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Wesley pauses, putting down the pen and shaking his hand out. It's a pointless exercise, really, but what isn't? He's several pages into a letter he'll never send, documenting every slight, every subversion of his authority, every childish insult he's endured since he arrived to take up his post.
And that's just from Mr. Giles.
If he did send it to the Council, his father would get his hands on it, and read every word as proof of Wesley's own failings. No, he'll merely write it and then feed each page into the fire.
Well, metaphorically. This flat has no fireplace. No character at all.
He'll probably rip the letter into small bits and feed it into a toilet at that wretched school.
Wesley takes up his pen, but before he can begin again, there's a knock at his door. "Who is it?" he calls, but there's no answer. He slides the pages beneath the telephone book and goes to the door, peers through the peephole.
His visitor has turned away from the door and taken a step back, but he knows her in an instant. Long, dark hair tumbling over her shoulders, a dress with a slim skirt, high heels.
Hastily he turns the locks. "Cordelia, what brings--?"
His visitor turns, and he sees that he's been fooled. "Heya, Wes."
"Faith."
"Mind if I come in?" she asks as she pushes past him. The combination of the high heels and the carpet makes her wobble slightly as she does, but she compensates well. She looks around. "Pretty spartan in here." The word surprises him, coming from her. "This your style, or you just not sure you're stayin'?"
"I haven't had time to have my things sent. It has been rather busy." He uses a tone that indicates this should be obvious. Her resemblance to Cordelia, though superficial, is really quite distracting.
She turns back to him, a cheeky smile causing her to dimple. Something seems to have delighted her about this exchange, though he can't imagine what. It throws him off balance.
"What brings you here?" He spots something under her makeup, still more Faith than Cordelia, a shadow that suggests a bruise, with a little constellation of rough spots that could be a healing abrasion. "Is it this?" Wesley indicates his own cheek.
"Nah, that's from a couple of nights ago."
"Anything I should know about?" Mr. Giles has probably heard all about it already. This really is insufferable.
"Relax," she says, and there's a tone of barely-suppressed mirth. "I gave as good as I got."
"Vampires?"
"Demons. Ugly fuckers, with no mouths."
"How many?"
"Just two. No big deal. This is purely social, Wes. I realized I've never seen your crib."
"Crib?" he echoes stupidly, and now she does laugh.
Faith slips off her shoes, and Wesley has a fleeting feeling of danger, as if she removed something rather more revealing. She reaches to the top button of her dress, and his heart lurches.
That isn't the only thing.
Idly fingering the button, she gives him a sidelong glance and a smile, then lets her hand drop. "So are you gonna show me around the place, Wes?"
"Show you around." Wesley's voice seems forced through a narrow tube, no bigger than the sort of straw they stick in drinks here. He clears his throat violently. "Nothing to see, really. As you noted, it's very spartan. Pre-furnished in the most practical, featureless appointments possible."
"Yeah, the appointments at my place are pretty much the same." Faith moves about the room, fingering objects. Her walk is so very distinct from Cordelia's, a difference accentuated by the long, narrow skirt.
The not-Cordelianess of her makes him think of Cordelia, and his pulse quickens.
"Except mine has this big fuckin' art thing on the wall that looks like it came from the Ikea on the other side of the hellmouth." She leans in to peer at a painting that came with the flat, thrusting out her bottom. "You've never seen my place."
"Em, no."
"Not so much to see. What d'you think Cordelia's appointments are like?"
He's been spending altogether too much time wondering about this. Especially while viewing Faith in this provocative pose. He swallows. "Rather grand, I should think."
She turns from the painting, favoring him again with her knowing, amused smile. "I should think so too. You wouldn't believe what they wanted for this outfit at the consignment shop. Can't imagine what it cost new."
"What --" Wesley clears his throat again. "What prompted you to buy it?"
Faith laughs. "I didn't say I bought it." She glides her hand along the deep V of the neckline, fingers curled just inside. It seems almost an invitation. "I dunno, Wes, don't you ever feel like trying on someone else's skin once in a while?"
Once in a while, no. Every waking moment, yes. He evades. "Why Cordelia?"
She shrugs, and he hears the rustle of silk. "Hell, why'd people watch Dynasty?" She flashes her dimples. "Rich people. They put the nasty in dynasty, don't ya think?"
Not in his experience. Money encases you with the weight of family history and expectation. The most stifled people he knows have been the wealthiest.
"What about you?" she asks.
"Me? I wouldn't say rich." But of course he is -- or his family, at any rate. But he's been trained that it's gauche to say so. "Comfortable, perhaps." Never that.
"No, I meant why are you so interested in Cordelia?"
Color suffuses his cheeks.
