Discovery
|
Author: Dark Star Email:
eternity_ds@hotmail.com Website: Dark Star's Portal Summary: Buffy makes a discovery. Disclaimer: Joss
Whedon is creator and owner of
all things Angel Rating: Adult (NC 17) Warning: This story
contains imagery some people might find disturbing. Notes: This is the 8th
part of my S&M series, Harsh Reality. Pairing: B/A Category: Dark. Distribution: Just ask,
please Thanks go to Jo for the
beta, and to Ares for her support. ** The vamp slithered
backwards, away from the slayer. Stake in her hand, she
stepped forward to finish him off. "Angel!" he
shrieked as the point touched his chest. In spite of herself, Buffy paused. "What about
Angel?" "Do you know where
he is?" The vamp blurted. "Patrolling. Would
you rather he dusted you?" she replied, wondering why she was bothering
to talk to him. "No! He…" the vamp
stopped, and seemed reluctant to continue. The stake pushed at his chest, and
he whimpered. "He's not…. I know where he is." Buffy knew she was being
toyed with, but the vamp had piqued her curiosity. "Where?" "With… uh… there's
this woman…" "Woman?" Buffy
glared. "Are you saying Angel's with a whore?" "She… she's a pain
slut. Men pay her…" "Don't be
ridiculous!" Buffy snapped. Angel had her - what did he need somebody
else for? But even as she thought it, a doubt crept in. The sessions had been
getting much less frequent lately. Many of them had finished earlier than she
had been expecting. She'd thought that Angel was making allowances for her
age, but - was there another reason? "What do men pay her for?" She
barked, and the vamp jumped. "Pain!" He
cried. "She's a vampire - sh…she likes it severe…" "Where is
she?" Buffy broke in. The vamp gave her directions, and Buffy stood up
to think about what he had said. The vamp took the opportunity to slither
away, but Buffy wasn't done, and the stake pierced his chest before he'd
hardly moved and he vanished in cloud of old dust. Buffy felt numb. The vamp
had lied, of course. He'd just been trying to save his own skin… there was
nothing in his allegations at all. But she still found herself following the
directions he'd given her. The old house stood on
the corner of the deserted street. She could hear high-pitched screams from
inside the house, and when she reached the building Buffy pushed open the
door and went inside. The sound of screaming - it was definitely a woman -
was louder inside the building, and it was almost enough to curdle her blood.
Goose bumps crawled up her arms as she anxiously ascended the stairs. The
vamp had said that she 'liked it severe.' What the fuck did that actually mean?
Severe what? The screaming led her to
a curtained off room, where she pulled the fabric back and stepped inside.
The shrieks here were deafening, and she wasn't sure she really wanted to
know what was being done to her to make a vampire scream like that. She likes it severe. Buffy swallowed down the
bitter taste in her mouth. Another sound, one she recognised as being the
sharp crack of a whip, brought more screams from the woman. Buffy shivered,
and worse… he was here, she could feel him. She hesitated, not able to
make her legs move toward the inner room. What was Angel doing here? Was he
watching? Taking part? She likes it severe. It couldn't be that bad,
could it? Some of the stuff that Angel liked to do… surely this couldn't be
any worse than that? The door to the inner
room was slightly ajar, and Buffy pushed it open just a fraction to see
better, and was greeted by a scene straight out of a nightmare. Angel's jacket and shirt
lay abandoned over a nearby chair. Buffy could see his muscles rippling with
each savage stroke of the whip. He was hitting the olive skinned woman much
harder than he had ever hit her, and each fall of the whip tore another
piece of the Spanish woman's skin from her tortured body. The woman was hanging
suspended from the ceiling; her arms pulled high in the air and spread wide.
