She recalled how he liked things, at least, the first few times before she made it clear that she wouldn't permit him what he liked. After he came, Spike always wanted to cuddle her, to kiss and make smutty, appreciative, inconsequential remarks. To perhaps doze for a few minutes and wake up for another bout.


He used to scold her for her coolness, for jumping up too soon. "Fuckin's not like a drive-through at your bloody Doublemeat Palace. Don't crumple it up an' chuck it soon as you're done."


"Yeah well, take it or leave it," she'd said, and he'd always taken it, until she stopped giving.


Thinking of this, she returned his light kisses. He'd kissed her this way, possessive little nips, in Giles' living room, when they'd had that spell cast on them.


Bizarre to realize that, and not the time under the stairs in the Bronze, was really the first time she'd tasted him.


She'd thought they were going to get married.


She'd been so happy.


"What a lewd little slip of a thing you turn out to be," he whispered, hand exploring her breasts, still clothed in her bra. "What a pretty way you have with my cock."


"You approve?"


"Was supreme." He smiled. "Like havin' your nipples pinched, do you?" She wriggled. "Ah, you do."


"And yours?" She already knew the answer to this. Spike liked it when she twisted, pulled, gnawed, kissed 'my tits' as he called them. She brushed her palm over one now, pretending to be experimental, to see what would happen. He arched, and beneath her thigh, his cock thumped. He'd be hard again in a minute.


"'Spect I'll like everythin' you might care to do. Certainly aim to find out."


"Good," she said. "Because I have some notions."


"Got a notion to get fucked? Because I could have at you whenever you say."


Tumbling backwards, opening her legs, Buffy said, "Yes please."


Before, she used to dread doing it with him face-to-face. Because face-to-face was more intimate. Face-to-face meant he'd ask her to open her eyes, if she was trying to keep them closed. Ask her to look at him. Expect her to kiss. And there had been times when she'd been able to do that, to just force down her revulsion at having Spike in so close, or revel in it. But there were other times when she wanted to be taken and pretend to be still alone, when his face, so full of yearning affection, repulsed her; she'd tell him she came more easily doggy-style, or on their sides, facing away from him. And he'd say, "You come no matter what, you saucy cunt," but he'd mostly do it the way she wanted. Lest she get up and leave if he resisted her.


She'd been so caught up in her own loneliness those months, she'd never considered the depth of his.


Smiling, Spike hovered over her. "Let's have this off." He undid the front hook on her bra, lowered his head to press his mouth to each nipple in turn, to lick at the soft undersides. "Sweet."


His cock, hard and wet again, brushed against her belly. She took it in hand, throwing her other arm around his neck as he came up to kiss her mouth again, slow tongue-tracing smooches.


"I'm so excited," she whispered.


"An' me."


"I can't wait to have you inside me." This felt like lovemaking 101, but it was so far away from anything she'd ever remotely said to him, and so very near to what she simply, burstingly, felt.


He went into her slowly, not lying on top but scissor-fashion, her leg over his hip, which felt somehow more companionable, egalitarian, friendly, than what she'd anticipated. She watched his face as he sank in, noted how his lashes fluttered, his compulsive grin. "Good?"


"You're good," she said. "You're big." Men liked to be told that—Spike had liked to be told that. And it was only the truth.


"Not too much?"


"You couldn't be too much for me."


"That so?"


She'd imagined they'd go at it like crazy this first time—his first time. What was the expression—hammer-and-tongs. But Spike kept it slow, apparently more interested in watching her, kissing her, caressing her hair and face and breasts, stroking her clit to make her jerk and flail.


Gradually she realized it was her first time with him too. First time she wanted to watch him so closely, to explore him this way, with her hands and mouth, to bear down on his cock inside with a languid firm pressure that made him gasp and laugh and roll his head on the pillow.


This was like playing.


She couldn't remember the last time she'd played. Let alone in bed with a man.


"How's that disturbance doing?" she said.


"Feelin' it. Feelin' it particular."


"When there's vampires around, I feel this kind of little zing at the back of my neck. Is that what you feel around me?"


"More'n that."


"Really?" She wondered if he'd felt it with the other slayers, when they had him locked up. If Spike had been aware of this all along, and just never said anything about it?


"When it's just you," she confided, murmuring into his ear through her own smile, "the zing feels ... different. Like that feeling you get right before your sweetheart kisses you, on the nape of the neck."


"Never been kissed there, I don't think." He smiled. "That I can remember."


"When I can reach it, I'll show you how it feels." She ran a hand down his flank. "I'm going to kiss every bit of you. That's going to be my project."


She nudged him then, taking over the fulcrum, picking up the pace of their fucking. "But first I want to see you come. I want you to come inside me. Come hard."


"At your command," he said, and then did.







They walked arm in arm down through the silent closed-up house, naked, feet silent on the thick carpets. In the kitchen, Buffy downed a yogurt, standing up at the refrigerator, scooping it out with her fingers. Spike licked at her mouth, her hand, grimaced. "Dreadful, that stuff is." She drank down two glasses of water. They kept their hands on each other, asses and bellies. She was sticky with him, skin, hair. But didn't want to wash, not yet.


"You look beautiful like this," Spike said. "All tawny and tossed-about."


"Yeah?" She padded out to the foyer, where a large mirror hung opposite the door—good for checking one's look before going out, and making sure that callers weren't undead. She hadn't looked herself over, full-length and nude, in she couldn't think when. Spike came up behind her, a hand spread over her buttocks, gently goosing.


"Wish I could see myself."


"I've got a camera on my cellphone. Or—wait. I think there's something better." She led him down into the lower level, where the slayer training space was laid out with every possible piece of equipment. Including, what she'd dimly registered pushed into a corner when she'd checked it out earlier—a video camera and monitor. Used to tape the girls and then show them what they were doing wrong or right. She pulled it out. "If I can figure out how this works, you can see yourself on the TV."


