Sorry for the long wait, it's spring break and I have a life---I think
Chapter 6
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.
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"So, who's the next lucky contestant?" Faye asked, leaning back on her bed with a box of noodles and chap sticks in hand. They had rented a cheap motel room. The motel was overflowed on this particular day, and only one room with two beds was available.
"Lucky contestant?" Spike asked, looking up from his duties next to the laptop.
"Next bounty, whatever you like to call it," she brushed her hand through her hair.
"Well you're quick, we've only just got our last one," he smiled.
"Oh yes, you and your damn graces," she giggled, "come to think of it, lunkhead, that suit makes your butt look big."
"Now would be the wrong time to comment on that yellow thing you wear, the color really doesn't suit your scrawny little complexion. I'm not surprised Dominic wasn't interested."
"Lunkhead," she threw a chap stick at him.
"Please, hold back all that violence!"
She laughed and suddenly a random thought came into her mind, "Spike you never did tell me how you got out."
He studied her, "Of the closet?"
"No!" she exclaimed, scratching her leg in an uneasy way and staring at him with a fearful anticipation. He knew what she meant, and she knew he didn't want to know. He pretended that he didn't, he didn't want the moment ruined by silly memories. What happened to him during those fatal moments, during that one night that forever decided his destiny? He was still haunted by the troubled sound of that beautiful woman's voice, the voice of that woman that he had loved so much once, a woman whose sadly hopeful words still rang in his head.
"Let's run away somewhere, where no one else is---it will be like watching a dream."
And slowly she began to fade. He no longer cared, he told himself. He was silly for ever caring. He could not even remember her name anymore, and he wanted to keep it that way.
Why did Faye have to bring it up? Why couldn't she pretend that she didn't know or at least suspect what had happened? He remembered her on that night, cold, destitute, and desolate. She was shaking as she begged him not to leave her. He was stupid then, and now he found it to be too distressing to imagine how different things would have been if he had only followed Faye's advice. If he had only stayed with Faye that night, if he had only chosen her out of the only two women that ever meant anything to him.
And suddenly, the room was in grim silence. Faye sighed, looking down, pushing out of herself the words, "Spike, how did you survive---that night-- -with Vicious----after she---"
He was angry now. She preposterous enough to say it, to speak these words. How dare she mingle in his personal life? How dare she?
"Who do you think you are?" he exclaimed, "who do you think you are to ask me that?"
She could see that he was angry, but she didn't care. She needed to know what had become of him, how he managed to pull through, how he managed to clutch his sanity even after losing---her.
"Spike, don't get me wrong," she tried to calm him, "Please don't get angry, it's just---"
"What gives you the right?"
"Spike I deserve to know!"
"Why?" he exclaimed, "why do you deserve to know?"
She groped for words but none came. It was that same familiar numbness. He was there and simultaneously he wasn't. With every moment his was slipping through her fingers and instinctively she tried to hold him back.
"Why don't I deserve to know?" was all that she could say.
"You don't deserve to know because it is my life, it is my life, my life, my---" He was breaking down, another word and he would have collapsed. With intensity he slapped the wall.
She wanted to hold him in her arms, for the first time in her life she felt like the one in control, she felt like the one calming him, saving him. She was always weaker until this moment. She suddenly realized that the man who stood before her was not as she had first supposed the unaltered Spike of the good old times. He was an entirely different person altogether, unsuccessfully attempting to mask his broken heart. He was pitiful to look at, but she could not help but stare.
"Then try to trust me. If we ever have anything in the world between us it should be trust. Why are you so upset, Spike? Tell me what happened to you!"
He lifted up his shirt to reveal his torso. Once slender and smooth, it was so no longer. Through his stomach ran a long, deep scar, unkempt marks of stitches still visible by the naked eye. She stared at it with fascination; she reached out her hand to touch it. He roughly moved away.
"This is what happened," he said quietly, "this should suffice, I think."
She was transfixed, "And what about Ju---"
"Enough about me," he interrupted her cruelly, "what about you? Those guys in the bar the other night, you changing your name to---Rose Shields?"
"Forget it!" she exclaimed, walking away from him.
"What? You're not so straightforward yourself," he jeered, "so eager to find out the intimate details of my life but you never succumb to my interrogations. Where is all that trust your base your preaching on? Where is that trust?"
She kept walking. He kept speaking.
"Trust," he teased, "Your goddamn trust."
