Service Unit

Chapter Ten – Owned

The demon stepped away from Spike and held out the stick to Buffy. She took it reluctantly and looked over at Spike as the demon asked, "Have I explained the transfer procedure to your satisfaction, madam?"

Buffy nodded. "Yeah. You've just claimed him as his owner by putting your collar on him and demonstrating your possession of and control over his body, especially the…" she swallowed down some more bile, "…parts of his body used in his service as a pleasure slave." She took a deep breath and continued, "He only wears the collar when he's… ugh… 'at home' just sounds so wrong. That place is NOT his home… ugh… whatever. He only wears the collar when he's at home. When he's being rented out, the collar comes off, meaning to him that his owner is allowing others to use his property however they want… within the limits of the contract of course… your dimension must be a really repulsive place to live, by the way, and when his lease is up, he goes 'home' and the collar is replaced, meaning to him that he is once again his owner's exclusive property."

The demon nodded. "You grasp the details quite well, madam."

Buffy snorted. "Yeah… I'm a fabulous student. Blech. I'd rather be learning freaking French or something right now. And I hate French." Buffy tightened her grip on the stick in her hand. "So now I have to claim him as his owner by removing your collar and putting mine on. Then I have to do all the things you did, but instead of just making him hard, I have to…" She paused to swallow down more bile– she really needed a Tums or something to calm the acid in her stomach – before taking another deep breath and continuing, "I have to make him come, to show that I control any pleasure he feels as a non-renting-him-out owner. Right? That will show him that he's only mine and he'll understand that nobody else will get to… ugh… use him?"

"Yes, madam. What you do during the transfer will tell him what kind of slave you expect him to be."

"Ugh… have I mentioned the ugh? I really, really, really don't want to do this to Spike. God, this is so very disturbing." She stepped away from Spike and sat down on the couch, letting the stick fall onto the floor at her feet as she dropped her head into her hands.

The demon looked perplexed and he stared at her for a few minutes before speaking quietly, "I do not mean to upset you, madam, but I do not understand. You find sexual interaction with him disturbing? Are you not versed in sexual acts?" He looked over at Spike. "Do you not find his form appealing? And please do not inflict more damage on my person for saying this, but his appearance was one of his main selling points and one of the reasons the fees for his services were much higher than other units."

Buffy raised her head and looked up at the demon, restraining herself from punching him in his other nose, but only just. "Of course I find him appealing, you idiot. He's hot, anybody with eyes can see that, and yes, I'm 'versed' in sexual acts. Spike taught me pretty much all of them, by the way, and it's not being with Spike sexually that I find disturbing… it's why I have to do it. I have to claim him as my property, which is disturbing on so many levels. He's not property… a toaster is property, or a TV, or a car, but not Spike… and I really don't want to treat him like he is, but because of what you did to him, what Angel did to him, if I want to help him at all, I have to. And that disturbs me." She looked over at Spike. "And it's also disturbing that I have to do sexual things to Spike while you're here. That is WAY disturbing. Things like that are private."

The demon took a step back. "I only need be present for the collar transfer, madam. Once you have placed your collar and given mine to me, my part of the transfer process is complete."

Buffy sighed in relief. This whole thing was wigging her out, but at least she wouldn't have to molest Spike in front of a witness. And that's what she would be doing… molesting the man she loved, inflicting just one more violation on him. She suddenly hated Angel with every fiber of her being. It wasn't like she and Spike would've had an easy path even without all the slavery shit to deal with. Nobody, except for Dawn, was really on board the 'Buffy Loves Spike' train and they'd been on her ass about him all week, trying to talk her out of even seeing him. And now? She had absolutely no idea how she was going to explain this; her very own vampire sex slave. God, sometimes her life sucked SO much.

She took a deep breath and stood up, moving toward the door. Her friends and their issues with her love life would just have to wait. Spike needed her to focus on nothing but him if she was ever going to bring him out of this, so she locked, bolted, and chained the door, then propped a chair under the handle for good measure. Knowing the Scoobies, even though most of them were currently in England, the distance wouldn't necessarily stop them from showing up at her door for some kind of 'intervention' if they thought she needed one. They'd already threatened exactly that the last time she'd spoken to them about Spike, and she'd tried to explain, yet again, that she was an adult and more than capable of handling her own life. Telling them politely to butt out and mind their own beeswax had gone over about as well as a whore in church, but dammit! It was her life! Not theirs! You'd think they'd at least be happy that she'd found someone to share her life with, but nooooo… They were all – he's no good for you, Buffy – he'll only hurt you, Buffy – he's tried to kill us all, Buffy. It seemed that as soon as they'd left California, they'd completely forgotten how much he'd changed… how he'd sacrificed himself to save them all… and they'd snapped right back to ragging on him and pointing out every little thing he'd ever done wrong.