Faith smirks. "That's what I thought. D'you like 'em unattainable, Wes? Or is that beside the point? Maybe cheerleaders are your type. Or maybe it's just that particular package -- dark hair and white teeth and perky tits." She pauses for just a heartbeat, then adds, "Or a well-turned ankle. Does that one get you every time?"
How -- Strange that she should use the very phrase that just ran through his mind.
"She is unattainable, Wes. I should know. She and Xander dated for a year, but I'm the one popped his cherry. Why don't we see what I can do for you?"
Wesley reaches for stern, disapproving. It should come naturally enough, as it's the tone of voice he grew up hearing. "Faith. This line of conversation is wholly inappropriate. I'm afraid I must ask --"
"No need to be afraid, Wes. Nothin's gonna happen here that you don't want." Her lush lips curve into a half smile. "I think I have a pretty good idea what you want."
"I assure you, I have no interest in undermining the watcher-slayer relationship. It would be unconscionable to abuse your trust in such a fashion."
She laughs. "Sure, that's never happened in the history. Stuffy old men and impressionable young girls spending a hell of a lot of time together? No watcher's ever thrown a boner while training a girl to fight. No, the Watcher's Council approves a completely different fashion for abusing our trust. A whole range of fashions. But never that one."
Her comments, too bitter to be supposition, bear investigation. But some other time. Now he must get her out of his flat.
"Not for nothin', Wes, but you lack a little something as a host. Guess I'll have to get myself a cold drink. Kitchen's that way?" She follows her own pointing finger and finds her way to the kitchen.
Sputtering half-formed protests, Wesley trails behind her, pulling up short as she thrusts her pert bottom out once more to investigate the contents of his refrigerator.
"Pretty sparse here, chief. What's Devon cream, anyway?" Yet still she finds enough there to examine to treat Wesley to an extended view of her bum. After an interminable length of time she emerges with a Guinness. "How 'bout you, Wes? Get you anything?"
"No, and Faith, I insist. Put that back. I cannot supply a minor with --"
Faith twists the cap off the bottle and thick foam rises up the bottle's neck, fizzing over her hand. She licks it off, and then runs her tongue around the bottle's lip before taking a drink. "Not bad stuff. It ain't Sam Adams, but it'll do." She turns to rummage through the cupboards, which are no better stocked than the refrigerator. "So let's see the rest of the place."
Again she pushes her way past Wesley to lead her own tour of his flat. She peers inside the linen closet, investigates the bathroom. Faith's own image in the mirror over the sink seems to startle her as she flicks on the light. She tilts her head different ways, fingers the dangling earrings that sparkle against her dark hair. Faith has chosen well; they're exactly the sort Cordelia would wear. Perhaps they're actually Cordelia's, purloined when the girl's attention was elsewhere.
Faith tugs at the corner of the mirror, opening the medicine cabinet. She pokes through the contents of the shelves, noting his straight razor, pickup up prescription bottles to read their labels. "Any feelgood pills in here, Wes?"
Wesley plucks a bottle from her hand. "This invasion is honestly unacceptable." He replaces it in the cabinet and closes the door.
Laughing, Faith says, "Invasion? You don't know the half of it, Wes." She flicks a hand to gesture him out of the bathroom, and as he steps back into the hall she continues on toward his bedroom.
"Faith," he says sternly, but she continues on down the hallway, casting an amused glance over her shoulder.
"What, am I gonna find something I shouldn't?"
"This has gone quite far enough."
"My motto is, always take it three or four steps past 'far enough.' That oughta put me about here." She plants her feet just beyond the doorway to the bedroom. "So what's the big deal? Everything's all neat an' tidy. No big mound of used Kleenex by the bed." Faith runs her hand along a corner of the mattress, bending at the waist to give him yet another view of her bottom beneath the tight fabric of her skirt. "Look at those hospital corners, all smooth and neat. Just like you were taught. Bet you could bounce a quarter off this bed." She turns and gives a backward hop and bounces her bum on the bed instead. "Nice." She smoothes her hand over the dark bedspread, patterned with multicolored patches designed to hide stains. "So tell me, Wes. What are you thinkin'?"
"It's time for you to leave, Faith. I would like to explore the things you said about the Council and any betrayals you feel you've experienced, but at a more appropriate --"
"Nah, that's not what you're thinkin'. You're wishin' it was Cordelia sittin' on your bed. But you've got a better deal with me than the Ice Princess. I'll give you two good reasons, just for starters." She catches his hands, rising to her feet as she does so, and places them on her breasts. "She's more of a 'look, don't touch' girl. Me, I've got the slayer metabolism. Everything ramped up."
