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FIC: The Confessional (parts 7-9)
Title: The Confessional
Length: 12 short(ish to midlength) parts (and a few lines of prologue) in 4 posts.
Rating: R, for language and some images
Warnings: This fic contains reference to slash and some subjects which I guess could be considered controversial.
Pairings: This is not a shippy fic. B/A and A/S are explicitly referenced; many others are hinted at.
Summary: Angel visits Faith in prison. Takes places between AtS S1 & 2.
A/N: Although this fic has a definite time frame, it can't be read as "missing scenes". Among other things, Faith's prison is too far away for Angel to visit this often in one summer. This fic is much more of a "what if", especially towards the end.
Prologue, [1.], [2.], [3.], [4.], [5.], [6.]
7.
Angel’s sitting there, phone in hand this time. I pick it up on my side. “Hey,” he says. Polite. “About last time.” A pause. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Okay.” For the longest time, I don’t think I’m going to say anything. Then: “Me too.”
“I’m glad it happened, though.”
“Buzz off.”
“One of your less colorful epithets,” he observes.
“I’m tired.”
“We needed to get some cards out on the table.”
“Yeah,” I agree, “but I haven’t gone bust yet. Hit me again.”
I can see him swallow, a bob on a fishing line, almost as if he’s going to take the bait. “No.”
“Hit me, ace,” I demand.
He moves his hand, then remembers that there’s glass between us and he can’t touch me. His fingers move, long, spidery white, impatient. “We’re not playing that game.”
“What, don’t like blackjack?”
“I don’t like hurting each other to make you see the things you already know deep down inside yourself.”
“I’ll talk about Spike,” I threaten.
“No, you won’t,” he says simply.
“I’ll talk about—”
“You won’t.”
So poised to do both of those things that I’m swaying on the edge. I’m still trembling when I ask, “What’ll I do then?”
“You’ll be quiet, and you’ll listen to me.” He pauses, tilts his head. “Let’s talk about Wesley.”
“I don’t want to talk about Wesley,” I say.
“Of course you don’t,” he replies smugly. His eyes are all appraisal, confident assessment. “He can forgive you, you know. He has that in him.”
“Thought you said he said I was a lost cause.”
“That’s not exactly true. Wesley . . . trusts me. Even when it comes to you.” Sudden flash of warmth, and this time I recognize it for what it is. That’s Wes-warmth. “But in the end,” Angel goes on, “he’ll always do what he believes is right. He’ll give you a chance, if you let him.”
“You’re saying he would trust me?”
“No. I’m not saying that at all. Wesley isn’t stupid. I think he’d sacrifice both trust and desire to do what he thinks is right.”
“Sounds pretty stupid to me.”
“You could win him back.”
I roll eyes. “My squeeze he ain’t, Angel.”
He stares at me blankly. Then abruptly, asks, “Do you want him to be?”
I smirk. “What do I look like, a home-wrecker? I’m not gonna pull the moves on your boyfriend, gorgeous.”
“He is very good looking, now that you mention it.” Angel simply smiles. “Again.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “I’ll say he’s rompworthy.” Did I just say Wesley is hot? Angel smirks, as if this whole conversation he was steering me to say that without me knowing. Voice low, teeth grit, I grind out, “He’d never think of me.”
“Oh, I’m sure he thinks of you a lot,” Angel says charitably. Then he shrugs. “Has nightmares, probably.”
I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. Grudgingly, because the bastard knew what I meant: “He’d never think of me that way.”
“Why not?”
“Well, first thing—Cordelia.”
“Not since she was in high school.”
Lips fall open and shit, fuck, damn, there’s probably Wesley-warmth in my eyes, too. “He likes his women . . . young?” (I’m only 18, in case you were wondering.)
The corner of Angel’s mouth twitches. “I’m not sure how Wesley likes his women.” Another twitch. “Or his men. Should I find out?”
My jaw clicks shut with a little snap. “You know, you’re . . . not so uptight as you seem sometimes,” I offer.
He can wash away all those parries, blocks, and blows between us just with his eyes, his smile. “It’s been a good summer,” he confides, and does this thing that’d be a grin if it wasn’t Angel.
I grin back. “Tell me about it,” I say.
And he tells me about it.
*
Remember how I told you about Angel and me’s mistress, redemption? He’s bare-ass naked on the floor, begging for it, kissing the cane, gazing up into that vortex of a cunt and believing, with every ounce of his being, that when she takes him in, drains him dry, she’s going to snuggle up with him afterwards. See, Angel thinks the ultimate orgasm is attainable.
He still believes in love.
