They lay together for what was to Buffy a long time. She didn’t let Spike snuggle. She never really did. Sometimes she was too exhausted to stop him, but this time... there was something different. She wasn’t too tired to move. She just... wasn’t moving.

    “I can’t do this,” Spike finally whispered. Buffy shifted. He had definitely stopped crying by now, but the pain was still laced through his face. She’d only wanted an excuse to play a little submissive for once, turn the tables on the slave scenario. She realized now she should have done something more direct. Something that had nothing to do with either of them. She’d always seen the Buffybot as something sordid and kind of funny. A big sick joke. It hadn’t even occurred to her how deeply tangled up Spike’s psyche would be about it.

    But he didn’t have a psyche. He was just a thing, just a...

    A thing.

    Yeah. That had been a mistake.

    She was still kind of glad they’d done it.

    “Then some other kind of master, slave thing,” Buffy said. “Victim?”

    “We’ve done that,” Spike said, the weight sliding off him – not easily, but he wasn’t closed off anymore. “And slayer. Over and over. I told you, I’m sick of those.”

    “What do you want to play, then?” Spike lifted himself onto his elbow and looked at Buffy. “You want to be on top next time?” she asked.

    “No,” he said. “I don’t. I don’t want top or bottom, I’m sick of both.”

    “Then what...?”

    “How about something where we’re equal, pet?” He laughed at the blank look on her face. “I didn’t just suggest something sacrilegious.”

    “Like what? A couple of athletes?”

    Spike laughed. “I think we’re already that.” He got up and cleaned himself a bit at the bucket and washcloth he kept in his lower crypt for precisely this purpose. “No fighters, either. No soldiers. Nothing like what we are.”

    “Sounds boring,” Buffy said honestly. “Turn on your average cable porn. What, you want a couple co-eds?”

    Spike shrugged. “We could do that, sure. Though when I was in school, there were no co-eds. It was all boys.”

    “Well, we can’t do that.”

    Spike got a strange look on his face. “Sure we could.”

    “Um... not really,” Buffy said. At Spike’s raised eyebrow she gestured at her very feminine body. “Hello, equipment?”

    The strange look turned to a wicked grin, and he reached back into that ubiquitous bedside drawer. “Remember, Buffy? I said I had a few things.”

    He did have a few things. Things he hadn’t bothered with, or things they hadn’t needed, and some things – like handcuffs and stakes – that they’d already used. There was also a strange shaped... Buffy blushed at the sight of it. “Um. Why do you have a strap on?”

    “For the same reason you’re blushing,” Spike said.
    

***

    
    “Hallo, then. I’m Will Pratt, welcome to Posh Academy.” The young man held out his hand to shake. “Been told to show you around?”

    “Uh, yeah. Yeah, just transferred from a school in America,” the new student said, taking hold of Will’s cool palm.

    “Well, I’m sure the boarding schools there are a little different,” Will said. “I’m the prefect. Heard you were going to be in the same year as me?”

    “Yeah. How old are–?”

    “It don’t matter about that. What’s your name, mate?”

    “Buff-eeee... Buff. Buff Slayer.”

    Will grinned so broadly that Buff was relieved. She– He had thought he’d gotten off on the wrong foot, and he felt more than a little awkward about to enter a... a new school. But Will had a very, very charming smile. He made a move that was almost too intimate, as if he’d found what Buff had just said delightful and wanted to hug him, but changed his mind. “Buff Slayer. Nice to meet you, Slayer.”

    “Same to you,” Buff said. And then he felt helpless. He didn’t know anything about... British schools.

    “Well, I thought you might want to see the dorms first,” Will said. He gestured to the – nearest – militarily made bed, and straightened his blazer. “And, uh, we’re going to have to get you into a school uniform, you know that, right mate? Can’t have you prancing about in those American clothes now. It’s against school rules.”

    “And you never break school rules?” Buff asked with a smirk.

    “Never. Soul of respectability, me. Honor, Honesty, Modesty, and Virtue, that’s the school code, you know.”

    Buff laughed. “Virtue,” he said. “You expect me to believe you are virtuous. And that hair’s school uniform, is it?”