There were deep gashes on all her limbs, her stomach, and brutal slashes all
over her breasts - a place Angel had never whipped her so badly. Blood was
dripping onto the floor, and Buffy reluctantly forced her gaze upwards to see
where it was running from. Two huge meat hooks were threaded right through
the woman's breasts and holding her suspended, twisting, in mid air. Much of
her weight was held in her manacled arms, but her feet were about six inches
off the floor and the hooks had torn into the soft flesh of her breasts,
leaving gaping wounds, and imbedding a little deeper every time the whip made
her jerk in agonised response.
There was a lot of blood on her inner thighs, and a third meat hook
lay abandoned on the blood soaked carpet underneath her dangling feet. It was too much. Buffy
backed away from the door in horror, mesmerised by the dripping of the blood
that ran from the woman's feet and onto the floor. Angel had done all that to
the poor woman? Angel? Is that what he really wanted to do to her? She had
arrived at the house with some vague notion of confronting him, but she was
so shocked by what she had seen that she just wanted to get out of the house.
She made it down the stairs in a mindless rush to get away, and only stopped
when she was outside in the open air. The agonised screams of the woman
followed her down, and one thing kept repeating over and over. She had seen
Angel with another woman. Her Angel had been unfaithful to her, and
she had seen it with her own eyes. She began to run,
anything to get away from that dreadful house and the image of Angel
torturing the vampire woman for his own pleasure. She had seen that pleasure
reflecting in his expression, and was in no doubt at all that he had enjoyed
it. Strange thoughts bombarded her as she ran. Anger, frustration and disgust
were at the front. Long buried memories of Riley with his vampire
whore resurfaced. But other, darker thoughts lingered behind that. She was
jealous that Angel had turned to somebody else, even for that. He had done
things with the vampire that he could never do with her, and the realisation
that she could never give him what he really wanted… hurt. She reached the Hyperion
breathing hard, but it wasn't from the exertion of her run. She crossed to
the little fridge behind the reception counter and yanked out a beer; it was
the only alcohol they had at the moment, and she flipped off the cap and
drunk half of it without really tasting it. She was restless and upset, and
she began pacing up and down. Every time she stopped for a moment, she could
hear the awful screams of the woman, and she remembered every disgusting
detail of the scene in that sordid room. She couldn't believe what she had
seen. What should she do about it? Finally, upset and
drained, she plonked herself into a chair to finish her beer and try not to
think about what she had witnessed. It was impossible. Over and over, she was
forced into a nightmare rerun of what she had seen. Sitting behind the
counter with her third chilled beer, Buffy waited guardedly for Angel to
return home. She heard the street door open; she didn't actually hear him
move to stand just the other side of the counter, but she knew he was there
just the same. She waited to see what he was going to say, but there was
nothing. She did her best to wait him out, but Angel was much better at the
waiting game than she was, and eventually she turned to face him. He looked… reserved,
and she had an unwelcome flashback to what she'd seen earlier. She swallowed,
and forced out in a relatively pleasant tone, "Did you have a nice
evening?" "Yes," he
replied cautiously. He
hesitated, and then added, "Why didn't you join us?" Buffy's grip on her mug
tightened reflexively. "You looked pretty busy to me," she snapped. "Buffy…" Angel
began, and then changed his mind. "I'm sorry." "You think that
makes it all right?" She shot back. "Do you think I'm going to
forgive you for what you did?" "No," he
replied. "I know you aren't going to forgive me. And you shouldn't. I…
didn't mean to hurt you." Buffy shook her head.
"No, you don't get to do that, Angel. You don't get to act all contrite
and I'll fall into your arms and suddenly it's all better. This is serious,
Angel. How can you do this to me?" Angel remained silent
because he had no answer to that; Buffy put her drink down and came out from
behind the counter to stand defiantly in front of him. "How could you do
this?" she asked again. "I've tried so hard to please you, Angel.
