

"She always gets like this when I leave. Just thought that this time I'd prepared her well enough. Taken care of things for her. Given her a new toy to distract her."

"Sorry I didn't do a good enough job." I'm proud to say that I managed to keep most of the affront out of my voice.

"Hell," he snorted a laugh. "You survived. Better'n any of her other toys have done. Like the bleedin' songbirds she always forgets to feed."

"She really wasn't too bad until last night."

"Yeah, well. Just gotta wait it out now. C'mon, guess we could both use some kip."

We went into Drusilla's girlish bedroom. He looked pretty incongruous in there, what with his leather coat and all, but I guess that's where he was used to sleeping. I went to the rug on the floor at the end of the bed and got ready to curl up on it, unfolding the blanket that I'd been allowed by Dru. He took the coat off, dropped it on the floor and flopped on the bed then half sat up. "What the bleedin' hell you doin' down there?" he asked.

"This is where Drusilla told me to sleep."

"Well, get into the fucking bed like a normal fucking person." He sat the rest of the way up and pulled his shirt off over his head. The necklace with the padlock and a longer chain with dog tags on it jingled. I nervously stood, walked around to the other side of the bed and perched on the edge, holding the towel tight around me.

Spike got completely undressed and slid under the covers. He flipped back a corner of them and said, "Get rid of that wet towel and get into bed." I peeled the towel off and slipped under the covers with him. Funnily, I was expecting to feel body heat from him, but of course I didn't. His skin was cool and smooth against mine. He rolled so he was facing me and draped an arm across my stomach. "Just so you don't go anywhere," he muttered, he already sounded half asleep.

Then he was dead. I don't mean sleeping like the dead. I mean he was dead. Not breathing, not stirring, cold. His chest was pressed against my arm and I should have been able to feel a heartbeat but I didn't feel anything. It was like being clutched by a corpse. It was seriously creepy and I was just too tired to care.

Chapter Twenty - Do the Dark

When I woke up I was alone. I stretched, luxuriating in feeling none of the soreness I was accustomed to from sleeping on the floor, although there was a very pleasant soreness in a certain part of me. Enjoying the moment of privacy in the warmth of the soft bed and warm covers. Free to fart, scratch my ass, whatever I wanted to do without having to worry about anyone else being around. But I couldn't stay there any longer, I really needed to pee and I was very thirsty.

I got out of bed, glad for the rugs covering the cold cement floor and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind me out of habit. She might not have needed it, but thankfully the toilet did work. I thought about that. I mean, blood is liquid and once their bodies had taken from it what they needed, wasn't there some sort of excess to be got rid of? I shrugged. Just another of the many mysteries. I was compiling quite a list of them. I dashed some cold water on my face and drank several handfuls of it. I studied my face in the mirror. The food and sleep had done wonders for me. The purple bruises around my throat had faded a little and the cut in my eyebrow looked to be healing as well. I picked up Dru's hairbrush to try to work some of the knots out of my hair. Going to sleep with it still damp had so not been a good idea. I was picking at a particularly stubborn snag when the door flew open, crashing against the wall and Spike stood there, looking mad, then relieved.

"Oh, there you are. Thought you'd scarpered," he said.

"Where to? I don't have any clothes." I gestured down at my naked body. I seemed to be naked around him more often than clothed and I was getting over the embarrassment of it. He must have been distracted about something because he didn't even bother to leer.

"Dru's asking for you."

"How is she?"

"A little better, got her to eat something, but now she wants you to come brush her hair."

"Just find me something to wear. None of her things will fit me."

"Half a mo'" he said and walked quickly out of the bedroom. I finished brushing my hair then carefully pulled all of the loose blonde hairs from the brush, flushing them down the toilet. I knew that the smallest thing could set Dru off and I didn't want her know I'd been using her hairbrush without permission.

Spike came back and tossed the ubiquitous jeans and black t-shirt at me. I dressed quickly and followed him, barefoot and hairbrush in hand, out of the bedroom, down the hall and to the cell. He unlocked and opened the door. Dru was sitting on the edge of the bed, no longer tied up. She had bloodstains around her mouth that she hadn't bothered to wipe away and the young man that Spike had captured the night before lay dead on the floor. He had two ragged, torn-looking bites on his neck, so I guessed that Spike had had his breakfast, too.

"Dru, honey," Spike said in the gentlest voice I'd ever heard him use. "Here's Sunday to brush your hair, just like you wanted."

"Are you sure it's Sunday?" she asked, not looking up at him or over at me. "Might be another ant." She shuddered.

"Not an ant, love, promise. I checked her out before bringin' her and not an antenna in sight."

"It's really Sunday? You promise? I dreamt that the Slayer had killed it but that can't be right, can it?"

"Slayer wouldn't kill Sunday, she's not a vampire, remember? Besides, I killed the Slayer."

"Did you, my wicked, naughty Spike?"

"Killed her dead, just like I told you I would. Now, do you want Sunday to brush your hair for you?"

Finally she looked at me and listlessly held out her hand. I went to her and knelt at her feet. She looked at Spike and said, "Where's its collar and leash? We can't have it running around loose, can we?"

"Naw, s'all right now, she's housebroken. You are housebroken, aren't you, Sunday?"

I didn't feel it was the right time to protest his terminology so I just nodded and laid my head in Drusilla's lap. She stroked my hair for a moment then tugged on it to indicate I should stand up. She gestured towards her own head so I climbed onto the bed, kneeling up behind her and began, as gently as I could, to untangle some of the worst snarls. She just weaved around, humming tunelessly, swaying to the little song only she could hear.

I finally got her hair all smooth and shiny, gleaming blue-black in the soft light of the candles Spike had brought in. As I had been brushing Dru's hair Spike had been in and out of the cell several times, bringing things in to make the stark room softer, more feminine and comfortable. The aforementioned candles, several of her china dolls, small tables with small, fringed lamps to put on them, velvet-covered pillows for the bed. He also dragged the remains of their meal out of the room. I realized that I had no idea what happened to the bodies of their victims, but I wasn't about to ask. I just added it to the list.

Although her hair was completely free of tangles and beginning to get staticy from all the brushing, I was afraid to stop until told to. Spike finally finished his impromptu decorating and came to sit on the edge of the bed next to Drusilla. She leaned against him and he put an arm around her, stroking her face with his other hand.

"Ready for some more sleep now, precious?" he asked solicitously.

"Sleepy, Spike. Will the ants come if I sleep?"

"No, love. I've made sure that no ants can get in. Nasty little buggers shan't get near my princess." He looked up at me and gestured with his head that I should get off the bed now. I carefully climbed around Dru and down off the bed. I took the opportunity to go into the bathroom and brush my teeth, which were feeling a little furry.

When I came out, Spike was tucking Drusilla into bed. As I watched, she held out her hands and he fastened the cuffs to them. Going to the foot of the bed, he also cuffed her ankles then arranged the covers carefully over her feet. He gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead then took my arm to lead me from the room.

Out in the hall, after locking the door, he leaned against the wall and sighed. He didn't seem as encouraged by her calm behavior as I thought he would be. He dug his cigarettes and lighter out of his pocket and lit one, handing it to me before lighting another for himself.

"She seems a lot better. Why did you tie her up again?" I asked.

"Makes her feel more secure when she's like this. It's not over yet, she's still talkin' about the ants. This was just a little break in the action. She'll have a couple more bad turns before this is all over and she's ready to travel."

"Is it always ants?"

"Naw, sometimes it's rats, or germs, sometimes it's cherubs. Never any telling what's gonna set her off, although I'm glad it's not cherubs this time, what with all the putti in Rome." He pushed himself off the wall and walked down the hall. I trailed after him into the main room. He sat with a flump in the leather club chair and I sat on the couch.

My cigarette had burned down to the filter but I didn't see an ashtray. "Spike?" I said. He looked up and I held the butt up to indicate that I didn't know what to do with it.

"Oh, just drop it and step on it. Won't be here too much longer, doesn't matter if the rugs get holes in 'em."

We sat in silence for a few minutes. I was getting hungry, but I tried to ignore the feeling. I had no idea what he was thinking. Probably trying to figure out how to get rid of me without upsetting Dru. Feeding and guarding me was probably the last thing he thought he should be doing now. The smartest thing for me to do, I figured, was to be as little trouble as possible. I picked at the fraying threads around a hole in the knee of the jeans I was wearing. He glanced at me and I stilled my hand.

"Should probably find you some clothes of your own," he said. "Can't wear mine forever. Come with me."

He led me to the utility room where there were a washer and dryer and a huge jumbled pile of clothes. "Pick out some things," he said, "and wash them. While you're at it, wash what you're wearing and here, wash these too." He stripped off his own clothes, hopping to get his boots off before taking off his jeans. If I was becoming more used to my own nudity around him, his still took my breath away. I looked away, blushing I'm sure, as he shoved his dirty clothes into my arms and left the room, carrying his boots. He shut the door and locked it.

I tossed his things in the washer and turned to the huge pile of clothes in the corner. Men's, women's, large, small, cheap, expensive, casual, dressy - there were all kinds of things there. I dug out a pair of black lycra pants that would come to just below the knee on me, a shorter black lace skirt with a blue satin underskirt, a black satin camisole with black lace and black jewel-necked sweater with pearl buttons. Next to the pile of clothes was an equally chaotic pile of shoes. It took me forever to find two that matched and would fit me. I finally found a pair of black ankle boots that would work. I wondered offhandedly what had become of the Nikes I'd been wearing when he brought me here - I didn't find them in the pile.

I took off Spike's jeans and t-shirt and threw them into the washing machine along with the clothes I'd pulled out of the pile. Poking through the pile again I found a large flannel shirt that wasn't too whiffy. I put that on while I waited for my new outfit to get clean.

Damn, I thought, I hate when I have all this time with nothing to do but think. I tried not to, I tried to keep my mind blank, to just concentrate on the sloshing of the washer but the thoughts would keep creeping in. Remembering everything that happened, worrying about what was going to happen, wondering about my lack of feeling for the man, boy really, whom Spike and Drusilla had killed. His body had lain there on the floor of the cell while I was brushing Dru's hair and I hadn't given it a second thought beyond idly wondering at what point it would begin to smell. Surely my concern for my own survival shouldn't blunt my feelings to this extent.

While it might not be very smart to act on such feelings, surely I ought to at least be having them. It seemed to me that some part of me had gone missing - the part that was able to care about other people, the part that was able to empathize with them. I felt like I'd had a soul lobotomy. Did feeling guilty about not feeling guilty count as feeling guilty?

I'd wonder about this for a while then find myself remembering all the pleasure I'd felt since I ran into Spike outside CBGB's. Starting with the amazing sex in the alley and culminating with the amazing sex in the diner bathroom. The washer finished its last cycle and I pulled the wet clothes out and threw them into the dryer. Too bad denim takes so long to dry. I wanted to go find Spike and see if I could start something. I'd made my decision. Even if I had another chance to escape, I wouldn't. I was going to stay and do the dark. Live for the thrill.

I passed the time it took the dryer to finish imagining what I'd do to him, working up the courage to make the first move.

Chapter Twenty-One - I'm on E

The dryer buzzed and I pulled out the warm clean clothes. I hurried into the black clothes I'd selected in case Spike had heard the buzz and was coming to let me out. I needn't have bothered. He didn't come. I folded the other clean clothes then, to pass the time, started another load, choosing things that looked like they would fit me or looked like something Spike would wear. The dryer was making the room very hot and steamy and I took off the black sweater before I could sweat it dirty again.

I could have tried pounding on the door to let Spike know I was ready to come out, but maybe he'd gone out and I didn't want to wake up Drusilla. Besides, I was nervous. I'd decided to do something I'd never done before - make the first move - but I didn't really know how to go about doing it. What if it pissed him off? Worse, what if he was just uninterested? I was nervous enough that if I'd been left alone too much longer I'd have talked myself out of it, but Spike opened the door before I had a chance to.

Even if I had talked myself out of it, seeing him there, dripping wet and wearing nothing but a towel would have changed my mind back in a hurry. Drops of water slid down his smooth white skin and darkened his hair. The towel barely clung low on his hips, showing those incredibly sexy muscles men have that curve down towards their groins. A few dark hairs rose above the towel's edge below his navel. He grinned almost sheepishly at me, clutching the towel to hold it up.

"Sorry, forgot about you," he said, "but I did run out to get you something to eat before forgetting."

'Th-thanks," I stuttered, his body was really distracting me. "Here, your clothes are clean." I thrust the little stack of clean jeans and t-shirts at him.

When he reached out to take them from me the towel around his hips fell to the floor. He stooped and picked it up, tossed it at me and said, "Since you seem to be washing everything in sight, do this too."

The wet towel hit me smack in the face and I lost my temper. I snatched it off and threw it right back at him. He dropped the clean clothes I had just handed him and batted it away. "Wash your own fucking towel, asshole," I said, icily. When I get mad I don't scream or yell, I get very cold, crisp and precise. "I may be your girlfriend's pet, I may be your fucktoy, I may even be just a walking sack of blood, but I Am Not Your Maid." I tried to shoulder my way past him and through the door, but he was having none of that. He shifted to stand in my way and as I moved to go around him on the other side, he moved again to block me.

"You're whatever I say you are, little fucktoy. You're only alive because I haven't said you should be dead yet."

"I'm alive because your crazy girlfriend decided she likes me."

"She'd forget you in half a minute if I went in there right now and told her I'd killed you. All I'd have to say is that you were an ant after all. And the only thing she'd regret is not being there when it happened. You think her rolling in the vamp dust was bad, I've seen her dance on entrails, swim in blood, play marbles with children's eyeballs. She'd take your scalp and wear it as a wig." He stalked towards me.

His cock was hardening as he recited this litany of gore. I was beginning to have serious second thoughts about continuing to ride this thrill ride. I backed away from him in horror, squeezing between the wall and the side of the washing machine.

"I don't believe you," I said. "Why would you go to such lengths to keep me here and keep me alive if you didn't think she'd be upset?" I really, really hoped it was his bluff I was calling. I'd always been more afraid of Dru in the past, but right now I didn't know.

