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The Tin Bird by Spikez_tart
 
Heart on Fire
 
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Tin bird

DISCLAIMER: Joss owns the characters and makes the money. I right the wrongs of the Evil Writers who refused to get Buffy and Spike together where they belonged.

SPECIAL THANKS: Extra special thanks to nmcil for her inspiring banner. You can see more of her fabulous work at href = “http://www.whedonworld.com”

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Chapter 9 – Heart on Fire



He ran out of the Underwood house without stopping to speak to anyone. He was wild to escape before anyone should realize Cecily had trampled his prospects of marriage beneath her delicate kid boots. If he could leave before Cecily’s guests saw his reddened face and the tears in his eyes, no one need ever know about his rejection. Cecily’s icy and aloof character would not permit her to reveal to the others she had been the love object of the hopeless and poor William Pratt. Mary Butterfield called out to him, but he ignored her. He wouldn’t give her or any of the others the opportunity to laugh at him, at least not to his face.

He’d left in such a hurry, he’d had no time to wait for the butler to fetch his hat and coat. Icy drizzle penetrated his thin clothes, but he found he didn’t mind. The cold soothed his hurt feelings and steadied his nerves. He wiped the tears from his eyes.

How could he have been so blind? Surely, Cecily had encouraged his suit. It wasn’t all in his imagination, was it? His mother, fooled as well, had been quite insistent that he bring Cecily home as his wife. Had they both been deceived by the cold and thorn-hearted Cecily, or were they only seeing what they wanted to see? His embarrassment was keen, but he had no misgivings after hearing her harsh words. She was as unfeeling as she was beautiful. Cecily was nothing at all like Emma, whose open and loving heart invited him into its warmth. Tears sprang up in his eyes again and he made no attempt to keep them from falling.

Bloxham and Marbury lurked on the corner, smoking cigarettes, when William burst from the house. Bloxham held some large cards in his hands. “Cecily give you the mitten?” He laughed. “Don’t take it to heart so, my good man. She’s an iceberg, that one. A man’s wick could freeze right off if he dipped it into her cold cunny. What you need is a real woman.” He held forth one of the cards.

William didn’t want to take the card. Bloxham was planning a trick and William was bound to be the object of the joke, but if he didn’t take it, Bloxham and Marbury would laugh at him for a coward. He took the card. It was a photograph of a naked woman. She knelt before a naked man, who sat on a tufted velvet sofa. She was performing a most unnatural act on the man. One plump hand rested on the man’s knee and the other guided the man’s member into her mouth. He felt dizzy and repulsed and excited at once. His member tightened and grew hard. What kind of man was he to be excited by something so revolting? William pitched the card into the gutter. “You’re not a good man. A good man wouldn’t have such a thing.”

Bloxham took a long pull on his cigarette and flung the glowing butt onto the street. “Maybe I was wrong about you, Pratt. Maybe a mama’s boy like you would prefer a photograph of two men.”

“What – What are you saying?” Bloxham was accusing him of something too degrading to contemplate. He’d heard of such things. They were mentioned in the Bible, but he’d always skipped over those passages when reading to his mother. He saw himself sitting on the velvet sofa with another man kneeling at his feet as the man guided William’s member into his mouth. No! He wasn’t like this. He was a normal man with normal feelings.

Bloxham, as if reading his thoughts, broke out laughing.

William shoved Bloxham in the chest and scurried down the street. His mortification this evening was complete and thorough going – the indignity of having his poem held up for ridicule, then Cecily’s cold dismissal and now Bloxham’s disgusting insinuations. It was more than any man could be expected to tolerate.

He raced down the street, his heart on fire, turning one way and another without watching where he was going, his eyes focused on the paving stones. He ripped the pages with his silly tribute to Cecily in half and then again into smaller pieces.

As he rushed along, a large man rammed him with his shoulder and knocked him off balance. He dropped the torn pages.

“Watch where you're going!” he said. He snatched up the pieces of paper.

He turned another corner and found himself in front of Harrods. The store was closed and the windows showed only inky darkness, but the store motto, carved into stone above the door, radiated with a sickening green glow.

Omnia Omnibus Ubiqu.

