It is Friday night and Spike has been in the shower for about twenty minutes. Dawn has been outside the whole time, pounding on the door, listening to him perform Queen's entire oeuvre of operatic ditties. Right now he's nearing the end of Bohemian Rhapsody.
"I see a little siluetto of a man. Scaramouch! Scaramouch! Will you do the fandango? Thunderbolt of lightning, very, very frightening me!"
"Come on, Spike!" Dawn yells as she puts more dents into the bathroom door. "I appreciate the free concert and all, but I need to get in the shower! Now!"
"No, no. no. no, no, no, no! Mama Mia, Mama Mia! Mama Mia let me go! Beelzebub has the devil put aside for me. For me? For meeeeeeeeeeee?" comes the reply.
Buffy passes by with a load of freshly washed towels for the linen closet. "You want me to go in there and get him out?"
"Please! If I don't get in the shower soon, I'll be towel drying my hair all the way to the dance."
Buffy hands the towels to her sister. "Here. You put these away and I'll take care of Freddie in there."
The inside of the bathroom is all steam. He has forgotten to turn the exhaust fan on again. She flips the switch as she tries to make her way through the fog.
"So you think you can stake me and spit in my eye? So you think you can love me and leave me to die? Oh, Baby. Can't do this to me baby. Just gotta get out. Just gotta get right out of me…"
That's it. Time to flush. Buffy depresses the lever on the tank without thinking twice.
"Gaaaaaaa!!!!!! Hey! Showering man here!" Spike bellows in the shower.
"Showering for almost thirty minutes man, you mean. Now get out before I suddenly decide to run the dish washer."
That was all he needed to know apparently. Within seconds, the water shuts off, lingering to drips. The wet-headed vamp peeps his head out from behind the curtain. Through the mist he discerns the figure of his mischievous ladylove standing there with her arms folded and a broad smirk on her face.
"You're evil," he says with a smile.
"Yup. Rotten to the core."
He steps out of the shower and Buffy gasps. Seeing him in this light with the mist obscuring him, it's as though she's witnessing the creation of Adam. She observes his muscles as his arm reaches for a towel. He begins drying his hair first, letting the droplets splatter the wall carelessly. She knows he is doing this on purpose. She wants him to see him in all his glorious, wet nakedness. She has seen him naked hundreds of times. Sometimes when Dawn's not at home he will walk around starkers. He has no inhibitions about his body. His body is drenched. And suddenly so is she.
For a minute she is led into a fierce fantasy in which she is naked as well and he is taking her right there on the cold linoleum of the bathroom floor. She licks the droplets from his face as he grinds into her. She combs her hands through the mass of kinky curls on his head. She enjoys the sensation of his body warmed by the heat of the shower. His cold lips encircle her nipple and she feels his teeth sinking in again…
He is still wrangling with the towel and his hair when he approaches her, slowly, in that panther-like stalk that used to give her the chills, but now makes her feel as though she could fuck him in front of a stadium crowd. On Jumbo Vision, even. He puts the towel around his shoulders, not minding that he is creating inch-deep puddles on the floor with each step. He leans into her, saying in a whisper she can barely hear above the whirl of the exhaust fan.
"I'm out now."
"Yeah," is all she can say, noting that the little corporal is standing at attention. She wants to strip right then and there. She wants to feel the steam from his epic shower on her skin while its still fresh and potent. The closer he gets, the more aware of his scent she becomes. He is a bouquet of deodorant soap and herbal shampoo. He is apparently aware of her scent as well. His eyes are lit by the consciousness of her arousal. She is more than aroused. She is clawing at herself from the inside to keep from screaming.
He displays a wicked grin now. He is keeping his distance from her, aware that the touch of his skin is what she wants more than anything in the world right now. If she wants it, she has to ask, nicely.
"The shower's free now," he drawls seductively.
"Yes, I know," she swallows. "Dawn needs to use it…for her date."
He clicks his tongue. "That might take some time. If she wants to be all sweet and perfumed for her love crumpet."
"There isn't a lot of time, though. For showering."
"I guess I took too long."
"Yeah. I guess you did."
"Quickie, then?"
"Oh, God, yes! But! We have to be cool about it. You can be cool…can't you?"
"Watch me," he says, snaking a naughty tongue out of his mouth.
Dawn is still waiting by the door when Buffy emerges and shuts the door behind her. She can feel the flush on her cheeks and tries hard to tamp down the thrill in her voice when she speaks.
