Childe of my Heart ~ Chapter Twenty
by Shanyah
 

The whip stopped, the wind chimes tinkled and the drape was pulled out of the hold Xander hadn’t realised he had on the dark brown suede curtain. He jumped back, hitting into the stall’s display top and displacing a collection of sealed goods. Ball gags, cock-rings, paddles and all sorts slithered to the floor, apparently determined to nest on his boots.

He stooped for a blindfold, blurting out of sheer embarrassment, “Hi there tiny toes,” to a pair of bare feet. The feet came closer, setting off the little gold bells suspended on slender indigo ankle-bands.

Xander quickly straightened up and patted the blindfold onto the stall, “Sorry,” he said.

The woman coiled the whip and tapped its handle on her thigh.

No tight PVC get up for this four foot nothing dominatrix. She wore flowing purple pants, a tunic of white and purple tie-dye with matching scarf holding her honey-blonde hair in a ponytail. She looked like she should be out going tra-la-la in a dandelion meadow and not using her dainty hands to coil the whip in five seconds flat.

“I guess cotton’s more comfortable for the,” making a swoosh sound, he let an imaginary whip fly.

The woman tilted her head back to look in his face.

“Do you happen to stock lube?” He brought his arm down to his side, gauche in the presence of neatly packaged Miss Amo.

She frowned black eyes at his maroon band.

“KY, Astroglide, slick of any description?” Xander asked, eager to be gone.

Her nostrils flared and her face cleared. “I understand, you are here for the whip. You desire to be punished.”

“No you misunderstand! I’m here for the lubrication, to buy lubrication for sex…not with you! With Spike,” his face became warmer, “I mean my Amo.”

“Wait on the correct side of the barrier,” she disappeared behind the drape.

He lifted the stall’s hatch, walked through and picked up the cotton drawstring shopping bags, challenging himself not to look in at the doorway as he threaded the drawstrings over his shoulders. He failed the challenge, admired the guy’s shoulder length hair that he could sink his hand into as he punished that ass.

“Bertrand is a delight to look upon,” the woman said, reappearing in the doorway.

“Definitely eye candilicious,” Xander said, his opinion uttered without the permission of his better judgement. 

“Candilicious? It is not a word I am acquainted with,” Miss Amo passed him a box of Eros.

The feel of fine grit on the box curbed his automatic smile. “Are sure it’s not past its sell-by? I could plant an acorn in the dust on this.”

“I am afraid the stock has lain unsought after for a year or so. Few customers come here for this foul jelly,” she handed over another four boxes. “They have more ingenious ways of expanding the passage.”

“Just when I thought I was hardened to icky sex terms, along comes one that squicks.” Xander checked the date on one of the boxes, slid the tube out and unscrewed the cap, relieved to see the foil sealed nozzle. “Can’t be too careful,” he said, putting the boxes into a shopping bag and accepting a linen bag that matched her tie-dye tunic.

“It contains a gift for your Master,” she said, writing on a card and sliding it in an envelope. “This also is for your Amo. Do not read it,” the woman inched her fingertips from Xander’s as he took the small, square envelope.

“Sure thing,” he turned to leave, “Oh, I may have accidentally de-boned your cat.”

“I do not own a cat.”

“Well your stray’s back there behind those boxes.”

A person telling Xander not to do something was like them ordering him to do that very thing and he took the envelope out of his pocket for a third time as he walked, tearing the flap open this time. Stopping under a torch, he held the card up to the light and squinted at the writing.

Salutations Fellow Amo,

We must agree on recompense.

Yours Faithfully,

Amo Rhiana.

What did that mean recompense? Repayment, but for what? For the lube maybe, he thought, looking out onto the market…and feeling sweat pop up on his brow.  

It was after watershed. Demons crowded the streets, sat at roadside cafe tables and stood on corners watching the foot traffic go past. Evil squatted on the stalls in every direction, pot-bellied bad made of pale yellow straw.