"Yes," he finds himself whispering. He seems unable to let his hands fall away from her body.
She pulls him close to her. "I'm your dream girl, Wes." Her breath is hot in his ear. "You just don't know it yet."
"Faith, I --"
"Just shut up, Wes, and let me be Cordy." She cups his face in her hand and presses her lips against his reluctant mouth, teasing with her tongue here and there until his mouth opens in a gasp. "Wesley," she murmurs with a breathiness that does remind him of Cordelia. "I knew when I first saw you...." She renews her efforts, thrusting with her tongue and nipping with her teeth, her fingers winding into his hair. "They should have sent you from the very start."
His resistance -- is there resistance at this stage? He's not sure. If there's a shred left, it crumbles. "Cordelia," he whispers. His fingers fumble with the buttons at her cleavage. She thrusts her hand between his and yanks at the placket, buttons scattering, one skittering across the nightstand. He delves his hand inside, meeting warm skin and creamy satin.
"I want you," she says. "I've never wanted anyone the way I want you."
No one has ever said these things to him.
"You drive me wild," she continues. "Your voice and that accent. Your bearing. You've got such class, no one else has that. You know there's a proper way to do things, and you're not afraid to say so. Standards, that's what you've got." She's been unbuttoning his shirt through this, without his even realizing. She slides a hand inside, making feathery, maddening circles with her thumb. He abandons his gentle squeezing of her breasts to follow her lead, and she gasps. "You know how to treat a girl. I'm tired of these schoolboys --"
He tears himself out of her embrace. "We must stop this. I mustn't --"
"We have every right," she says. "I'm eighteen. Since last August."
Some part of him feels vaguely disquieted by this, but he can't name a reason. She draws him back into a kiss, and after that, he can barely remember his own name.
Adrift.
It seems too gentle a word, yet it's accurate. Wesley has been wrenched from his moorings, swept out into a wild sea with nothing familiar at all in sight. The night brings a fierce tempest, the sort that pitches you into a trough and all you can see is the next wall of water looming above.
His cries, quite involuntary, quite louder than any sound he's ever dared to make, have mingled with hers throughout the night. It's fortunate so few of the flats are occupied with the renovations the building is undergoing, but even so, this is Sunnydale. Shouts and screams routinely go ignored.
Faith -- the cold light of morning reminds him it's his slayer lying naked in the tangled sheets, not Cordelia -- Faith explored him thoroughly, not just bodily. She had a gift for finding just the right sensation at the moment, then as the night wore on, she deftly unwound threads of his darkest fantasies, his most shameful impulses. Fantasies he'd never expected to play out with another person -- never wanted to play out -- she'd initiated and enacted as if he'd scripted them. Throughout she'd kept a running commentary, using filthy and perverted as words of praise. Each repetition stabbed him through with shame, yet served to push him over the edge more than once.
Shame. Wesley is not the man he thought he was. Not the man who can undertake the mission he's been trained for. He'll have to resign, of course. He's a disgrace to the Council, to his lineage. To his father. He'll call the head office straightaway, tell them -- what? There is no adequate excuse for abandoning one's calling; it has never, to his knowledge, been done.
And then what?
Adrift.
"Well, aren't you the poet," Faith says beside him. She slips her arm around his waist, trails her fingernails from the center of his chest downward. Despite his regrets of the morning, his body is quite prepared to follow her lead.
He should grasp her hand, remove it. He doesn't. "Poet?"
"All that nautical imagery." She presses a kiss to his shoulder, follows it with teeth. "Let's get naughty-cal."
Cold prickles the back of his neck. "What -- what do you mean?" But that's not the question he wants answered. How can you know?
"I mean there's a little man in a boat waiting for your attention."
"Faith, no." He musters all the sternness he can. "This was an unconscionable breach of ethics. We can't continue."
Her voice holds only amusement. "'Help, help, I've been breached.'" Suddenly he finds himself straddled, his shoulders pinned to the mattress. "Right in the ethics, too, you know how sore you get after that."
"This is no laughing matter."
"I ain't laughin.'" As if he's a book she left off reading the night before, she quickly finds her place, a few deft movements bringing him to a desperate state of arousal. But this time she leaves him there, pacing her attentions in such a way to bring him to the brink, then pausing to let him linger there. She does this again and again, advancing and retreating until his whole being quivers with the desire for release. "You're an interesting person, Wes. Complex."
"How are you doing this? Reading me?"
"I dunno. Just woke up and had this exciting new talent."
"Is it only me?" Perhaps there's something in the literature, some strange watcher-slayer bond that forms--
"Anyone I get close enough to. So I thought maybe it's time I get close to you." She feathers her fingernails across his skin, following with a savage pinch. Wesley's breath hisses through his teeth. "You like that, don't you? Gettin' close in a new way? Maybe you can't break into that tight little bond Giles has with Buffy, who's your slayer now, after all, but he doesn't have this. Your own tight little bond."