She clenched her hands into fists then stomped over to her answering machine. She hit 'record memo' and said as calmly as she could manage, "Hi guys, I know why you're calling and no, I'm not going to talk to you right now. Spike and I are catching up and I won't be answering the door or the phone or coming in to work until we're done, so please leave us alone until I contact you. And yes, Giles, that means you, too. If there's an apocalypse, get somebody else on it. I know you don't like Spike, but I love him and I'm all grown up now, so if you guys love me at all, please just stay out of it. Dawnie, just leave what I asked you to get outside my door, and I'll call you when I need you, K? I love you all. Bye." She set the memo as the greeting to play whenever anyone called her number then picked up the phone and turned the ringer off.

The demon was looking at her strangely as she bent to snag the stick then moved to stand in front of Spike. She shrugged. "My friends don't like him and don't want me to be involved with him, even after he died saving their freaking lives. My sister is the only one who thinks it's a good idea, mostly because he never tried to kill her like he tried to kill the rest of us, I guess, or maybe because she had a crush on him for the longest time." Buffy smiled wistfully. "My Mom really liked him, though, and I know she'd be happy about it." She laughed quietly. "He never tried to kill her, either." Buffy smirked at the demon's look of confused alarm. "Yeah, Spike and I have a pretty complicated history. And hey, I just realized… we're tied in the 'not staying dead' games. We've both died twice now, that's kind of cool."

The demon just nodded, still wearing a look of utter confusion as Buffy tapped Spike on the shoulder and hip. Spike rose to his feet and Buffy reached up and tapped one eyelid with her fingertip. He opened his eyes and she smiled at him as she tossed the stick onto the couch then reached up to remove the collar. He tensed when her fingers touched it, but that was all the reaction she got as she unbuckled it then turned to hand it to the demon.

The trainer bowed as he said, "I give my slave over to you, madam, to do with what you will," then he straightened up and tore the collar into two pieces, dropping them on the floor at his feet.

That got a reaction out of Spike. He flinched violently as the pieces of the collar hit the floor then he looked at his trainer in terror. Buffy reached into her back pocket and retrieved the silk scarf she was going to use as a collar, being that she wasn't into that kind of thing and didn't just have people collars lying around. She held it up where Spike could see it then reached up toward his neck and whispered, "I'm going to make you mine, Spike. You'll never be rented out to anyone ever again, I promise." She looped the scarf loosely around his neck then tied the ends in a knot so that it looked like a badly done up cravat.

She turned to the demon and bowed as she said, "I accept your slave and claim him as my own." She straightened up and pointed to the spare bedroom door. "Go in there and wait until I come get you. And plug your ears… all of them. What's gonna happen in here next is none of your damn business."

The demon nodded and turned for the bedroom. "As you wish, madam."

Buffy waited until the door had closed then she waited a few more minutes to give the demon time to plug up all his ears. When she turned back to Spike, he was watching her with wide, frightened eyes, his arms and legs quivering nearly hard enough to knock him down. He obviously knew what was going to happen next and he was scared.

XXXX

He was working to rein in his fear by taking shallow, barely noticeable breaths as he pressed his forehead into the floor hard enough to cause a bruise. He was trying to find something to ground himself with, and pain usually seemed to serve that purpose, so he clenched his hands into fists and drove his fingernails into his palms. The bright, sharp bursts of pain in his palms soothed him somewhat and he was able to focus on the conversation.

He heard his renter say something about this being disturbing and he had to heartily agree. Of course this was disturbing. What was going on? Why was his trainer asserting ownership in a renter's home? That had never happened before. And why had he been so gentle doing it? THAT had certainly never happened before, either.

He turned off his thoughts as best he could and listened, but nobody was currently speaking, so he let his mind wander just a bit. His renter kept referring to him as Spike, but the name felt foreign and wrong when he tried to apply it to himself. It felt like a badly made, too small shirt he was trying to cram his body into, but if that's what she wanted to call him, then that's what he would answer to. At least it was an actual name. He hadn't been called anything but 'slave' or 'Service Unit 238' since he'd woken in the slave compound, and any name he'd had before that had drowned in the sea of constant agony that had been his first several months of captivity.

