The Book

'What's this?'

'Put that down, now!'

'But what is it?'

'Spike, don't touch it; put it down.'

'Spike!'

'OK, OK, jees! Look. Putting precious stack of, (what is this?), scribbles down. See, not touching stack of torn out note paper!'

'So...'

'So what?'

'What is it?'

'It's nothing to do with you. Mind your own business!'

'Uh huh. Well, I've only been able to read for one hundred and twenty six years, and I know that's not long, but I swear I saw a W in that scribble, and then, let me see, what was that? Oh yes! A pesky little I and then definitely two Ls so, as I say, I'm not the world's great literate, but I think that spells WILL. So it fucking is to do with me.'

'I'll tell you, shall I? What it is? It's defunct, Spike. Since you got here; it's defunct.'

'Hey, I have never defuncted you, ever.'

'It's defunct because you NEVER let me have any peace. All day, all night, no peace. All night you're prancing around trying to decimate the demon population of LA. During the day, when I'm at my desk, you're sitting on it. Being bored. When I try to sleep you... Ahhh...'

'What? Do this? And maybe this, just here?'

'Ahhh!'

'And what? This is bad, is it? This is being defunct, is it... when I lick here?'

'Oh God, Spike, just shut up, and suck it!'

'OK, but by the way, mate. I have NEVER pranced!'

Pillock. He thinks by getting me to suck him for a couple of hours I'm gonna forget about the stash of papers under the bed. So I pick my moment. I wait till his long day is over. I wait till he spreads his heavy limbs on the bed. I wait till he puts his head on my chest, waiting for my arms to wrap him up, so this dark defender, this Master Vampire can sleep feelin' safe and loved. I wait till he's on the brink of that great divide and stroking his soft hair, hiss in his ear…

'So? What is it!'

I knew it. I've been waiting all day. He's been quite restrained for Spike. But he knows how to pick his moment. All I want now is to tip over into sleep with the feel of his slim body beneath me, to be at peace knowing his strong arms are around me, but I know I'll never get any of this if I don't answer him.

'Alright, you win. It's a book. I'm writing a book. Was writing a book.'

'Stop it, Spike, you're jiggling me off. Stop laughing. Spike, I am two hundred and fifty years old. I am a Master Vampire. I am the only vampire in the world to have a soul. Ever. And I've been to hell and come back. I thought I might have some interesting stuff for a book.'

And I guess I had to agree with him there. Oh, but this is priceless.



'Spike! Stop reading and go to sleep, pleeease.'

'Yeah, in a min', mate, this is good.'

This is absolute crap. I've read some crap in my time. Well, okay I don't read. But I know crap when I see it:


'Turning victims into vampires like themselves is a fairly common occurrence for Master Vampires. Rarely, however, do they make them favourite childer. I turned a young man, Will, in 1860 and within a few weeks he became like a child to me, and I tutored him in all the arts and practices of vampire lore.'

I mean, what the fucking hell is that all about? This needs some revision. Where's the sodding pen?



'Spike!' Fuck. 'Wake up! Spike! What the fucking hell have you done to my notes. You've fucking scribbled all over them and crossed everything out. What the hell did you think you were doing?'

'You've got a Beta pet, that's all. I'm gonna be your Beta.'

'My what and YOU? You're illiterate, and what's this supposed to be?'

'The first time I saw him i was mesmorised by his eyes and his body. I stalked him for days. Following his every move. I hunted him like the great predater I am. And when the moment was right. I took him. Like a jungle beast I consummed him. I pushed him roughly against the alley wall and ripped his clothes off his back. He didn't murmour at all he knew what was coming and wanted it. With no preparation I thrust into him and I screamed from the sheer pleasure of his tight arse round my cock ...'

'Spike, you can't put this sort of stuff into a book. This is going to be a scholarly, academic book for Watchers and other students of the occult. It is not going to detail a pile of obscene fantasies of yours. No one is going to want to read that. Beside the fact it's completely untrue and miss spelt!'

'Errr, think you're wrong there, mate.'

'No, you don't spell mes...'

'Not the soddin' spelling, mate, who gives a fuck about spelling? No, about people wantin' to read it. You're wrong. They will.'

'Are you trying to tell me that people would pay to read this sort of stuff?'

'Well, I wouldn't go so far as 'pay', pet. But if it was free, then they would. Oh yeah!'

'It's a sick world!'

'Sure is.'

'And Spike...'

'What?'

'I'd NEVER use the word arse.'



So there we are. I've been banned from ever looking at, or touching his soddin' book again. Yeah! As if that's gonna stop me. Cus I mean, the pillock is just sad…

'Vampire Childer can often be unpredictable and have a tendency to lose control of their own power in the early months. They need careful monitoring by their sires, preferably if said sire is much older and wiser than the childe in question. This was exactly the case with, Will, who at this time, preferred to be called William the Bloody. He became restless and unpredictable in his feeding habits and often had to be restrained and guided into more appropriate behaviour.'

Fuckin' lies. Total shitting lies. The pillock. That's just gotta be improved...

'My beloved Will played on every senseual part of my body. I could deny him nothing. Whatever he wanted, I gave him. He fed vorassiously, vorashiously, all the fuckin' time and I encouraged him. Shit, I brought him virgins, children, fuckin' village football teams, whatever he wanted. And I fucked him in their blood...'