"No. This is entirely inappropriate, Faith. The Council--"
She smiles. "The Council." This is the moment she chooses to allow him his release. He tumbles over the edge to their mingled cries, waves and waves of pent-up response tearing through him.
He tumbles into the abyss.
***
Release brings Wesley no relief. The orgasm, though powerful, wasn't enough to discharge the sexual tension she'd built up within him. Wesley closes his eyes and tries to forget her presence next to him.
Impossible, of course. Faith picks up on the attempt and reaches for him, rubbing just below his navel. The skin is sensitive, almost painfully so.
"Poor Wes. You're still all worked up." An errant fingernail provokes a gasp, though he remains soft. "Let's see, what might help?"
"Faith, I insist that you leave." His voice sounds hollow to him.
"That wouldn't be right. A girl gets a name if she leaves a guy with a case of the blue balls. How about this? Think of one of your favorite jerk-off fantasies. One you haven't thought of in years. You have yourself a good wank --" She says it with relish, like a new word whose sound she likes -- "and I'll just watch."
Of course one springs to mind, the last one he'd want to share with her.
"Oooh, boarding school. I'm lovin' it already."
"No." He tries to shove it out of his mind, but it resists being dismissed.
"Go on. Put your hand on your dick."
"It's too soon. I'm not seventeen."
"So you have a nice long, slow wank. It's okay, I'm not goin' anywhere." She takes him in her hand. "Faint signs of life there. Little CPR, and it'll come right back."
Wesley pushes her hand aside, covering himself with his own. He thinks of a movie he half watched on the transatlantic flight. Pictures the actress.
"Hey, none of that," Faith scolds. "Go with the first one. Hands on your ankles, pulling you out of bed."
There are reasons he hasn't pulled this one out in years. Memory, not fantasy (probably why Faith has seized on it so enthusiastically). He fantasizes about women these days, but when he'd been seventeen, it had been suitable for a fast and furious wank during a few stolen moments. Night. Dragged from his bed and a sound sleep by the minions of the class bully. Many hands holding him down. His pyjama trousers yanked downward so that a sound thrashing could be administered.
At the time there had been nothing but terror and humiliation, but afterward it had been fired in the kiln of his imagination, where it had acquired a glaze of sexual excitement. Many nights of his youth, all it had taken was the thought of half a dozen hands pressing him down to bring him to a furtive climax.
"That's delicious, Wes. See? You're responding like a champ. There's nothing like revisiting an old favorite."
But it's not ideal. Not so much a fantasy as a series of fleeting images, designed for the sprinter, not the flagging energies of the marathoner. It will never work.
Faith proves herself willing to work with its inadequacies. Perched at his feet, hands kept entirely to herself, she repeats his thoughts to him. His body responds with vigor, but the images are still much too fleeting for the slow build he requires.
She dredges his memory for additional detail. The cold flagstone floor beneath his knees, the smell of candleflame prickling in his nose, the whistle of the birch rod before it bit into his flesh. Taunts and laughter, the cold air of the dormitory (always underheated) against the heat of his face and his arse.
Unlike the memory, the fantasy always ended mid-caning. In reality, there had been shivering and sobbing on the chilled floor before he'd crept back to his bed. In reality, he'd altered himself to avoid further confrontations, and there had been no more beatings.
Faith doesn't venture into this territory, but when she's explored the fantasy detail by detail he still hasn't found his release. Before he can falter she goes beyond the script he's given her, altering the scenario. She describes his growing arousal throughout the caning. Wesley wants to resist this alteration, but his hand of its own volition picks up speed. She relates how one of the restraining hands shifted around to grasp him and his body responds with alacrity. She details his explosive climax at the last stroke of the cane, prompting an identical response from him now. His hand falls away as he gasps for air.
"Nice finish," Faith says.
He is finished. He can no longer be this girl's watcher, now that he's lost control of her -- and himself. Nor can he be assigned to any other girl, knowing he has such weakness within him.
"Don't be silly," Faith says. "You and me, we're just getting to know each other. A little more time, and we'll have a real understanding."
***
Faith gets up to rummage in his closet for a shirt to wear, commanding him to "Watch my pert bottom" as she does. How mortifying to know she'd read every one of those thoughts.
He does watch, because she'll know if he doesn't. He can't keep from admiring her arse, nor can he stop himself from thinking, Not the blue, it's my favorite. She slips the blue off the hanger and puts it on, but she keeps exploring the closet. Finally she turns away, two silk ties draped around her neck.
