Spike has me by the ankles, my legs bent up, his platinum blond head rising and falling gently as he laps at my clit. I’m torn between the impulse to close my eyes and let the sensation take me, or keep my head up to watch him, his long neck and his bare back, as he disappears into my cunt. He looks like he’s feeding – he probably feels like it, too. I certainly feel as if I’m pouring my life into his mouth, his cool wet tongue, as my hips writhe without my will, as if trying to force myself inside him. He releases one leg and reaches into my cunt with his fingers, sliding them in and out while his dirty, blood seeking tongue never stops lapping at me. His pinky fingers my ass until my juices pour down, and he slides it inside, and everything between my legs belongs to him entire. I can’t watch anymore, the sensations weakening my muscles, and my head falls back. I don’t exist – he doesn’t exist – I’m just this sensation between my legs, back and forth, in and out, wet and hot and cool, my whole body convulsing as my pelvis rolls into it. It builds like the sound of an oncoming train, closer and closer, until I’m moaning and whimpering with longing – why won’t it come? – and he slows down, pulls away just a little, teasing me with the tip of his tongue. I whine like a puppy left outside in the rain, I can’t not. He brings his tongue back, swirling around my clit, pushing harder, faster. I gasp with relief as it feels closer again, arching up into him, pulling him closer with my free leg, my hands reaching for his hair, holding him against me, but he’s done teasing. He licks hard, and his hand fucks me harder, and he lifts me by my cunt and then sucks at my clit, and the train finally rushes by me, the roar and the wind thundering through my body, blowing me away, and the whistle is my scream – he loves it when I scream, and I can’t stop myself from doing it. I think back on my whimpers and my moans and my whines of longing, and all my screams, with shame by the time I’ve been home an hour. How could I be that, want that, let him hear that?

    The next day I come back for more.

***
 

    Angel would hold me like a fragile child. I had enough strength to rip his arm off and beat him with it, and yet he still touched me as if I would break under his hand. He kissed me and caressed me, before disappearing, over and over again. I’d try to get closer, and he’d let me, and I could hear his breath catch, and then he’d carefully put me away, like I was an erring puppy he had to train to stay off the furniture. Then the next day he’d switch, had me trained to stay off him and he’d turn me around, keep dripping kisses into my mouth. He demanded my heart, bound it with promises and rings, but as for my body, I never knew where I stood.
 

   He teased me for almost a year before he finally let me pin him down. Then he let me give him my virginity. He took it gently, softly, as if I were entering into a dream. It hardly felt real. Then he betrayed me, and that precious flower was tainted. The softness of it felt like a lie. I could never touch the thought of it again without pain.

    Those last few months we were together I played with ideas. So Angel had to be celibate – we could work around that. I would kiss him and go back to my room alone with my fantasies to pleasure me. I’d curl up against his cold chest and squeeze my legs together, feeling the heat build between them, but trying never to let on. He wouldn’t help. I longed for him to spread my legs and feast upon my juices. I wanted him to slide his hands inside my jeans and make up for what he couldn’t do with his own body. I kept pushing. I’d beg for naps at his place, curl up against him as often as I could. I even guided his hands a few times, but he always took them back.

    It was as if, if he couldn’t feel it, I wasn’t allowed to, either.  
 

***
 

    Spike is bound by handcuffs, locked to a pipe on the wall – we’ve missed the bed again. Thank god for mock Persian carpets. I grace his body like the cherry atop the sundae, and his face is such a picture of evil joy as his pelvis tips into mine. He lets me dance on him, slide myself over and around him, find whatever I want to do and do it to him, to myself. He’s helpless beneath me, and I take pleasure in that. He’s my toy, my hobby horse, my servant, my slave. I find the right angle to make myself come, and I groan, my cunt fluttering over his cock like bird’s wings. He’s right at the edge, I can see it in his face, his breath comes hard, and I slide off, slipping my body down his thighs. He groans as if I’ve hit him, but he doesn’t protest. I kiss down his torso, licking at the cool flesh, feeling him heave beneath me. I can feel his cock, wildly hard, twitching against my breasts, searching out for me, for the release I’ve just denied it. I wriggle back and forth, letting my nipples slide over the slick firm organ, and I hear his breath narrow into a snarl he will not allow to fall into words. I feel him strain, uncontrolled, against the handcuffs, as if he’d like to grab me and crush me to him, force his cock through my very flesh to find the release, but he will not beg. I lick the poor thing, tasting myself on his skin, the faintly metallic tint of the droplet of juice on the tip – all of a vampire’s juices taste ever so faintly of blood. I take it into my mouth for a moment, and he arches up into me, but I let go, and he moans with frustration. I don’t know if I’m taking pity on him or myself when I slide back up and take him back inside me, hard, hard enough to make him grunt as my weight crushes down on his balls. I ride him like I’m trying to kill him, as if every thrust was a punch, and he comes quickly, groaning with relief, but I don’t let him off that easy. I squeeze him tightly, writhe atop him, force every drop out of him until he screams loud as if I’m killing him.