    Will looked slightly annoyed. “No rules about hair except length,” he said. “Though they’ve been debating adding in a new rule since I showed up like this.”

    Buff slid up closer to Will. “You’re telling me you’re so unruly they’re building new rules just to rule you?”

    Will’s delighted grin flashed over his face again. “Sommat like that,” he said. “But I rule within the rules. Better than getting the ruler.”

    “Ruler?”

    Will pulled a small strap of wood from the table beside the dorm bed. “Ruler,” he said. He slapped it against his hand. It made a stark noise in the hollow... dorm room. “They’ll hit you with it pretty hard if you’re not careful.”

    Buff looked at him. “Did they hit you a lot?”

    “Not since I became prefect,” he said. “But when I was a first former, oh yeah, they beat me lots.” He came up close to Buff. “I can take it. Learned how real good. Wanna see?”

    “What?”

    “Wanna see how much I can take? I can hold my hand steady as a rock, not a flinch. Try me.” He put the ruler into Buff’s hand.

    Buff was actually surprised at how this was going. “They really do this in British schools?”

    There was a charged hesitation at Buff’s shock, and Will seemed surprised she didn’t know this. “Yeh,” Will said, and that was definitely seduction in his tone. “Yeah, they did. All the posh little boys got beat if they were bad. I was a very bad boy. I learned how to take it.” He glanced down at the ruler in Buff’s hand. “Try it.” He held his hand out stiff and still, not a tremble, and stared her down. “Go on. Hit me.”

    Buff stared into Will’s eyes for a long moment, wondering if he did mean it. His eyes were blue and clear and bright, and it was Buff who was trembling when he lifted the ruler and smacked it onto Will’s pale hand. Will was right. He didn’t flinch. “You’re gonna have to hit harder than that, mate,” he said. “The masters know what they’re doing.”

    Buff raised the ruler and hit the hand again. Then again. Then again. Will stayed still as a statue for every blow. Buff became fascinated. Would he really just stand there and take it? Will’s blue eyes shone as they stared into Buff’s, riveted. The only movement he made was a slight flaring of his nostrils as he took in steeling breaths. Buff hit the hand again. Will’s muscles corded as he made his hand wait for the pain. Buff found himself hitting harder and harder, trying to make the other boy flinch, and he couldn’t do it. He looked down and stopped himself with a gasp. He’d raised welts on the back of the boy’s hand and wrist. “God, I didn’t mean–”

    “I told you I could take it,” Will said. “Can you?”

    “What do you mean?”

    Will finally lowered his welted and likely bruised hand and gently took the ruler. “Can you? You’re gonna be part of this school as much as me. You’ll have to take everything I had to. Every time you flinch, they’ll add another blow. Think you can do it?”

    Buff squared his shoulders. “I’m sure I can,” he said. “I’m as tough as you.”

    “Are you? Are you really? Five strikes, then.”

    Buff closed his eyes for a moment, steeling himself, and then held out his hand. He swore to himself that he wouldn’t flinch, and the first time he didn’t. But Will wasn’t holding back. He hit square and he hit hard, and Buff actually grunted with the sudden pain of it. When Will raised the ruler again, Buff was able to hold his hand out still, but he did flinch.

    “Six strikes,” Will said.

    He raised the ruler again, and hit. Buff kept his hand still that time. It was hard. The ruler made a burning smack of pain that seemed wholly unreal, completely unlike the feel from a blow or a fight. There was no purpose to it. It was only to cause pain. Will hit again, and Buff felt his hand jump back at the pain. This was madness! He was a tough... young man, Buff Slayer, he knew how to handle pain! But this pointless, unwarranted attack that he just had to endure? It seemed so unfair! Every instinct inside him fought against it.

    “Seven,” Will said evenly.

    “Wait,” Buff said.

    “Hold it still, and the strikes won’t go up.”

    “But I’m not trying to stop you,” Buff said. “I could. I’m stronger than you.”

    “Don’t flinch. Don’t wince. Don’t pull away. Those are the rules.”

    “That’s not fair.”

