Chapter 11 – Cruel and Stupid



Buffy swung on her mother’s refrigerator door, enjoying the blast of frigid air on her face. Nobody told her about the hot part. She was hot, all the time. Also, she was hungry, when she wasn’t throwing up. The refrigerator was her favorite place. Cold air and food, together.

Joyce came home from food shopping. “Buffy, close the refrigerator door and help me with the groceries. I bought you everything you like.”

Buffy grabbed a couple of bags and rooted past the milk and eggs and vegetables for real food. “What did you get me? Chocolate Carmel Pop Tarts?”

“Yep.”

“Twinkies and Snoballs?”

“Yep.”

“Cracker Jacks? Barbequed Ranch Dip Fritos? Pizza bagels? M&M’s with Peanuts? Root beer? Cheezee Whizee?”

“You should eat some healthy food, Buffy. Junk food isn’t good for you or for the baby.”

“I ate a donut with buttercream carob icing and carrot spice tofu pulp in the middle for breakfast. Tofu is healthy.”

Joyce sighed.

Buffy couldn’t control her junk food jones. She hadn’t seen Spike for weeks, although the tingling on the back of her neck told her Spike was creeping around and watching her 24/7. That is, when he could take time off from stalking girls over at the mall and trying to scare them by making faces.

She was flunking out of school except for Psychology 102, she was living at home with her mother, she was dating Riley, who was even more boring once you got to know him and she was fat, fat, fat. And, hot. Her life currently sucked beyond the telling. M&M’s and Cheezee Whizee were the only things keeping her from diving head first into the Hellmouth in the hopes something icky would eat her and put her out of her misery.

Her mother refused to acknowledge the fact Buffy had broken up with Spike. She talked about him non-stop, every day. Today was no different.

“I have a showing at the gallery tonight and I won’t be home until late. Why don’t you invite Spike to keep you company?”

Inviting Spike was how she got in this mess in the first place.

“Spike doesn’t want to see me.” He was mad at her for dumping him and for dating Riley. He stalked her every night, popping up whenever Riley was around and disappearing when she was alone.

“I don’t believe that, honey. Why don’t you go see him? I don’t think he fell out of love with you quite that fast.”

“Spike doesn’t love me,” Buffy said. He’d never said he loved her, had he? He just acted like a big idiot, following her all over town and making her nervous whenever she was with Riley, which was an improvement over being bored. Also, he left cigarette butts all over her mother’s lawn.

She popped some M&M’s in her mouth and squirted a liberal dose of Cheezee Whizee onto her tongue on top of the candies. Mmmm.

Joyce made a face, but said nothing. She’d given up on asking Buffy not to squirt Cheezee Whizee in her mouth from the can. She said the prayer all mothers wish on their own offspring, that Buffy would be similarly visited by bad behavior from her own child.

“No, Spike doesn’t love you, which is why he slept with you for months and came over to tell me you were having a baby, instead of letting you face the Wrath of Mother by yourself. He doesn’t love you, which is why he visits me two or three times a week to tell me he misses you and why he was standing under the tree in our front yard for hours last night and every other night I’ve looked.”

Spike’s been visiting my mother behind her back? The nerve. If he loves me, as Mom claims, he would come to see me instead of skulking around in the yard. Why didn’t he climb up and come in her window?

Buffy had not yet told her mother about dating Riley. She’d been sneaking around and pretending her dates with Riley were study sessions. It was time to put an end to Mom’s Spike as Son-in-Law Dream and start getting her used to the idea of Riley Husband Material.

“I’m dating someone else.”

Joyce dropped the tutti-frutti popsicles she was holding and placed her hands flat on the counter. “You’re what?”

Mom looked mad. Way mad. Buffy didn’t understand why, except her mother liked Spike and was always taking up for him, which was why Buffy hadn’t gotten around to telling her mother about Riley before this.

“I’m dating a grad student from the university. His name is Riley Finn, and he’s a soldier and he’s nice and normal and he knows all about demons and vampires.” And, he has a pulse.

“Does Mr. Nice and Normal know you’re pregnant with Spike’s baby?”

“Not exactly?”

Buffy had kept Riley from finding out about the baby. She’d been forced to wear baggy dresses borrowed from Tara and not let him touch her below the neck. She didn’t want him to touch her below the neck, or above the neck, either, so no problema. At the rate the baby was growing, she’d be able keep up the deception for another three days.

Joyce went back to putting groceries away.

“Buffy, you did some dumb things when you were in high school, but I told myself you were young and needed to make mistakes in order to grow up. This is an entirely different category of mistake. It’s cruel and stupid.”