    I like it when he screams, too.
 

***
 

    Parker didn’t need me to force his hand. He played the innocent, said it was my choice. Choice was new for me. It was something Angel had constantly taken away from me, one way or another. I didn’t realize it at the time, but there was something off about the affair. I didn’t realize it, because the situation with Angel had kept me so isolated, I didn’t know what was normal, how actual human beings made love. Willow wasn’t one to kiss and tell, and Xander’s single debacle with Faith was not something he was proud of – not that I would have asked him how that went, anyway. Cordelia and I were never close enough to even think about discussing such things, and my mother was... well, my mom. Eew. That about rounded out my chances for comparison, unless I wanted sexual advice from Giles – and I wasn’t that desperate.

    If I’d known better, I’d have seen Parker wasn’t really there. He had sex like he was playing tennis, a game between us both, that meant as little to him as a good work out. It was pleasure without substance, and he never took the time to get to know me, or know what I really liked. I was still so inexperienced, I wasn’t sure what I really liked, anyway. He would have had to take time and experiment. He wasn’t going to do that.

    It was once. Empty, disinterested, casual. That was all that ever was.
 

***

    
    I am standing on my hands, tilted at an angle, my ankles suspended by chains in Spike’s lower chamber, the blood rushing to my head. It’s an impossible position. Spike has me impaled, and I’m being rocked back and forth, every thrust bringing another clink from the manacles around my ankles. Spike is calling me names, love, pet, hungry little slut. I’m his victim, don’t I know that? I’m his doll. I’m his bitch. At the moment, I am his victim. I let myself be his victim. He’d let me down if I asked (I’m pretty sure) but I’m not asking. I’m not fighting. I let my head sink, and my elbows bend, and it tilts me more downward, and he has to stand on tiptoe to stay inside me, but he does. My legs ache, my ankles are chaffing, my arms are shaking with the effort of holding myself up. How long have I been here? He grunts, and then lifts me like the doll he called me, until my head is between his knees, and his mouth his on my cunt. He sucks me hungrily, and I moan. With one hand he releases the chains. One leg, then the other slips down, and I twist in a gymnastic movement, pushing him against the wall. He laughs as I try to fight him. Within a moment, he’s grabbed my arms and pushed me up against the wall. He’s hard and forceful, and I’m crushed. I could stop him. I don’t. He pulls out and drags his hand up my cunt, collecting all the fluid on his fingers, and sliding it into my ass. “You want it there, you dirty bitch?” he asks me. I groan, but he twists my shoulder. “Say you want it, whore. Say you want me to bugger you proper, split you in half around my cock. You want me to fuck you in half, you know you do.” I don’t want to say it – why aren’t I angry? Why are his words only making me wet? Why is the sound of that animal snarl the most seductive thing in the world? How did he find this in me? How did he reach inside and know it was there, use it to take me to heights beyond reality? “Say you want me in you, bitch. I’ll give you a collar and make you bark, train you up right. Say it!” I moan. There’s a yes in it. He accepts that and slides his cock hard into my ass, making me cry out, forcing my hips against him, and he bites my neck hard enough to leave a mark. “You’re mine, you little slave,” he breathes in my ear. “My victim, my prey. You dirty little slut, I’m in you now. You’ll never be free of me. I’ll fuck you till you’re broken, keep you in chains in my dungeon as my fuck doll.” He barely touches my clit with his fingers, and I writhe, going blind with the force of it, coming so hard against him that his legs collapse. He pulls me down with him, actually shaking me, shaking my whole body against his cock until he comes, and I’m limp as a ragdoll. I fall down off him, his semen running out my ass, and he follows me, his arms soft around me. He pulls the blanket off the bed and tucks me up, kissing my throat gently, calling me his princess, his darling, his beautiful lover. He kisses the inside of my wrist, saying he’ll cherish me for eternity. “I love you so much, pet,” he whispers. “You tear me apart inside. I’ll do anything for you.” He keeps murmuring to me, saying I’m precious, amazing, his sweetheart, his love. He says he’s mine, that I’m a goddess, he adores me.

    I’m too exhausted not to let him hold me. The words soothe away all the other nasties he made me come so hard with. I don’t know why being verbally abused makes me come so hard. Why none of it hurts, just charges me like a battery. It isn’t until I start to come back to myself that I stop him, won’t let him say how much he loves me. It hurts when I know I’m using him, that I don’t really love him. But while I am recovering, his arms, his endearments – they’re the sweetest things in the world.
 

***
 

    Riley was real. Riley loved me. Riley was human. His desire was human, his body was human, for the first time I made love to a man, not a life-stealing vampire or a casual player. I was the only thing in his mind when we were in bed together. We loved to touch each other. We loved the sensation of being part of each other. As Anya used to say – often far too loudly – what’s the point of having these interlocking bodies if we don’t interlock. Riley felt so right. At first.