    “I did it,” Will said. “I learned to do it from the age of eight. Yeah, it hurts. You learn the pain, like you learn the books. Maybe they don’t do this in America, but they did as I was growing up.” Buff stared at Will. He meant that. This... this was how he was raised. Hit the bad boy, and so he learns. “You can take it, Buff. I know you can. You ready?”

    Buff held out his hand. “Yes.”

    He raised the ruler up again and struck. And struck. And struck again. Buff whimpered with the pain, but tried to keep his hand as steady as he could.

    Will stopped at twelve strikes. Buff suspected Will had let him cheat a little, and didn’t count a couple of flinches, but his hand stung with heat, and he didn’t want any more blows. “Twelve,” Will said. “And done.” Buff released a sigh of relief, and Will took up Buff’s red hand. “Terrifying, innit?” he said, his cool breath a soft feather on Buff’s pained skin. “What you can just make yourself take? How brassed off are you right now, Slayer? I’ll bet you wanna rip my head off.”

    “It does seem really unfair,” Buff said low.

    “You feel helpless in it,” Will said. “And the scary thing is, you’re helpless against yourself. So small and weak, and you stare up at that big tall school master, and he makes you hurt, and you have to just stand there. And let them.” He shook his head. “Even if you could fight back. The rules all say you can’t. And you have. To follow. The rules.... If you’re human.”

    Buff thought about this. “Is that as bad as it gets?” he asked. “A slap on the wrist?” His burning hand belied the dismissive connotation for that phrase. “I have to know.”

    “You’ve never been caned?” Will asked. “All school boys are caned.”

    Buff hated that idea. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been hit.”

    “But most schools just go over the clothes, you know that, right?” Will’s eyes flicked down Buff’s form. “Eton and some of the really posh places. We use the birch. A whole bundle of canes. And that’s always done with your trousers down.”

    “Trousers down?” Buff asked. “Is this in public?”

    “Sometimes it’s in the dorm,” Will said. “When a prefect does it. Over the bed. Sometimes there’s other boys watching. The masters, it’s usually in their private study. We... use a cane here,” he said slowly. “But otherwise, it’s like Eton.”

    Buff’s mouth went dry. Will went over and picked up what he termed a cane. It was a thin whippy rod of wood, about a yard long. “Why do you even have that?” Buff asked.

    “I’m a prefect,” he said. “It’ll be my job to cane you if you break the rules.”

    Buff looked down at his American clothes. “Oops,” he said. “I think I broke the rules already.”

    Will grinned, stifling a laugh. “You that eager to see how this thing flies?” He swung the cane sharply, and it sang, cutting the air.  The very sound of it made Buff flinch. “Wicked, innit.”

    “You’re going to do it eventually,” Buff said. “I might as well see what I’m in for.”

    Will took hold of Buff’s arm and stared into his eyes. “Not holding back,” he said. “I’m doing it just like they did to me.”

    Buff was touched. “If you can take it, I can. I’m no stranger to pain.”

    “Then assume the position,” he said.

    “Which is...?”

    “For a dorm? Trousers down, bent over the bed. Unless you want me to tell you to just grab your ankles.”

    “What about other than a dorm room?”

    “Over the desk, or a whipping horse.”

    “They had whipping horses?”

    “Posh Victorian schools, love. What did you think happened there?”

    Buff felt a spasm in his chest. He’d had no idea....

    “Don’t think on it,” Will said. “Assume the position. You said you’d been caned before.”

    Buff swallowed. “Right. Right. Before.” He turned and unbuttoned his trousers, working them over some... unfamiliar sensations. The trousers went around his ankles in a way that seemed much more humiliating than merely taking them off would have been. They were hobbles. He imagined what this would be like in a full dorm room, with other boys watching and possibly jeering. Or in a private office with some greying older guy.

    He shuddered.

    “Ten strikes,” Will said. “Count aloud.” He bent over, and Buff felt his trousers against his bare bottom. “You’re allowed to flinch this time,” he whispered into his ear.

    Buff’s breath caught, and he trembled. Will had this ability to make him tremble....

    Will stood behind Buff, and waited... and waited... and waited.... Whip, SMACK! The cane whipped down onto Buff’s bare backside. He froze, startled at the sharp pain, breath frozen, eyes wide. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god...! What had he just signed up for?