"He'll be right out," Buffy says, running a hand up and down her arm nervously.
Spike then opens the door, still drying his hair, his soon-to-be tossed towel hanging low on his hips.
"Sorry, Nibblet. I suppose I know more Queen songs then previously thought," he tells her.
Dawn says nothing and merely moves him aside, slinging a towel over her shoulder and entering the still steamy bathroom. As she closes the door, Spike, in a flourish, whips the towel down from around his waist and snaps it at Buffy's backside.
"Tag! You're it!" he says gleefully as she gives chase down the hall.
"Spike, stop it! We're supposed to be inconspicuous!" she shrieks.
"There you go using twenty-five cent words when ten cent ones will do." They are in the bedroom now and as the door is shut, Spike forces Buffy against the wood as she continues to smile as though heavily drugged. "I'll give you my ten cents' worth, love." He crushes his mouth to hers, aware that she's giggling. Her glee is infectious and he finds himself laughing too as he flings her to the bed. As she bounces on the mattress, his thighs catch her mid-recoil as he straddles her mercilessly.
"There's a problem," Buffy says.
"What's that?" he says, rubbing his throbbing member against the fabric of her gray sweatpants.
"I've still got clothes on," she pouts.
Spike arches his left eyebrow tauntingly before letting out a growl and dipping his head towards the waistband of her pants. She lifts her hips, allowing him to pull the pants down with his teeth. He guides the garment down, pausing at the area between her thighs, inhaling deeply. He pushes the crotch of her panties aside and slides into her without so much as a warning. Sometimes it has to be slow and consciously drawn out, when there's time to touch and explore, so that they can remind themselves that they are two creatures in love. Sometimes it has to be rough and animalistic, harking back to the fact that they are creatures whose drives are born from dark and unseemly places. And sometimes it just has to be quick because they have a permanent chaperone who happens to be very impressionable fifteen-year-old girl. Little do they know that two doors down the hall, their adolescent watcher is in the shower, laughing about the pair's lame attempt at stealth, sudsing up with the radio turned up as far up as it will go. She can imagine that right about now Spike is riding her sister like a Harley. And she can imagine that they are keeping a careful ear tuned into her showering, waiting for the tell-tale last droplets to drain from the shower head. And she can imagine that she will indeed be towel drying her hair as she leaves the house this night because she has to stay in the shower way past the prune hand stage. She's seen Spike in a towel. She understands.
Buffy walks out into the hallway, leaving the bathroom door open to ventilate the much-used space. She has just taken her own shower. The cool of the apartment spirits goose pimples on her exposed flesh and she creeps down the hallway to her room, wishing that she had brought her flannel p.j.'s to change into in the warmth of the bathroom. The apartment is silent and she finds this exceedingly odd. There's always some noise, somewhere, either from the TV in the living room or from Dawn's stereo. She enters her bedroom, aware that the lights are blazing and expecting that the man she left reclining on the bed is still in repose and waiting for her.
"Now, Spike, I know I'm in a towel and everything, but Dawn's in the next room now and she can hear us so don't EVEN think that you can pull that make Buffy 'eee eee eee stuff," she says into an empty room.
The room is empty.
The bed is still rumpled from their rough and tumble, but it is not occupied.
"Spike?" she calls, feeling silly. The room is tiny. He's either not there or very small himself. And she knows that's not true. She slips on a tee-shirt and a pair of sweats and walks out into the hall, rapping at Dawn's bedroom door. "Dawnie? Where'd Spike go?"
"I dunno," Dawn says from the other side. "He just said that he had to go for a while."
Buffy really doesn't have to ask why. He's making himself scarce tonight to avoid a replay of what happened the last time Travis squired Dawn around the town. She shakes her head and presses against the door to find her sister inside, fussing with her long, thick locks of still damp hair. It looks as though she's trying to sweep her hair up into a bun that won't quite firm up, even with the constrictions of tens of thousands of bobby pins. She turns a pleading face to Buffy, a bobby pin clinched in her teeth.
"This isn't working," she says.
Buffy sighs, taking a strand of her sister's wet hair in her hand. "I'm sorry. But we can still salvage the wreck."
"You think?" Dawn asks hopefully.
"Listen, I went to Homecoming fresh from a demon fight-for-life AND a limosine ride with Cordelia Chase and I still looked ravishing…or ravaged. Either way, I'll do something. I may not be a witch like Willow, but I know a few things about cosmetic magic. Hand me the blow-dryer."