'SPIKE!'

'SPIKE! Where are you? You little toe rag. I'm warning you, if you touch my book again, I'll...'

'You'll what, Angel? Tell me. I'm dying to know what you think you could do to me that might frighten me?'

'I'll tell the real truth'

'Oh'



'Hey, you poof... What's this shit?'

'It's French', I say with a smirk.

'Well I can't soddin' read it now!'

'Err... duh! And just how long did we live in France together?'

'I was eatin' 'em, not fuckin' learning their language, ponce. So what does this bit say then?'

'Spike, the whole point of putting it into French was so you couldn't read it.'

'Stop being a poofter, Angel. You know you love my revisions. You know you want it. You want it like this, don't you? And revised a little bit like this, hey?'

'Spike, you are not going to suck your way to a translation... oh god, mind your teeth, no don't... ahhh... OK!'

'By this time, William the Bloody was calling himself Spike. He seemed to find some sort of psychological escape from his own imperfections in the constant changing of his name.'

'There, happy now? That's what that bit says.'

'Spike?'

'Spike! What?'

'Spike, why won't you talk to me?'

'Dunno Mate, must be me fuckin' psychological imperfections.'

'Look, if you disagree with my version of our history, why don't you write your own book? You can say what you like then. It can sort of juxtapose my version. Be the antithesis of this one.'

'You are so fuckin' transparent, mate. If you think by using big soddin' words, that you probably couldn't even spell, you're gonna put me off doing just that, then you are a sad, sad tosser. Cus I fuckin' will. I'm gonna write a book, and I'm gonna call it "Spike's Story"!'



'Angel?'

'Angel!'

'ANGEL!'

'What Spike, I am trying to write here.'

'Well what the friggin' hell does it look like I'm trying to do, stake meself with a bleedin' ballpoint? How do you spell fellatio?'

'Why do you want to know how to spell that? Who's doing that?'

'Look, this is my book, OK? I didn't question your book, did I?'

'Errr...'



I don't know why I'm worried really. He'll scribble down a page of obscenities and then get bored with it. I know that. But I can't help feeling apprehensive about his version of my life. It gives someone power over you when they've seen you naked and bathed in blood. Gives them even more power when they've seen you loving them, when they've seen you cry for them, when they've seen you beg for them. I wonder where he's hidden it. Little shit hasn't got the imagination to think of a place I won't look. And he's not devious enough to double guess me by putting it in a place I'd be sure to look. So where is it?



'Spike, where is it?'

'Where's what?' What a sad wanker. He's been looking everywhere. He looked in all the places he was sure I'd never go like the washing machine and the closet. Then he looked in all the places he knows I do go, the couch, the TV, me PS2... Shit, I've gotta get out more! But he can't find it. Won't either. Not just yet anyway!



We're at an impasse. The more I can't find it, the more worried I become, and the more I'm starting to hate him. He had no right to interfere with my project. He's got no right to abuse his position and his power over me like this. I've started taking it out on him. I can't sit beside him anymore when he's watching his endless TV shows. I can't put my hand on his thigh and stroke around in soft circles while I pretend to read. I'm too angry with him. Last night I stayed on the couch after he'd gone to bed. I didn't go in. When I make love to him I see my actions being repeated in his awful book. I hear what I do and what I say regurgitated with his unique Spike twist of events. I feel sullied and I can't live like this with him anymore.

I've given up trying to find it. I retreat to my office and start ploughing through the mounds of files Cordelia's left for me. No. He couldn't have. Could he? I get up and go to the filing cabinet and look under S. And he has. He's filed his notes under S. Not so clever after all, it's almost endearing! Did he think I don't do filing?

And after all my worry, it's only one page. He's taken a week to write one page. And most of that is crossed out and blotted... Good God, what is that stuck to it? But it's not presentation that counts, it's content. I'm afraid to read it. I've backed myself into a corner with this. Once I've actually read it, there's no going back for us. I can't live with him knowing how he's betrayed me. The writing is awful and it takes a while to decipher what he has written...

'How can you go from being nothing to being everything through one seemingly simple act of taking and giving? Angelus came to me in one life and through his gift took me to another. He took me and kept me to him, precious and loved and wanted until he had to leave. Was forced to leave. What defence could I make against the fear of being left? What defence against the fear that even my love couldn't bind him to me? I changed names, ever seeking to armour myself against the inevitable. The inevitable that one day I would not be Angelus' Childe, but that I would be on my own. Spike was the name I chose to be that armour. And so it was until...'

God! It's torn! Where's the rest? I frantically delve into the file again, and at the bottom, unnoticed before, is the slip torn off the bottom…

'...until the total tosser came to me frigging crypt one night and said shag me now or I'll fucking break it off and suck it meself. Since then I've been held a prisoner of the psychotic lunatic who veers insanely between being brood boy or the bloodlust vamp... and you are such a pillock Angel. So get yerself down here, and shag me now!'

So I do. But as I open up his willing hole with my tongue and thrust into him with a passion borne of a week's abstinence, I can't help but wonder whether these acts might one day find themselves in some ghastly Spike version of our lives. And why was there only one page when he'd been writing for days?

'Angel! Stop fuckin' brooding, mate, or I'll have to make a little amendment to me new web site tonight!'

The End

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