by SpikeDru (spike@aurelis.fsnet.co.uk)
One for anyone who remembers the mid-1980s
She loathed everything.
Her crappy deadbeat job that, after taxes and endless shifts, still didn't quite make ends meet. Her crappy vocation which meant that she went from slapping down dead meat onto a grill to slapping down dead humans in the graveyards. And slapping one particular dead guy down... Her crappy 'happy home' where they were all on edge. Three on-edge, tensed up, pissed off women in one house, their hormone cycles all synched up to make the bad moods just that bit worse. Her crappy old washing machine that had broken down, which she didn't have the money to fix, and which meant that tonight she was sat in a crappy launderette, watching her panties tumbling in the dryer.
She sat on the hard bench that ran along by the dryers, trying to read some stupid magazine that someone had left behind. The dryers were at the back, in the shorter leg of the L-shaped room. She wasn't going to sit right by them though, she wouldn't have been able to see the door and it would make it an easy place to get trapped. And she wasn't going to sit up by the street window, where anyone passing by could see her. She could just imagine the gossip down at Willy's: "hey, I saw the Slayer's panties". She'd never live it down. Where she sat, she was almost out of sight but could see the door.
She shifted in her seat slightly. There were a few other people sat about: some goth chick washing a ton of black and listening to a walkman; a fat man sweating even in the air conditioning; a older woman reading a book and smoking so eeeewwwwww now all their clothes would stink of smoke. She was trying to stop her clothes smelling of smoke and whiskey, thank you very much. She hated the way she'd decide a top was clean enough to wear, pull it on in a hurry and then find herself sat in the Magic Box, smelling him on her. Even when he wasn't there aggravating her, he was there aggravating her.
And what was with the crappy piped music in this place? The management must think it made the place less skanky. As if hearing old sixties soul songs through a beaten up speaker would magically hide the thin edge of grime all along the floor, or the smell of detergent and the thrumming of the dryers pumping out hot dry air that smelt of old socks.
The door opened, clanking shut again, scraping against the floor. She glanced up from the very crappy article about how happy Tom and Nicole were.
Ohgodohgodohgodnooooooooooo. She slumped slightly, pulled the magazine to cover her face. Spike was standing inside the door, carrying a large brown paper bag and wearing sunglasses. Sunglasses? At night? He was getting worse. She peeked over the pages. He was walking down the bank of machines that stood in the middle of the long leg of the L. Strike that, he was swaggering. She hid a smirk behind the paper: see the majestic beast as he stalks his prey, a working washing machine. She glanced about, the other customers were all watching him as well as he found a machine. Took off his sunglasses and put them on top. Emptied the bag of clothes into the machine.
He hadn't spotted her, hadn't sensed her and she was intrigued. She so rarely saw him when he wasn't focusing on her, so rarely got to look at him without seeing those eyes pleading at her. No leather tonight, just the tight tee, tight jeans and unlaced old boots. Her list of crappy things got a little longer as she hated her traitorous body for suddenly soaking her panties. Her old scrappy, emergency panties. Every single good pair was in the dryer. Not that Spike was going to see her panties tonight. Or her.
Ohgodohgodohgodwhat'shedoing??? He had taken his t-shirt off. Slowly, none of that self-conscious haste. Thrown in into the machine with the rest of his stuff. Goth girl and book woman were staring openly now, their eyes raking him up and down. Fat sweaty man seem transfixed as well. What? Hadn't they ever seen a compact, well-muscled (thank you, Xander) vampire who only owned a handful of clothes take his filthy top off to add to the wash? I mean, she doubted he had a laundry day plan: just waited until he had no clean clothes left and then washed them all. The overhead lights did highlight the way his muscles shifted, tensing and untensing as he moved. And he did seem to move in time to the Marvin Gaye track. Show off.
There was a low click, a smooth swish. Ohgods... that was him taking his belt off, putting it on the top of the machine along with his other stuff. Not that it was a sound she recognised, she told herself hurriedly. And the clunks were his boots hitting the floor as he toed them off. Again, in no way familiar. She clenched various muscles, willing her body not to betray her with another flood, knowing what he was going to do. Trying not to look, out of some kind of contact embarrassment. Peeking. Ohgods...
The jeans had come down, been stepped out of. Seemed he did had a laundry day plan after all. Just for once, he was wearing underwear. Tight, black CK style that hide nothing. When he bent to put his jeans in the machine they stretched tight across that butt, the perfect - no, not perfect - curve of it. Goth girl and book woman were practically drooling now. Back off, ladies, he's mine. OK, add her traitorous mind to the list of crappy things.
He set the machine running, picked up the rolled up magazine he had brought in with him. She quickly lifted her own back up, hid her face, her blushes. But her Spikeysense was tingling: vampire, approaching, 12 o'clock. Dive dive dive. She slumped in her seat, raised the paper some more. And he sat down next to her and started to read his magazine. And singing along to the piped music, softly.
"…not much longer will you be mine…"
She wasn't going to look at the (nearly naked) body next to hers. She could feel the stares goth girl and book woman were giving her. And the warm, slick uncomfortableness of her laundry-day panties. That Spike would not be seeing. At all. Because she wasn't going to look at him and get caught by him and end up pushed up against a dryer in the dark corner by him, with his cool mouth on her shoulder, licking her jugular, his fingers bruising her ass and him filling her, telling her how hot and tight and perfect she was.
That was not going to happen.
She glanced sideways just as he did. His eyes were smirking.
Crap.