He brought his hand up to his hair and realised he still held the card. It was crumpled and damp, the ink smudged. He chucked the note, left the safety of the wall and tried to decide which way was home. North or south, left or right, whichever way he went it didn’t matter; the laundry hampers lined both sides of the streets. It also didn’t matter how hard he told himself it was foolish to be frightened of dead Prairie grass. Foolish or not, he ran the gauntlet of laundry baskets, feeling like a terrified child in red and blue underwear.

*    *    *    *

He runs down the hall and into his room. “No, no,no! Don’ wanna,” he says and he scrunches down behind the curtain so she can’t see him, “don’ wanna!”

She’s pulls the curtain away and finds him. “I don’t care, you’re gonna!”

She comes down on her knees and looks at him angry and her face is red. Her face is sweaty and she wipes it with the yellow dress in her hand. He doesn’t like the dress. He likes his blue and red Spiderman shorts.

“My body went and turned on me,” she says. “It gave me you. I could’ve loved a girl.”

“Willow’s a girl and I’m a boy.”

“Yes you’re a boy,” she says and she tries to get the dress over his head. “A boy I fucking wish had…God help me but I wish!” She stops making him wear the dress because he’s pushing her hands and shaking his head hard.

“Yeah, Tony’s son for damn sure. You…you are your daddy and I can’t love him. Do you understand that? You are him and I can’t love him!”

She’s smacking his hands and yelling at him. Then she smacks his cheek and his head goes back and hits the corner of the window. It really hurts and he sees all black.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “Don’t cry baby, mommy’s sorry!”

“What in hell’s going on here?” His dad comes into the room.

“I didn’t get time to…the laundry…he had a bath and all his crap was dirty, it’s in the,” she moves back and back on her knees until she’s near the bed, “it’s only until the drier’s done, Tony.”

Tony grabs the dress from her and makes a fist near her mouth. “You’re the only one round here should wear a dress. This stops now, Jessica.”

She puts her arms around her head and doesn’t say anything.

“What good are you?” Tony throws the dress at her. “The place is a fucking pig-sty, your cooking’s worse than your mother’s and she can’t cook worth shit,” Tony looks at him, “the kid runs around half naked…you’re bleeding, son, what happened?”

“It was an accident, Tony, I didn’t mean to…I’m sorry.”

“You ain’t sorry yet,” Tony spits on her and kicks her in her tummy. When she falls he stands over her and punches her tummy again and her chest. When she stops screaming and wriggling he’s still punching her. When he finishes he says, “the no hope bitch is sorry now, sonny. How about a drink?”

He shakes his head, he doesn’t want to leave his mom. Blood is coming from her nose and falling on the carpet. She’s hurt like him, but more than him, she has more blood than him.

Tony picks him up, takes him down stairs and drops him on the couch. He turns the TV on and goes to the bar and brings him back a cup of cherry Kool Aid. Tony sits on the other chair with a glass of scotch and a tray of ice. He puts ice cubes in his drink then puts ice cubes in a dishcloth and puts the dishcloth on his fist.

“What’s the matter now, boy? Quit crying or I’m going to make your momma even sorrier for birthing me a disappointment.”

*    *    *    *

Pounding replaced Tony’s loud bullying; his heart pounding in his ears as it had done in the kid’s ears that afternoon, heavy thuds with the sound of knuckles hitting flesh. He’d closed the kid in a Tupperware casket and buried him, hadn’t dug up the box in eight years. He wished the Kool Aid Kid would rest in peace; keep his memories and his fears to himself because Xander was a long way from that life. He’d dealt and it was over.

He blinked to clear his vision, blurred by the sweat streaming down his forehead and into his eyes. He must have ran all the way on homing instinct, was back at the unit and standing unnoticed outside the courtyard gate. Dawn swayed in the hammock, ‘her’ book a black crow with leathery wings spread across her knee. Fred stood at the butcher’s block, drawing on an A4 pad.

Skinny Al wound figure eights around his legs.

He spat out the cherry flavour, daubed his mouth and brow with his sleeve, unlatched the gate and stepped over the cat. “Beat it Al,” he said, minutely amused when the cat twitched its whiskers and sulked off.

“Where’s Spike?” He asked, closing the gate.

“He was in the shower,” Dawn said.

“Where is he now?”