With a wordless groan and an exasperated eye roll, he wrenched the washer out of the way and grabbed my hair, hauling me out from behind the machine.

"Ow! Let go!" I, and I'm ashamed to admit this, screeched. He picked me up, threw me over his shoulder, which was beginning to be a familiar position and, incidentally, gave me a terrific view of his hard white backside, and strode into the main room. He sat on the couch and swung me around so that I was stomach down across his lap. I was squirming wildly. Okay, in this position, I figured he wasn't going to kill me, but I so did not want to be spanked.

"Hold still," he hissed, both his hands were occupied with holding my wrists out to the side while trying to control my wriggling legs. Needless to say, I only struggled more and the more I struggled the larger I could feel his cock growing against me. He lifted his hand from my legs long enough to give me a hard pop on the ass. I squealed and managed to squirm halfway off his lap and slide to the floor between his legs. He might be strong but he just didn't have enough hands to keep me immobilized in that position.

"Hold still or I'm going to chain you to the wall and take the riding crop to you again!" This threat I believed. I quit moving and stayed still exactly where I was, kneeling between his legs, looking straight at the engorged evidence of his excitement.

He was still holding both my wrists in one of his hands and with the other, he took his cock, slapping it against my face, saying, "Little fucktoys shouldn't talk, their mouths are for other things."

Well, I thought, I had decided to make the first move, may as well start now. Yes, I realize that it can hardly be described as a first move when his cock was already in my face, but I could do it without being forced further, without putting up more token resistance just so I could feel guilt-free. And besides, maybe afterwards he wouldn't remember to spank me. It wasn't the pain of the spanking I feared, it was the humiliation, being punished like a child. He'd spanked me before but it had been part of our erotic horseplay while I was recovering from the whipping Dru had given me.

"Let go of my hands and I'll show what I can do with my mouth," I purred at him. He cocked his head, raised an eyebrow and took a second to ponder my change of attitude.

"I'll let go of one hand," he said warily and released my right hand, but kept a tight grip on the left. I stroked one of my long fingernails up the underside of his cock and watched it jump. I circled the place where the head joined the shaft with my nails, holding my hand over the head, but not touching it with my palm, just with the ends of my nails in a circle under the head. I dug them in slightly and was rewarded with a powerful jerk of his cock in my hand.

I repeated these movements with my tongue, running it up the underside, circling the head then closing my mouth over it, setting my teeth at just the place you would if you were going to bite the head clean off. It was a powerful feeling. I held his cock in my teeth and swirled my tongue around the head, dipping it into the slit there that was oozing its clear slippery fluid. I lightly scraped my teeth down his shaft as I sucked him as far into my mouth as I could. I wrapped my hand around the bit at the base that I couldn't get into my mouth. I'd never done this before and was terrified I was doing it wrong but I knew one thing - with him it was better to be too rough than too gentle.

I set a slow sucking pace as I moved my mouth up and down on him. Each time my mouth was at his tip, I would give it a little nip, just to feel it jump in my mouth. He let me set my own pace for a while, but eventually he grabbed my hair and started bobbing my head faster. Okay, okay, I get it, I thought, and followed the thought with action, moving my mouth with more alacrity over his throbbing cock.

I had no warning when he came and his cold semen went straight up my nose - from the inside! Snorting and choking, eyes watering, I reared my head back to find that he laughing at me. The prick.

"Points for effort, love," he said, smirking, "but the technique still needs some work." He stood up and drew me to my feet. I was wiping my nose and eyes, still trying to clear my sinuses. "And don't think I've forgotten about the spankin' I owe you."

Upside down over his shoulder yet again, he took me into the bedroom and dropped me on the bed. At this point I figured that giving in gracefully was by far the most dignified thing to do - but not without giving him a little shit first.

"So, do you want me to fight, or should I just lie still and take it?" I asked, a little breathlessly first from having his shoulder digging into my stomach then from bouncing on the bed when he dropped me. I rolled over onto my front and looked up at him over my shoulder, batting my eyelashes.

He started laughing. "Oh, don't you worry, you won't be lying still for long." He jumped onto the bed, straddling my legs. He grasped the waistband of my skirt like he was going to tear it off me.

"Hey, I like this outfit and it took me ages to find. Besides, nothing else is dry yet," I said indignantly.

"Well, then hurry and get out of it." He moved off my legs to let me sit up. I kicked off the boots, peeled my socks off then pulled the camisole top over my head. He lunged at me, burying his face between my breasts, knocking me onto my back. He held my hands over my head as he kissed and licked all over my breasts. He settled on the left one, circling towards the nipple with little nipping bites. When he finally reached the nipple, sucking it deep into his mouth, I sighed and closed my eyes. With every strong rhythmic suck, I could feel the stabs of pleasure zinging down to my cunt and, curiously enough, up to a spot in the roof of my mouth. I moaned and arched my back, feeling the muscles in my cunt clutch and release, clutch and release, longing for something to hold onto.

He let go of my hands to reach around and slide down the side zipper of the skirt. With my hands free I could dig them into his crisp white hair, still slightly damp at the roots, and press his face even more tightly against my breast. He responded by taking my nipple between his teeth and biting down, gently at first then with increasing pressure. The pain grew with the pressure but I found that if I could bear the first couple of seconds of it, it would turn into even more intense pleasure and I'd want him to bite down even harder.

He released my nipple long enough to sit up and slide my skirt and the lycra leggings off then leaned back to attack my other nipple with his mouth and tongue and teeth. He had me good and seething, I almost felt like I could come just from his mouth on my nipple. When he finally let go and raised his body off mine, I opened my legs, expecting him to fuck me, but instead he reached under my back with both arms and flipped me over onto my stomach.

"Spanking time!" he proclaimed gleefully and rained a flurry of loud slaps on my bare ass. It really hurt! I was surprised at how much it stung, more painful even, in some ways, than the riding crop had been. I was squealing and squirming, but also not trying to get away as the pain in my ass and the percussion of the blows made themselves felt not only on my ass but low in my belly and throughout my pelvic region. As I writhed I was rubbing my swollen clit against the bed, grinding my hips like I was humping something, desperate for any kind of pressure or friction. I was crying soundlessly from the pain and frustration.

He took pity on me and reached underneath me to rub my poor clit, while still continuing to spank me with the other hand. I could feel the spasms of my orgasm growing in exact time to the blows. He didn't stop until I was shuddering in his hands, my whole body shaking with the force of it. As I came down, he softly stroked my flaming skin and throbbing clit, gently moving his thumb in and out of me.

He let me catch my breath for a moment then flipped me over again onto my back. I cried out with unexpected pain when the sensitive skin of my ass came into contact with the covers that suddenly felt very rough, but then he took my legs and lifted them over his shoulders, also lifting my ass free of the bed. Moving over me and doubling my legs up to my chest, he drove his cock into me, fucking me hard and fast, the position allowing him to go deeper than ever before. He kissed me as he fucked me, devouring my mouth with his, our teeth crashing against each other's, tongues plunging. I held onto the bars of the headboard for dear life, anchoring myself in place otherwise his brutal fucking would have driven our heads through the wall. I tore my mouth away from his so I could breathe and he buried his face in my neck.

I felt his face change against my skin and his sharp teeth tearing into the fragile skin of my throat. The woozy bliss of it was enough to send me over the edge into an orgasm that was deep and throbbing, rippling through my body like a slow electric current.

Spike continued to pump into me for a few minutes, sucking the blood from the gash he'd torn in my throat until he came, his cool semen bathing my insides. He stopped drinking from me and carefully licked the wound. He stayed inside me, resting his head against my shoulder for several long minutes but I was beginning to get a cramp in my hip.

"Oh, ow, ow, Spike, I gotta put my legs down. Cramp. Ow." He rolled off me onto his back. If he had needed to breathe, I'm sure he would have been gasping. I sure was. I straightened my legs gratefully, flexing my feet and ankles to work the kinks out, but when I lowered them all the way this put my sore backside in contact with the bedcovers, which was not good. Stiffly, I rolled over and flopped onto my stomach. I lay still for a few minutes, catching my breath and enjoying the feeling of being 'rode hard and put up wet.' My stomach, though, decided it had been ignored long enough and growled loudly.

Spike looked over at me with a raised eyebrow. I giggled and said, "Sorry, can't help it. Didn't you say you'd gotten some food?"

Exhaling a melodramatically long-suffering sigh, he rolled out of bed and walked naked out of the room. He came back a few moments later wearing just a pair of unfastened jeans and carrying a large brown paper bag filled with Chinese takeaway. I propped myself up on my elbows, ripped open the wrapper on the chopsticks and dug in. It was room temperature but still delicious. I asked around a mouthful of spicy Kung Pao chicken, "God, this is so good. How'd you get it, I thought you were broke?"

"Not broke, broke. Just didn't have any cash on me at the time." He unwrapped his own set of chopsticks and opened another carton. We ate for a while in companionable silence, trading cartons every so often so we each had some of everything. If you've never eaten great Chinese food naked in bed right after having had the stuffing fucked out of you, let me tell you, there's no better feeling in the world. Even if your ass does sting like a son of a bitch.

Reminded, I said, "God, I won't be able to sit down for week."

"Should hope not. Lesson's no good if you don't remember it." I made a face at him and he raised his hand threateningly above my red rear end. I wiped the face off in a hurry.

"I meant to ask you the other night; why do you eat food? Don't vampires just drink blood?" I asked, setting aside the chopsticks and the carton I'd just emptied.

He gave me a look like I was an annoying five-year old who wouldn't stop asking stupid questions, but decided to humor me. "Like to, can, so I do. Sometimes get all gurgly and sloshy feeling inside if all I've had is blood. Like a little something in my tum to soak it up." I was kind of sorry I'd asked and glad I wasn't still eating. I decided a change of topic was needed.

"Tell me about you and Dru. How'd you get together?"

"Aren't half full of questions tonight, are you? Short answer is it's none of your bleedin' business."

"Oh, c'mon. Dru told me lots of stories while you were gone. One about the first slayer you killed, another about this Wild West town and something called a glaive, oh and Seville! Tell me what happened in Seville!"

He choked on his chopsticks full of rice. "She never told you about Seville! Did she?"

"She'd start to then get all coy and say you wouldn't want her to."

"Damn right I wouldn't."

"Come on, it can't be that bad. What happened - you get your ass kicked?"

"There was no kicking of my ass, it was just...Say, you wanted to hear about how Dru and me got together? Well, it was like this...." He cleared the empty cartons, used chopsticks and dirty paper napkins off the bed, stretched out on his back, lit up a cigarette and took a drag. I held out my hand and after a second he passed it to me, lighting up another one for himself.

I let him get away with the change of subject. This story was the one I was more interested in hearing anyway. I rolled over carefully on my side and listened to his tale of a brilliant but unknown poet accosted in an alley by a beautiful woman who changed his life, or rather, his unlife, as he called it, forever. At some point as I was listening to his story, I think he was single-handedly fighting off a mob in London, my eyes were drawn to his Adam's apple bobbing up and down in his throat.

I considered his neck. Really, it was one of the most appealing things about him. It was tender and young, almost vulnerable looking in comparison to the rest of his tightly muscled form. It was a neck I could well imagine any vampire, hell, any woman would want to sink her teeth into. Without thinking about what I was doing, I leaned over and put my mouth around his Adam's apple in mid-bob.

He stopped talking and it slipped out of my mouth. He pulled his head away and looked at me like I'd lost my mind. Well, I probably had, but it was just so cute. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked, but even as he was asking, I was chasing the bobbing bump with my mouth, giggling insanely when it kept sliding away.

"Make it hold still," I complained, "I wanna feel it vibrate."

"Okay," he said, rolling up into a sitting position "Bedtime for you. Didn't know any better, I'd say you were stoned. Gotta check on Dru, anyway."

"No," I pouted. "Not until you let me feel it vibrate."

"Get under the covers and I'll think about it."

"No, you've got to promise."

"Oh all right, I promise, now get under the covers. Say, did you get into the liquor somehow today?"

I just shook my head sleepily as I slid between the sheets, careful to stay on my side and off my ass. I snagged my arm around his neck as he drew the covers up over me. "Hum," I said.

He hummed a steady note and I got a bead on his Adam's apple in the dim light. I lifted my head and covered it with my mouth. The buzz tickled my lips something fierce and I had another maniacal fit of the giggles. Did I ever mention that MSG does weird things to me?

"That's enough. Go to sleep now, you silly bint."

"'Kay," I said. "Turn off the lights, Daddy." As I closed my eyes and drifted off, I heard him swearing under his breath as he went to check on Dru.

It seemed like I had just closed my eyes when a violent jostling awoke me. Spike was leaning over me shaking me and saying, "Wake up, wake up you lazy cow."

"Wha-what?"

"Finally. Get up, I need your help with Dru."

Chapter Twenty-two - Poets Problem

What is it now? I thought grumpily as I started to roll out of the warm, soft, comfy....

He was shaking me again, I must have fallen back to sleep. He whisked the covers off the bed and grabbed me by the hair, pulling me up into a sitting position. He bent to switch on the lamp by the side of the bed.

"Get your ass dressed now, or so help me I'll...."

"'Kay, okay, dressing now," I interrupted him. "Geez, where's the fire sale and why'd you have to pull my hair so hard?" Rubbing my head with one hand, I swung my legs out of the bed. My ass was still sort of sore from the spanking but it was bearable. At least a couple of hours must have gone by.

I leaned down to pick up my clothes from the floor. The leggings were all coiled up and knotted from when he'd rolled them off me, so I put the skirt on by itself and pulled the camisole over my head. I didn't bother with the shoes or socks. As I dressed Spike was pacing the room, smoking fast and glaring at me every few steps. I started towards the bathroom, "Let me brush my hair, it's all tangled."

"No time, come on now," he caught hold of my arm and swung me from my path to the bathroom, dragging me down the hall to Drusilla.