As Buffy dries the remaining moisture from Dawn's raven hair, Dawn dives into the make-up tray, spreading unneeded base over her youthful glow and lining her eyes with an indigo pencil. Buffy remembers a time when Dawn used to beg their mother to buy pretend cosmetics at the supermarket and their mother warning that she was too young, even for pretend cosmetics. And here she is now, applying Clinique like a pro, even knowing that in a pinch, a Q-tip can erase the most hideous of make-up mistakes. Buffy tries not to look in the mirror. Every time she does, she sees her sister getting older…and herself getting older as well. Her sweet sister, seven years old yesterday, it seems, getting ready for her first big dance tonight.
A smile bewitches Buffy's countenance as she secures another pin to Dawn's scalp. "You're not nervous, are you?"
"Me? No. What would give you that idea?" Dawn asks as her shaky hand doodles an unintended jagged line on her eyelid. She reaches for a tissue to correct the mistake, silently cursing herself.
"You're going to have such a good time tonight, Dawn."
"No pressure there, Buff," Dawn says, trying her hand again at lining her left eye.
"I mean it, Dawn. Just helping you get ready is making me want to live my high school years all over again. Minus the times I was having to club nasties instead of just plain clubbing."
"You know, I was always kind of jealous of you being the Slayer when I was growing up. I mean, you always got the late curfew because you needed the extra time for the Slaying and the saving the world and all. And you always got Mom's understanding when you were late because you were probably doing something important like keeping the Hellmouth from opening or keeping downtown Sunnydale from being overrun with zombies. And you got to play with crossbows and maces while I had to use those blunt scissors with the rubber handles until, like, last year. But I guess, all in all, when you really think about it, being the Slayer in high school really must have sucked. It's bad enough just being a normal kid. Not that I'm all that normal. Hello! Key in human form here."
Buffy reaches for another pin, holding it between her lips as she combs out another strand of hair. "I don't have any regrets about being the Slayer. When I turned eighteen, you might remember that the Council put me through that hell test. I didn't have any powers. I was just like everyone else, except I was being hunted by a psychotic vampire. That's when I realized that being the Slayer, as inconvenient as it may be from time to time, is what I am. It's my identity. As soon as I came to terms with who I was, life got a lot easier. The choices I have to make sometimes are not easy, but just knowing that I wouldn't have this life if I weren't the Slayer puts everything in perspective. I mean, if I weren't the Slayer, the Monks never would have sent you to me to protect and I can't imagine life without you."
Dawn's mouth comes open and Buffy can see in the mirror that her eyes are beginning to tear. "Aw, Buffy…as much trouble as I've been lately?"
"You're just being a teenager, Dawn. I was twenty times worse than you are. You haven't set fire to your high school yet, have you?"
"Nah. Not that I haven't thought of it, though. Especially before a chemistry quiz."
"Well, just keep something like that in the thinking stage, Dawnie. It's not as glamorous as it sounds."
Dawn's hair is now pinned and tucked into a sleek and prom perfect updo and her make-up is slightly overdone, but tasteful. And when she slips into the petal pink gown purchased on the devil-may-care shopping spree in L.A., Buffy can understand why everyone in the store did stop and stare. She is the picture of style in this dress, somewhere between Audrey and Katharine Hepburn. Somewhere in heaven Coco Channel is applauding enthusiastically. Buffy happens to catch a glimpse at the price tag as Dawn cuts it off and discards it into the wastepaper basket.
"Twelve hundred dollars?" Buffy mouths in awe. "This dress cost twelve hundred dollars?"
"Relax, Buffy. It's paid for."
"Make sure you don't get anything on it. That's three month's rent you're wearing there."
"I thought it was kind of pricey too but Spike insisted. He said he didn't want anyone thinking his 'special little lady' was a second hand Rose."
That boyfriend of mine, Buffy thinks, still reeling from the sight of quadruple digits on something that wasn't a credit card statement or a past due notice. She wonders what else Spike keeps in his crypt.
The doorbell rings then and both girls lock eyeballs, knowing that the seven o'clock hour has arrived. It's date time.
"Now, Dawnie, remember that if you're going to be any later than eleven o'clock, please call me," Buffy says worriedly as she follows her sister into the living room.
"I promise," Dawn says, touching her head to make sure her hair isn't about to fall down.