And she was gone. With tears in her eyes she walked to the lobby, sinking into a chair and burying her face in her hands.
.
.
.
.
The purple gown returned to her. The high class restaurant. And of course, him.
"It's beat here tonight," she smiled, crossing her legs.
"Not with pretty ladies like you walking around, spicing it all up a notch," he replied with a charming grin.
She shook her head playfully; "You flatter."
"I don't believe in flattery," he smiled, sipping his martini, "I tell it like it is."
"An honest man," she observed, leaning her arms on the bar and looking into his gray eyes, "that's quite the distinction."
"Now you flatter."
"Nope," she smiled, "I can assure you, I am quite the honest woman."
He smiled, taking a cigar out of his pocket and lighting it with his silver lighter. Faye watched as he did these things, a graceful, almost ritualistic manner. It intrigued her; it inspired her. He had a sort of worldliness about him, being an older man. He might have been a little younger than Jet, or perhaps a little older. She wasn't sure; his movements seemed both, classic and modern, to her.
"Would you like one?" he asked.
"I don't know," she smiled, "Rumor is, those things are bad for you."
He laughed, "But that's the beauty of happiness."
She smiled, "Cancer?"
"No," he corrected her as if she were a child, "immediate gratification."
She nodded in confusion.
"What I'm trying to get at here is that many things are bad for you. It shouldn't stop you from enjoying them"
She studied him with admiration. She had done the unthinkable; she had connected to a bounty, a largely considerable bounty.
"Shields, James Shields," he introduced himself, stretching out his hand,
"Faye Valentine," as Nabokov once said, she 'sealed her fate gratefully.'
.
.
.
.
.
"You look so beautiful when you are asleep," James whispered in her ear as she opened her eyes. It had been a troubling month for the two of them, constantly running, constantly hiding. Hiding from everyone, from the law and the crime alike. This was the life of a fugitive with a large bounty on his head, the life of him and of his lover.
Lover, Faye thought. That was all that she was to him but she didn't care. She felt safe in his arms; he was the one man who ever truly validated her. She was in a humble position, she had realized it and admitted to herself that she was in love with James. Indeed, she did not know how she was ever going to live if he had left her. He would have been the second man in her life to do that, and it scared her that the love she felt for James was three times more catalystic that the affection she experienced for Spike.
"You think so?" she asked.
"Yes, I think so."
She smiled, "I love you so much."
"I love you too," he assured her, kissing her lips.
She moved her head away, "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
"Then tell me something no one else knows except for you."
He thought for a moment, "I loved you from the first moment that I say you, walking through that restaurant."
She stared at him.
"It's your turn," he said.
"Well," she smiled, moving her eyes through the room innocently, "What is I were to tell you that Faye Valentine isn't my real name?"
"I'd be largely relieved," he joked.
She smiled, "What if I were to tell you that I was eighty years old?"
"I'd say you look damn good for your age."
Her face saddened, "When I was nineteen, I got into a shuttle accident. I was cryogenically frozen until the technology arose to bring me to life."
He listened intently to her every word.
"That was sixty-one years ago."
"So what is your real name? "The creature"?"
"I don't know my real name," She shook her head, "A patient at the lab, he named me Faye Valentine, like the song."
He smiled, "beautiful song."
"Yes," she smiled, "I never really liked that name."
"Well," he whispered into his ear, his breath running a chill down her spine, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
Faye loved the feel of him against her. She loved everything about him, every movement, every word. Every fiber of his being was of major importance to her.
"Rose," she whispered, "I like that, Rose."
"Then that is what you'll be from now on," He caressed her, "So frail, so beautiful."
.
.
.
.
.
She was back in the motel lobby. She picked up her head and realized that she was dreaming. An urge overcame her. She looked at the clock above the check-in desk. It was nearly midnight. Slowly, she made her way back to her room.
Inside, the moonlight lit the darkness over their beds. Spike was already lying in his, breathing rhythmically, pretending to be asleep. She knew he wasn't, she could feel that he was awake, listening to her every move.
She sat down on her own bed, looking down for a moment, and then looking back up at his face, darkened by the night, yet exposed by the moonlight. He looked so peaceful before her eyes, almost as if he was not the treacherous man that he had shown himself to be. Trust, she thought to herself, trust.
"My name," she said solemnly, sensing movement on his face, "isn't made up. Rose is what a man named James Shields once called me---my husband---who had sadly passed away two days after our honeymoon."
