DAYS OF OUR UNLIVES: MALE BONDING
"I can't find them."
His prominent brows draw together ever so slightly. "You what?"
I blink slowly. "I. can't. find them," I repeat patiently.
He pushes his lower lip out slightly into the most adorable pout I've ever seen- where the *hell* did Angel learn to pout like that? Oh, yeah. From me. The PoutMaster himself.
"Cute," I mutter. "That doesn't help me find them."
"Have you checked-"
"Yes."
"I didn't finish!"
"Doesn't matter. I've checked there."
"What about-"
"Yes, there too."
He lets out a very nearly heartrending sigh. "But you *promised*."
"I bet Weasely took 'em. Kinky
bastard." Angel just glowers at me and sits down on the bedspread
with a little "humph." I slam a drawer shut and turn on him with
some small measure of annoyance. "Angelus, they don't *do* anything.
Those
manacles are a hundred and forty-eight
years old and they could snap with a turn of your wrist. It's all
for bloody show anyway- I know it and you know it. Can't you just-
hold onto the headboard and- *pretend*?"
He narrows his eyes slightly. "It's not the same."
I glance impatiently at the clock on the dresser. "You overslept this morning 'cause of that god-awful battle last night and then you took the world's longest shower because you were convinced that you still had slime in your hair so you lathered and rinsed and repeated *four fucking times-*"
"Three."
"-and I've just wasted a sodding hour looking for those goddamn manacles and they'll expect you downstairs in a couple of hours and we haven't had a chance to so much as catch our breaths in a week-"
"We don't breathe."
"-and if I don't get laid soon I'm gonna rip your goddamn lungs out, so you're gonna let me tie you up with whatever's on hand, and you're gonna bloody well *like* it!" I finish emphatically.
Angel stares back at me with something closely akin to hunger and nods. "Okay."
I look around the room for something bondageworthy. Nothing. Ribbon, rope, nothing. We had handcuffs, the cheap novelty kind, but they didn't last long. After that we got enchanted ones but the first time we used them they wouldn't open again and Angel had to call Wesley in to recite the spell that detached me from the plumbing fixtures. I haven't seen those magic cuffs since. A tie, perhaps? No. The wanker doesn't own any ties. If he did, I'd stake him myself. I glance desperately at the loor. Of course! Bloody perfect! I lean over and quickly pull the laces from my eighteen-hole Docs.
"This do, Peaches?"
His tongue actually darts out briefly to moisten his lips.
I drop the shoelaces on the pillow and push him back onto the bedspread, straddling his torso and pinning him to the coverlet with my knees. I pull his clothes off quickly, tearing some of them in the process. He doesn't even flinch.
Come a long way, my Sire has.
"Hurry," he pants, practically ripping my jeans off me. "I promised I'd be back in the office by six-"
I crush my lips against his, effectively silencing him. "Leave it at the office, mate, all right? It's been a hell of a week."
He nods emphatically, lifting my
shirt over my head. Yes, Spike. Sure, Spike. Whatever you say,
Spike. Gods, but I love it when he's submissive. Doesn't happen very
often-usually he's fuck-Spike-into-the-mattress guy, and that's perfectly
fine with
me. But he has these moments
where he just relinquishes all control, and it's bloody well delicious.
Well, 'cept for the him bitching about the missing manacles thing.
He kneels on the mattress, facing
the wall, and I press his wrists up against the headboard, running my tongue
lightly up the back of his neck as I do so. The laces are old, sure,
but they're pretty damn long and they loop around his wrists and the
bedpost six or eight times.
It would hold a human damn secure. If he doesn't struggle-and he
won't-it'll hold him.
"Oh, God," he moans. "Hurry."
Looking back, I can't bloody well
believe he went so long without getting laid after the Slutty Debacle,
'cause the poofter can't stand going without now. To be fair, it's
not really the carnal act itself, or the lack thereof. There's been
sex this week.