"What's she doing?" I asked, planting my feet, pulling against him. I wanted some kind of an idea of what was going on. I was so not ready for anymore of her craziness right now. I felt like I'd only just shut my eyes.

"What she's doin' is waiting, so c'mon already." I still wouldn't budge. "Look," he said, "just play along with her and everything will be all right." He jerked on my arm and I had to step forward to keep from falling.

Sure, play along, I thought. What the hell did he think I'd been doing all this time?

When we entered the cell, I didn't see why Spike was in such a swivet. She wasn't wailing, thrashing, scratching herself or any of the other crazy things I'd seen her do when she was in one of her 'moods.' No dervishing or self-mutilation; she was sitting calmly on one side of a small table; dressed, made up, hair brushed and immaculately arranged. Her hands lay palm down on the top of it. There was an empty chair directly across the table from her.

Soft piano music was playing, Chopin's Preludes; I recognized them from years of piano lessons. So many of them in somber minor keys. A few lamps and many candles had been lit, giving the previously stark room a warm glow. The bed was made and all the dolls were lined up prettily against the velvet pillow shams. There was no sign of drama or violence; nothing to give me any kind of a clue as to why Spike had hauled me so rudely out of bed. I wondered again just how much sleep I'd managed to get.

"Ah, Sunday," she said, beckoning languidly. "I need a manicure, my nails are in a dreadful state." A small bottle of black nail polish and another of white as well as the other necessary tools were laid out on the table - polish remover, cotton balls, emery board and buffer.

I glanced back at Spike who was still standing in the doorway, as if to say, 'You woke me up for this?' when I noticed the grim look on his face. He narrowed his eyes at me and gave a barely perceptible shake of his head. I looked back at Dru, studying her more closely. She was only calm on the surface - her eyes contained all the mania and slyness that had preceded her massacre of the minions. She giggled and I understood. This time she was setting me up for the fall.

I looked back around at Spike (I'm going to give myself whiplash at this rate, I thought), hoping for but not really expecting any kind of support, but his face had become completely impassive. I took a deep breath. I knew I couldn't count on him to help me but I didn't think he'd actively help her unless she asked him to directly. It was just a feeling I had. I hoped I was right. In his own way he was just as volatile as she was.

He looked away from me and crossed the room to lay on the bed, feet crossed and eyes closed like nothing interesting was going on, just boring girl stuff, but I could feel the tension in his body; his fingers tapping restlessly against his chest.

Amazing what some good food, a little sleep and a good screw will do for you. The last time I'd seen her like this I'd been half-starved, sleep-deprived, and mentally and emotionally exhausted. But given a couple day's break, my survival instinct had come roaring back along with a good deal of determination not to be pushed around any more. Yes, I'd play her game, but, by god, for once I was playing to win.

She snapped her fingers to recall my attention to her. She pointed at the chair across from her. Steeling myself, I went over and sat gingerly on the hard wooden chair. She held up one of her hands and I took it in mine. Her long nails really were in a dreadful state, the edges ragged and torn, polish chipped away, crusts of her own dried blood underneath and along the edges of them.

I tsk'ed and laid her hand gently back down on the table. Using the nail polish remover and cotton balls I carefully cleaned the blood and old polish off her fingernails. While I worked she was swaying dreamily to the music.

"Darla killed him, you know," she said.

"Who?" I asked.

"Darla, Darla! You remember, my Grandmummy."

"No, I mean who'd she kill?"

"Him," she said. "Frederic."

"Chopin? Darla killed Chopin? Didn't he die of tuberculosis or something?"

"Consumption, they said, but it was really Darla."

"Didn't she like his music?" This was the one of the few semi-coherent conversation I can remember ever having with her.

"She loved it. Said it sounded like blood - sometimes slow, sometimes fast but always a little sad."

"Then why did she kill him?"

"He got too sick to compose anymore, that made her very angry. She wanted to turn him, but Daddy wouldn't let her. Said it wouldn't work anyway, that he couldn't compose if he didn't have his soul. Grandmummy didn't believe him, but he said he'd leave her if she did it. Grandmummy could never do without her Angelus. Until he turned into the Angel-monster, that is. Then she couldn't abide him. Said he smelled filthy and that she wouldn't have him stinking up her nice sitting room. I never smelled it but I could feel it."

"What could you feel?"

"His soul. Gypsies cursed him with a soul. Wouldn't take it back so we ate them. Tasted like paprika and violins."

"Gave me heartburn," Spike chimed in from over on the bed. I'd almost forgotten he was there; he'd been being so uncharacteristically quiet.

"Were you with your Daddy and Grandmummy when she killed Frederic?"

"Silly Sunday. That was way before I was born. Way before Daddy killed my bad family and made me. Sometimes I remember them." Her voice trailed off and her eyes got a far away look. "I remember what they liked to eat. Custard with brandied pears, and lemons and pomegranates." I recognized the menu. Had Drusilla been thinking of me as one of her long lost relatives during that time we were alone? Could she remember any other kinds of food?

I picked up the emery board and began smoothing the jagged edges of her nails, honing them to a new sharpness. The tape of preludes stopped and she said, "Spike? Again." He got up and rewound the tape to start it over from the beginning. For a moment the only sounds were the whir of the rewinding and the scratch of the emery board. I felt myself beginning to relax a little. Maybe I had imagined what I'd seen in her eyes. Maybe she still liked me. Anyway, she seemed to like it when I asked her questions and hung on her every word. As long as the conversation stayed away from ants, I thought maybe things would be all right.

When Spike had restarted the tape and returned to his position on the bed, I was still wracking my brain for another safe question to ask her.

"Did you ever eat anyone famous?" I asked finally.

She thought for a moment. "In Paris, just a few years ago. Spike, when were we last in Paris?"

"'71, love."

"Yes, the poet I ate, what was his name?"

"Jim Morrison. Used to be a musician. Wrote some damn fine songs back in the day."

"Oh, yes. The one with only one leg."

"No, pet, that was Rimbaud. Different poet. You ate him in 1891."

She pulled her hands away and examined them, testing the edges of her nails for smoothness and sharpness. Satisfied, she handed one back to me and I began to buff the nails to make a smooth surface for the polish.

"Oh yes, I remember now. Spike, I want another poet to eat sometime soon."

"There's that one we saw at the club, Patti Smith. D'you want her? Or there's Jim Carroll. Problem with poets is, they're never famous enough anymore to be easy to find."

"Mmmm," she was literally licking her lips.

"Do poets taste different than other people?" I asked.

"Words," she said. "I can taste their words. They swirl in my head and make such pretty colors and music. They taste like fireflies and butterflies and mayflies, like hummingbird wings and flying fish singing to me."

"What do I taste like?"

She drew one of her newly sharpened nails along the back of my hand, slicing the skin, and lifted it to her mouth. She sucked on the wound for a moment. "You used to taste like fear and lust, but now you taste like, hmm, excitement and confidence. The fear and lust are still there but you're more alive tasting, almost, even happy. Are you happy here with us, Sunday?"

I considered the question. I tried to remember a time when I'd ever felt more alive and excited and confident. And scared and turned on. I couldn't. "Yes," I said slowly. "I think I am happy here with you."

She nodded contentedly. I picked up the bottle of black polish and began very carefully to paint her nails. We were comfortably silent. I could smell Spike's cigarette and the music played on. I finished the first coat and said quietly, "May I?" pointing towards the bathroom door. She just nodded, waving her hands to hasten the drying of the polish.

In the bathroom I ran a brush through my hair and quickly brushed my teeth, too. This wasn't going too badly, I thought. I even wondered if they would take me to Rome with them when they left to meet Darla.

I caught sight of the cut on my hand. Curiously I raised it to my mouth to taste the blood still seeping from it. To really taste it, to concentrate on the flavor, to try to imagine what they tasted when they drank from me. Salty, metallic, it didn't taste any different than it always had when I'd reflexively stuck a cut finger in my mouth or accidentally torn a cuticle I was chewing on. It didn't taste like food or nourishment or words or colors or music or emotions.

I shrugged and returned to Drusilla who was still sitting at the table. I applied the second coat of polish. This one would take longer to dry and I didn't want her to get impatient and mess it up - I was quite proud of the job I'd done - so I wanted to ask her another question. So far asking questions had kept her entertained and still.

I was searching for a safe subject when Spike spoke up. "I never did tell you, Dru, how I bagged my second Slayer."

"No, you didn't, you naughty, naughty boy. Tell Mummy right this very minute."

He leapt off the bed and launched into an animated recounting of the tale. At one point when he wanted to demonstrate one of the moves he'd used against her, he grabbed me up out of my chair, lay down on the floor and had me sit on top of him, holding his neck. Dru exclaimed, "Oh, brilliant! Charades!"

With a weird little flip thing, not rolling me over to the side like I'd been expecting and had my legs braced for but somehow throwing me forwards over his head and swinging me around, it's really impossible to describe how he did it but we ended up in exactly the same position as before except he was on top of me with his hand around my neck.

Dru was bouncing in her chair and clapping enthusiastically as he continued this somewhat too realistic reenactment when she suddenly started screaming. She was waving her hands as if trying to flick something off the ends of her fingers. "The ants! The ants!" Spike jumped off me and went to her, standing behind her chair to reach around her and hold her wrists so she wouldn't start scratching herself again. Indeed, the gleaming black polish did look something like the shiny black carapaces of giant black ants. I was kicking myself for not noticing it sooner.

Spike wrestled her hands down to the table and held them there. "There, there, love, don't fret. Sunday will kill the bad ants." She sat shivering, her eyes closed. He jerked his head at me to come over. I slid into the chair and grabbed up the bottle of white nail polish, it seemed the quickest way to cover the black. I quickly painted a slash of white across the tip of each of her fingernails.

"See," I said as cheerfully as I could manage, "The ants are gone. No such thing as black and white ants. It's just your pretty new manicure. I bet no one else in the whole world has a manicure like this."

She opened one eye cautiously and peered down at her hands. "No more ants? You promise?"

"She promises, love, and so do I. Look at your pretty fingernails. No one has fingers as dainty as my princess."

She stopped shivering and Spike warily released her wrists. She held her hands up and looked them over. "Oh, Sunday," she said. "I like this. The white makes my nails look even longer."

Never boring, I thought. She was never boring.

Chapter Twenty-three - Just Go Away

We spent the rest of the night dancing. Old fashioned dancing like waltzes and polkas and things. Dru tried to teach me the steps only she wasn't any better at leading than I was at following. Spike lay on the bed, laughing himself silly until Dru made him get up to partner me while she stood back, clapping out the beats and directing our steps. Needless to say, there was more foot-stepping-on and furniture-bumping-into going on than actual dancing, but it was a lot of fun.

As the sun rose, Drusilla became sleepy. She was much more tied to the time of day or night than Spike was, I'd noticed. If the sun was up, she was sleeping, whereas Spike was just as likely to be up and about, if not outside, during the day as the night. Spike and I were still galloping around the room when she sank wearily down on the edge of the bed and raised a limp hand to her forehead, whispering to herself. Spike went to her immediately.

"Bedtime now, poodle?" he asked, kissing her forehead and stroking her hair.

'Mm, yes, sleepy now." She leaned into him, closing her eyes. I busied myself putting the nail polish and things away in the bathroom and straightening the furniture that Spike and I had knocked over or askew.

Spike had retrieved Drusilla's silk nightgown from where it was hidden under the pillows and was carefully unbuttoning the little pearl buttons that ran down the back of her dress. He put the nightgown over her head and only removed her dress when the gown was covering her. He knelt to take off her shoes then turned back the covers of the bed, helping her slide in.

"Shall Sunday and I stay with you, sweetheart?" Spike asked her.

"Not Sunday, just you," was her sleepy reply. Spike frowned and seemed to be thinking about something. I stood helplessly by the door, holding my breath. I didn't know whether to wait for him to lock me up somewhere or just leave. He started to rise from his seat on the edge of the bed, but Dru clutched his arm, pulling him back. He gave me a long considering look and came to a decision.

"Why don't you go back to bed in the other room, Sunday," he said to me quietly, maintaining the calculating eye contact.

I just nodded and left, closing the door softly behind me and letting my breath out with a whoosh. I stood in the hall for a moment, my heart pounding, considering what to do next. If there was ever an opportunity to escape, this was it. If I waited, as soon as Dru was asleep he would be coming to check on me. I'd been lucky tonight, I realized. Things could so very easily have gone badly. If my questions hadn't distracted her, if I hadn't been able to convince her that her fingernails weren't ants, I very likely would be dead. And things could just as easily go bad again tomorrow night or the next night. Having one's life depend on the whims of a madwoman was not a very good long run strategy for survival. I should just go away now, while I could.

I returned to Dru's other bedroom. I picked up the leggings and unrolled them, sliding them on, then put on my socks and the black ankle boots. Going to the laundry room I went through the pockets of all the clothes that had been thrown in there. I came away with about fifty dollars in small bills and change as well as a denim jacket with pockets to put the money in. I did none of this quickly. I suppose I was waiting for Spike to come and stop me but he never emerged from the cell.

Crossing through the main room on my way to the stairs that led outside, my attention was drawn by something sparkling on one of the little tables. It was the chain with rhinestones and alligator clips she had put on me during the going away party. I could see the dark stain of my own blood on the clips' sharp teeth. I dropped it in my pocket as a keepsake, remembering that night.

Pushing aside the plywood panel blocking the door, I squeezed into the deserted street full of early morning sunshine. I blinked at the unaccustomed brightness and, picking a direction at random, went left down the street and away from the abandoned, boarded-up building. Since he couldn't easily follow me into the sunlight, I reckoned my escape was a success. Funny I wasn't happier about that.

I stopped at the first pay phone I came to. I put in the required coins and dialed my home number. I had to stop and think for a minute before remembering what it was. My mother answered the phone - her usual morning rush evident in the breathlessness and impatience of her voice. I couldn't say anything, couldn't think of anything to say. I opened my mouth to say "this is ..." and I blanked. For a second I couldn't remember my name, my real name. Finally, as she was saying "who is this?" I just hung up. What was I going to tell her? How could I tell her where I'd been, what had been happening to me? Maybe later, I thought. After I'd had some time to think about what I was going to say to them.