Chapter 6
.
.
.
"So, who's the next lucky contestant?" Faye asked, leaning back on her bed with a box of noodles and chap sticks in hand. They had rented a cheap motel room. The motel was overflowed on this particular day, and only one room with two beds was available.
"Lucky contestant?" Spike asked, looking up from his duties next to the laptop.
"Next bounty, whatever you like to call it," she brushed her hand through her hair.
"Well you're quick, we've only just got our last one," he smiled.
"Oh yes, you and your damn graces," she giggled, "come to think of it, lunkhead, that suit makes your butt look big."
"Now would be the wrong time to comment on that yellow thing you wear, the color really doesn't suit your scrawny little complexion. I'm not surprised Dominic wasn't interested."
"Lunkhead," she threw a chap stick at him.
"Please, hold back all that violence!"
She laughed and suddenly a random thought came into her mind, "Spike you never did tell me how you got out."
He studied her, "Of the closet?"
"No!" she exclaimed, scratching her leg in an uneasy way and staring at him with a fearful anticipation. He knew what she meant, and she knew he didn't want to know. He pretended that he didn't, he didn't want the moment ruined by silly memories. What happened to him during those fatal moments, during that one night that forever decided his destiny? He was still haunted by the troubled sound of that beautiful woman's voice, the voice of that woman that he had loved so much once, a woman whose sadly hopeful words still rang in his head.
"Let's run away somewhere, where no one else is---it will be like watching a dream."
And slowly she began to fade. He no longer cared, he told himself. He was silly for ever caring. He could not even remember her name anymore, and he wanted to keep it that way.
Why did Faye have to bring it up? Why couldn't she pretend that she didn't know or at least suspect what had happened? He remembered her on that night, cold, destitute, and desolate. She was shaking as she begged him not to leave her. He was stupid then, and now he found it to be too distressing to imagine how different things would have been if he had only followed Faye's advice. If he had only stayed with Faye that night, if he had only chosen her out of the only two women that ever meant anything to him.
And suddenly, the room was in grim silence. Faye sighed, looking down, pushing out of herself the words, "Spike, how did you survive---that night-- -with Vicious----after she---"
He was angry now. She preposterous enough to say it, to speak these words. How dare she mingle in his personal life? How dare she?
"Who do you think you are?" he exclaimed, "who do you think you are to ask me that?"
She could see that he was angry, but she didn't care. She needed to know what had become of him, how he managed to pull through, how he managed to clutch his sanity even after losing---her.
"Spike, don't get me wrong," she tried to calm him, "Please don't get angry, it's just---"
"What gives you the right?"
"Spike I deserve to know!"
"Why?" he exclaimed, "why do you deserve to know?"
She groped for words but none came. It was that same familiar numbness. He was there and simultaneously he wasn't. With every moment his was slipping through her fingers and instinctively she tried to hold him back.
"Why don't I deserve to know?" was all that she could say.
"You don't deserve to know because it is my life, it is my life, my life, my---" He was breaking down, another word and he would have collapsed. With intensity he slapped the wall.
She wanted to hold him in her arms, for the first time in her life she felt like the one in control, she felt like the one calming him, saving him. She was always weaker until this moment. She suddenly realized that the man who stood before her was not as she had first supposed the unaltered Spike of the good old times. He was an entirely different person altogether, unsuccessfully attempting to mask his broken heart. He was pitiful to look at, but she could not help but stare.
"Then try to trust me. If we ever have anything in the world between us it should be trust. Why are you so upset, Spike? Tell me what happened to you!"
He lifted up his shirt to reveal his torso. Once slender and smooth, it was so no longer. Through his stomach ran a long, deep scar, unkempt marks of stitches still visible by the naked eye. She stared at it with fascination; she reached out her hand to touch it. He roughly moved away.
"This is what happened," he said quietly, "this should suffice, I think."
She was transfixed, "And what about Ju---"
"Enough about me," he interrupted her cruelly, "what about you? Those guys in the bar the other night, you changing your name to---Rose Shields?"
"Forget it!" she exclaimed, walking away from him.
"What? You're not so straightforward yourself," he jeered, "so eager to find out the intimate details of my life but you never succumb to my interrogations. Where is all that trust your base your preaching on? Where is that trust?"
She kept walking. He kept speaking.
"Trust," he teased, "Your goddamn trust."