    “Count. Aloud.”

    Buff had to find his breath. “O-one,” he whispered.

    Whip, SMACK!

    “Two.”

    Whip, SMACK!

    “Three!”

    Will waited a long moment before again, Whip, SMACK! “Ahh! Four!” Buff hadn’t been able to keep back the tiny scream as the cane struck at his newly tender buttocks.

    Whip, SMACK! Buff’s breath was gone again. It had escaped with the scream, and each line of the cane could be felt like a burning brand. Will had hit a slightly different spot each time, painting on Buff’s flesh like an artist. “Count.”

    “Five.”

    He was halfway through. He could endure this. The anticipation between each measured blow was the worst part. But, “Six!” felt like the cane was made of fire, and “Seven!” was so low it nearly made his knees give out. “Eight!” and “Nine!” came as grumbling roars of resentment, and “T–”

    He never got out ten, as Will broke the rules and whipped Buff at least six times in quick succession, not as hard as before, but with no breaks, no reprieve, SMACK, SMACK, SMACK, SMACK, SMACK!

    Buff lost his temper and struggled to stand up, fists clenched, but Will was up against him then, and the cane was on the bed beside them, and Will’s smooth cool fingers were soothing the fire on Buff’s skin. “Terrifying, isn’t it,” he whispered into Buff’s ear. “The anticipation. The waiting... and being made to count it out. To know what’s going to happen next?”

    “You cheated,” Buff growled, but he wasn’t trying to get up. Will’s hand on his hot buttocks felt too good. “At the end there.”

    “Did I?” His breath tickled at Buff’s ear, and his hand slid lower on his buttocks, sliding between his legs to where his balls would be, petting at the soft flesh he found there. “It ever get you hard?” he whispered. “When you’re stripped down and whipped like that? The good punishing the bad, through humiliation and violence. What’s good? What’s evil? What’s right and wrong, and the thin red lines between them? It ever get you off?”

    Buff trembled beneath him, and his breath came in tiny pants. He felt near to tears, and he wasn’t sure if it was pain, terror, humiliation... or something else. Buff felt like he understood Will so well suddenly. Like the white haired young man made perfect sense. All the broken rules, the hunger for pain, the confused relationship with authority, with right and wrong. It wasn’t something twisted and... and demonic in him. It was something he had been taught, brutally, day by day, year by year, through childhood up through youth, long before he had been made into a... a prefect. And the power had been put in his hands.

    “Yeah,” Will said softly, his tone heady and seductive. “You’re getting it. Your blood’s up, isn’t it, Slayer? You wanna feel the power?” He pushed up against him, and Buff could feel him hard through his clothes. As hard as the member he sported, that he could feel against the bedclothes, straining, pushing up against him. Ready to work.

    Will’s hand slid back up Buff’s backside, rubbing at the still stinging flesh, and tickled at his already slick and worked anus. But he abandoned it quickly. “Bet you can’t make me cry out,” he said.

    “What?”

    Buff turned as Will lowered his trousers, revealing an already straining cock. “Your turn, Slayer. You do it. You’re a fine looking boy, I’ll bet you’ll be made a prefect one day.”

    “Is that who is made prefect?” Buff asked. “The fine looking ones?”

    “Prefects spend a lot of time with the school masters,” Will said. “In some places, it’s just the ones best in school. The leaders. The ones who deserve it. In some... in some places it was the pretty boys, who wouldn’t talk back... or talk at all.”

    The intimation was terrifying. “That... that...”

    “Was considered perfectly normal, Slayer,” Will said.

    “And which were you?”

    Will didn’t answer. Buff was almost terrified that he would, but he didn’t. “Take up the cane, Slayer,” Will said. “Show me your mettle.”

    That British accent, heightening the T sound made Buff’s groin clench. He wanted Will on his knees, at his mercy, bent over the bed awaiting punishment. Oh, yeah... oh, god, yeah! Buff snatched up the cane and Will assumed “the position” easily.

    Buff gave him no number. “Count,” he said. Whip, SMACK!