Suddenly hungry, I found a diner and ordered breakfast and some coffee. I also got a pack of cigarettes from the vending machine. After eating I sat there for a long time, drinking coffee and smoking, thinking about things. Customers came and went but the place wasn't busy enough that they needed my table so I was left pretty much alone. I suppose my attitude of distraction and seriousness, not to mention the wounds on my neck and eyebrow, encouraged people to keep their distance.

This wasn't the same diner Spike had brought me to the night of his return, but it was similar enough to remind me vividly of that night. I blushed as I remembered fucking him in the bathroom and what the other patrons must have heard. I also got a little aroused as that memory led to another and another and I knew that never again would I find someone who could make me come like he could. Wasn't the excitement worth the danger? I wondered. Didn't that amount of pleasure come with a price and wasn't it worth it all the same?

What would it be like if I just turned up at home? What would I tell them? How could I bear the fussing and tears and recriminations and questions, questions, questions? It was too late to escape to college, the semester too far progressed and would they let me get away, anyway? My parents had always been overprotective and this would send them into hyperdrive anxiety. I'd barely been able to talk them into letting me live in the dorms in the first place; they'd wanted me to commute from home. After what I had experienced, how could I survive in that stifling environment ever again? I'd be driven away again soon enough and wouldn't it be kinder to all involved to just not go back at all? To let them imagine the worst, grieve and then get on with their lives?

Oh don't look at me that way - I know how it sounds. Of course, it wasn't kinder, I knew that. I knew what I was doing was talking myself into returning to Spike and Dru. So it didn't really matter if the reasoning wouldn't bear much scrutiny. Rationalizing doing something you want to do or not doing something you don't want to do has its own kind of illogical logic. As soon as I had this realization, I knew what I was going to do. Spike might beat me for leaving when he'd told me to go to bed, but I wouldn't mind that much. I'd be where I wanted to be and would no longer be tempted to escape again. Would no longer feel like I ought to want to escape.

I left a generous tip for the waitress, stuffed the cigarette pack into my pocket and exited the diner. A whole morning of freedom and here I was heading back to my prison with a song, a Ramones song even, in my heart and on my lips.

I stopped at a little bodega and picked up some non-perishable food and a carton of smokes - Spike's brand. I also got my own lighter. If I was going back there, I wasn't going to be bumming his all the time. And what were a few carcinogens to someone who was more likely to be dead tomorrow night from exsanguination as fifty years from now from lung cancer.

My heart and my steps were lighter and tripping as I returned, slid past the plywood and ran back down the stairs. Spike was sitting in the leather chair, uncharacteristically not smoking. He looked up as I came in and said, "Back then, are you? Don't suppose you got any fags while you were out."

Okay. I'd expected anger or relief or pissiness from him, but a request for homosexuals? As non sequiturs went, this was fairly Dadaist.

"Don't stand there looking gobsmacked, girl. I mean smokes, cigs." He held his empty hand to his mouth in demonstration.

"Oh!" understanding dawned. "Cigarettes. Although with you two, one can never tell." I dug into the bag I was carrying, pulled out the carton and tossed it to him. "Don't keep them all for yourself, though. I want some. How's Dru doing?"

"Asleep. Didn't want to be tied up, either, so that's an improvement. Oughtta be ready to travel any day now."

I didn't feel that this was the right time to ask if they were going to take me with them so I set the bag on the floor and went over to him. He had just taken out a pack of the cigarettes I had bought. After hitting the top of the pack against the heel of his hand a few times to pack the tobacco, he tore off the cellophane, pulled one out and put it in his mouth. Before he could get his own lighter out of his pocket, I whipped my new one out and lit his smoke. "Got my own," I said. "Won't have to steal yours anymore."

He smiled at the reminder and patted his leg. I sat on his lap, leaned against his chest, snuggled my head into the crook of his neck and watched him smoke, happy to be back.

"You do know I'm going to have to punish you for leaving," he said after a few minutes

"You promise?"

He laughed and said, "Yes I promise. Your punishment will be me not spanking you."

"Meanie!"

"But I might do it just for fun." His free arm circled me and he poked a hand into my jacket pocket. He pulled out the rhinestone chain and dangled it in front of my eyes. "Might use this, too. Gotta teach you a lesson about stealing."

I snorted, "Everything in this place is stolen. My clothes are stolen, the money I bought the cigarettes with is stolen..."

"Yes, where exactly did you get the money for those? You didn't go into my room, did you?"

"Your room? I'm not even sure which one it is. I got it out of the pockets of the clothes in the laundry room."

"Aren't you the clever girl?"

"Well, I thought so. Is that how you get your money? Off the people you eat?"

"Now that would be telling."

"Nope, can't give away all your secrets, now can you. Gotta be all mysterious, big bad creature of the night."

"Think I liked you better when you were all scared and quiet-like. Known you were such a Sally Smartarse I'dve left you in that alley, dry as a bone."

"I love you, too, Miss Clairol #30S." I said, rumpling his hair and trying to sound facetious, praying he wouldn't hear the sincerity.

Chapter 24 - Contact In Red Square

Fuck, fuck, fuck, I said furiously to myself. Why'd you have to go and use the "L" word? Quick! Change the subject so he doesn't notice.

But Spike didn't appear to have noticed, anyway. Or at least he was pretending not to have caught on that I was being anything other than sarcastic. He swung me into his arms and stood up, setting me on my feet. He gave my sore butt a swat and said, "Off to bed with you. For real, this time. Be there in a minute, myself."

I trotted off to the bedroom, got undressed and climbed into bed. The "L" word, I thought. When had I started associating him with the "L" word? I thought I had just been in it for the sex and excitement and danger. When had I fallen in lo - gah (even mentally I choked on the word), in love with him? This was a complication I sure as shit couldn't afford - like I had a chance in hell with Dru in the picture and besides, him - immortal vampire, me - weak, fragile and very mortal human. And if you thought about it, him falling in love with me would be like me falling in love with a cow. Me and the cow, we're both somebody's dinner. Of course, my dinners had never spoken back to me, but then I had never had the urge to screw them, either. Except for the odd carrot or cucumber, of course. I giggled at this thought then couldn't stop. I was really too sleepy to think about this now, I decided, turned over onto my side and snuggled more comfortably into the pillows. I was still chuckling sleepily when he came into the room and started to undress.

"Whatcha laughing about now, ya daft bird?"

"I'm a carrot," I said, as if that explained everything. "Or maybe a cucumber."

"Well, which one is it? Swear I don't know who is crazier, you or Dru."

"No, I'm a cow. A talking cow. Isn't that what you're always calling me?"

"Yes, you're the cow that never shuts up. La vache qui rit." Naked, he slid into bed behind to me.

"So sorry. Quiet as a cucumber now. Quiet as cheese." He chuckled and I reached backwards to take hold of his arm, pulling it over and around me, cuddling his hand up against my breast. He rolled closer and shaped his body against my back.

"Mm, warm," he muttered into my ear before falling into his deathlike sleep.

"Moo," I whispered experimentally a few moments later.

He pinched me, "Shh! Cucumber, remember?"

***

When I woke up, even before I had opened my eyes, I was vividly reminded of cucumbers. Only this time I wasn't the cucumber, he was. Or rather, he had the cucumber and it was pressed tight against my backside. I wriggled against it to see if he was awake.

He was. He wriggled back, curving his hand, which I still held against me, around my left breast, cupping it and brushing his thumb over my nipple. It promptly woke up, too, and stood to attention. One of his knees insinuated itself between my legs, parting them, wedging his thigh firmly against my crotch. I rubbed myself against it, sighing in contentment and rising excitement. He pinched my nipple lightly then resumed gently brushing it. As I slid back and forth on his leg, whenever my ass touched his cock, I would give a little sideways wiggle, just to remind it I knew it was there.

Spike began nibbling my neck. His hand left my breast and stroked over my belly then lower. He gently rubbed my clit and I raised my leg higher, reaching behind me to guide his cock into me once he'd moved his leg out of the way. He fucked me slowly while continuing to stimulate me with his hand. I twisted and pinched my nipple in time with his slow thrusts.

Deep shudders and spasms, waves of subdued yet thorough pleasure washed over me as I sighed my contentment. He continued to fuck me for a few more minutes then came himself. We lay still for a little while, still locked together.

"Not too late for you, then," he said against the back of my neck.

I had been drifting a little. "Hm?" I said.

"You don't need the pain, like Dru does. Can't get off without it."

"Has she always been like that?"

"Long as I've known her. Angelus did it to her. Never fucked her without beating her bloody first. Made her insane, too."

"Why would he do that?"

"Just to see if he could, I reckon. Said it was more iniquitous to make her crazy forever than to make her crazy and just kill her. He and Darla let her make me when they got tired of taking care of her. Darla always did resent anything that took Angelus' attention away from her."

I didn't know what to say so I didn't say anything. After a few minutes, he pulled out of me, rolled over and stretched. "I'm going to sleep a little while longer. Be a love and go check on Dru, would you? Key's in my trouser pocket."

"'Kay," I said and did a little stretching myself before getting out of bed and going into the bathroom. When I came out, his eyes were closed and he wasn't moving, so, as quietly as I could, I got dressed and fished the cell door key out his jeans' pocket.

"Take her a clean dress, too, would you?" he said without opening his eyes. "Ta, love."

I opened the wardrobe door and pulled out one of the many white lacy dresses that were hanging inside.

My apprehension grew as I approached the cell. I hoped that she was calm and lucid. I didn't know what I'd do if she were having hysterics again. Run back and get Spike, I guessed. Nervously, I knocked on the door.

"Spike?" she said through the door.

I cleared my throat, "No, it's Sunday. May I come in?"

"Let me ask," she said. I heard mumbling but couldn't understand what she was saying. After a moment she said louder, "They say it's all right. You may come in."

Great, I thought, now she's hearing voices.

Taking a deep breath, I unlocked the door and stepped into the cell. So far so good - she was sitting up in bed, playing with her dolls. "Miss Edith likes you," she said. "And whomever Miss Edith likes, all the others do, too. Except for Miss Mary. She's quite contrary, you know, and always has to disagree. Bad Miss Mary." She picked up one of the dolls and began poking at its glass eyes with her long nails.

"I've brought you a clean dress," I said nervously. "Is there anything else you'd like?"

"Come sit by me, dearie." She moved several of the dolls to the side, making room for me to sit. I carefully draped the dress over the back of a chair and sat on the edge of the bed, facing her, but looking down at my hands in my lap. She reached out and stroked a finger along my jaw line to my chin, lifting it. "Look into my eyes, my darling," she said softly. I raised my eyes. I don't think I could have avoided doing so if I'd wanted to.

Her eyes were so deep, so dark. I looked into them, past my own reflection and into her need. She's hungry, I thought. I moved my hair away from my neck, tilted my head to the side and leaned forwards.

I barely felt her teeth as they slid smoothly into my throat. I closed my eyes and fell into a dream - into her dreams. Dreams of sacred places and quiet hymns. Latin psalms and heady incense. Rustling skirts and white wimples. Peace and serenity fractured by blood and death, screams and frightened prayers. Running feet and shouts of anger, fear and disbelief. Red flames reflected in the squares of the stained glass windows, red blood staining the naked bodies across my lap, thrusting and biting and the only place to escape was deep inside myself, to my childhood and my dolls and family teas and forgive me father, I've the devil in me, just like you said, danger in the mine, there will be a cave-in and no one will listen, save them, save them, save me....

I came back to myself with a jolt and a gasp and slithered bonelessly off the slippery satin coverlet to the floor. I stared stupidly at Spike's bare feet, right in front of my eyes. Even his feet are beautiful, I thought. I could hear him whispering urgently, could hear Dru thrashing, fighting him, calling my name. Could hear the jingle of the cuffs' buckles as he strapped her arms down and saw his feet walk around me to the end of the bed where he cuffed her ankles. He stooped and picked me up, the sudden movement making my head swim. Drusilla's anguished voice calling my name, fading, as my vision was fading as he carried me away.

***

I was pretty out of it for the next few days. I vaguely remember occasionally being shaken awake to drink tea, broth or juice. When I did finally wake up with a little awareness, I noticed I had a needle in the crook of my arm. It was attached to a tube that led up to a hospital-type IV bag filled with blood and hanging from a pole. I began to laugh feebly. My vampires had better not let it get around that they were putting blood into a human, rather than taking it out.

"Never thought I'd be glad to hear you sniggering again," Spike said from the doorway. "Guess you're gonna make it. Dru'll be relieved."

"Gotta pee," I said. "Can you take the needle out?"

'No need, pole's got wheels." Spike lifted me carefully out of the bed. I was alert enough to grab onto the pole to pull it along since he had his hands full.

While in the bathroom and since Spike was there to make sure I didn't fall down, I washed my face, brushed my teeth and began to feel much better. When I was in a clean nightgown, which getting into turned into quite an exercise in spatial relations that necessitated taking the IV bag off the pole and threading it through the sleeve of the gown before my arm went through, and settled back into bed, I asked "How?" and waved my hand weakly up at the IV bag he was re-hanging on the pole.

"Old trick of Angelus'," he said. "Although he used it to keep his victims alive so he could torture them longer. Made a science of it. Good thing the blood bank'd been stocking up on O neg, universal donor type, didn't need to fuck around searching for the rare stuff last night. You up to a visit from Dru? She's been worried."

I nodded and asked, "How is she? Is she still talking about the ants?"

"No, that seems to have passed. Now all she talks about is you and when you'll be all better and can come out an' play. Never seen her this attached to one of her pets before."

"Better to be Miss Edith than Miss Mary," I said. He just gave me a quizzical look and went to fetch Dru.

She hurried in with a silken rustle, "Silly Sunday!" she exclaimed. "I told Miss Edith you were ill, but she wants to have a party and it's no good without you. She wants you to be the guest of honor." She sat on the side of the bed and took my hand in hers, squeezing it tightly; too tightly. "Really, it's most aggravating of you."