His ears perked up when his trainer started speaking and he listened intently to what his renter said in response. She thought he was appealing, and even though he couldn't remember doing it, apparently he'd taught her what she knew about sex, if, in fact, he was this Spike she was talking about. That made a small bit of warm pride bloom in his chest, but what she said next had him barely keeping his mouth from popping open in shock.

She didn't think of him as property. But he was. He was a slave, a service unit, had been for years, but she didn't think so, and she didn't want to treat him that way. And she didn't want to use him in front of others. She was still going to use him, but according to her, she would be doing it to help him.

He was so confused. Nothing here was as it should be and he was starting to get tired of trying to figure it all out. He wanted to hope that maybe he was finally being rescued, but it had been so long since he'd had ANY hope in that direction that he didn't even know what it felt like anymore.

He heard her move around the room, locking a door and dragging a chair over toward it, then she started speaking again, but not to him or his trainer. She said the word 'Giles' and his stomach clenched slightly, although he didn't know why. The word 'Dawnie' also caused a reaction, but not a clenching of his stomach. That word made him want to smile, something he couldn't remember doing in all the time he'd been a slave.

He didn't hear anything spoken after that word because he was busy seeing a picture in his head of a tall, thin, brunette girl. She was looking up at him, her big, blue eyes full of trust and love, and if he'd been standing instead of kneeling on the floor, he probably would've collapsed. Her name was Dawn. He KNEW that just like he knew he was a slave. Another name was tickling at the back of his mind now, but he couldn't quite grab it. Nib… Nibbles? Something starting with N, he was sure of it.

A pair of taps and he rose to his feet, shutting off his thoughts as he did. A tap on his eyelid had him opening his eyes to see his renter smiling at him. She reached up and touched his collar and he tensed. Nobody was allowed to touch that except his trainer, but she was unbuckling it from around his neck and his trainer was just standing there watching her do it. The last creature that had dared touch his collar had had to be sponged off the floor, the walls, and the ceiling once his trainer had finished with it. So what did that mean? What was going on?

Then she handed his collar to his trainer and his trainer tore it in half and dropped the pieces. He flinched before he could stop it and his mind reeled. His trainer had disowned him. He was less than worthless now. He'd seen what had happened to other slaves who'd had their collars torn because they weren't being requested for rental anymore. They'd been put outside the gate of the compound where they could go their own way as free creatures or wait for someone else to claim ownership. Most had been picked up by passing demons, but a few had stood outside the gate in whatever position they'd been placed in until they'd collapsed. Then they'd lain there until they'd starved to death.

Why had he been disowned? He'd been one of the most requested units in the compound, with some of his rental contracts booked years in advance, so why? What had he done? He knew he'd disobeyed practically the very first order his new renter had given him, but he'd been good since then, hadn't he? And it's not like his trainer didn't enjoy punishing him, considering that he found so many reasons to do so, so why was he tearing his collar instead of hanging him to be whipped? Who was going to take care of him now? Where would he go? He had nothing, no one. He didn't even know where he was. Or who he was.

He was free now. Un-owned. And he was terrified. He didn't know if he COULD be free. His training was so deeply entrenched that he doubted he could even force himself to do anything he wasn't ordered to do. The only thing he was fully in charge of at all was his breathing. Whether or not to breathe had been the only choice he'd been allowed to make for himself during his slavery, whenever there wasn't something shoved so far down his throat that it blocked his airway, of course. Anything else had been decided for him, trained into him, or had been a visceral reaction to whatever was being done to him.

He was suddenly sure that he couldn't be free. Not at all. He was going to stand wherever he was told and let himself die. Just like the others had.

Something the color of fresh blood suddenly appeared in his line of vision. His renter was holding up a strip of cloth… no, she couldn't be his renter since he was no longer owned, so what was she now? His thoughts were interrupted when she whispered, "I'm going to make you mine, Spike. You'll never be rented out to anyone ever again, I promise."

She wound the cloth around his neck and tied the ends in a knot and he nearly collapsed in relief, his limbs shaking as he worked to stay on his feet. She was claiming him! He was owned again! Well, almost. She still had to do the rest of the ownership assertion, and being that she was female; she didn't have the right appendages. She'd have to use a dildo to properly claim his ass and he hoped she'd pick one of the smaller ones instead of the demonstration model. Even though he'd been slightly stretched by his trainer, it wasn't nearly enough to be able to take that monster without blinding agony. In fact, he hadn't been prepared well enough to take any of them without quite a bit of pain.

A thought suddenly struck him and the shaking of his limbs became more pronounced. What if she… she didn't want to cause him pain, did she? She hadn't so far, at least not intentionally, he didn't think, but what if…

She turned to face him and frowned.