"And no drinking!"
"OK. No drinking. Not even the Sprite and sherbet punch at the dance. I swear."
"And don't get in a car with someone's whose been drinking. Better yet, don't get in a car with anyone who isn't a parent."
"And what if the parent has been drinking?"
"Then you call me. I put thirty-five cents in your purse in case of an emergency."
"OK. I won't blow it all in a gumball machine."
"And Dawn. If Travis gets a case of wandering hands, you put him in his place. You call in the umpire if he even tries to round second base, OK?"
Dawn rolls her eyes. "It's going to be kind of hard to go to second base with a chaperone at the wheel, even if he is drunk off his ass." Dawn lays a gentle hand on her sister's cheek. "I'll be fine, Buffy. This is my second date. I'm practically a pro."
Buffy opens the door to find Travis standing there, a boxed orchid in his right hand, a look of delight on his face when he sees Dawn. He's not looking too shabby himself in his dark blue suit and red and blue striped tie. It looks brand-box new and tailored just for him. And his hair is actually combed back, revealing the soft handsomeness of his adolescent face. He smiles brightly as he greets both girls, telling Dawn that she looks fabulous.
"Oh…you guys!" Buffy says, a little embarrassed by the girlish enthusiasm in her voice. "You look so great! Picture! I've got to take a picture!"
As Buffy dashes into her bedroom for her Polaroid, she hears Travis mutter again that Dawn looks beautiful and then the distinct sound of a kiss being delivered. She fully expects to find them making out when she returns, instead the two are standing almost at an arms length, exchanging shy glances.
They are so adorable, Buffy thinks, looking at the through the lens as Travis slips the corsage onto Dawn's wrist. She thinks she's about to cry. Realizing that her emotions are about to get the best of her, she hurries them out of the apartment, aided by Travis who has secured dinner reservations for 7:30 that they can't be late for. As the pair exits the apartment, Buffy faces the emptiness with a sob that rises in her chest so quickly she's almost knocked down by the sudden exhilaration. She doesn't know why she is crying. Is she a little envious of her sister? Is it the sight of young love in bloom? She doesn't have long to think about why the tears are coursing down her cheeks. The doorbell sounds again. If it's Dawn coming back for something she has forgotten, she has to dry her tears right away. She can't let her see how all this is affecting her. She doesn't even know why all this is affecting her.
She goes cautiously to the door, wiping her face with the underside of her teeshirt. A glimpse through the peephole shows nothing but a bunch of flowers. Flowers?
Buffy undoes the series of locks with jittery hands, still sniffling, but curious about the anonymous floral tribute behind door number one. Once the door is opened, there is a man standing there, holding a bright bouquet of daisies, black-eyed susans, and marigolds before his face. He peeks out from behind the flowers, smiling ear to ear, his blue eyes at once impish and anticipatory.
Buffy realizes instantly that there if there is one sight more breath-taking than that of her lover in his all-together, it is the sight of him dressed in a tuxedo. For a minute she thinks her eyes may be deceiving her and she has to stare, well past the point of rudeness, to fully comprehend what she is seeing. And why. Had she missed something in an earlier conversation about tonight?
As she is staring, his countenance falls into a look of concern.
"What's wrong?" he asks, dropping the flowers to his side. "You look as though you've been crying."
"I was," she says softly, the skin on her face tightening under her drying tears. Now there is too much curiosity in her to feel any kind of despair. "What's all this?"
"I'm here to pick you up for our date, love," he says, as though she should have been expecting him.
"We have a date?"
"Hope so. Otherwise the limo I've rented and the dinner reservations I've made are all for naught."
Buffy's head is beginning to spin as she tries to take all this in. She stands back to look at Spike, dressed in a finely cut black tuxedo that makes him looks as though he's just broken with his plastic existence on top of a wedding cake and is stepping out for the first time into real life. He is perfection, from his slicked-back platinum coif to the tips of his highly shined patent leather shoes. However, there is nothing stiff in his appearance in his formal regalia. He is made to wear the clothes that fit him so snugly, as though finally displaying the genuine class he keeps hidden under the veneer of rebelliousness and primeval sexuality.
"But what am I going to wear?" she asks, still a little stunned.
He thinks about this for a minute before handing her the flowers and ducking beside the doorway to retrieve a white box with a bright pink bow. "I think you'll find something in this box that might do for an evening on the town."