"I'm sorry," I said, wincing. "I don't mean to be sick."

"Sunday will be ready for a party sooner than you can plan it, my dark chatelaine, so you'd better hurry away and start work," Spike said gently, disengaging her hand from mine and leading her from the room.

I could hear him talking softly to her and her replies floated down the hall to me, "May I have a poet at my party? And streamers?" I closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep, reassured by the low rumble of his voice as he answered her.

Chapter 25 - Die Young, Stay Pretty

After the blood transfusion, my recovery had been remarkably quick. Quick enough, that within a few days, here I was down on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor of the main room for Drusilla's party. I never appreciated the minions enough, I grumbled to myself, sneezing as the remains of one or more of them blew up my nose. This was the last chore to be done before the decorating.

For days I'd been at the cleaning and I was finally beginning to think of the things I should have said to my mother during my brief freedom, rather than choking and hanging up the phone. There may have been a few awkward questions when I got home, but at least we'd had a cleaning lady. Of course you never think about these things until it's way too late.

And, the most aggravating thing of all, I'd swear Spike was avoiding me. He only ever spoke to me to pass on more of Dru's orders then he'd go back to the cell to be with her. Drusilla I never saw at all.

They were keeping strictly to themselves, not even going out to hunt, although Spike would go out on other mysterious errands, coming home with bundles he'd immediately hide away. From the trash I'd hauled out to the curb, I could tell he'd gotten way more blood than he had used for my transfusion when he'd raided the blood bank. If they could drink blood bank blood, why did they kill people, I wondered. I filed it away in my mind as #343 on my list of questions about vampires

Occasionally I'd hear their voices raised in argument. Oddly, from the tone (I could never hear their actual words), Spike seemed to be the one who was upset. Dru would only raise her voice to be heard over his shouting. Then all would be quiet again.

So I guess you're asking yourself, if you were so unhappy, if they were ignoring you, why didn't you just pick up and leave again? Good damn question. I think it was because of the party. I was supposed to be the guest of honor and I was absolutely eaten alive with curiosity about what that meant. Plus, it would have been rude. Some childhood training you have to die to get over.

Oi! Waitress! More coffee and dump this ashtray if you're sure it won't cut into your standing around time.

Had nothing to do with Spike, if that's what you're thinking. And speaking of rude, you should try keeping your scoffs to yourself. Where was I?

Oh yeah, but in the time between my recuperation and the party I had had dresses to iron, trash to haul, chains to polish and this floor still to finish scrubbing. It was late afternoon and the party was tonight.

***

I hear Spike's footsteps coming towards me from the hall. I straighten up, drag a sleeve across my sweaty face and wait for the next asinine and exhausting order. I guess I should never have told him I wasn't his maid. Sure way to get him to hafta prove me wrong. Only person I know stubborner than me.

"Couple hours till the party" he says, not meeting my eyes. "Clothes she wants you to wear are on the bed." (Oh no, what ridiculous costume this time, I'm thinking). "Go get cleaned up and dressed but don't come out until I come get you. Might be awhile."

I stand wearily, throw the brush I was using on the floor into the bucket of dirty water and strip off my rubber gloves. If he won't look at me, I think, I won't look at him. I walk towards the bedroom, knocking his shoulder as I pass, slapping the wet gloves against his chest and letting go of them. He traps them against his body rather than allowing them fall on the clean floor.

"Oh, and Sunday," he calls after me, "She wants you to, ah, to shave your, um, quim." He mumbles the last word.

"My what?" I spin around to look at him; he's looking at the floor.

'Your, uh," he gestures vaguely with the hand holding the gloves, "down there."

Boy, you can take the vampire out of the Victorian era but you can't completely take the Victorian out of the vampire.

"Guess I'm kinda stupid," I say archly, enjoying his uncharacteristic embarrassment. "Better spell it out for me."

That gets a rise out of him. He throws the gloves into the bucket, sloshing dirty water on my nice clean floor. His eyes are blazing, mouth snarling. In two long strides he's got me with my back against the wall and he's growling in my ear, "Your C-U-N-T. Your pussy, your snatch," he pops the button on my jeans, slides the zipper down, "your box, your hole, your slit," and shoves his hand inside.

"Your snapper, your twat, your gash," his voice softening, becoming deeper, caressing. "Your cunny, your punaani," his fingers are sliding along my wetness, "su concha, la vostre fica." He pulls his head back to watch my face as he slides first one finger into me then another, "ta chatte." He's grinding the heel of his hand against my clit as he fucks me with his fingers. "Ta moule, ton con," his other hand is pinning me to the wall which is handy because my knees are buckling.

He continues to whisper but I can no longer make any sense of what he's saying, only that it's French, I'm about to come and his deep voice is just one more electric current of sensation brushing over me, through me....

I can't believe it when he pulls his hand away just as I'm about to come. Well actually, yeah, I can believe it, but it still pisses me off. It takes me a few seconds to snap out of it and by that time he's halfway down the hall and I'm halfway down the wall. "Va te faire foutre!" I yell after him, rather proud that I can remember enough French to tell him to go get fucked. All I hear is his laughter, cut off when he shuts the cell door. I stomp to Dru's old bedroom just off the main room, which has become mine by default and slam the door. "Merde," I say. I lean back against the closed door and kick it a few times for emphasis.

***

The bedroom, as well as the bathroom, was steamy and damp when I got out of the shower, shaved as per instructions (and let me tell you, it felt damned odd). Reason #587 not to live with vampires, I thought. There are never any windows to open. I cracked the door to let out some of the steam.

I could hear all sorts of interesting bumping and cursing going on in the main room and I was tempted to peek but before I had a chance to, the door was shut firmly from the outside and I heard a key turning in the lock.

Thwarted, I plopped down on the bed and brushed my hair until it was dry and shining, rippling with a natural wave. All right, so I'm kind of vain about my hair. I'd just touched up the color the night before so the blonde was bright and fresh. Having no instructions to the contrary, I gave it a slightly off-center part and left it down.

Along with the clothes, Spike had left a small quilted bag that held make-up and some pieces of silver and garnet jewelry. I applied the make-up and began to dress, still trying to identify the noises coming from the main room.

***

I'm fighting with a particularly recalcitrant article of clothing when I hear the key in the lock and Spike walks in, holding a small black fabric bundle. I cross my arms over my chest and snap, "There's such a thing a knocking."

He sets the bundle down on the top of the chest of drawers. "Thought you might need some help with that and Dru's busy gettin' herself all done up before we go out tonight," he says. He spins me around, moves my hair to hang out of the way over my left shoulder and in a no-nonsense manner begins pulling at the laces that run up the back of the shiny black patent leather bustier kind of thing I'd been struggling with. Although I don't know if you can call it a bustier if it has nothing whatsoever that covers your bust. Maybe you just call it a corset.

"Deep breath," he says before I can ask where we're going and I hold onto the air I'd sucked in to ask. He pulls the laces so tight I feel like I'm going to be pinched into two halves. He ties them off and turns me towards the full-length pier glass in the corner (#45 on the vampire question list - why do they even have mirrors?). I see myself, but of course I can't see him. I still have my arms up hiding my breasts. He reaches around me, takes my wrists and gently, but irresistibly pulls my arms down and away from my body. In the mirror it looks like I'm moving them myself.

"Look at yourself," he commands. "Really look at yourself." The corset has cinched my waist to an amazing slenderness while emphasizing the flare of my hips and making me stand very straight. My hair hides my left breast, but the right one is bare. Black leather covers my torso from just under my breasts to halfway down my hips. Beneath that a multi-layered skirt of gauzy sheer black fabric covers my legs nearly to the ankle. He releases my wrists but I don't put my arms up again.

Running his hands down my body, he rests them on my hips. With just his fingers he teases back the fragile material of the skirt just far enough to reveal the slit that runs from the hem to the waist. Through the slit I can see a long length of leg in black silk stockings, topped with a flash of white thigh. The black shoes have the highest of stiletto heels and sharply pointed toes. The fuck-me-est of come-fuck-me pumps. The room is small enough that he can turn and retrieve the bag of jewelry from where I'd left it on the bed while still keeping one hand on my hip. He pulls an earring from it.

It's the eeriest thing I've ever seen. When he's holding the earring, it doesn't reflect in the mirror until my body is between it and him, then it shimmers into view and seems to float. My hair also appears to move itself as, with one hand, he brushes it aside and carefully threads the wire of the long, vintage-looking garnet and silver earring through the hole in the lobe of my ear. The eeriness doesn't lessen when he repeats his actions with the other earring. Pushing gently from behind, he moves me even closer to the mirror - close enough that I can no longer see all of me, just my face. He draws my hair away from my face and up off my neck. He caresses my bare breast with his other hand. "Look at yourself and remember," he breathes into my ear. "This is how you will always be."

All the little hairs on the back of my neck and along my arms stand on end. I try to turn around to look at him, to see his expression, but his firm hand in my hair won't let me turn my head. "Look into your eyes and remember what color they are. Look at the shape of your mouth, the fullness of your lips. Remember it. See the slender length of your neck, the delicate curve of your ear. After tonight, whatever part of you you need a mirror to see, you will never see again. So remember it well because it will never change."

The dark silver-gray eye shadow, black eyeliner and mascara make my eyes look huge and the ivory foundation matches the new paleness of my skin. The dark red lipstick is almost exactly the same color as the garnets in the earrings. Beneath the make-up I can see how the planes of my face have become more refined, less child-like in just the time I've been with them. The bones a little sharper and more defined. "This is how I'm going to look forever?" I whisper to myself.

"Forever," he says, his hand dipping under my skirt to stroke my smooth-shaven mound. "But first you have to die."

Chapter Twenty-Six - Atomic

(A/N: this chapter contains one WHOPPING anachronism, I just couldn't resist making a certain event occur about sixteen months earlier than it does in the realverse.)

Spike had dropped the bomb and I was still processing it. They were going to make me into a vampire. I was, to put it mildly, a little non-plussed. The possibility had always been in the back of my mind. The way I saw it there were three possible ultimate outcomes to this little adventure I'd been having: 1.) dying - sooner or later, going on as I had been, that is, being their human pet/servant, was not something that could continue indefinitely; eventually they'd go too far with their play and kill me, or kill me just for the hell of it, 2.) being let go, which was not very likely - it would have been out of character for them and even though no one would have believed me, they wouldn't want the story to get out, and 3.) becoming like them. Looking at things logically, this was about the most positive outcome I could have expected. Still, I wasn't quite sure how I felt about it.

Leaving me in front of the mirror, still taking the idea in, giving myself the final once-over he had recommended, Spike crossed the room to fetch the items from the dresser - a short bolero-style shirt made of black stretch lace that tied in the front, and a collar and leash of the same black patent leather as the corset. He held the shirt for me to put on. It was so short that it just barely covered my breasts and was tight enough that it didn't quite meet in front. My nipples were dark shadows, clearly visible though the black lace. Tight, elbow-length sleeves dripped four inches of black lace ruffles down my forearms.

Wrapped in the shirt had been the wide black leather collar with attached leash. This got a big no way from me. It was one thing to be led around on a leash here in the lair - it had been a symbol of Dru's ownership and, by extension, her protection of me from the other vampires. A reminder to them that harming or killing me would seriously piss Dru off. But Spike had said we were going out and no way was I going out on the end of a leash.

Scrabbling in the make-up bag again, Spike had pulled out the eyeliner pencil. "Put this on for me, there's a love," he said, holding it out to me.

***

"Roll your eyes up and hold still, I'm almost done," I say, getting ready to draw the eyeliner along his lower eyelid, pulling the skin taut so I can get a good clean line.

"Soon's you get this done and put the collar on, we can meet Dru. Should be 'bout ready by now," he says.

"Absolutely not," I say firmly. "I will not wear that thing in public."

'You will, you know," he replies matter-of-factly. "Dru wants you to and if you won't do what Dru wants, then we have no use for you. We'll just eat you and forget you. Done it a thousand times before."

"That would probably sound a lot more menacing if I weren't holding a sharpened pencil to your eyeball."

"You honestly think I couldn't stop you before you even so much as thought of it?"

"Thinking of it now, you haven't stopped me yet." I draw the pencil quick and even along and under the thick dark lashes of his lower lid. The black liner makes his blue eyes look even bluer.

I must have gotten lost in them for a moment because he gets the drop on me, grabbing the eyeliner from my hand and throwing it across the room before upending me over his lap. But instead of the spanking I expect, he strokes my bare ass and the bare skin of my thighs above the tops of the stockings. He draws a single finger down the crack of my ass and on down into my slit, parting the lips, rubbing my clit. I feel a sharp sudden pain as he yanks out a pubic hair I must've missed when I shaved down there. Hey, you try it some time and see if you don't miss a hair or two. Not exactly an area that lends itself to easy examination while wielding a razor.

Of course, I yelp and try to jump up, but he's holding me down by the back of my neck and he's resuming his rubbing. I close my eyes and relax back into the feeling. As he's rubbing my pussy and gently entering me with his thumb, his hand on my neck relaxes its hold a little bit and he caresses me there as well, clasping his hand loosely around my neck then tightening it slightly, but not in a way that makes me feel strangled or choked.

His fingers working in my slit quicken their pace and he's bringing me the relief he denied me this afternoon. I hear a faint click but pay no attention to it. I come quickly; it's been so long, it seems, since I was last with him. After spending a minute to bring me down gently, he does spank me, just one sharp slap on my ass, then pulls me upright by the...by the?

By the leash attached to the collar he had fastened around my neck while I was distracted! Bastard!

He's laughing while I fume, licking his fingers clean of my juices. I reach up to undo the collar, but it's fastened not with a regular buckle, but with a tiny padlock.

"Come along," he says, jerking the leash, still laughing at my impotent fury. "Wouldn't do to keep Drusilla waiting. She might lose the plot; forget you're not just an appetizer."