She expected him to preen—he'd always had plenty of satisfaction in his appearance. But he approached the monitor, eyes wide, mouth ajar in shock. "This— Good heavens."


"What's the matter?"


He turned his head from side to side, trying to view as many angles as he could. Put his hands to his hair—tufty from their exertions in bed.


"This ... not what I expected. This isn't me."


"What do you mean it isn't you?"


"My hair's ... darkish. Not yellow. And ..." He fingered the scar on his brow, consternation pulling his features down. "I didn't know I looked so ... hard."


"Hard is bad?" His distress seemed to come so out of nowhere.


"Look like a hooligan. Some kind of chancer. Goes with that name, I suppose."


She noticed again the little slip in his personality—the glimpse of who he might have been before he'd thought of being Spike. The man who thought the lights were too bright in the city, who didn't want a strange lady to see him in the bath.


"Do you ... have an image in your mind? That you thought you'd see?"


He frowned at that, as he did every time she tried to probe his absent memory. "Would've said no, but somehow ... know it shouldn't be this. My body seems ... not quite right either." He glanced at her. "An' those clothes I been wearin' ... those are wrong too. Wouldn't dress myself in that rubbishy stuff." He sounded confused now, as if he felt he'd been tricked.


"No? What then?"


"Proper clothes." He turned away from the camera, wandered out of its range.


"We can get you different things. What kind?"


His back was to her. He'd fetched up in front of the wall of weapons—swords, scimitars, throwing stars, staffs, everything. He tipped his head back, taking them in, tiers upon tiers up to the ceiling. Stepped back, as if he feared they'd come down on him.


She came up behind him, slipped her hand around his arm. "William, what's happening?"


He turned, open mouthed. He looked to be in pain. One hand flew up to touch his brow, to trace the scar.


"I don't know."


"You know where you are, though? Who am I?"


"You—" His lips pursed, as if he was searching for a word. "You—are a lady who—who brought me to—" He looked around then, at the big open room, at the pommel horses and mats and padded suits hanging from hooks, at the weapons and free weights and yoga blocks. Then back at her, taking in, as if for the first time, that they were both naked. "You are a lady," he repeated, his eyes widening in doubt. "I am William. I am William ... Pratt. At least ... is this a dream?"


"Sweetheart, no."


"I have misplaced my spectacles, and yet I see everything so clearly. That must be because I am in a dream."


"No, there's another reason. Are you sure you don't know who I am?"


His expression shaded into a smile, small, knowing, nearly smug. "A dream, yes, in which I am playing at Adam and you are Eve."


She could have cried. "Maybe you should wake up now. Try to wake up, Will."


"It's an allegory," he said. His voice dreamy now, as if to match his supposition. He gestured at their surroundings. "These are signs, yes? There are symbols I do not grasp but I know something."


"Try to wake up."





"And you, you too are an allegory. What day the genial Angel to our sire


Brought her, in naked beauty more adorned,


More lovely than Pandora, whom the Gods


Endowed with all their gifts, and, O! too like


In sad event, when to the unwiser son


Of Japhet brought by Hermes, she ensnared


Mankind with her fair looks, to be avenged


On him who had stole Jove's authentic fire."





"Spike—c'mon. Wake up now. You know me. Buffy. We came down here so you could see yourself, right?"


"It's all strange, but I know the lines, I know what you are to me, and me to you. Listen:


Into their inmost bower


Handed they went; and eased the putting off


Those troublesome disguises which we wear,


Straight side by side were laid; nor turned, I ween,


Adam from his fair spouse, nor Eve the rites


Mysterious of connubial love refused:


Whatever hypocrites austerely talk


Of purity, and place, and innocence,


Defaming as impure what God declares


Pure, and commands to some, leaves free to all.


Our Maker bids increase; who bids abstain


But our destroyer, foe to God and Man?"





"Spike. You're wide awake. We're together. We're naked because we've been making love."


"Symbols! I understand it. It all relates.

Here love his golden shafts employs, here lights


His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings,


Reigns here and revels; not in the bought smile


Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendeared,


Casual fruition: nor in court amours


Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball,


Or serenade, which the starved lover sings


To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain."




"Not symbols. No more poetry, please. C'mere." She drew him back towards the camera. Maybe seeing himself again would snap him out of this ... fugue thing. "Look. Spike and Buffy. Remember?"


He couldn't seem to focus on the monitor. Like a dog when you try to get it to look at TV, he looked everywhere but. When she pointed, he looked at her hand. Then he looked at her, smiling happily, but without the desired result. "I cannot believe," he said, as if he was remarking on the weather to a stranger, "that these dreams of mine are a sin."


"No, no sin. But I'd like you to wake up. Please wake up, okay?"


With an air of satisfaction, he said, "I am still innocent."


Oh God.


She hauled back and slapped him.


"I say!" The pain and disbelief in his face almost dissuaded her from trying again.


She delivered the next blow with a closed fist. He went over, sprawling. Lay still, so that she thought she'd only managed to render him unconscious. Until he sat up slowly, holding his nose.


She hit him again. "C'mon, Spike! I know you're in there! Time to mix it up with the slayer!"


It took two more blows for him to fang out. He came at her with a roar, grabbing her swinging hair in one fist, managing to twist her arm around her back so her neck was exposed. A kick to his knee freed her. He stumbled, howling, but recovered quickly, circling her. Slavering.


She wasn't sure she'd ever seen him slaver before.


"Spike? Are you back now?"


The flat amber eyes didn't flash with recognition.


Oh good, Buffy. You've quite possibly just made this about a hundred times worse.





Lines from The First Love of Adam And Eve, by John Milton.