And she was gone. With tears in her eyes she walked to the lobby, sinking into a chair and burying her face in her hands.
.
.
.
.
The purple gown returned to her. The high class restaurant. And of course, him.
"It's beat here tonight," she smiled, crossing her legs.
"Not with pretty ladies like you walking around, spicing it all up a notch," he replied with a charming grin.
She shook her head playfully; "You flatter."
"I don't believe in flattery," he smiled, sipping his martini, "I tell it like it is."
"An honest man," she observed, leaning her arms on the bar and looking into his gray eyes, "that's quite the distinction."
"Now you flatter."
"Nope," she smiled, "I can assure you, I am quite the honest woman."
He smiled, taking a cigar out of his pocket and lighting it with his silver lighter. Faye watched as he did these things, a graceful, almost ritualistic manner. It intrigued her; it inspired her. He had a sort of worldliness about him, being an older man. He might have been a little younger than Jet, or perhaps a little older. She wasn't sure; his movements seemed both, classic and modern, to her.
"Would you like one?" he asked.
"I don't know," she smiled, "Rumor is, those things are bad for you."
He laughed, "But that's the beauty of happiness."
She smiled, "Cancer?"
"No," he corrected her as if she were a child, "immediate gratification."
She nodded in confusion.
"What I'm trying to get at here is that many things are bad for you. It shouldn't stop you from enjoying them"
She studied him with admiration. She had done the unthinkable; she had connected to a bounty, a largely considerable bounty.
"Shields, James Shields," he introduced himself, stretching out his hand,
"Faye Valentine," as Nabokov once said, she 'sealed her fate gratefully.'
.
.
.
.
.
"You look so beautiful when you are asleep," James whispered in her ear as she opened her eyes. It had been a troubling month for the two of them, constantly running, constantly hiding. Hiding from everyone, from the law and the crime alike. This was the life of a fugitive with a large bounty on his head, the life of him and of his lover.
Lover, Faye thought. That was all that she was to him but she didn't care. She felt safe in his arms; he was the one man who ever truly validated her. She was in a humble position, she had realized it and admitted to herself that she was in love with James. Indeed, she did not know how she was ever going to live if he had left her. He would have been the second man in her life to do that, and it scared her that the love she felt for James was three times more catalystic that the affection she experienced for Spike.
"You think so?" she asked.
"Yes, I think so."
She smiled, "I love you so much."
"I love you too," he assured her, kissing her lips.
She moved her head away, "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
"Then tell me something no one else knows except for you."
He thought for a moment, "I loved you from the first moment that I say you, walking through that restaurant."
She stared at him.
"It's your turn," he said.
"Well," she smiled, moving her eyes through the room innocently, "What is I were to tell you that Faye Valentine isn't my real name?"
"I'd be largely relieved," he joked.
She smiled, "What if I were to tell you that I was eighty years old?"
"I'd say you look damn good for your age."
Her face saddened, "When I was nineteen, I got into a shuttle accident. I was cryogenically frozen until the technology arose to bring me to life."
He listened intently to her every word.
"That was sixty-one years ago."
"So what is your real name? "The creature"?"
"I don't know my real name," She shook her head, "A patient at the lab, he named me Faye Valentine, like the song."
He smiled, "beautiful song."
"Yes," she smiled, "I never really liked that name."
"Well," he whispered into his ear, his breath running a chill down her spine, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
Faye loved the feel of him against her. She loved everything about him, every movement, every word. Every fiber of his being was of major importance to her.
"Rose," she whispered, "I like that, Rose."
"Then that is what you'll be from now on," He caressed her, "So frail, so beautiful."
.
.
.
.
.
She was back in the motel lobby. She picked up her head and realized that she was dreaming. An urge overcame her. She looked at the clock above the check-in desk. It was nearly midnight. Slowly, she made her way back to her room.
Inside, the moonlight lit the darkness over their beds. Spike was already lying in his, breathing rhythmically, pretending to be asleep. She knew he wasn't, she could feel that he was awake, listening to her every move.
She sat down on her own bed, looking down for a moment, and then looking back up at his face, darkened by the night, yet exposed by the moonlight. He looked so peaceful before her eyes, almost as if he was not the treacherous man that he had shown himself to be. Trust, she thought to herself, trust.
"My name," she said solemnly, sensing movement on his face, "isn't made up. Rose is what a man named James Shields once called me---my husband---who had sadly passed away two days after our honeymoon."