Giving in with good grace is a skill that I'm slowly learning with them. I swallow the rest of my pointless tirade and follow him. At the doorway he stops and pulls a black silk handkerchief from his pocket. "Gotta blindfold you. She doesn't want you seeing the decorations until later."

"Later?" I ask as he pulls the blindfold around my eyes.

"Gotta go find Dru a poet, first." He ties the handkerchief in a knot at the back of my head. I hear him opening the door and he pushes me gently through it. Disoriented, I stand still for a moment in the hall. He brushes against me as he comes around in front of me and gently tugs the leash. I follow him carefully, feeling ahead with my foot before setting it down and stepping forwards. As we enter the main room I can see soft light around the edges of my blindfold, but nothing more.

"Ah, there's my pretty baby," Drusilla says as we come to a stop. Soft, light hands caress me fleetingly, touching my cheek, my neck, one of my lace-covered breasts, teasing the nipple to a sharp point. "Is Miss Sunday ready for its special night?"

It has been so long since I'd last heard her speak, I'd forgotten the music of her voice, the way it gets into your head and makes it spin. Visions of her madness, of her making, dance back into my memory - the visions I'd had when she'd last drunk from me.

"Night's awastin'," Spike says. Even I can hear the forced cheerfulness in his tone. Whatever's coming, he's not too keen on it. I hear the rustle of leather and assume he's putting on his duster. I feel the leash twitch as he shifts it from hand to hand.

"Yes, much to do before dawn," Dru replies, clapping her hands like a schoolmarm calling her class to order. "Bring it upstairs and then the fun can start."

My head spins a little when Spike scoops me into his arms and carries me up the stairs. As soon as we're outside I can smell and feel the difference in the air - the smells of the street and the brisk bite of the late September night. Or is it early October? I realize that I've lost track of the amount of time I've been with them.

He sets me on my feet and takes off the blindfold. Blinking, I smooth my hair and look at them. He's dressed in what I've come to think of as his going-out clothes - faded jeans, artfully torn black t-shirt adorned with safety pins, hair spiked, heavy silver and black leather jewelry. All this I'd seen in the bedroom. The black leather duster only completes the look.

I gape a bit at what Drusilla is wearing. I've only ever seen her in white before; the dark red velvet dress in her trademark empire style is free of the lace and ribbons that decorate her white dresses. Her hair is sleek and long, a 180-degree change from the fussy curls and ringlets, parted on the side with only a gentle wave at the ends. She puts her forehead against mine for a minute and our hair intertwines, making a fragrant cage that gleams in the harsh glow from the streetlight.

Spike presses my leash into her hand and cocks an elbow, "Shall we away, my Princess?" he asks. Dru takes his arm and they turn to stride down the street, leaving me to trot along behind, trying not to stumble on my high heels.

***

The noise was deafening in the little hole-in-the-wall, underground club. I didn't know what kind of poet they thought they'd find here, but I supposed they knew what they were doing. If I'd been embarrassed to be seen on the end of Dru's leash, it was nothing to the get-ups of some of the people around us. At least they weren't making me crawl, like that group over there. A tall woman with a shaved head, dressed all in black rubber, was leading two crawling men on leashes, one sucking on a pacifier and wearing nothing but a diaper, and the other got up like a dog complete with a floppy-eared headband and wagging tail, held on, presumably, by one end of the prop being stuck up his ass. I truly and fervently hoped that Drusilla wasn't getting any ideas.

Spike had gone over to have a word with the doorman who jerked a thumb towards the back of the club. I saw Spike slip him some money then he came back to us and whispered something into Dru's ear.

She tugged on my leash and said conspiratorially, "Come along, Sunday. Spike may have found us a poet." I followed them into a little room off the back hall. Another doorman let us in after Spike spoke to him. The room was hazy, filled with smoke that didn't smell like cigarette smoke, yet not exactly like pot smoke, either. Ratty couches lined the walls and the music from the club was muffled by the walls and the now shut door. The light was very dim, coming from one small lamp in the corner. Seated, or rather lolling, on the couches were a handful of very out-of-it looking people.

Dru handed my leash to Spike and went around the room, taking a moment to study each person. Even the ones who were conscious could hardly be bothered to notice her, except for one. A tall, lanky, emaciated looking youth with spiked black hair. His bare chest, where it showed between the lapels of his black leather biker jacket, was covered with scratches and scars. He was caught by her eyes; dropping the syringe and rubber tubing he'd been about to use, he fell under her spell. She crooked her finger at him and he stumbled after her across the room, falling to his knees next to her when she stopped by me. She took his stubble-roughened chin in her hand, whispering to him, "Be in my eyes, be with me, see what you most want to see." She turned his face up to me, "See in her all you desire, see in her all you've lost, all you love."

Tears welled in his eyes as he gazed at me in disbelief. He fell towards me, clutching me around my knees. It was only Spike standing behind me and holding me up that kept me from going down. The pathetic junkie buried his face in my hip, choking out the name, "Nancy," over and over between his sobs.

"You think this wanker's a poet?" Spike asked contemptuously.

"Sh, he has the grief and pain of a poet, if not the talent. He'll go down a treat, you'll see," Dru replied. Not quite knowing what else to do, I patted the young man's shoulder. He nuzzled his face against me, somehow getting his nose through the slit in my long skirt, poking it against my bare crotch. I could feel my face reddening as he snuffled against me, kissing me there, still crying, still calling me 'Nancy.'

"Well, only if you're sure this one'll do. Let's get back then," Spike replied.

"Come along, Miss Sunday. Now that we've collected the refreshments, we can return to our party," Dru said happily. They turned for the door and Spike twitched my leash. I tried to follow, but was having a little trouble walking with this guy still holding onto me, still trying to get his face into my crotch.

I managed to shimmy out of his circling arms and he fell forwards onto the floor before scrambling to his feet. Following us out of the club and into the quiet street, he called after us plaintively in a thick working class London accent, "Nancy, Nancy, come back. I'm sorry, please Nancy, please come back."

"Better go back and get him, Sunday," Spike said, dropping my leash. "Can't have him caterwauling all the way home."

Giving Spike a 'Why me?' look, I went back to him, coaxing him to put an arm around my shoulders, whispering calming, I hoped, endearments into his ear. He smelled pretty rank, but then, I was used to the sweatless, odorless company of my vampires.

"Nancy, is it really you? I'm so sorry, didn't mean to kill you. Is it really you?" He babbled the same thing over and over, but at least he was doing it quietly now. Dragging him forwards, I hurried to catch up with Spike and Dru, trying not to trip on my trailing leash.

***

Returning to the lair I finally get to see the decorations in the main room. Candelabra cover nearly every flat surface, their flickering yellow light the only illumination except for twinkling white Christmas lights strung across the ceiling to imitate stars. Reflections of the candlelight gleam in the polished steel of the chains and manacles hanging from the walls, threaded through with long-stemmed red roses and ivy. Miss Edith and the rest of the dolls are seated on an upholstered bench along one wall. One of them, Miss Mary presumably, is positioned facing the wall, her eyes covered with a red silk ribbon.

Set up like an altar in the center of the room on a couple of low trestles is a coffin. Not the usual rectangular coffin with a rounded lid that I'm used to seeing. The kind of old fashioned, person-shaped coffin that's wide at the shoulders and narrow at the feet, with a flat lid. A red velvet cloth covers it and a matching red velvet pillow rests at its head. In one of the darker corners of the room I see a large pile of dirt with a shovel stuck in it. My mind is racing, am I going to be buried alive, or rather, dead, until I rise again? This really, finally, brings everything home. I'm going to become a vampire. I'm going to die and rise again. I'll have to drink blood. I'll kill people; I'll never see the sun again. I'll never age, never die. Never become a loud middle-aged housewife who embarrasses her children by dressing too young for her age. I'll be strong; I'll be no one's victim ever again.

But right now, I've got to get this smelly, mumbling asshole off of me. I shrug his arm off my shoulders and let him collapse to the floor. Spike comes and drags him over to the wall, chaining him up. We might have interrupted his shooting-up, but he's still got plenty of drugs in his system. He nods off, muttering a final, "I'm sorry, Nancy, do you forgive your Sidney?" before finally shutting up.

"Music, Spike. We need music," Drusilla says before she comes over to me and kisses me long and deep. I sway in her arms, melting into the kiss, chasing her tongue with mine, putting my arms around her slender waist. Passionate tumbling piano, Beethoven I think, spills out of the speakers. Dru moves in time to the music, dancing us slowly around the floor, towards the coffin/altar. Still holding the kiss, she pushes my shoulders back, urging me wordlessly to lie on top of it. It's low enough that I just need to fall back and swing my feet up to be stretched full length upon it. She breaks the kiss and takes my hands, folding them precisely across my chest.

"This moment calls for poetry," she cries. She goes over to Sidney, hanging on the wall, and slaps his face lightly. "You, give us a poem." His eyes open blearily; he looks into her eyes for a moment and speaks, mumbling at first, his voice growing stronger as he continues,

"Nancy, You were my little baby girl And I knew all your fears Such joy to hold you in my arms And kiss away your tears But now you've gone There's only pain And nothing I can do And I don't want to live this life If I can't live for you"*

Spike snorts, "What utter crap. This one'll be no loss to liter-ah-ture. Music, either." I'm snickering myself, while continuing to play dead, lying on top of the coffin.

"Hush, Spike. I need to drink his words, taste the stars in his pain." Dru's face shifts and she sinks her fangs into his throat. I can hear her greedy gulps, his whimpering as the pain cuts through the smack-haze. Finally sated, she staggers back from him, ripping away a chunk of flesh from his neck. Weaving, blood dripping off her chin, she stumbles around the room. Spike catches her and eases her down onto the fainting couch. Her human face slides back into place, as she appears to fall asleep.

"Always happens when she eats a junkie," Spike says, kneeling next to her and wiping the blood from her face with the hem of his t-shirt. "Poor thing doesn't have the constitution to handle it. Just have to sleep it off, now."

Does this mean I won't be turned into a vampire tonight, I wonder. I sit up on the coffin and swing my legs around. He looks up at me and says, "I was hoping I'd have another chance to talk to you. Come with me."

I jump down and cross the room to take the hand he's holding out to me. He leads me into the bedroom and shuts the door. He pats a place near the head of the bed for me to sit. I hop up, kick off my shoes and sit cross-legged, the corset keeping my spine straight. I look down and play with the leash coiled in my lap, wondering what he's going to say.

"Dru's had a vision," he starts, leaning back against the closed door. "When she last drank from you she said that she saw me turning you, that she saw your birth as you were seeing hers. What exactly did you see?"

"It was very jumbled, chaotic. I saw nuns and a church and then the nuns being slaughtered by two vampires who made love across my lap as I screamed and lost contact with reality, imagining scenes from my childhood - her childhood," I look up at him. "I felt her go mad."

He's silent for a moment. "Thing about Dru's visions is, they usually come true. Even if she has to help them. This leaves me with two options. I can fulfill her vision for her and make you into a vampire or I can kill you and tell her that I fucked up, went too far. Which do you want?"

Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, I think. It's one thing to accept being turned against my will, something entirely different to be asked to choose. To be asked whether or not I want to kill and maim and torture people for the foreseeable forever. Or just to be dead. And god help me, I don't think I want to be dead.

"If you turn me into a vampire, what happens then? Do you take me with you to Rome?"

He comes over and sits next to me on the bed, taking my hand in his, playing nervously with my fingers, "Can't love, Darla'd never stand for it. Can't stand any competition. Dru's all right because she's mad and dark, but you're too similar to her - although a deal wittier, not such a wet blanket," he smiles at me then looks down at our hands. "'Sides, Dru's vision showed us leaving you here. Reckon you've been hearing us argue some. I don't much go in for making new vamps, especially if I can't stay around to show 'em the ropes, teach them how to get along. Just seems like a dirty trick to me. She's stubborn, though. We make you and leave you. She says that she knows you'll make it, that you'll do just fine without us."

I can feel the blood leaving my face, my stomach sinking. Whichever fate I choose, I'll be losing him. Put this way, my choice seems pretty obvious to me. "Dead," I say. "If I can't be with you, I want you to kill me. But make it special."

*Poem allegedly found by Sid Vicious' mother when she discovered his body after his fatal overdose on February 2, 1979.

Chapter Twenty-Seven - Accidents Never Happen

Oh, I'm not laughing at you, although I probably should be. You really ought to close your mouth. Something might fly in. Spike had much the same expression at the time. No, I'm laughing at myself. What a melodramatic load of horseshit.

***

"Dead," I say. "If I can't be with you, I want you to kill me. But make it special."

It is such a serious moment, fraught with consequences, life and death decisions, all that, but the pole-axed look on his face sends me off into peals of laughter. Albeit hysterical laughter. Call it my way of coping with stress. It is so obviously not the answer he'd expected. Laughing gets my blood moving again, kicks my brain into gear.

My laughter is cut short when he grabs the leash, pulling my face close to his. I hear the rubber-on-rubber crunch as it changes, brow ridging, teeth growing. Even he sounds a little Godfather-y trying to talk around them.

"I'm serious, girl! Offering you a choice I never had; a fully informed choice. Never been offered to anyone else, far as I know."

"Oh, cool your jets! You just looked so surprised, is all, and I guess I'm a little overwrought. I have a lot more questions before I can make a final decision." He'd said that my only two choices were to be made into a vampire and be immediately abandoned or to be killed. Just because I'd rather be killed than be abandoned doesn't mean that I won't try to find a third option. I've always been partial to the "none of the above" box on multiple choice tests.

He relaxes his hold on my leash but doesn't let it go and shakes his demon face off. "I don't imagine you've ever seen yourself when you look like that," I say. "It's really not good PR for recruiting new vampires."

"Think you'll find your perception of it changes, once you're one of us. Dru's just as beautiful to me whichever face she wears. But you're right, never have seen myself like that. That bad, is it?"

"Well, I guess not. Not once you've gotten used it. I sometimes don't even notice anymore. But it doesn't exactly make me want to look like that."

"Won't have to see yourself, so it won't be a problem."

'But I'll know I look like that. Will I look that way all the time at first? Like the minions?"