Being so thoroughly open to her seems to have sapped his own ability to see what's coming. She has one wrist tied to the bedpost before he even imagines what she might be up to. "Faith, no. This has gone quite far enough." He tries to bat her hands off with his free hand, but she overpowers him with very little effort and binds that wrist as well.
"You can't fool me, Wes. I know that some part of you is loving this."
She doesn't lie. Something dark and furtive within him welcomes the release from agency. If he's helpless whatever happens next cannot be his fault.
"Being known, that's scary and appealing at the same time," Faith comments. "I get that. I thought maybe it would be easier for you if you have to be still. Just relax, open yourself."
There is no one he'd trust with the darkness that he's stuffed deep inside, but Faith less than anyone. He can't even imagine what she'd do with what she learns.
"I'm hurt, Wes. That you wouldn't trust me. I just wanna know a little more about you."
"Why are you doing this to me?"
Faith's chin raises and she frowns as if listening to some distant sound. Wesley hears nothing. After a moment she gives her head a little shake and turns back to him. "Y'know, I could eat something. You got a pizza place on speed dial?"
He loathes pizza.
"Sorry, Wes. There's not a fuckin' chance I'll order Chinese. It looks like something someone else has already eaten, if you catch my drift. Where's the Yellow Pages?" She follows his unspoken response and flips through the pages. "Psychics, too far. There's a thought, though. I could set myself up in business. Or one of those 900 psychic lines, think this'll work over the phone? Let's try." She stabs her finger on a phone number on the Physicians-Pizza page and dials, gives her order without consulting Wesley. Hanging up, she says, "Well, that's a disappointment."
"Faith, let me go. If you release me, I'll--" What? She so completely has the upper hand there's nothing he can offer. Except leave the country, go running back to London.
Stroking his chest, she settles next to him on the mattress. "Now why would I want that? Things are just getting good with us. I want to learn more. The whole boarding school thing, that's a side of life I've never heard about. So for big stretches of time you weren't even around your parents when you were growing up. That must've been weird when you were home."
"No," he says again, but it's just as useless as all the times before. His mind unfolds it all before her: the coldness of their home, his father, the utter impossibility of pleasing him.
"So Giles must be pinging half a million buttons for you," she says sympathetically. "I mean, you do know he thinks you're an ineffectual toad, don't you?"
Yes, he knows. Yes, Giles presses every possible button.
"At least he hasn't locked you under the stairs. Could be worse."
Without wishing to, he lays these memories out her her, like a jeweler scattering diamonds on a black velvet blotter.
"You must've been a horrid child, to warrant such a punishment," she says.
His sins tumble out before her too, sparkling dark rubies. She seizes her jeweler's loupe to examine them. She tsks as she picks through these memories, turning each one this way and that, asking questions that elicit ever more detail.
Abruptly her head cocks toward the window. "Pizza's coming." The buzzer doesn't immediately follow, so she turns her attention back to Wesley. "Do you talk to him much?"
"Now and again. When I ring him."
"Mmmm. Got him on speed dial?" He doesn't but his mind readily supplies the number for her. Faith finds a marker in the nightstand drawer and scrawls the number on Wesley's chest. "Maybe that'll come in useful later." Without elaborating she rises, picking through his pants for his wallet before she walks to the door as the buzzer sounds.
When she returns she tosses the pizza box onto the bed next to Wesley and sits cross-legged as she partakes. "You might want some whether you're hungry or not, keep your strength up." She picks a pepperoni off her slice and pushes it against his mouth, but he turns his head away. Unconcerned, she shrugs and pops it into her own mouth. "Suit yourself."
Much as he hates pizza, the smell of food twists Wesley's stomach with hunger. He thinks of all the times he was locked beneath the stairs without dinner, the tricks he'd learned to banish the pangs.
"Let's explore this more," she says, and memories rise up at her bidding. The dark, the cramped confines. The overpowering scent of cleansers flavoring his tearful contemplation of his failings.
"That's why you like a little bondage fun," Faith suggests.
"No." Much as he's using the word, it's doing him no good.
"Sure it is. You can sink into your terrible nature, take it out and examine it. But you're helpless, which makes it safe."
Of course she's right, though he'd never seen it before. The truth of her comments makes them no less shattering. He feels himself crumbling before her, this slip of a girl who knows far too much. "Why are you trying to destroy me?"
He catches her mid-bite and pizza sauce spills down her chin as she feigns surprise. "Destroy?" She puts down the slice, wipes tomato sauce away with her fingers. "Wes, baby, you haven't seen destroyed. Destroyed is when more of your blood is outside of you than in, and you're looking at pieces of yourself before your eyes get torn out too. Pauline, she was destroyed. Kakistos did that. You missed all that drama, even missed Part 2. By time you got here, everything was all cleaned up."