Once I would’ve said it’s no great shakes. Love is a war; sex is a battle; it’s all about who gets to be on top. Bop into ‘em ‘til their balls’re tighter than paint on a wall, then bust ‘em ‘til they’re broke; that’s how it goes. That’s how it went, until I bagged the wrong guy. Boinked Buffy’s boyfriend and got the fight fucked right out of me.
You’d think it’d take a hard-line, a harder hand than his. You’d be wrong. He kissed her arm, so . . . reverent—just Buffy’s arm, get it, like that single stretch of flesh is his salvation. I’m stiff and shaking at that touch; I’m a convulsing nun in cloisters—just found God; I’m biting Buffy’s tongue and he’s biting Buffy’s breasts—just found how tight and wet she is, how ready we are for love. It’s a sacrilege, this love, a violation of rites, a heathen in my sanctuary—because I don’t understand being touched this way. I don’t even want it; I’m being raped by tenderness.
Then he’s inside me and I finally understand coming doesn’t mean going; we’re together, two—no three—we’re a mountain moving, Muhammad; we’re the moon rising, a child crying, the earth, a birth, light stars love; I’m screaming in Buffy’s voice and he’s grunting Buffy’s name. Then we’re only two, because she was the temple and he was the worshipper and I was the one outside—like you, looking in, a voyeur.
Riley inside me, me inside Buffy: I know how Angel knows what making love is like. After that, there’s no going back. And there’s no getting in, either.
8.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I say.
“How are you?”
“Good. As good as it gets, anyway. How are you?”
“Same old.” He says his line, but he’s smirking.
I raise a brow. “Oh?”
“We crossed three off the board,” he says smugly. When I fail to look impressed, he adds, “In as many days.”
I shrug. “You’re getting cocky.”
“I was always cocky.”
“You were, weren’t you?” I dig in. “You play this puppy dog act, but you really are one arrogant sonuvabitch, aren’t you.”
It rolls right off those massive shoulders. “A man can be both,” is all he says, mild.
“You oxymoron. You can’t be dom and sub at once. Those are the rules of the game.”
“Except that this isn’t a game,” he says, voice tugging velvet bonds. “We’re not playing. We’re living.”
“You aren’t,” I point out.
“Well, yeah,” he concedes, but it’s not gonna stop this bent he’s on. “Humility takes strength, Faith.”
“‘And the meek shall inherit the Earth,’” I mutter.
His mouth opens, eyes widening a little. “Say that again.”
“I read it somewhere once.”
“Well, yeah. It’s in the Bible.” He seems like he’s resisting the word “duh.” At my glare, he’s defensive. “I was raised Catholic. Well, not when I was raised the second time, but you know what I . . .” Now he just looks confused, and unhappy. He moves his hand in an uncontrolled gesture, and brightening, says, “I’m Irish, you know.” Then he frowns again. “Or was.”
“I’m Korean,” I offer.
“So I’ve heard.” He doesn’t miss a beat. I think it’s too much to expect that a little non-sequitur conversation would be enough to throw off anyone who’s ever been in love with Buffy.
“I’d like to be Korean,” I say finally. “I bet they eat better’n me.”
“Most of them don’t.”
“You been there?”
“Of course.” He looks mildly offended that I might think he hadn’t been. “When you get out, we’ll go for kimchi.”
“I’m not getting out.”
“With that attitude? No, probably not. Not in any way that matters, at least.”
“I smell a lecture,” I huff, nose wrinkling. “Or is that kimchi?”
“You have to want to atone,” he goes on steadily.
“What do you think I’m in here for?”
“It’s a start. But it doesn’t really matter where your body is. It’s where your soul is.”
“Are you Buddhist?” I ask. You got to admit, he sounded a little Zen just then.
He scowls. “I just told you I used to be Catholic.”
“See, figures. That religion is all about knowing you’re unworthy. It’s about guilt. It’s about hating yourself and asking the Big Guy to punish you for not being as good as he is.”
“Yes, kind of, and not at all,” he says. His eyes are warm with pity. “Prayer isn’t a weakness, Faith. It’s about being strong enough to beg for forgiveness.”
“Want me to call you Father, do you?” It was meant to come out snarky, an innuendo, but instead I just sound angry.
“Tempting,” he says flatly, “but no.”
“I can’t believe you’re sitting there taking God’s side, of all things.”
“I’m not taking God’s side. I’m taking faith’s.”
“Witty.”
“I’m clever; I can’t help it,” he says, hitching a shoulder, all self-deprecation. “It’s the same in every religion, Faith. Even the ones without a God.” He frowns suddenly. “Maybe I am Buddhist?” He shakes his head, eyes unhappy. “This is much less confusing when you’re just evil.”
“I’ll say.”