She sets the flowers down on the table beside the door and scoots the bow down the varnished surface of the box. Propping the box against the back of the sofa, she lifts the lid and dives into the layers of pink tissue paper to reveal a cerulean blue dress with the thinnest of spaghetti straps and briefest of lengths. As she holds it up against her, she notices the still attached price tag fluttering next to the bodice. Another dress that obviously didn't come off the half price rack.
"Oh, my God!" Buffy gasps.
"It's a beauty, isn't it?" Spike beams.
"It's fifteen hundred dollars!"
"Yeah. But if that's the going rate for helping my beautiful princess dress the part, that's what it had to be."
"But Spike. That's a lot of money. That could put food on the table for six months. That could go towards a down payment for a house. That could go into Dawn's college fund. That could---
"That could feed a starving child in Africa for five thousand years. Blah, blah, blah. Tonight we're not dealing with practicalities, love. Tonight we are going out and sparing no expense. We shall dine and dance in style. This is our night, Buffy, to do as we please. There are no apocalypses to avert, no demonic ascensions to put the kibosh on, no hell gods to pound into a bloody paste with a troll hammer." He takes both of her hands in his and places a gentle kiss on her surprise-parted lips. "Tonight is all about the two of us."
She might have known when Spike finally took her out for an actual date, he wouldn't skimp on the romance. Already she feels herself being swept away. She tells herself not to keep asking the why's and the how's and to concentrate on the here and the now. She leaps into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and layering kisses upon kisses on his shocked face.
"Oh, I love you, love you, LOVE YOU!" she says between fevered kisses as he tries to steady himself on the floor.
"Easy now, pet. There'll be time for smoochies later. Big ones, I hope. But the driver is waiting and we have reservations at Le Jardin in twenty. Go get dressed and we can start making everyone green with envy about how fucking beautiful we are."
The night air fuses coolly with Buffy's bare skin as she holds Spike close to her. The cold cement underfoot is a balm to her aching feet, confined for too long in too tight strappy heels, which she holds in her left hand over Spike's shoulder. Overhead the stars stretch out in a glittered tapestry that stretches for miles and miles. There is a wisp of smoke in the air. It is late fall and some in Sunnydale are warming themselves by firelight this evening. The sounds of the city swirl all around them on their rooftop dance floor and from this perch they have a perfect view of the patterned subdivisions and tree-lined avenues, but tonight they are not concerned with what is going on down below because this is their night, unmarred by a single apocalyptic event, save a small incident involving the matter of tipping at the restaurant.
Buffy leans her head against Spike's collarbone and sighs blissfully, her inner contentment just about swelling her heart two sizes larger than before. "Mmmm," she says finally. "This is the best part."
Spike has to chuckle a little at this. "Typical. Rented limousine, $150. Dinner at Sunnydale's most exclusive restaurant, $95. A slow dance on top of a low-rent apartment building, priceless." He bends to kiss her by her ear and whispers, "If I had known this was all you wanted out of the evening, I could have saved a few pennies."
"No," she protests lazily, drawing her finger down the lapel of his tuxedo jacket, "The limousine ride, the dinner, everything---fantabulous. But this---just being alone with you, up where no one can touch us. This is, like…like…" She lets out a brief sigh of frustration at her mind's failing to find the words that could adequately describe what she's feeling now. "My head's still a little fuzzy from all the champagne, I think."
"Still not completely cleared up, pet?"
"I did have three glasses."
Spike sniggers. "Lightweight."
"That would be me."
"You were so cute when you asked the waiter to bring a bottle with a fewer bubbles the next time."
"Well, the bubbles were making me have burpies. There must be a kind of champagne without all the bubbles."
"There is. It's called wine, love."
Buffy shrugs. "I guess that's why I suck as a waitress."
"Fortunately I don't have a problem with your sucking."
Spike places a kiss on her temple and squeezes the hand she holds over his stilled chest, enjoying the loveliness in his arms. It's at times like these that he hears the voices the loudest, the ones that tell him inside his head that this is not real, that what is happening can't be true. He has lived through enough alternative realities and misguided demonic and Wiccan spells to know that some things are not always what they seem. If this is a trick, if there is some mastermind behind this passion beside the force of love, he doesn't want to know. Whatever caused him to fall through this trap door in life and into this world where he is loved and cared for and counted on, he is grateful.
