I don’t send her home.

I buy her dinner. Again. And then again. Not every night. After all, I have to eat.

She’s putting on some weight, and dark black roots are showing, untouched up with her pale blonde dye job a stark contrast. Looks intentional - properly punk, even, when she’s kitted out in black like she is now.

“Actually, he was a gentleman,” she’s telling me.

“Never heard of him.”

“He’s sold a bajillion records, Spike!”

“Not into rap.”

“Me neither. But he-llooooo paycheck.”

“Please. That little Canon of yours has already made you richer than the queen.”

“Not quite, but the Queen doesn’t need photos for her website. Jay-Z does.”

She smiles. Lately I can see the girl in the alley, the girl in my tattoo parlor, this woman and they all make sense together. That fragile creature from a few weeks back? It’s like she was an aberration. Just waiting for me to heal her up again.

She’s hoovering her pad thai as I toy with my chopsticks.

Maybe, I think, maybe she’s just here for this. For a check-in, a top-off. Maybe you’ll do for her, and she’ll go back into the ordinary world and find her way again. She’s already been here much longer than our last interlude, nearly as long as our friendship in LA.

With a start, I realize that I’ll miss her. Miss her like a parent misses a favorite child, I insist to myself.

Even that emotion is ridiculous on something like me.

As she chomps and chatters about the rapper’s entourage, I convince myself that she’ll be moving on soon, and that it is the only possible way.

Just as I’ve nearly explained to myself why this is fine, she pauses.

“So, I talked to a realtor today.”

“Sorry?”

“Oh, what do you call them? Estate agents.”

“You thinkin’ of stayin’ on a permanent basis, then?”

She shrugs. “There’s tons of work here, and the immigration attorney said it wouldn’t be a problem.”

I take a swig of my beer and force myself to count to ten before calling for the check.

***

It isn’t like I need him to buy me dinner before I’ll put out, but somehow that’s the way we’ve worked it. Dinner – he eats or he doesn’t – and then my place, where we try everything, in every possible combination.

He’s incredibly bendy. I’ve taken up yoga.

And he’s gone before morning.

I’ve bought those special blackout curtains. And I know he uses that ridiculous umbrella to get around during daylight. But I don’t bring it up, and he doesn’t change his pattern.

On our off nights, I fall asleep in front of whatever I can find on television. Not American TV, either, and preferably not light romantic fluff.

Tonight it was a Dr. Who marathon. I didn’t follow most of it, but the voices filled up the space where he wasn’t.

I’m staggering to bed, teeth unbrushed and hair tangly, dressed in my raggedy sweatpants and my I’m an Artist and I Vote tee when I hear the window sash rattling.

It’s him.

In the light from the hallway, I can see that’s he’s flushed, somehow healthier looking that I usually see him. His eyes look funny, too, and he’s baffled that I’m not in bed.

“Spike?”

He’s on me before I finish the syllable.

“Buffy,” he growls. “Need you.”

“Where have you-”

He tears my tee in two, and I abandon my question.

I break our kiss to breathe, our foreheads touching as he unties the drawstring on my sweats and shoves them roughly down my hips.

There’s blood on his chin, another smear on his cheekbone.

And then his mouth is back on mine, and I recognize that coppery tang.

Blood.

Someone else’s blood.

I freeze, but he’s too busy stripping me and tossing me onto the bed to notice that I’m not exactly here with him.

And then he’s burying himself between my thighs, and I don’t care where he’s been, or who’s going to hell because of it.

***

The blackout curtains come in handy the next morning.

I’m in the kitchen making coffee when I hear him stir, and since he usually moves without a whisper, I know it is for my benefit.

“Good morning, pet.”

“Morning.” I hand him a cup.

“Should my next remark feature an apology?”

“It wouldn’t be very Spike-like.”

“Guess not.”

He looks impossibly rumpled and sexy, his blonde hair shooting up in spikes like the ones he wore on stage all those years ago.

“So do you have to be at the shop?”

He shakes his head no, and stands there, wearing just his jeans and sipping his coffee.

“I’m off today, too. Roland’s taking me to see a place.”

“Roland?”

“Jealous?” I tease.

“Of a bloke called Roland?”

“He’s the estate agent.”

“Ah. Still got the property bug, then.”

“Maybe,” I admit, deciding to spare him the frustrations of my search. Everything is too new, too ordinary, too un-London-ish. Too much like it could be in New York, and I’m after something different.

“Alright then.”

We stand in silence for a few minutes.

I notice that his eyes are bloodshot.

***

I got carried away last night. Happens.

Vampire, remember?

Anyway, I don’t usually prowl the clubs. Too obvious, and too easy to get yourself spotted if you’re not careful. The little chippie you don’t notice is all of a sudden explaining, “My cousin Maxine? I last saw her talkin’ to some bloke with peroxide blonde hair and no tan, officer.”

But last night there was a decent band on, and what with seeing Buffy three nights out of four, I was starving. So I snacked on an Australian, and wouldn’t you know it? She must’ve been hopped up on E, because the blood barely hit my system before I was headed for Notting Hill.

Left the corpse where it hit the floor, too. Can only hope it’s ruled an overdose, because I wasn’t terribly careful about anything.

And now, with the deadly morning light filtering into Buffy’s tidy flat, I can’t figure how to broach the subject.

Does she just not realize that I came to her dirty with a dead girl’s blood, or has she really made her peace with my wicked ways?