The Hard Way
I don't like Spike.
Spike's all wrong. He smokes, and he drinks, and he swears - he's the poster child of bad boys, the one Mom always warned me against, the ones she was always afraid I'd run into at the Bronze. Before she knew I was the Slayer, anyway, and was kicking skanky vamp ass from here to the Sunnydale city limits for years.
Anyway, back to the ickiness that is the sorry excuse for my vampire.
No. No, not my vampire, just a vampire. The one who's always hanging about. Teases my kid sister, drank hot chocolate with mini- marshmallows courtesy of my mom, the one who has declared undying love to me, while I was strung up in chains in his crypt, mind you, and has generally been a pain in my ass for the last two years.
He's so wrong. With Angel - I loved Angel. What we had was deep and immediate and - I hesitate to use the word - spiritual. Angel had my back, and looked out for me, and looked deep into my eyes to stroke my heart.
Spike and I aren't lovers. I mean, yes, I've slept with him, but we don't do the things that lovers do. We don't hold hands over a romantic dinner, or feed each other chocolate-covered strawberries, or make slow tender love.
With Spike, it's more of a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, albeit in large amounts and with screaming orgasms on both our parts. But we're furtive, and sneak around. It's not open and it's not honest. It's hard and fast and hungry and aching and so, so good...
But afterwards when we're panting (for someone who doesn't need to breathe, he does an awful lot), exhausted, lying wherever we've fallen, we don't cuddle, he doesn't spoon up to me and wrap his arms around me and whisper sweet nothings in my ear. He whispers other things: naughty, delicious and decadent words, telling me how hungry he is for me, how beautiful I am, how I'm his wet dream come true - and every little while, a whispered, "I love you." That's when I always scramble up, reassemble my clothes and leave.
His neediness, his desperation to somehow prove his love for me, to me, is disturbing. He can't love me. You can't love without a soul, and Spike does not have one. If that chip of his ever malfunctions, I have no doubt he'd soon be back to his old bad ways. Not, however, if he thought it would keep me from his bed. Then he'd stick to his strict diet of butcher's blood, as long as he could have me.
I don't know what to do. Spike offered me a surcease from the hell that was my reality, a diversion. A hot, sticky, sweaty, mind-blowingly satisfying escape, but you always have to come back and face the facts.
It's too much. His need, my need, the heat we generate - it's powerful. Strong, intense certainly, and a little scary, but ultimately wrong.
I can't do this. Not anymore, not the dishonest way we've been going about it. And I don't love him. I can't do this casual sex; I always feel guilty and dirty afterwards, and I try to stay away, but before long my need sends me wheeling back to him, like some druggie insane for her next fix.
He's the drug. And I have to stop. Cold Turkey. Now.
I don't like Spike.
Spike's all wrong. He smokes, and he drinks, and he swears - he's the poster child of bad boys, the one Mom always warned me against, the ones she was always afraid I'd run into at the Bronze. Before she knew I was the Slayer, anyway, and was kicking skanky vamp ass from here to the Sunnydale city limits for years.
Anyway, back to the ickiness that is the sorry excuse for my vampire.
No. No, not my vampire, just a vampire. The one who's always hanging about. Teases my kid sister, drank hot chocolate with mini- marshmallows courtesy of my mom, the one who has declared undying love to me, while I was strung up in chains in his crypt, mind you, and has generally been a pain in my ass for the last two years.
He's so wrong. With Angel - I loved Angel. What we had was deep and immediate and - I hesitate to use the word - spiritual. Angel had my back, and looked out for me, and looked deep into my eyes to stroke my heart.
Spike and I aren't lovers. I mean, yes, I've slept with him, but we don't do the things that lovers do. We don't hold hands over a romantic dinner, or feed each other chocolate-covered strawberries, or make slow tender love.
With Spike, it's more of a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, albeit in large amounts and with screaming orgasms on both our parts. But we're furtive, and sneak around. It's not open and it's not honest. It's hard and fast and hungry and aching and so, so good...
But afterwards when we're panting (for someone who doesn't need to breathe, he does an awful lot), exhausted, lying wherever we've fallen, we don't cuddle, he doesn't spoon up to me and wrap his arms around me and whisper sweet nothings in my ear. He whispers other things: naughty, delicious and decadent words, telling me how hungry he is for me, how beautiful I am, how I'm his wet dream come true - and every little while, a whispered, "I love you." That's when I always scramble up, reassemble my clothes and leave.
His neediness, his desperation to somehow prove his love for me, to me, is disturbing. He can't love me. You can't love without a soul, and Spike does not have one. If that chip of his ever malfunctions, I have no doubt he'd soon be back to his old bad ways. Not, however, if he thought it would keep me from his bed. Then he'd stick to his strict diet of butcher's blood, as long as he could have me.
I don't know what to do. Spike offered me a surcease from the hell that was my reality, a diversion. A hot, sticky, sweaty, mind-blowingly satisfying escape, but you always have to come back and face the facts.
It's too much. His need, my need, the heat we generate - it's powerful. Strong, intense certainly, and a little scary, but ultimately wrong.
I can't do this. Not anymore, not the dishonest way we've been going about it. And I don't love him. I can't do this casual sex; I always feel guilty and dirty afterwards, and I try to stay away, but before long my need sends me wheeling back to him, like some druggie insane for her next fix.
He's the drug. And I have to stop. Cold Turkey. Now.
