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Right Hand Man
He`s banging the side of my television again, hard, with the heel of his hand. Despite the fact that I`ve told him a dozen times it won`t do any good. That I don`t get cable down here, and the reception is as good as its going to get. He`s hitting it anyway, holding back the obscene strength in that small hand, which could smash the contraption to bits without much effort. Even so, it rattles in protest as he smacks it.
He can beat on my TV until End of Days, and there will still be fuzzy white lines down the middle of all his favorite soap characters. He knows this. It doesn`t change the ritual.
An hour ago I was laying half asleep on his chest, and those hands were petting me. Long, slim fingers tangled in my hair, then brushed the outline of my jaw, learning my face by heart. And all was warm and safe.
He hasn`t said a word to me all morning.
Actions speak.
I`m watching him now, while hes busy and unaware. He hates it that I
stare at him. I do it often. Because hes here. He catches my scent; maybe
he had it all along and was only humoring me for a moment. But now he turns
to look at me, cocks one scarred brow in my direction, and jams his fists
into his pockets. I don`t know how he manages that. Calling me a pouff
without
even opening his mouth.
I smile at him and turn to the kitchen to fix us breakfast. Which would be kind of domestic I guess, if the menu wasn`t O negative.
I hear him sigh as he settles in on the couch, and I stuff the blood bags into the microwave. I punch in a few minutes on the counter; the green glowing clock reflects my single silver ring, throwing an odd play of light and shadow over me. I always did notice the strange stuff. That drives him crazy too.
He calls it `furrow between the brow brood mode`..... and I think he probably slips a `sod` in there somewhere.
I like to consider it.... focused analysis.
For instance, did you ever notice there are countless expressions in the English language where the word `hand` is a part? I believe I know why. The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but what we do, who we are, it all comes from our hands.
One of the few superstitions I still hold to is palm reading. How else could it be, but that our destinies are written out on the very instruments of our every action? What will we become? The answers are there, in the fine webbing of lines. The carefully carved pathways of our fate.
When Spike kidnapped me all those years ago, intending to kill me and to use my blood to revive Druscilla, the ritual commanded our hands be tied together. I remember the pain when he thrust the crucifix through both our palms, sealing she and I together.
Through the blood of the Sire she is risen
Through the blood of the Sire she shall rise again.
But it wasn`t the blood, in the end. It was my hands.
My hands that made her what she was. Desolate. Evil. Insane.
A masochist.
His hands had wanted only to heal her. Well, and to kill me. That was sort of a recurring theme too.
And now he`s sitting on my couch, muttering at my TV, absently caressing my leather pillows, waiting for me to serve him breakfast.
We don`t talk about the past.
And he`s not much for symbolism.
I have very large hands, with long, thick fingers and soft skin on the palms. I never did much with them as a human, so they came into Darkness with me unscathed by life. Spikes hands are littler, the fingers slimmer, the alabaster skin eternally calloused. They were that way when I turned him. So they`ll be that way forever.
I remember the moment I knew I would Sire him. I was drinking from him,
and my intent was only to feed, to kill. I hadn`t even looked at his face.
Then he grabbed me. Right between my legs. And I was seized by the
image of this Child, grabbing the Angel of Death by His balls. What choice
did I have? His hands sealed his fate. His sure, steady, even grip, even
in the throes
of his own death.
He`s always been like that. Siezing what`s in front of him, with no regard for consequences.
And there`s always something in his hands. It`s not an oral fixation he`s got that drives him to smoke more than two packs of cigarettes a day. He just likes the feel of them in his fingers. Sometimes he carries one without even lighting it up. He`ll roll it between his palms, idly stroke the smooth paper. When he smokes, the fiery tip will dangle dangerously close to his vampiric skin while he puffs on it, until there`s almost nothing left. Then he`s done, and he holds the cigarette between his index finger and his thumb, and tosses it to the ground in one graceful motion.
When he`s not smoking, hes rubbing his hands on his jeans, or tapping his fingers on his knees. Or holding some inatimate object and petting it. Like now, with my leather pillows.
Hes getting bored, impatient waiting for me, and I`ve only been gone a minute. Soon he`s going to try to pry the stuffing out of the pillows again. He pulls the cotton out and bats the fluff balls around the room like a demented, blonde cat. I think he does it to annoy me. Maybe he just needs something to do.
He was never the material sort, but even as a soulless vampire he was mesmerized by the simple tactile pleasure of a velvet coat, or a silk bedspread. If it feels good, literally or metaphorically, Spike wants it. And once he touches it, for a brief moment anyway, he`s satisfied.