"Your watcher," he whispers.
"One of 'em. Fuckers didn't even tell you about it."
No. He hasn't even been sent Pauline's diary yet, despite promises.
"That was my happy eighteenth from the Council. The Croo--" She plucks the word from his mind. "Cruciamentum."
That was the faint tickle of alarm he'd caught when she mentioned she was eighteen. "Jesus wept." The cruelty of it is breathtaking.
"Cruel and pointless. And I saw the whole fucking thing."
"And this is your revenge on the Council?"
"Nobody's more the Council's man than you, Wes." She frowns and rubs at her forehead. "Why don't they shut the fuck up?"
"Who?"
She ignores the question, tossing the pizza box aside. "You up for more fun?"
***
Wesley pulls together the last shreds of his Watcher voice. "Tell me. What happened just now?"
"Tonight isn't about me. It's all you, Wes."
"Whatever's happening, causing the telepathy, may be changing. If you release me, perhaps I can help. I have texts--"
Her pretty lips twist in a sneer. "No fuckin' way I'd accept help from one of you."
"One of --? You mean the Council? I assure you, I'll be severing ties with the Council immediately." He's no longer fit for even a research post. He's betrayed everything he was trained for. His destiny, sealed when he was a child, is utterly destroyed.
She stops his jumble of thoughts with a vicious pinch. "As long as you believe in their bullshit, you're Council. And betrayal -- you poor fuck, that's what they're best at. Even Pauline. The Cruciamentum, it's all based on betrayal."
Of course it is. How could he have missed that?
"You're a true believer, Wes. You'll swallow anything, if it means you belong."
The truth of this spears him through. "Yes," he whispers.
"Nobody wants you, Wes. Not your Council, not Daddy. Giles, who'd understand you better'n most, thinks you're a piece of shit. All you're left with is me."
All you're left with is me. That she'd say this at all causes a spasm of hope within him. "We could start again. Leave the Council, hunt demons on our own."
"Ain't that a quaint idea. We'd be the Bonnie and Clyde of demon killers."
"Something like that."
"Just like that, you wanna belong to me now. Belonging's your drug. You don't care where you get it, as long as you have it."
"Don't you own me already?" How very bleak his voice sounds. That this girl, this high school dropout, understands his history and desires and motivations so completely, far better than he does himself.
"Let's see how you do on this last test."
"Test?"
"Didn't you know? This is your Cruciamentum. It's only right the watchers have their own dog and pony show." She snatches up the receiver from the telephone by the bedside. Placing it on the pillow by his head, she turns his head just so to hold the receiver in place. The dial tone roars in his ear.
"No, Faith. Whatever else you want, but not this."
"Y'know, I don't remember anybody offering me a menu when I went through mine. What they dish out is what you get, right? Just talk to Daddy, hand in your resignation. That shouldn't be hard."
"I'll beg if you wish. If you spare me nothing else, spare me this."
"I begged," Faith says dreamily. "Pauline did too." The dial tone gives way to the piercing beeps of the keypad. Her index finger trails along the digits she's written on his chest. "Fuck.," she mutters, and presses the switchhook on the cradle, bringing the dial tone back again. She hits the heel of her hand against her forehead. "Get the fuck out!"
She starts again, misdials again. Wesley thinks his heart will explode from his chest. Of all the tortures she's visited on him --
A small smile flickers across her face, and he realizes he's handed her another weapon. Faith treats him to a few repetitions of this until she finally grows bored and moves into the main feature torture. She completes the string of numbers and he hears the twin chirps as the connection is made.
It occurs to him that he doesn't have to play along, even though he's bound. She can't force him to talk. Wesley turns his head and the phone slides off the pillow, coming to rest on his shoulder.
As the rings again, Faith reaches for him, deftly stroking him to hardness. Belatedly he realizes this is not about listening in on a painful conversation between father and son. It's Father who'll be doing the listening. No, he mouths silently as she straddles him and guides him into her.
"Yes," she counters. "Slick heat, yeah, not up to your usual poetic standards, but descriptive."
To his horror there's a click on the line just after the third ring. "Roger Wyndam-Pryce," the tinny voice says.
Faith begins moving atop him, setting up a rhythm he knows he won't be able to resist for long. He clenches his jaws, determined to bite back any sounds. He knows how to be silent in the presence of his father.
"Wyndam-Pryce," Father says again. Patience has never been one of his virtues, because he never considered it one.
Wesley bites his lips. Another moment and Father will hang up.
But Faith is cleverer than that. "Ohhhh, that's so good."