“We can talk about the Red Sox, if you want,” he suggests.
“Not if you don’t want to talk about religion.”
His lips spasm in a smile. “That’s why we’re not talking about hockey.”
“That’s why we’re not talking about Buffy.” Then I realize what I just said. My eyes widen and I’m wondering if there’ll ever be a time I don’t want to hurt him, a time when I’m not trying. “I didn’t mean to,” I say helplessly. “I swear I didn’t mean to. Angel, I—I’m sorry. It just—I was just thinking . . .”
He hasn’t moved a muscle since I said her name. Now his head is turning away, eyes dropping, neck exposed. He stares off into space for a moment—at Shawanda, talking to her sister in the booth next to me. “How about those Sox?” he says suddenly, so low it’s hard to hear. He’s looking at me; his eyes are clear, and I wonder if that’s what it’s like to be forgiven.
*
You can’t swing a dead cat in Southie without hitting someone Catholic or Irish. My mother was both from a long way back, fancy that. We still went to church sometimes, and I liked it. I got to wear a dress with flowers on it, and at my First Communion, I fell in love with those wafer things. I was eating Christ, and it made me feel strong. When I prayed, I was talking to a Ghost, and it made me feel brave. When I marched up to St. Brigid’s in my buckle shoes, I was visiting the house of God, and He was even more important than my gran. The King was in my corner, and no one could push me around.
As it turns out, He was pushing me. I hear “turn the other cheek” and I think about how ripe and round a child’s buttocks can look for a parent’s eyes, how red the welts can rise against ready, rosy skin, how black the belt can be. I hear “I am the handmaid of the Lord” and I think about my mother, forced to bear me, to accept the burden of me, when what she wanted was to pluck the fruit of me from herself with all the disobedience of Eve. I hear prayer, and I hear an orgy of submission: men, women, children doling out the blow jobs to Jesus Christ.
Because that’s what it is, isn’t it? Did you know that Jesus asked us to pray in a closet? It’ll be our little secret, children; I’ll show you God if you show me yours; remember not to tell anyone.
Me, I’d prefer to sit on your face and shut your “I’m a sinner; save me” bullshit. I’m a sadist. Like God.
Except that God doesn’t huddle into corners, crying and alone, thinking these thoughts and hating them. I’m not God, but my mother once again, giving me my name because it was the last thing she had and He wouldn’t let her lose Faith.
Are there Buddhists in Korea? I think I’d like it there.
In Korean, my name doesn’t mean a thing.
9.
“Hey,” Angel says.
“Hey.”
“How’re you?” His eyes are already weighing mine. What’s he think he’ll find?
For the first time I tell the truth. “I don’t know.” Then I lie. “Alright, I guess.”
“Something wrong?”
I tilt back my chair and look away. Tapping my fingers on the counter between us, I ask, “Angel, what’s kimchi?”
The corner of his lips twitch, but he isn’t about to laugh at me. “Cabbage, mostly.”
“Yuck!” My chair comes down with a thunk. “You were going to take me out on a date for cabbage?”
His lips stop twitching. “It’s also fermented chili peppers, and I didn’t ask you on a date.”
“I like pancakes,” I announce. “With bananas.”
“Breakfast? Because if you’re into breakfast, I make mean eggs.”
“Who says?” I ask skeptically.
He scowls. “Cordelia.”
“And I’m supposed to believe Cordelia?” I—oh God, a pun. I’m turning into Buffy in every way possible—I’m egging him on.
“Cordelia would make sure I knew if they were bad. In vivid detail. Cordy . . .” He pauses and looks thoughtful, and says the last so soft I almost miss it. “I trust her.”
“You like her.” Should’ve known. For a while there, I almost forgot I was never a cheerleader.
“Yes. She’s my friend. She’s . . . family.”
“Yeah. I’ll bet.”
A subtle shift in posture, and suddenly there’s that silky steel “don’t go there” look—the one I never seem to notice. “Let’s talk about murder.” A turn on the axis of battle. Sometimes I forget we’re still fighting it.
“I don’t know what the word ‘segue’ means, but I’m guessing you don’t either,” I comment peevishly. “Suddenly I feel so brainy.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Don’t you want to talk about it?” he prods.
“God. You’re like a dog with a T-bone steak, pal.”
His lips flatten, jaw sets, brow lowers (can it get any lower?)—you know the serious, sober, “listen to me” drill. “You can’t just hate what you’ve done. It gets you nowhere. Believe me.” He looks down at his hands, and for a minute, its like he despises them. “We can’t change who we are, or what we’ve been.” Then his fists clench and he pulls them under the counter to hide. “I think it’s about knowing that, and—”
“Yeah, we are not worthy. Get on your knees, suck God’s cock. I know the routine by now.”