Which is good in a way, I suppose. Because he`ll never have any of the other things his hands might have been destined for before me. He will never have and hold a wife. He will never touch his firstborn son.
Maybe these things were never his. Maybe they are merely a reflection of what I want. Maybe when I hold his smaller hand in my own, lace my fingers through his, and stroke his wrist with my thumb, it all becomes so blurred that I can`t tell the difference anymore.
Maybe that's part of the curse of living forever.
I turn to look at him again, and he`s got his head tilted back, laughing maniacally at some commercial he finds amusing. Im pretty sure its the one with the dancing penguins. His pale skin is translucent in the fragmented early light of morning, and his blue-gold eyes cast their unearthly glow in my direction.
I know he doesn`t feel cursed.
He relishes the works his hands can do. The snapping of spines, the breaking of necks. He enjoyed it when he was alive, his demonic possession only serves to heighten these thrills for him. From pickpocket and thief to brutal murderer. If he thinks about it at all, I`m sure he thinks of it as a promotion.
And, I know what else his hands can do.
He touches his lovers like he`s reading them in Braille. Commiting every small detail and imperfection to his eternal memory. I`ve lived over two and half centuries and I can`t count how many I`ve slept with. But he makes me quiver. Every time.
Its the sheer reverence in his caress. And I don`t know if that`s reserved only for me, and I don`t care, most days, just so long as I get to have it too. He watches every move his hands make, and every reaction they elicit; he studies this, and makes subtle changes in the patterns and the pressure, until I can`t help the groans that rise in my chest. He charms them out of me, effortlessly. Every time.
Whether its the pad of his thumb brushing across my lips before a kiss, or two of his rough fingers in my mouth while I fuck him, it`s his touch that pushes me over the edge from simple pleasure into mindless oblivion.
I tell myself he knows that; he won`t suffer me to say it aloud to him. So I tell myself alot of things.
That the fact he crept up on me a hundred or so years ago, with all the dainty stealth and silent touch his vampire nature only served to enhance, and cut off a lock of my hair while I slept, means he had those same feelings for me.
That the fact he couldn`t bring himself to use those same hands to torture me for the Gem he wanted, and so instead hired someone else to do his dirtywork, means he still does.
Twisted. I know. Like a lock of my hair around his black tipped finger.
I know too that there are ghosts here with us. Always. Tangible ghosts of times and places and living beings.
Spectres of me smashing his knuckles in a Grand Piano because he woke me one night with his music. Of me tying his wrists to a bed tighter, and tighter, until the red silk cord nearly severed his limbs.
Shadows of him smashing in the back of my head with an iron pipe. Of him gagging me to bring me to Druscilla before the ritual. She removed the gag and poured Holy Water on my naked skin. I taught her to enjoy the sounds of pain. Whereas screaming always pretty much just annoyed the hell out of him.
Yes. Forever present; the phantoms of tinier, softer, feminine hands. In whose names many of the acts of violence against eachother were committed. Whose skin we still long to touch. Whose touch we still covet.
Still, I do not want to go back to a time when he wasn`t within my reach. When I couldn`t turn over in the night and find his hands, balled up into fists on my white pillows. And slip one finger inside them, to pry them apart. And he lets me; only closing up his grip again to hold onto my own with a desperate ferocity.
I walk back out into the main room, and hold out his cup. He doesn`t meet my gaze when I hand it to him, but the back of his hand brushes mine as he takes the drink from me. And I know he feels it, the inexplicable, ever-present fastening, which makes us both shake.
Then he pulls back, and downs the blood, slipping into true countenance while he does so. A moment later, he is urging me onto the couch with an insistent tug, and cradling his head in my lap. He still hasnt met my eyes, still hasnt spoken a word.
But he is rubbing my thigh with his open palm while he watches his ridiculous show.There is a sudden, silent jolt from my groin to my toes. I recognize it. Its not some lofty ideal, like perfect happiness. I hold no illusions, Will and I dont get that. Its the frission, the connection, born of blood and centuries and... something else. something more. Its the glances held one moment too long, the laughter at jokes noone else finds amusing, the obsessions and the curious fixations.
It's the little things.
His fingers are working their way through the button holes on my shirt, and hes rubbing my chest in lazy circles. Theres a commercial on. When its over, hes going to go back to watching his show. His soap operas last two hours, and hes going to tease me like this the entire time. I suppose I can live with that.
I know that for all my masquerading as Warrior, I am still just a pawn in some Grand Game. I don`t know what the future holds. It`s out of my hands.
But dear gods, I hope it is in his.
~Finis