All things for all people. Hah! His bitter laugh caught in his throat. This place was where all his troubles began, where he’d met Miss Harlan and got his heart broken, where he’d first seen that dreadful man and his harlot. Did the man have something to do with Emma’s death? William’s heart ached with the memory of her broken, torn body lying on her dressing room floor, all the life and happiness crushed out. All his life and happiness crushed out, too.

He turned away from the store and walked for another quarter hour until he came to Couphin’s Livery, where his father once kept his horses. No one would bother him here. His mother wouldn’t be expecting him home for hours and he could compose himself before going home.

He sat down on a bale of hay and looked at the ripped pages of poems. He had no one to blame but himself. He’d convinced himself after Emma’s death that he was wrong to want a woman like her. He’d convinced himself to take the safe path, to marry a suitable woman who would have his mother’s approval. But, Emma changed everything. Changed him. After knowing her, loving her, he could never be satisfied being chained to a stifling life with Cecily or any woman of her class. He’d only been kidding himself that he could be happy with the sort of life Cecily and all her frozen, pitiless kind represented. His eyes were open. He wanted something –

“And I wonder... what possible catastrophe came crashing down from heaven and brought this dashing stranger to tears?”

The sound of a young woman’s voice startled him. He wanted to be alone. Was there no place in the entire City of London where a man could sit and think without being tormented by some woman? “Nothing. I wish to be alone.”

His voice was rough and his words almost rude. It felt good to say what he meant. He planned to be rude in future. He planned to say true things, no matter who got hurt. He planned to do the things he wanted to do and not the things society said he must. He’d break society’s rules and live a poet’s life. Once his mother was dead, he might even go to America, where everyone ran wild and did as they pleased. He thought of his mother’s death without emotion or guilt. He’d find another Emma, too, if such a woman existed. A woman filled with life and song and love, and he’d never settle for anything less than a woman blazing with fire.

“Oh, I see you,” the woman said. “A man surrounded by fools who cannot see his strength, his vision, his glory.” She paused, her body swaying to some unheard music. “That and burning baby fish swimming all around your head.” Her hand stabbed the air.

The woman’s skin gleamed pale against her black lace dress and black lace mitts. Her black pupils sank into the white globes of her large, glowing eyes. She didn’t blink. She was attractive and well dressed, but clearly she was unbalanced and no good woman would be on the street alone at this time of night. She must want something, perhaps to rob him.

He got up from his seat and took a step away from her. “That's quite close enough. I've heard tales of London pickpockets. You'll not be getting my purse, I tell you.”

The woman smiled and came closer. “Don't need your purse. Your wealth lies here...” she touched his chest over his heart, “and here,” she skimmed her delicate lace-wrapped fingers over his temple. “In the spirit and... imagination. You walk in worlds the others can't begin to imagine.”

He breathed faster. This woman, this night wanderer, understood him. She understood the poet’s soul scrabbling in his heart. “Oh, yes! I mean, no. I mean... mother's expecting me.” What was he thinking? It was all very well to seek a life free of society’s restrictions and a love to match his own in spirit and feeling, but quite another to take up with some female on the street.

The woman pulled back the sprung collar of his shirt and traced her fingers along his neck. “I see what you want. Something glowing and glistening. Something … ” her open hand caught the air, “... effulgent.”

“Effulgent,” he said. His voice was a ghost’s whisper.

The woman touched his groin and sent lust radiating through his body. “Do you want it?”

She wasn’t some woman on the street. She was a second chance! A chance to have love and longing collide in a flame of passion. Wild ... and passionate and dangerous love. Love that burns and consumes. Until there's nothing left. “Oh, yes! God, yes!” He touched her chest with the tips of his fingers.

The woman lowered her eyes. When she lifted her face again, her visage distorted into a animal mask – yellow eyes, fang-like canines and rumpled brow. She embraced him with strong arms. Her teeth sank into his neck. Yes! His nerves flared with heat and light as her teeth pierced his skin and she sucked on his blood and flesh. Her jaw bit down harder. Pain! Her mouth hurt him, then the pain faded as his blood flowed into her mouth. He moaned with pleasure and sank to the filthy stable floor and embraced his death.


 
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