Hurried blowjobs behind demon bars
while waiting for Wesley to show up with the disenchanting powder and crossbows,
quick shags in the office while Gunn sat in the car, ready with axes and
stakes for the coming fight, honking the horn impatiently. And that,
truth be told, is bloody well good enough for me. But not for the
Great Brooding Wanker. He's no longer the bathtubs-and-candlelight,
sweet-tender-Marvin-Gaye-soundtrack poofter he used to be, and I'd like
to think I've
taught him to appreciate the value
of the quickie.
But there are still sone things that he considers invaluable to the complete sexual experience. Bedsheets. Pillows. Stretches of free time amounting to more than three minutes.
No accounting for taste, I suppose.
I open the drawer next to the bed, riffling through the contents in search of the industrial-size bottle of baby oil, unable to find it amidst cigarette packs, comic books, and a nearly empty bottle of Jack Daniels.
"Angelus, where the fuck is the oil?"
"I don't know," he retorts impatiently.
"You had it last."
"Did not."
"Did too."
"Did not."
I reach under the bed and pull out the box that Angel doesn't know that I know is there. In the box, lying atop Angel's rather impressive collection of Victorian porn, is the missing oil. "Did too," I retort triumphantly.
He has the decency to look the slightest bit ashamed before rolling his eyes. "I don't think who had it last is really the issue right now, since you're the one who usually misplaces it after you've locked yourself in the bathroom with an issue of Hustler, and if you wouldn't keep the room such a mess, it wouldn't even be a problem, and I really think-"
His rambling gives me adequate time to make my preparations and I enter him with a single thrust.
"Angel," I whisper sweetly into his ear, "shut. the. fuck. up."
***
Uhhhg. Gah. Guh.
That's right, I said guh. And I'll say it again.
It all started on Monday morning,
when a tribe of sewer demons from somewhere in north Hollywood rose and
tried to ritually sacrifice an entire nursery school full of frightened
and perplexed four-year-olds, and from there the week only went downhill.
My crew and I have dusted a nest
of vamps, sung kareoke (two Barry Manilow numbers, one Conway Twitty, and
a performance of Frank Sinatra's "My Way" as interpreted by Sid Vicious
as interpreted by Spike), bribed a slime demon, slain a
dragon somewhere in the Los Angeles
water supply, and averted an apocalypse. Twice.
You know what? I'm tired.
Not too tired for sex, of course.
No one who's ever watched Spike battling a dragon- his clothing half
torn off by vicious claws, chopping off reptilian extremities without ever
dropping the cigarette firmly clenched between his teeth, screaming
random, incoherent British expletives
and snatches of Sex Pistols tunes- could be too tired for sex. Well,
no one who's *me,* anyway.
But I am too damn tired to be the
one in charge tonight. I don't want to worry about the fucking and
the foreplay and the what goes where and the when's he gonna come, okay?
I'm sick of being the one who makes the decisions. I'm sick of
being the one that gets impaled
on sharp metal objects. I'm sick of being the boss. I wanna
stay right here, on my knees, firmly bound to the bedstead, utterly motionless
and completely devoid of any and all responsibility as Spike
gah
gUh
ohhhhhhh god.
Spike talks during sex. Hardly surprising, since he never shuts up anytime else. Frankly, half of it doesn't make sense because I can't focus on conversation at a time like that, and the other half didn't make sense to begin with, but he talks nonetheless. Sometimes it's stuff so sweet that he'd rip my throat out if I ever mentioned him saying it; sometimes he lays out in detail everything he's about to do to me just before he does it. And sometimes... sometimes he just makes noise.
Whimpers and soft moans. Or he'll begin to scream, and then he buries his face into the side of my throat, muffling his choked yells as his unsheathed fangs just barely graze the surface of my skin. But right now he's just whispering. I can't make out what he's saying and probably wouldn't understand if I could, but I can feel his breath caressing my ear, his lips brushing against my earlobe, and
ohhhh jesus mary and joseph oh fuck.