“Not in the shower,” she scratched her elbow.

“Where is he, Fred?”

She pointed her pencil at the guys’ room. “We’re going swimming in a minute, do you want to come?”

“Did you tell Spike?”

“We’ll do that after, he seems busy,” she said.

“No,” Xander thrust his hands into his pockets to cover their shaking. “It’s unsafe Fred and I don’t think you should-”

“You know what, Xander?” Dawn scrambled from the hammock. “You stay here be bored, and we’ll go to the Baths, does that work for you?” She didn’t wait for Xander’s response.

*    *    *    *

“Leo, Leo, where art thou Leo…ah, seventy one.”

He hopped onto the table, sat cross-legged in the middle of it and bent over the Zodiac Book. Dru never shut up about the stars and wouldn’t step out the door if they weren’t lined right. A doting Childe had to force an interest in his Sire’s interests, so the fact that he was being bookish was Dru’s doing.

“My birth twinkle makes me Irish, Spike,” she’d stroke her pendant. “Never be naughty without your opal. It’s your hoppity foot.”

Superstitious rot, didn’t believe in it. Still, the stars had never let Dru down and since there weren’t any rabbits about, he’d tap into the Zodiac for a bit of luck. They could do with it, stranded in hellish climes as they were. He turned to page seventy-one and was wrapped up in Leo when Harris walked in on him.

“Fred left it on the shelf,” he plonked the Zodiac book on the table, “I was appreciating the leather cover, wasn’t reading.”

Sweaty-faced and heaving great big breaths, Harris smelt every bit the fearful boy. He could’ve been frenching a halibut and Xander wouldn’t have noticed.

“Don’t stare Harris. I’m not that attractive.”

Xander came to him, fumbling through the shopping bags and discarding all four after he’d pulled a box from one of them.

“Armed and dangerous?” Spike smirked at the Eros in Xander’s grip.

“Can we please not make with the talking?” Upset in the soft spoken words.

Spike was in no way prepared for the urge that took him, wanted to say the exact right thing to wipe out the upset. But then other urges were making themselves known and it seemed a pity to waste a good stiffy, and Xander was here. Pressing a hard kiss to the side of his Adam’s Apple, spanning his waist with big hands. He curled his fingers into Xander’s tunic front and lay back on the table, pulling Xander over him.

*    *    *    *

Dawn scrabbled her fingers between her shoulder blades, felt itchy like a wet wool sweater lined her tunic. It was the Trail. She was allergic to its air molecules and vegetables and the no-brand lip balm from the market. She touched her tongue to the raw spots on the inside of her lower lip, picked at them and wrinkled her nose at the tiny slivers of transparent skin that came away on her fingertip.

“Ugh,” she said, wiping her finger on the towel on her shoulder. She glanced up to find the attendants watching her from The Bath’s entrance. Weird people, Dawn thought, they ignored the adult standing in front of them and rubbernecked to see a teenager pick her nose. “Do they want to see I.D.?” She asked, going to stand next to Fred.

“Something like that. We can’t go in without our Amo or a note from him says it’s okay for us to use The Baths.”

“We didn’t need a note last time,” Dawn folded her arms, ready to argue her way in.

“You do not require one, Mam’selle,” the attendant with the shiniest grey band pushed one side of the double doors open for Dawn, saying as she walked through, “Will you vouch for the woman’s safety as you did before?”

Dawn grinned, hyped at being the safe-voucher twice in two days. “I think they know I’m related to Slayers in high places.”

“Or maybe they know you’re Spike’s primary protective and I’m covered by your insurance policy if you say I’m with you.”

Dawn lead the way to the changing room, found an empty cubicle and beckoned Fred inside. “So why spoil a good thing?” She asked after she’d changed into lycra shorts and vest.

Fred took fifteen minutes to get changed and another five to bundle her clothes into a cubby hole in the open area of the changing room. “I’m not going to like your idea, am I?”

“Spike’s a great Amo, but he gets way overprotective sometimes and there’s a chance he wasn’t only talking to Xander. I don’t know about you, I’m going loony cooped up in the unit, staring at the same walls everyday. We’re not hurting anyone by swimming, Fred.”