"Depends. Lot depends on how a vamp is made. Whether the vamp making it gives it a lot of blood, whether they've a natural talent for it. Some get stuck in game face for as long as they're around, which doesn't tend to be for very long; some can switch back and forth right away."

"So say I said I wanted to become a vampire. How exactly does it work?"

Spike leans back on his elbow across the width of the bed, relaxing into the role of teacher, "Not that complicated, love. I drain you to the point of death then you drink some of my blood."

"But by that time, won't most of your blood be mine?"

"Something happens to it as soon as I drink it, it gets...infected, or something. Demon gets in it and then when you drink it, the demon gets into you. All there is to it, really."

"And the more demony blood I drink, the more control I have?"

"And the stronger you'll be, and the more like your old self."

"Huh, that's weird. Woulda thought the more demon blood, the more I'd be all 'Grr' all the time."

"Haven't really given it much thought. Guess maybe the demon wants the vamp that's got more of it in 'em to stick around a little longer, make more vamps. All I can say is, best thing that ever happened to me. Got Dru, got some stones, all 'n one swoop."

"But you don't want to make me into one."

"Not that so much as I don't want to make you and leave you which is what Dru said she saw in her vision. Just seems like a rotten trick to play on you." He looks down at his hands, which are still playing with the loop on the end of my leash.

"And killing me isn't?" I say this more teasingly than indignantly. "Anyway, this leaving me behind thing, is it absolutely non-negotiable? Did she tell you exactly what she saw in her vision? Maybe there's some way we can work around it. I mean, I thought she liked me and if we can explain her vision to her in such a way that...."

He interrupts me, "What do you think I've been trying to do for the past week? Turned it this way and that. Put every spin on it I could think of. She's determined: I turn you into a vampire and before you wake up, she and I leave for Rome."

"Does she see anything that happens after that? Like, um, say I meet you there, or you swing back through New York and look me up after you're done visiting Darla. Or does her vision tell her that you'll never see me again?" There are reasons why I had been the captain of my high school debating team.

He looks thoughtful for a moment, staring off at the wall behind me, then shakes his head and answers the important question; the one I haven't quite asked, "No, choosing to become a vampire isn't something you should do just to stay with me." He looks up into my eyes; his seem tender and rueful. "I know how you feel, love, and I'm fond of you, I am, but Drusilla's my all, my guiding star, the goddess I'll worship until I'm dust at her feet. You might think that you can live with that, but you'll come to resent her, to resent my feelings for her. And she'll come to resent you. That's just the way things are. The way women are - vampire or human."

My own eyes fill with tears. I hold them wide open, hoping the tears will stop and not flow down my face, but soon they spill over, streaking down my cheeks. He reaches up to catch one with his thumb as he cradles my face in his hand. There's truth in his words that I have to acknowledge to myself. I'm already feeling resentful of Drusilla and the way she monopolizes all his attention. I have to admit to myself that however much I tell myself I'm cool with it, living with the two of them and always being second choice would become intolerable. Using the leash, he pulls me down to him and lets me cry it out, stroking my hair and murmuring endearments.

Finally I've cried all I can. The front of his shirt is a blubbery mess of tears and snot and my head feels like it's the size of the Goodyear blimp. Slowly I sit up and hide my face in the folds of my gauzy black skirt, wiping away the smeared make-up and wetness.

"If I would still rather die, how would you do it?" I ask; the question muffled by the cloth I'm holding to my face, hiding behind. "Strangle me? Rip me to pieces? Just drain me dry?"

"Hadn't really thought about it. Kind of odd, that. Well, can't say I haven't thought about strangling you when you've smarted off one too many times."

"Threatened to rip my throat out once," I remind him with a watery giggle.

"And well you deserved it, scheming little baggage. Suggesting that I lie to Dru," he says with mock indignation.

"Well, aren't you suggesting that now?"

"Different now, innit?"

"How so?" I raise my eyes from my skirt. "Exactly why is it different now?"

He looks uncomfortable, like he can't quite verbalize why it's different now, "Just is. Told you I was fond." I sort of enjoy his embarrassment, as well as his reiteration of his feelings for me. Might be a city girl, but I can fish with the best of them.

"When did this happen?"

"Don't know. You just grow on a bloke. Got used to having you around, helping out with Dru."

"Being available for a quick poke any time the mood struck?"

He smiles at this, "Yeah, that too. You're not too bad for bein' a beginner and human an' all."

"Was it hard to restrain yourself, not do too much damage to me?"

"What're you gettin' at?" He looks at me sharply.

"What would you do to me if you didn't have to worry about hurting me? If it didn't matter if you went too far?" I return his stare; I don't want him to think for a second that I'm not being completely serious.

Spike has one of those faces that you can see every thought on. He has an instant's reaction of disbelief, of wondering how I can be asking him such a question but as he continues to think about it, I can see that the idea appeals to him, appeals to his demon. His eyes go all sort of far away. I wonder if he's thought about this, fantasized about it before. Stopped himself from doing something to me that he wanted to because the damage might be lethal or irreversible.

"Never actually fucked anyone to death. Be interestin' to try."

His eyes gleam as he looks me up and down, taking in the darkness of my nipples revealed by the black lace of my brief shirt, my narrow waist, cinched in small by the corset, the pulse beating furiously in my throat. He moves in closer to smell the arousal his words have stirred in me. He slides a hand up one of my exposed thighs.

This tips the scales. If I can't live with him, with the excitement his very presence stirs in me, I don't want to live at all. I've come full circle, back to where I began when he first told me of my two possible fates.

"Do it, then. Fuck me to death."

His expression is gleeful. Like a kid unexpectedly left alone in an unattended candy store, he starts grabbing the sweets right there and then. Pulling my legs apart and pushing my skirts up, he buries his face between my thighs, rubbing his sharp chin against my newly shaven and exposed mound. The skin is so sensitive there that I can feel the slightest prickle of his stubble, although I've never seen him shave or have any kind of discernable beard. He attacks me with his mouth as if I'm the most appetizing of dishes and he's a starving man; prying me open with his fingers so he can suck my clit deep into this mouth, closing his teeth over it and tugging on it, scraping it between them.

He brings me to a quick hard orgasm, but gives me no time to rest or recover before he has his jeans shoved down and is on top of me, fucking me hard and fast, his teeth tearing the lace of my shirt to fasten onto a nipple. He slams into me harder than he ever has before, driving my head into the iron bars at the head of the bed, bruising me from both ends. My head is forced into an impossible angle and each thrust slamming me into the headboard twists it more.

Somehow having my neck accidentally broken during the first go 'round isn't exactly what I'd had in mind when I'd imagined being fucked to death so I grab a handful of his hair, pull his head up off my breast and say, "Move down, you're hurting my head." It takes him a moment to understand what I'm talking about, but when realization dawns, rather than just scooting us down, as I'd meant for him to do, he pulls out of me completely, gets off the bed, pulls up his pants and scoops me up into his arms.

He carries me into the main room and puts me down on the top of the coffin. He goes to the wall where Sidney's body is still manacled, unchains it, gives it a few kicks as it lies on the floor then drags it out of the room, muttering to it, "Pillock, not only did you ruin Dru's party, you ruined a perfectly brilliant band. Stupid sod. Prat."

I wait for him, pussy throbbing, silently urging him to hurry back to me. When he comes back from disposing of Sidney, he goes into the bedroom and emerges with my shoes - the black patent leather stiletto-heeled fuck-me-pumps. He comes over to me and carefully fits the shoes on my feet. Taking my hands, he pulls me up and over to the where the chains hang on the wall. He puts my hands into the steel manacles and adjusts the chains so that I'm stretched out full length - one taut thrumming guitar string of flesh quivering to know what melody will be played upon it next.

He rips off the lace shirt and the skirt, leaving me in only the high-heeled shoes, black silk thigh-hi stockings and black leather corset. I must look like a blonde Betty Page, I think. Taking a small key from his pocket, he unlocks and removes the collar, symbolically freeing me, making me responsible for my choice. He places little sucking, biting kisses on my neck. I close my eyes, rolling my head back and to the side to give him better access. With surprisingly gentle teeth he worries the sensitive area where my neck meets my shoulder as he also gently kneads one of my breasts, teasing the nipple to further erectness before pinching it hard, giving it a sharp twist.

He trails his tongue up my neck to my mouth and kisses me deeply, holding my face between his hands, pressing his body against mine, rubbing his engorged cock against me, the rough denim scratching my bare skin. In these heels I'm nearly as tall as he is. His tongue makes a leisurely inventory of my mouth - my teeth, tongue, palate. I suck on it, pulling it as deeply into my mouth as I can, nipping it with my teeth, tangling my tongue with his, chasing it as it retreats and he sucks on my tongue in turn.

I can taste the tobacco of his last cigarette, the sharpness of the gin shot he'd thrown back at the underground club. I concentrate on these flavors, memorizing them, savoring them. If this is going to be my last kiss before I die, I want to pay attention. I want to pay attention to everything - make it good, make it last, make it something worth dying for. I trust him to do that for me. Tears are leaking out from under my closed eyelids as I kiss him, as he kisses me and I have an emptiness inside of me that I need him to fill.

He breaks the kiss gently and thumbs the tears from my face. "Hush now, sweetheart, no tears. Can't have my special girl crying when she dies."

Dutifully, I choke back my sobs and force a weak smile, "I guess this is the place where I make some sort of smart-assed remark. Sorry I can't think of one just now." I manage to keep most of the quaver out of my voice.

"'S'all right, love, we'll just take it as read." He stands back a little ways from me, still within arms reach, and runs his hands down my neck, over my chest and breasts, over the leather covering my waist and hips before finishing off with a quick stroke on my bare mound. "I think these beautiful breasts need some color," he says, cupping them in his hands and looking at them appraisingly, his head cocked to the side. "Maybe some red stripes."

I shiver with anticipation as he strips off his shirt before going to the trunk that holds the 'toys.' He pulls out the riding crop that Dru used on me the night I stole his lighter. He trails the flapping leather tab on its end down my neck to my breasts, teasing my nipples with it. "Want a last cigarette, a blindfold?" he asks with a wicked grin.

I smile at his firing squad joke but reply seriously, "No, I want to see it. I want to see everything, feel everything." My breathing is already fast and shallow, my heart speeding up, my pulse pounding. I don't even blink for fear that I might miss something. I hold my breath as he pulls his arm back to swing the crop at me, watching his lean muscles flex and ripple beneath his smooth white skin.

The first blow lands across the top of my breasts, leaving a bright red welt, but not breaking the skin. I let my breath out and concentrate on the stinging pain. I look up at him. He's got a look in his eyes of, well; I would almost describe it as concern. As if he's giving me yet another opportunity to change my mind. I only nod and he hits me again, this time catching my left nipple, the end of the crop snapping it, making it jerk and bob. This blow brings fresh tears to my eyes and a new surge of warmth and moisture between my legs. My knees weaken for a second before I steady myself on my precarious stiletto heels.

He doesn't wait for me to signal him again, but rains blow after blow across my tits, really getting into it, aiming primarily at my nipples but liberally striping the whole area with bright red lines, more than a few of them oozing small drops or a trickle of blood. The pain of each individual blow is subsumed by the overall pain and throbbing. My breasts feel unnaturally big, as if they're the largest part of my body, followed by my cunt, which is throbbing in sympathy for and in envy of the attention being lavished on my tits.

Tucking the crop under his arm, Spike leans over me to lick up the blood before kicking my feet farther apart. He runs the crop up the inside of first one thigh and then the other before dragging the tip of it along my slit, slapping me there gently with the tab at the end of it, then more forcefully. From the tingle I can tell that the freshly bare skin must be getting pink. He steps back and swings again, the crop striking me across the tops of my thighs. Between each blow he looks into my eyes, as if to ask if it's all right, if I want him to stop, telling me that he will, even though he really doesn't want to. Wordlessly I tell him more, I want more and he delivers, striping me again and again across my legs, the stockings offering no protection as they're quickly shredded, angling the crop to catch the sensitive skin of my inner thighs or across my bare mons.

He changes his grip on the crop; holding it in a one-handed under-hand grip as if it's a croquet mallet, ready to sweep it up and directly into me. He hesitates, takes his permission from my eyes and swings his arm back then forwards. When the crop slashes into me, I'm so wet that I imagine I can hear the splash. The pain washes over me in something so closely resembling an orgasm as makes no difference, leaving me spasming and weak-kneed, hanging from the manacles. I concentrate on the pain of them biting into my wrists as a way to steady myself. I unwobble my knees and get my feet planted more firmly beneath me, in an even wider stance, and nod to him to do it again.

Up to this point I haven't made a sound other than the odd gasp. I don't want to wake Drusilla who is still passed out on the fainting couch at the other end of the room. Also, silence seems more appropriate to the seriousness of the occasion. Makes it seem both more real and more unreal, more ritualistic. But when the next blow hits me, a scream rips itself from my throat. My wider stance has opened me even farther and the riding crop hits me precisely along my openness, splitting the skin.

I feel the hot blood trickling down my thighs, mixing with my other juices. Spike tosses the crop aside and falls to his knees in front of me, leaning in to catch the blood on his tongue as it flows out of me. He licks it from my legs, following it up to its source. Holding me open, he burrows into me licking and biting, his rough tongue stimulating the split skin to continue to bleed freely. He drags his tongue all along my slit over and over, scooping up the blood and wetness. I'm bucking my hips against his face, unable to hold still. Finally he settles his mouth over my clit and I can feel his face change against me right before he sinks his fangs into me, doing what I'd begged of him so many long weeks ago - drinking from me from there.

I grab the chains above the manacles to keep myself upright while he satisfies our mutual bloodlust - his lust to consume my blood, my lust to give him anything and everything of me he wants, including all my blood, all my life.

One orgasm after another ripples through me, pumping the blood out of me and into his sucking mouth. The already dim candlelight recedes further as dark shadows chase themselves across my vision. I no longer have the strength to hold onto the chains and my fingers loosen, leaving me to hang by my wrists until Spike catches me around the hips and lifts me just enough to take the pressure off. Despite my efforts to keep them open, my eyelids flutter closed. Is this it? I wonder. Am I dying?