"Buffy," he says against her forehead, "We've been talking a lot lately about what the future holds and forever and all that. And I do think from time to time about where all this is going and how much I would hate it if everything we have did go away. But the fact that you love me, that you've let me into your life against the wishes of practically everyone you know, and probably against all the good sense and instincts you have…that means more to me than you can ever know. This time with you, no matter how long we have together, is all I've ever wanted. I can't think of a greater happiness and I don't want it to end. So I wanted to take this evening to let you know how precious you are to me and how much I love you and always will."
"Oh, honey," she replies, her earlier emotion returning to her eyes. Who would have thought that the heart she had been targeting for so long with the point of her stake could contain such love, and for her, his would-be assassin. No matter how perverse their coupling may seem to the outside world, and even to herself sometimes, tonight it has never seemed so right. They seem to be in a place somewhere outside reality and they are hovering above their existence, literally, with their earthly home just two floors down below where their feet sweep across a moonlit dance floor of their own imagination. She brings his lips to hers in a soft kiss, loving the moment, loving him, loving the close proximity of their bodies weaving a slow magic into the darkness of the night.
Once the kiss is broken, Spike murmurs against her open mouth, "Turn around. There's something I want to give you."
She reluctantly leaves the comfort of his arms and faces away from him. A rush of cold air rushes down the front of her dress and she shivers slightly.
"Close your eyes," he instructs in a whisper.
With her neck exposed to him and her position a top a nine-story building, she can't help thinking that this is a Watcher's worst nightmare for a Slayer whose defenses have been dulled by the rapture of a vampire's seduction. Soon she feels something cool and light being draped around her bare throat and then the sensation of a slippery disk of ice gliding quickly into her cleavage. She reaches to stop the intruder and holds in her hands now a round medallion. Her eyes still tightly closed, she tries to define the object through touch. Her fingertip traces a hinge and then a corrugated metal knob at the top near the chain. Finally she does open her eyes and finds between her hands the watch she has perceived through touch.
"It's beautiful," she says, admiring the sleek platinum surface before popping the piece open to examine the face. Moonlight glints off the mother of pearl inside, revealing stark roman numerals.
"It's been in my family, as they say, for generations," Spike tells her. "I think me Mum was hoping I would be able to pass it down to one of my sprog. I was going to hock it, but the bloke at the pawnshop was so taken with the Winchester rifle, I didn't need it. So I took it over to the jewelers, had them fashion it into a necklace, and put the inscription on the inside."
The almost imperceptible inner works of the watch beat gently against the palm of her hand like a tiny heartbeat. "There's an inscription?"
"Yeah, here," he says, producing his Zippo from one of his interior pockets. The burst of butane flames against a scroll of carefully scripted words etched into the inside.
"'I've got all the time for you, love,'" Buffy reads aloud, her voice slightly catching on the word, "time."
"It may not protect you like a cross and it won't make Anya whip out her jeweler's loop to gauge just how generous I am to my ladylove, but it is a part of me, a part of who I was and, in some ways, the person you've restored me to. I just wanted to say, thank you for recreating the monster."
A bright smile drapes in a scarlet shank across the bottom of his pale face. His eyes burrow into hers as he draws her face to his. She lets the watch fall again against her skin as she wraps her arms around him in a desperate clutch. There is such ferocity in her love for him right now she feels that even if she did make love this very second and make it last into eternity, or for all the time they have, it still wouldn't be enough. All the time she is in his embrace she is aware of the ticking between them and regards the gift suddenly as a rude interloper. "Don't remind me of that," she wants to say to the watch. "Just remind me of this."
From her last glimpse at the watch, she knows it's getting late and though she hates to tell him this, one of their own is out tonight and is expected back at any moment.
"Dawn will be home soon," she says in a sigh, continuing to kiss him down the sharp line of his left cheekbone.
"I know," he says in mock breathlessness. "Do we have time for one more dance?"
"I think the chaperone will allow that," she answers, angling for his mouth again.
He takes her again in his arms, sweeping her gently across the rooftop, her feet barely touching the ground. She leans against his stilled chest, against the monster, against all odds. Her mind shuts off the insistent ticking beside her leaping heart and she listens now to the inner music in her head as they endeavor to close the place with just one last dance. She doesn't want to think about time or the lack there of. All she wants to think of now is the fact that when this is all over, she is going to put away the dress she is wearing and be able to attach to it the memory of the sweet perfection of this night.
Tonight they are not merely dancing. They are dancing on the edge of forever.
End