Being ardent about maintaining her presently sound mental state, Fred said no more, thus concurring with Dawn; they needed an outlet for the stress and swimming was a harmless outlet. As she floated in the balmy waters of the open air swimming pool, Fred was of the mind that what Spike didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

*    *    *    *

Tricky. Tricky, juggley complication.

Again he squeezed too hard, overshooting his hand and another squirt of clear gel splashed onto crinkly dark blond curls. He loosened his shaky grasp on the tube. It fell and rolled down a hollowed tummy, leaving a crazy Eros path on the pale skin and coming to rest at the head of a hard and beautiful cock.

To use the cock, he had to lube it, lube himself and go through the stretching motions. This was juggley complication and it took too much time. He had to get this cock inside him now or the feelings would stay. The Kool-Aid Kid all growed up, seriously mad and with irrational fears would hold the Tupperware lid open to keep him feeling.

“Pet?” A finger stroked his chin.

He ignored the name that wasn’t his and ignored the finger, it wasn’t as important as the dick. Lifting up off the thighs he’d straddled, he smoothed lube from the curls onto the cock and shuffled, changed grip so his hand was behind him, guiding.

“Wait…”

He couldn’t wait. He sat, pushing down even as his asshole screamed at the pain of the round head forcing its way in. Brighter than the images, sharper than the feelings, was the cock. Air burst into his lungs, breathing at last in the easy territory of physical hurt. Sparks of agony behind his eyes, he gripped the forearms of the hands holding his hips and rode, and it hurt good, hurt so damn good.

Surge up, slide down, someone swore, fingernails dug into his hipbones. Jerky rise higher, faster crash down and hurting cored the centre of him, pebbling sweat over his back and clamping his balls in its sweet, sweet ache. He shook with the force of it, eyes screwed shut and thighs flexing for the next rise, tried to push up but the hands held his hips down.

“No, please no…” he attempted to loosen the fingers, they refused let go. “No, you son of a…son of…please.”

“Please what, pet? Let you fuck yourself bloody?”

The husky threat opened his eyes, and his downward glance collided with a flashing gaze. Not Anyguy, but Spike of the blue-gold eyes, lips tightened into an angry smile and promising the kind of amnesia that came with a health warning.

“Yes,” craving, marrow deep and acid harsh raked him and he raked his fingers on Spike’s corded forearms. “Spike need you need you.”

“Hold still.”

“Spike-”

“Hold still.”

He did and Spike angled him back a little, feeling inside him with short, slow thrusts, nudged his prostate and while he was gasping, put power behind the thrusts. Three hits, hard, fast and right there, and he went rigid, swamped by cruel pleasure. He lost his breath, caught it, lost it and kept losing it as Spike stung him on the out-stroke, made it better on sliding in and over that too good spot. In and over and he wanted to scream. His nuts drew up tight and he dripped pre-come, hurtling toward orgasm as Spike wrapped a fist around his cock and aimed it at his own face.

“Do it,” Spike said, fisting him faster, “do it.”

Bang on his prostate and he did it, came on Spike’s face.

Spike took the shots of come on his chin and lips, glided his tongue over his lips and lapped it up. He was a bundle of buzzing nerve ends, dry coming at the picture Spike made with the pink tongue and streaked lips. He folded onto Spike, open mouth blindly seeking his chin, sucking on it, moving upwards and fitting his lips to Spike’s. Smoky-salty-metallic tones aroused his taste buds and he squirmed closer still, rasping his tongue against the rasp of Spike’s tongue. Spike coiled up against him, strong arms banding around his back and groans splattering out of his mouth with the jerking of his cock inside Xander. He cupped Spike’s face to his, swallowing Spike’s groans and keeping his butt still for his long-drawn out release.

“You’re completely off your trolley,” Spike slackened his arms and lowered his head back onto the table. “Do not try that sort of thing with me again, not until you acquire a steel-lined ass.” 

Xander softly snickered.

Spike landed a light smack on his ass. “I’m not kidding.”

He licked Spike’s top lip clean, unfreaked.

CHILDE OF MY HEART ~ CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

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