This conversation was not going at all well. Her mother was going to dig in her heels over Riley, Buffy could tell.

“Mom! You haven’t met Riley. You might like him if you gave him a chance.” Of course, she could be overestimating the possibility that her mother would like Riley. She didn’t exactly like Riley herself. “Besides, Spike’s a vampire.”

“Perhaps you should have given some thought to Spike’s being a vampire, before you got pregnant.”

As if Buffy could think about anything when Spike had his hands on her except giving him exactly what he wanted.

“You said I should get married so I could take care of the baby and I’m working on it.”

Nice normal guy husband and father was what her mother wanted for the baby, wasn’t it? Spike didn’t begin to fit into that category.

“I said you and Spike should get married and give my grandchild a proper home. Marrying someone who isn’t the father of your child is not what I had in mind. I’m deeply disappointed, Buffy. I don’t think I’ll be willing to welcome this Riley person into my home.”

“Mom!”

Joyce gave Buffy her The Discussion is Closed look and took some meat and vegetables out of the refrigerator.

This stressful conversation was giving Buffy a powerful sugar craving. “Can I have a pudding pop?”

“No. You can eat steak and vegetables for dinner when I get through making it.”

Joyce was still miffed. Who knew she would become so fond of Spike? Mom would have to get over it, like Buffy had. In the meantime, Buffy had to do whatever she could to make a normal home for her baby.

“Don’t be mad at me, Mom. I want to do what’s best for my baby.”

Joyce softened and gave Buffy a hug. Hugging did not translate to giving up on Spike.

“If you mean that, you’ll go talk to Spike and work things out. Spike loves you. He’s waiting for you to come and see him.”

***

Kaitlin knocked on the door.

“Hey, Aspen. You awake? They’re letting the girls out into the yard.”

Aspen opened the door. “They’re letting us out? It’s the middle of the day.” This was surprising. Usually, the guards only let the captives out at night when the vampires could go as well. The guards said the women were too much trouble to let out during the day.

“Yeah. Let’s go before they change their minds.”

Aspen followed Kaitlin down the hall and out into the compound yard.

“Hey, look at this. They made a party for us,” Kaitlin said.

Instead of the usual bare concrete yard, the guards had set up a table with cake and cookies and punch.

The other women from the compound were gathered around the table, nibbling on cookies and sipping punch.

Aspen approached the table cautiously. Usually, there were six guards in the yard when they let the women and their vampires out. Today, there were no guards around.

She picked up a cookie and a cup of punch and brought the punch to her lips. A faint musty order came from the punch. Something was wrong with it. She turned the cup up and pretended to drink, then brought the cup down to her side and spilt the contents onto the concrete.

“This is great,” Kaitlin said. She downed a cup of punch and refilled her cup. “They should throw a party more often.”

“They should let us go home and we could throw our own party,” Aspen said.

Kaitlin frowned. “I feel funny.” She stumbled then curled to the pavement.

Aspen knelt at her side. “Kaitlin, what’s wrong? Are you sick?” She felt Kaitlin’s wrist for a pulse. Still alive.

She jumped up to find a guard to get help for Kaitlin and saw several of the other women staggering and dropping to the ground.

What was going on? The punch must be doctored with some kind of sleeping potion.

Within moments, all the women except Aspen passed out. Several guards armed with tranquilizer guns ran out of the building towards the women. Aspen didn’t want to get shot with a tranquilizer dart, so she feigned sleepiness and plopped down on the concrete next to Kaitlin.

She kept her eyes shut and her limbs loose as a soldier picked her up and loaded her into a small truck with the rest of the women.

“That’s all of them. Take them to the dock,” one of the soldiers said.

“Shit, Finn. I’ve had it with college girl duty. When are we going back to Sunnydale?”

“Day after never if you don’t get these broads onto the boat.”

“This is your damn fault. If you hadn’t messed with that little blond, we’d all be back in Sunnydale chasing demons instead of stuck on this island.”

“Shut up, Gates.”

Aspen peeked out from under her eyelashes as the truck drove through the compound. She didn’t know where they were, since the women were always restricted to their rooms, a small cafeteria and the compound yard. The truck pulled into an open space that had a boat dock.

She continued to feign sleep as the women were placed into a large boat. The boat pulled away from the island and headed for the mainland. After a tedious trip across the bay to Isla Vista and another truck ride to Sunnydale, the soldiers let themselves into her apartment building, unlocked her apartment door and left her in her own bed, still pretending to sleep.