Not yet, apparently. When I come to, I'm lying on top of the coffin. Spike has removed the breath-constricting corset and is squatting beside me, trying to get me to drink some water. "There you are," he says. "Don't think you're getting away from me so easily. How can you get fucked to death when I haven't even really fucked you yet?"

I have a curious metallic taste in my mouth - the taste of blood. I look up at him accusingly, while gulping the water he holds to my mouth. As soon as I've drunk it all, I say, "You gave me your blood."

"Not enough to turn you, just to revive you a little. You weren't close enough to death for it to have made you into one of us. If you were going to be a vampire, you'd be dead right now and Dru and I would be on our way to Rome."

I lift my head a little and peer across the dim room. Dru is still lying motionless on the couch at the far end. "What were you going to do, carry her the whole way?"

He laughs. "Must be feeling better. Don't think you've been disrespectful to me for a whole hour, hour and a half."

He leans forward to kiss my forehead just as I decide to sit up. We smack heads painfully. "Ow," I say, holding my forehead, as, at the same time he says,

"Bloody hell!" He snakes his tongue out to feel where his lip has been split by its collision with my head.

"Figures," I say, sitting up the rest of the way. "I can't even die without it becoming a freakin' slapstick routine."

His fingertips smooth over the knot growing on my forehead, "I am going to miss you," he says, smiling up at me. His touch becomes more caressing, following the curve of my eyebrow, the line of my cheekbone, tracing the outline of my lips. I open my mouth to taste his thumb. Even his gentle touch on my face makes me want him.

With my hands finally free, I can touch him and I do. I echo the caresses he's given me, running my fingers along the sweep of his brows, starting in the center and moving outwards, feeling the difference the scar makes in his left eyebrow. Bringing the touch around to circle his eyes, I run my fingers over his sharp cheekbones in towards his nose. I run my two index fingers side by side down his hawkish nose to trace his full lips. I wipe away a small drop of blood from his split lip and bring my finger up to my mouth to slowly lick it clean.

"Stand up," I say, looking down into his eyes. He rises fluidly from his crouching position. I slide to my feet from the top of the coffin and move to stand behind him, still wearing the shredded black stockings and high-heeled shoes. He tries to turn to face me, but I stop him, "Hold still," I command and, amazingly, he does.

I circle around him, drinking him in with my eyes. I can never get enough of his cold white beauty. So much energy and strength and grace packaged so compactly, so flawlessly. "Take the rest of your clothes off, I want to see all of you." I feel weirdly powerful as he obeys me and shucks his boots and jeans. I continue to walk around him, taking in every detail - the hollows on the sides of his hips, the flat pinkish nipples, his broad shoulders and tender neck with its Adam's apple that had so mesmerized me, the place at the nape of his neck where his hair grows in a perfect ducktail.

I move closer, raising my hand to touch him with just the tip of my index finger, running it lightly from the hollow in the nape of his neck, down his spine and along the separation of his buttocks. His skin twitches under my finger like a horse shuddering off a fly. Hm, he's ticklish, I think. I turn my finger so that I'm only touching him with the edge of my long fingernail. I draw circles with it on the firm flesh of his ass, pressing hard enough to create a brief red line to mark the white. His skin continues to shiver and twitch and peering around him, I can see his half-hard cock swell and start to rise.

I continue to tease him with the edge of my nail, dragging it around his waist as I move in front of him to circle it around his navel and up his chest to tease his nipples. I bring my other hand into play and pinch both of his nipples lightly, and again, teasingly. Then a little harder, digging my nails in a bit as I pinch them then dragging all ten of my sharp fingernails down his chest, following the curve of the muscles of his lower abdomen towards his crotch, raking the white flesh hard, leaving red lines that don't fade away immediately. His cock is fully hard now and lying flat against his stomach with that funny little bend to the left I've noticed before. An imperfection, like the scar in his eyebrow, that makes him all the more attractive.

He decides he's let me control the situation long enough. With a growl deep in his throat, he grabs my hair and forces me to my knees in front of him. With his other hand he shoves his cock into my open and willing mouth, fucking it roughly, deeply, stabbing the back of my throat, making me gag. Using my hair as a handle he jerks my head back and forth as I close my mouth around him, creating the friction and suction he's craving, doing my best to keep up, to keep breathing.

Ripping himself out my mouth, still holding me by the hair he turns me around and forces me to bend over the coffin lid. He kicks my legs apart and roughly enters me from behind, using my hair as reins to control me as he slams into me hard and fast. I'm grabbing the far edge of the coffin to hold myself steady, but he's too strong; he jerks my body back and forth, dragging my sore, whipped breasts across the velvet covering which rather than feeling soft, feels coarse and prickly to my over-sensitized flesh. In short order, the velvet has been pushed off the coffin and the rough unfinished wood is scraping against me.

I try to pay attention, to make note of each thing that happens to me but to this day I can still only remember the rest of it as a blur of pain and pleasure and seemingly impossible positions. Of him bending my body this way and that, never letting up on the pace and force of his thrusts, never letting me come down from the orgasms ripping through me one after another. Finally I'm ready.

"Do it," I gasp out, finding the breath from somewhere, my voice gravelly and hoarse from my more or less constant screaming. "Kill me now."

He flips me over onto my back on the coffin, covering me with his body, still pounding into me. He lets his demon's face show and it is just as beautiful as his other face but I only see it briefly before he bites into my neck with much more force and savagery than he has ever used before, ripping the wound wide open so that my blood pulses out of me with such force that if his mouth hadn't been there to catch it, it would have sprayed the room red. At the peak of one more endless climax as the light of the candles fades to gray, a darker shadow crosses before my unfocused eyes. I hear one last thing, Drusilla's musical voice,

"Spike darling, you're getting carried away again. Don't kill it quite yet."

"Here, let me help you," she says as she pulls Spike's head back away from my throat. There's a shiny flash of black and white across the skin of his neck, a blur of red and I smell the most tantalizing aroma.

Suddenly it's as if my vision and hearing have been sucked away and all my senses have coalesced into one - my sense of smell. The odor comes closer, comes close enough to taste and I open my mouth. My senses switch again as my mouth is filled with something that is all things good - everything that tastes good, everything that smells good, feels good, sounds good, looks good. It's everything nourishing and important: food, water, oxygen, pleasure, love, hate, revenge, evil, good, laughter, sadness, anticipation and ultimate satisfaction. I suck it in, suck it up, inhale it, bathe in it, roll in it, drown in it, fuck it, am fucked by it, come in it, make it come in me, make him come in me, over and over and over.

Chapter Twenty-eight - I Once Had A Love

I have no idea how long I was asleep, dead, whatever. Apparently it varies greatly depending on the vamp and how it's made. Don't guess it really matters. Even if it had only been a few hours, by the time I woke up, I could tell that Spike and Drusilla were long gone.

It was the hunger that woke me. Gnawing, growling, screaming hunger. Unlike any I'd ever felt before, even during the two weeks I'd been alone with Dru and her odd idea of an adequate diet. So I wasn't even thinking about the morbidness, the claustrophobic feeling of waking in a coffin, beating and clawing my way through the wooden planks, spitting out the mouthfuls of dirt that fell in my face. I burst out of the pile of earth and into the room, mindless of anything but my hunger.

Reflexively, I drew in several long deep breaths before realizing that I didn't need to breathe anymore. I held my breath to make sure - nope, didn't feel any need to either inhale or exhale. Felt the same inside whether I breathed or not. The realization was enough to make me pause a bit, enough to allow me to shove the hunger down for a few minutes while I assessed the rest of the situation.

They'd been considerate enough to dress me in the black outfit I'd chosen for myself from the clothes in the laundry room before burying me. Spike had placed one of his heavy silver rings on my thumb. I smiled sadly when I saw it, inadvertently cutting my lip on one of my new fangs. Reminded, I reached up to feel my face. Ridges and bumps had grown on my forehead and down my nose. My vision seemed much sharper and the smorgasbord of odors assaulting my nostrils was almost nauseating. The smell of dirt, dust, old stale blood, harsh cleaning products, freshly splintered timber and cold, dead candle wax. There was another odor, less-sickening, teasing my nose. I knew that if I focused on it, I'd be able to track it to its source. I felt hyper-aware beyond the dreams of the most hardcore speed freak.

There was new energy and strength sparking throughout my body as I anticipated the hunt for that elusive fragrance. As I moved and stretched, I heard a crackling noise from inside my shirt and felt something scratching my bare skin. I reached underneath my black camisole and pulled out a piece of paper. Scrawled on a piece of torn brown paper bag, it was a letter from Spike:

"Dear Sunday,

Drusilla 'n me are on our way to Rome by now. Sorry it all went pear-shaped. Really did mean to do what you'd asked, but Dru woke up too soon. Fun while it lasted, though. Maybe someday we'll run into you again somewhere. Sorry I couldn't stick around to show you the ropes (we never did do ropes, did we?).

I did it proper. You'll be strong and I already know you're a survivor. Don't really have much advice to give you. Best to keep moving and maybe someday you'll run into a vamp who can be to you what Dru is to me. They're mostly stupid gits, especially the young ones (present company excepted) and if they're not they'll more'n likely be cooking up some asinine plot to end the world. Wankers. No matter how bad things get, how lonely you feel, don't sign on to be anyone's minion. The infighting's brutal and you'll more'n likely get staked just so's some pillock can show off his wrinklies.

Keep your ear to the ground. You hear where the next Slayer turns up; go someplace far away. Although in a hundred years or so, I bet you'll be able to hold your own against one. Just give it some time first.

That's about all I can think of 'n Dru's getting' antsy (no pun intended). Left you a little prezzie. Getting kind of hungry right about now, aren't you?

Ta, love,

Spike

p.s. if you run into this one vamp - caveman brow, hair sticks straight up - give him a wide berth. He's a real buzzkill."

The letter was so perfectly "him" that I almost thought I could hear his voice, the dark rough velvet of it tickling my ear, wrapping around my brain, fondling the insides of my eyelids, dripping down the back of my throat. I folded the small scrap of paper carefully and put it back where I'd found it, next to my skin. He was really gone and I was really on my own. Kind of sobering, but now that he'd reminded me, the hunger was back, fiercer and sharper than before. I followed my nose back to my old cell. I didn't even need the key, I discovered. I wrenched the doorknob, breaking the lock and walked in.

She was as like the person I had been as I was now unlike her. Scared yet defiant, she backed away from me, from my demon face. She was talking but I wasn't listening, her voice an annoying little buzz in the echoey emptiness of the high-ceilinged cell. It wasn't the sound of her voice that drew me to her. I was looking at her neck, smelling the fresh blood in her, seeing and hearing it pulse in her soft white throat. It was that rhythmic thump, setting a drumming tempo that pulled my stalking feet across the room.

Moving faster, driven by her speeding pulse, I was behind her, clutching a fistful of her hair, pulling her head back and sinking my teeth into the smell, the beat, the taste, the juicy sound of tearing flesh, my mouth filling with her hot, salty, viscous, rich, lively blood, feeling it feed the demon, feeling it course through my veins, sing in them, fill them and it wasn't the same, it wasn't as much. It wasn't what Spike's blood had been to me, but it was enough for now. I pulled her tighter into my embrace, cradling her, holding her to me as her knees collapsed and her eyes fluttered closed.

When I'd drunk all I could and the girl was an empty, used up, dried up sack of skin and bones, I dropped her, forgot her. I was already wondering, what next? As I wandered back into the main room to see what they'd left, to see if I could find anything that might give me an idea of what my next step should be, I had an urge to shake my head and as I did so, I felt something sliding away, receding. I raised my bloodstained hands and felt my face. All smooth now, it felt just like it always had, save for the tiny scar in my eyebrow. I hadn't had a chance yet to examine myself in detail, to learn that all my injuries and scars had been erased save for this small reminder. Later I would wonder why this one remained.

They'd taken the coffin off of its trestles before piling the dirt over it. Curiously I looked into it, pushing aside the dirt that had fallen in when I'd broken out, to see if they'd left any other last minute gifts. Buried by a spill of black soil I found one more memento - Drusilla had left one of her dolls in the coffin with me. Miss Mary, her blue eyes broken into jagged shards of glass that fell out and into my hand like crystallized tears when I lifted her. Clenching them in my fist, I shook with fury and felt my face change once more within just the short time I'd been awake.

I knew a warning, a threat, when I saw one. But what Drusilla had never understood about me, and what was doubly true about me now, after all I'd been through, after all the superficial changes, was this. Nothing makes me more determined to do something than being told not to. Maybe I'd always been Miss Mary - contrary to the core. I had once had a love and no warnings or threats were going to keep me from finding him again.

So really, that's about all there is to my story. The beginning of it, anyway. Sun's coming up and I've got places to go, a Spike to find. Hear the Hellmouth's nice this time of year.

Epilogue - One Way or Another (Reprise)

The girl in black gets up from the table, tosses her long blonde hair impatiently behind her shoulder and turns her back on the man who is still talking, still asking questions, unwilling to let her leave. She wipes away the exasperation that had shown on her face when her back was turned as she pivots around to face him and leans in to whisper something into his ear. He follows her into the diner's unisex restroom, oblivious to the predatory set of her features, the feral smirk on her red lips.

A few minutes later she emerges alone. Wearing the young man's leather jacket, she tosses a set of car keys into the air and catches them. With her other hand she reaches up and wipes her mouth, the harsh fluorescent light glinting off the heavy silver band on her thumb.

She goes into the parking lot. It takes her several tries, but she finally finds the car that fits the keys she's swiped. As she peels out of the lot, back tires skidding on the icy blacktop, and heads west, the Buzzcocks' "Orgasm Addict" cranked at full volume can be heard through the car's closed windows.

"Well you try it just for once, find it all right for kicks But now you find out that it's a habit that sticks And you're an orgasm addict You're an orgasm addict"

THE END

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