I've taken everything you wanted to do to me, but it's still not
enough for you, is it?" Angel frowned. "I
did this for you." Buffy laughed, but there
was nothing amused about her expression. "Right. And tell me how you
screwing another woman is good for me?" Angel stared at her in
alarm. "I didn't… I never had sex with her, Buffy." While that statement
registered in Buffy's angry mind, and she revelled in it, she was still far
too annoyed with him to let it go. "That makes it all right then,"
she said sourly. "Why,
Angel?" "I don't know how
much you saw," he said carefully, "But my guess is it was enough
for you to know that it would have been too much for you to take. I did it to
protect you." "Protect me?"
she yelled at him. "How dare you! You have no idea what I
can take," she screamed, completely ignoring the fact that Angel knew exactly
what she could stand. "You would not have
been able to take it," he replied again, his voice calm. "I was
trying to protect you, because I want to go much further than you can
take." He paused, making up his mind whether to continue. He rushed on
before he could change his mind, "I want to go further than just making
you scream. I want to hear you beg me to stop - and I want to ignore
it." The image of the Spanish
girl hoisted in the air by her breasts flashed through Buffy's mind and bile
rose in her throat. But she was far too angry to think clearly and she
shrieked, "Then you fucking do it. You gag me if that's
what it takes, and you carry on. You do not visit some vampire whore. You
betrayed me, Angel. You. The one person I thought I could trust above
anything. You betrayed me." Shocked by her outburst,
Angel fell silent. Buffy leant back against the counter, tired and defeated.
"You promised me," she whispered. "You said you wouldn't visit
a whore." "No," he
responded, looking embarrassed. "You asked me not to, but I never said I
wouldn't. I thought it would be best this way." "And it's always
about what you want, isn't it?" she replied harshly, frowning as another
thought struck her, and she wondered how many times he had been to see the
woman. Suddenly, she really wanted
to know the answer, and she asked, "How many?" He hesitated, before
admitting, "Five." That figure registered,
and Buffy thought, 'well, that could have been worse'. She'd expected
it to be much higher. "Okay," she
said slowly. "Five times. That's not…" "No," Angel
broke in, and Buffy felt her stomach drop away from her. "Not five
times… five women, Buffy." He saw the shock register on her face,
and he rushed to explain, "I didn't want to get fixated on any one
woman..." "Five?" she
repeated. "Five women?" Not quite able to take it in, she
said ironically, "Why did you stop there? Why didn't you line them up
and do them all at once?" Angel looked
embarrassed. "Well, actually, I…" "Don't." Buffy
warned, raising her hand in a gesture to stop him. "I don't want
to know." Angel took a step toward
her, but her irate glare stopped him. "Don't." She
said again. "I… I don't want you near me right now," she managed to
say. Angel frowned, torn between his desire to make it right with her, and
the knowledge that he wasn't welcome. Buffy turned away, and she heard Angel
go up the stairs. That was good, because she really couldn't deal with her
feelings about him straight away. She returned to the
fridge, poured out some more chilled beer, and sat down to think. Tears
threatened to swamp her, but she couldn't let herself give in to them. She
stared at her drink, suddenly feeling nauseous, and let her head fall forward
onto her hands. Oh god. This had been one hell of an evening… She had no idea how long
she sat there, until she could feel Angel's presence in the room, but she
didn't look up. Whenever she looked at him, she saw them together, and
it just hurt too much. She stayed slumped forward, ignoring him, until he
said gently, "Buffy." Something about the tone
of his voice made her look up. He was dressed for going out, and he had a
holdall in his hand. Confused, she snapped,
"What's going on?" "I think we need a
little time apart." He said regretfully. "I've hurt you, and I
don't expect you to forgive me. I think we need some space." "Are you going to her?"
Buffy asked suspiciously. "No." Buffy
was gratified to see he looked genuinely surprised at the thought. He began
to move toward the door, adding sadly, "I'm sorry, Buffy. I never wanted
you to see that side of me, and I understand that it's all a little bit too
much right now. I'll contact you in a few days, and you can tell me what you
want to do." Buffy nodded mutely,
unable to take in this new development, and she watched him pass her by. She
should stop him, but she couldn't bring herself to do that. Instead, yet
again, she watched him just walk out of her life. End. Part Nine ~ Three Months Return to Fiction Index
|