"Who's there?"
"You're drivin' me wild." As she rides him she draws on the vast collection of things she's discovered that drive Wesley wild. Before he knows it, she's wrenched an involuntary cry from him.
"I demand to know who's calling."
The stern outrage in Father's voice makes Faith laugh. Wesley pictures him rising to his feet as he barks his command, his face crimson. Faith shifts her position and picks up her rhythm, eliciting another unwilling moan from him.
"What is the meaning of this? How did you get this number?"
Faith introduces a finger in an altogether surprising place, an entirely new variation. He can't help himself, his cries grow louder and closer together. Mostly inarticulate, but toward the end Faith's name escapes his lips.
"Wesley? My god, Wesley, is that you?"
Once again Faith shows her gift for timing, thrusting as his Father's realization spills across the line, bringing Wesley to a shouting, convulsive climax. Her own follows in seconds and she collapses across him, panting as his father's outraged sputtering crackles across the wire.
She fumbles the receiver back into its cradle and says, "Damn, Wes, that was beyond hot."
He is entirely ruined.
***
Faith combs her fingers through his hair. "Who knew you could be such a degenerate?" Her tone sounds almost admiring.
Wesley refuses to look at her.
"I mean, that's fuckin' perverted, getting off while your old man is listening. Do you think it got him hard?"
"For the love of Christ, stop."
She wraps her legs about him, tilts her head so that her hair tumbles into his face. "Such a deviant. Any woman who looks at you can see it, that black hole of filth. Most of 'em run, don't they, Wes? Takes someone special to relish what you are. Takes someone as dark and disgusting as you." She rises up, looming over him, as her tone alters. "You go ahead and believe that, Wes. Believe you haven't corrupted a teenage girl who came to you for guidance."
"No. You dug these things from my consciousness."
"I stumbled over them. You polished 'em up and presented 'em like jewels. Diamonds and rubies, isn't that right? Maybe I'll just be so glad for the attention I won't care. Maybe I won't notice you're dragging me right down to your level. I'm just trash anyway."
Horror sweeps through him. "God," he whispers.
"Cause it's lonely down there where you are, ain't it?"
"Please. Stop."
Abruptly she rises. "I got something special for you, but you'll have to wait while I get it ready."
As she closes the bedroom door he sinks further into darkness. He'd thought truth was a thing of light, but now he sees how wrong he was. Faith has utterly explored his soul, reported nothing that was not true, and it was all blackest black.
He half expects her to quit his flat entirely, leaving him to struggle free of his restraints on his own or hope that Giles might wonder at his absence enough to come in search of him. But he hears her bustling about in the other room, noises he can't begin to interpret.
It hardly matters what she's doing. She's revealed him so completely -- destroyed him so thoroughly -- that nothing worse can be visited on him. He's spared a jail cell because she's over the age of consent, but in his current state imprisonment means little.
The phone shrills next to him, startling him into jerking painfully against his bonds. His father, no doubt, calling to demand that he account for himself. Calling to set forth a list of his every character flaw. Each ring has the same effect as the first, piercing his head, causing him to start. His shoulders are on fire.
He counts a dozen rings before the phone falls silent. Still he hears faint sounds of Faith's efforts. At one point he hears her pound on the wall between his flat and the next. "Shut the fuck up in there!" But the unit, so far as he knows, is still unoccupied.
At last she returns to the bedroom, her cheeks flushed. "Time for a change of scene."
It doesn't matter.
That seems to anger her. "Time for you to do some serious thinking. Consider your failings."
He can do that anywhere. They're with him always.
Suddenly Faith clutches her head and doubles over. "Fuck!"
Arms outstretched, immobile, he waits it out.
Again she hits her head with the heel of her hand, and after a moment it passes. She looks at Wesley, panting. After a bit she approaches and fumbles with the necktie at his left wrist. His arm is all pins and needles as she lets it drop to the mattress. She's halfway through picking out the second knot when her breath hisses between her teeth and she sways for a moment.
She returns to her task and at last he's freed. She tosses the neckties aside and orders him to his feet. Wesley's arms are useless at the moment, unable to support him to a sitting position.
Faith seizes a handful of his hair and gets him upright. "I expected more from you," she says. Although the voice and accent are wrong, the clipped cadence is a perfect match for his father. "Perhaps what you need is some time away from distraction." She marches him into the hallway, where Wesley sees what's kept her so busy.
The door to the linen closet stands open. She has removed the two lowest shelves and cleared away their contents, creating a cubbyhole. Jerking a sheet from one of the shelves, she thrusts it at him. "Cover yourself."
Numb, he lets it fall open and wraps himself in it, staring into the closet. She stands behind him, unseen.