    “One,” Will said evenly.

    Whip, SMACK!

    “Two.”

    Whip, SMACK, whip, SMACK, SMACK, SMACK, whip SMACK!

    “Three. Four, five, six, oh, god!”

    “More!”

    “Seven!”

    Buff couldn’t take it. Things were swollen and straining and dripping and he needed his hands on Will. He dropped to his knees and pushed up against him, making him kneel upright, let Buff gnaw on the side of his throat. “What do I do?” Buff whispered earnestly.

    “Soften it,” Will said, no less heated. “Soften it, open it. Too much is almost enough.”

    Buff reached for the oil. It would have been linseed oil, used to maintain cricket bats. Will had already had it ready. He squirted a liberal dollop on his fingers and slid up Will’s backside, finding the little bud, touching it gently, spreading it carefully. It was rough and the friction quickly made it warm. It fought him at first, then suddenly opened, and Buff’s fingertip slid in, then deeper, then deeper. Will groaned and bent back over the bed, gasping. “Deeper,” he whispered. “God, Buffy....”

    “More?” Buff whispered.

    “Yes,” Will said. “And more... the front... oh god!” He couldn’t control his voice as Buff twisted his finger and massaged the little nub he found inside. That... that was actually the base of Will’s penis. The only way to touch it was to reach up inside and find... the whole of him.

    More oil. The sounds Will made were making Buff need to be inside him, to move against him, to be part of him. He poured oil on his member, so much it spilled off and stained the floor. Buff took hold of it and held it against Will’s opened and softened anus.

    “Slow,” Will said evenly. “Slow. This is wider than... oh!” The sound he made then was almost a sob.

    Buff had second thoughts. Third, hell, they were probably fourth thoughts by this time. “Are you sure you want...?”

    “Yes!” Will kicked off his trousers and tore at his own shirt, kneeling naked before Buff, his white flesh and his white hair making a pristine angelic virgin just begging to be violated.

    Buff wanted it too. Really wanted it. But, “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

    “Good!” Will arched his back toward Buff, presenting his buttocks for him. “Do something bad.”

    Buff didn’t hold back any longer. He took hold of his stiff, rubbery member and slid the tip against Will’s softened opening. Will moaned softly, so Buff slid in a little more. It took more force than he’d thought it should take. He pushed in, deeper, then a little deeper. Slow, just as Will had said. “Slow... take it in, take it in,” Buff found himself whispering. Until he found he couldn’t push himself in any deeper, and the length pushed up against him as well, and he couldn’t help but thrust. And thrust, and thrust, and god! the power in it! Piercing him, owning him, inside him, the violation, perhaps, but... but the welcome. He wanted Buff inside. He wanted to feel this invasion of his most personal space.

    Buff thrust and thrust, riding against him, hands reaching around to hold his cut, tight torso, pull him closer. He could do this for hours, he thought. Just be in him, be with him, and Will arched his head back and gasped and choked. “Oh, yes. Yes... fuck me. Oh, god, yes, Slayer, fuck me!” It almost seemed he was crying, but it wasn’t like... before (that never happened!) with the robot. (Stop!) This joy, this was disbelief. This was pure surrender.

    It always was, when you let a man inside you.

    The thought made Buff thrust harder, the sensations sliding up her groin, and coming surprised her. Him. He hadn’t expected it to work so very well. He cried out but kept thrusting, still hard inside Will – one advantage to his current anatomy – tenderly sliding in and out until Will groaned, and then moaned, and gripped the covers, and finally fell backwards, almost smothering Buff. Will slid himself off the thick member and took hold of Buff’s hands. They were both breathing hard, excited, intense.

    There had never been this charge between them before, something shared, something equal, something almost pure in its mischief. “I think,” Will said, smiling and panting. His blue eyes shone as he gazed at Buff. “I think... that that’s the tour,” he said. “What did you think of the school?”

    “Some interesting places,” Buff said, but he couldn’t stop smiling. “It wasn’t like I thought it would be. I wasn’t at all sure I’d fit in here.”

    Will laughed and hugged him, then kissed him, and then looked down on him with genuine glee. “I think you fit in very well.”