    It was nice. It was fun, we explored each other. I learned what an orgasm could really be, when given to me by someone else. With Angel I was too new, too nervous. With Parker – well, he didn’t really seem to care. It wasn’t that I didn’t come – slayer here, we’re pretty physically in tune and can control our bodies well. But there are different kinds of orgasms. I discovered that with Riley. There were the ones I could give myself, and they were nice enough. But being given an orgasm by someone else was the difference between a birthday party, and going grocery shopping. You’re getting stuff either way, but one of them is memorable.

    I learned what it was to feel a man’s hand on my pussy, to push up into him in delight and see him pleased that I wanted him. I learned what it was to have a man’s cock in my mouth, the shape and the soft skin, the taste of salt and the musk of sweat. I felt what it was to have more than one experience, for him to change position, for the shape of things to be different between one thrust and the next. It really was like exploring a landscape. Quite a nice landscape, really. I was always wanting to go hiking.

    But he’d get so tired. At first he could go and go, almost keep up with me, and I thought that was normal. I thought that was how it was for everyone. Three times without a blink. A magic spell, and neither of us were broken after. Then he got sick, and it turned out he wasn’t normal. He wasn’t human. He’d known that. I hadn’t. I’d thought it wouldn’t matter when he was made normal. It did.

    I thought, okay, just back to the Angel problem again. So he can’t take as much as I can. I can replace that. I actually would have been content, for the most part. But it wasn’t enough for him. He wanted me to be weak for him. He wanted to be my strength. My protector. I didn’t need that. I resented it. And making love to him started to become a chore – make sure he knows he’s pleased me, or he’ll get pouty. Pretend I’m satisfied. Lie.

    It became such a lie. A lie on both sides that we were satisfied. I didn’t hunger for him the way he felt I should. He didn’t stand behind me the way I felt he should. We were both aching for something more. He wanted an equal, and I wasn’t his equal. I was okay with him being only human, supporting me from the background, being there when I reached out for him, only a man. But if I going to be with him, he wanted me to be only human, too. And I wasn’t. I was the slayer. I wasn’t going to diminish myself, in any way, to make him satisfied.

    It was inevitable that it crumbled. It was rotting from the core for months before I noticed it.
 

***
 

    I’ve hit Spike hard enough to bruise, and he’s been knocked across his crypt, breaking part of a wall. He launches himself off it and back at me, impacting me with a body blow so hard he knocks the breath out of me. He hits me in the face while I cough it off. I lift him off me and use my legs to launch him against the ceiling. He falls beside me, and I kick him, rolling him into his television, which falls off the table. Probably isn’t broken – it’ll tick him off if it is. He picks himself up and grabs me, throws me against the wall, knocks me there once, twice, three times, until I manage to kick him in the stomach and he’s shunted across the room. I follow, despite the pain in my back and shoulders, and grab him, holding him down. He fights me back, and we wrestle, rolling over and over and over, leaving broken furniture in our wake. I’ve actually ripped his jeans, and his hands are on my ass, but we haven’t tried a kiss yet. He grabs my hair and yanks me off him, then holds me down, tearing at my clothes. He bites at my throat, and I yank his t-shirt over his head, hearing the seams give. He lets go of me only to let the shirt off, and then uses his teeth to tear open my blouse. I grab him by the throat, the back of the head, and force his face to mine, devouring him in a carnivorous kiss. He yanks my underwear down, and I kick it off, the cold cement floor echoing his cold hard flesh as he finds his way inside me, his jeans still around his hips, but torn open at the front. He lifts me, pulls me against his chest, and I ride him as we sit up, his arms so tight around me my ribs creak. His eyes are locked on mine, his face as awed as the first time I drew him inside me, and I can’t let go of those soulless blue eyes. The ice blue cuts at me, bleeds me, as sure as if he’d bitten me, and a moment later he does, not hard enough to draw blood, but I can feel my pulse against his tongue. He pulls away to stare at me again, we’re locked together. “Buffy,” he breathes. I say his name back, once, twice, it feels so good to say it, impaled on my own Spike. There is nothing I’ve ever wanted more than this. No man who has fired me, no thought that has charged me, no love that has drawn me as this does. This, his hard cold flesh, his ice blue eyes, his sharp cheekbones and hollow cheeks, his slicked blond hair, his blood-tainted scent, his long neck, his masculine chest, the curve of his shoulders, the softness around his nose, his lips, his chin, the keenness of his teeth even when they’re human, the tone of his voice, the growl in his throat, the strength and tenderness in his long, thin hands, his desperate kiss, his hungry cock, his still and broken heart. This is what I want, this is what I’ve been searching for, this is everything I need to breathe, to live, to feel.

    Why must he keep demanding my love, when we have this?