"Get in."
His eyes burn, but he will not weep openly. Not in front of Father. "I'm sorry."
"And I'm to believe such self-serving bleating as that? You haven't had time to think on the things you've done. The sooner you get in and begin making an honest assessment of your failings, the sooner you'll be allowed out."
"Please, Father."
"I doubt you'll ever have enough character to thank me one day, but the world will be better for it. Stop dawdling."
He has to kneel on the hall carpet to enter the small space. It's a struggle to fit himself in, but he manages to wedge himself inside, back against the wall, knees drawn up, head slightly bent. The smell of pine cleanser is so strong he feels he can barely breathe. "Please. I can't." It's been so long he's forgotten how to survive the claustrophobia. "I promise I'll change."
"Perhaps I'll believe you when you've truly thought about it."
The light extinguishes except for a small crack beneath the door. Unreasoning fear wells up in him and he fights the urge to sob. Remember where you are. This is Faith, not Father. You're in your own flat. There isn't even a lock on the closet door; he's careful to dismantle them in any home he moves into.
"Thanks for the heads-up," Faith says from outside the door. He hears the rustle of movement fade and then grow again, then the scraping of wood on wood and metal as she jams a chair beneath the doorknob. "We need the full experience, don't you think? Not the same if you know you can get free."
Panic blossoms inside him and he hammers at the door with the flat of his hand. "Let me out, please, I promise I promise..."
"Not until you've thought things over." Of course not. It was ever thus. There was the panic (although not the pounding; he'd learned early to control himself), then the silent tears, then emptiness born of exhaustion. Only then could he begin to see himself clearly.
He tries to fight the panic, but the close confines defy his every effort at calm. He'll die in here, he knows it. Now and again entreaties bubble up and spew from his mouth, despite himself.
"You just bought yourself another hour," Faith says the first time, and that's how he knows she's sitting on the other side of the door. She's seated on the floor, he thinks; the sound of her voice comes from his own level.
The next time he pleads, she just mutters, "Oh god, shut up just shut up!"
I'll be quiet, I'll be quiet. Sobs shake him, but he's silent, the corner of his sheet stuffed in his mouth. Soon Father will see he's sorry, and he'll have some toast and jam before bed if he's lucky. It has to be soon.
At last he passes through this stage, coming to the hollowed-out feeling he knows so well. This is what Father looks for, the clarity that comes with the passing of the storm.
He sees the failings of his character thrown into sharp relief.
He is arrogant.
To think he could pass muster as a watcher, that he could be anything but outmatched by someone like Faith.
He is disgusting and perverted and deviant -- all those words Faith had crooned or spat at him throughout this unbearable stretch of time. To give in to her even as he knew his father was listening....
He is weak. He cannot take these sessions in stride, but must snivel and plead every single time he's closed in this space to contemplate his shortcomings.
He is mediocre at his studies, socially inept, thick-headed -- on the whole a discredit to his family's name. His every advantage has been wasted on him.
He is thoroughly corrupt, and he has chosen to drag this girl down with him.
He deserves this: the dark, the foul air, the sharp ache in his back and neck from fitting himself in the cramped space. He slips into the discomfort like a favorite old sweater, dropping back into emptiness as he waits for the opportunity to tell his father all he's realized.
He hears whimpering. It must be his own, although he's not aware of making any noise. It seems to be floating somewhere outside of him.
The stream of sound is punctuated by cries. Shut up, shut the fuck up!
He tries, but it seems completely involuntary. He stuffs more of the sheet between his teeth, but it doesn't help. I'm sorry, I'm trying. He doesn't say it out loud. He's being bad enough as it is.
The sound rises, despite his efforts to curb it. Cries and cursing that will get him in serious trouble. Only hooligans use such language, it's strictly forbidden. He doesn't know where it comes from, he's never used such words before.
Silently he joins the voice in the entreaties to Shutupshutupshutup! At last his whimpering stops, but still the voice demands his silence.
I'm ready, Father. I've thought things over.
Instead of the key in the lock, the next thing he hears is a horrible thudding against the door, right at the level of his head. Stopitstopitgothefuckaway! the voice screams. The thudding keeps up for a long time, though eventually there aren't words with it anymore, just screams with no words.
It must be some new test of Father's, but he doesn't know how to respond. Mingled with the grunts and screams is the sound of a telephone. It rings and rings.
He'd thought he was ready. He was certain of it. But there's some other failure he can't recognize, something further he must understand before he's set free. His father sees it, but he's far too dim to spot it for himself.
He sinks deeper into himself. Into the dark and the fire in his bones and muscles and the violence of the blows that shake the closet door.
He waits for his father to deliver him.