“God has a monster cock. It’s too big for you to suck,” he observes smoothly. He tilts his head. “I think maybe you don’t know what that act can mean for people who love each other.”
“And you would?”
His eyes flick away from mine, no other part of him moving. When he speaks, his eyes are back on mine. There’s pain there, and a longing he can’t disguise no matter how hard he’s trying, and maybe I should be reveling in the hurt or pitying the grief, but all I can think is—did she suck his dick? Buffy’s bubble-gum lips wrapped around his hard cock and was that the perfect moment? Or was he inside of her? Did he go down on her too? Did she let him come in her mouth?
Would she let me—
“The reason I’m here isn’t because I have the answers,” he says abruptly. “It’s because I have the same questions you do.”
“So,” I say. Now I’m looking away. “I killed someone.”
“I know.”
“I killed more than one someone. And I wanted . . . wanted the mayor to Ascend so he could . . . we could . . . Is this what you want?” I demand, voice husky and harsh to close my throat on the stammering and stumbling. “Am I really supposed to be sitting here wishing I didn’t do these things? ‘Cause that doesn’t seem so productive to me.”
“It’s not what I want, no. But have you thought about it, Faith? Have you let yourself think about it at all?”
“I have nightmares,” I say bitterly. “That’s enough, right?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t leave it in the darkness. Let yourself care. That’s how it starts.”
I scowl. “How what starts?”
He takes the phone away from his ear and for a second, I think he’s going to leave me. But he rests the receiver on his chest, leaning back, looking away—as if searching for the words. I wonder if he had a heartbeat whether I’d hear it through these phones. At last he lifts the receiver and says, “I wanted redemption for a long time. It wasn’t until the moment I saw Buffy that I thought maybe I could get it. I loved her and . . . everything changed.”
“Sweet story.”
His stare is always so still. It's freaky. “Are you going to make me regret it?”
“No, I meant it,” I say quickly. Shit, he’s trusting me. What do I do with that? What do I—what would Buffy do? “She . . . has that effect on people,” I say finally, choking up. “Buffy does.” Shit, her name, he doesn’t want me to say—“I mean—I mean, she does. I didn’t mean—”
“We can talk about her, if you want to.”
“What, think I’m ready now, precious?” Sarcastic because I don’t know how else to handle this.
“No. I am.”
Once he said I had the power to hurt him. He said it like he was giving me a gift. “She may not take you back,” he says after a moment.
“Look, I know that already.”
“But you’re hoping for it, aren’t you?” he presses, then he shakes his head. “Maybe once, she would have. She has . . . such a capacity for . . . forgiveness.” His lips move over that last word like a hungry man tasting something forbidden and sweet. Like a sinner letting the Eucharist dissolve in his mouth. “But the inevitable will one day happen,” he goes on. Now he spits it out. “She’ll grow up.”
“And you hate that.”
That still, still stare. “Yes.”
“She won’t stop doing the right thing,” I try to reassure him. “She’s a stubborn bitch that way.”
“I don’t know about that. Sometimes . . . it’s so hard to find your way.” He’s looking down at his hands, as if they could point him in the right direction—or destroy the right direction altogether, with the single flick of a white wrist. “You have to accept that. Some things can never be forgiven.”
“You should know,” I say softly.
He nods. “I should know.”
*
Buffy.
Everyone thinks I want to be her—but that’s not why I stole her body.
When her mother looked at us, I didn’t want her to see Buffy, but I didn’t want her to see just me either. I wanted her to see us both. I wanted her to love us both, twin daughters, sisters of a single mother calling. I wanted us to have a Watcher who watched us both, who treated both the same, who still wanted the freak deviant that is a second Slayer.
In the end, I just plain want her. Stealing her body was the only way I was ever going to feel her wanting me back. It was the only way I could feel her breasts, soft and heavy in my hands, dusky nipples tightening under my touch; her quim—shivering, shuddering, fluttering for me and falling apart with my fingers; her voice, hoarse with longing for me. Stealing her body was the only way I was ever going to feel her loving me—because she loves herself, more than I could ever love me.
I meant what I said—she has that effect on people. Her mother with her golden-halo hair holding her and hugging her. Giles with his British stuffed shirt ready to make his Ripper days look like Leave It To Beaver reruns if he thought it would keep her safe. Angel . . . sinner to saint in less than a day and why? Because he caught a glimpse of sour-apple sucker eyes and a priggish up-turned nose, heard a cheerleader voice and her guileless girlish quips, sensed a do-gooding bent a mile wide and laces so straight she won’t ever let the darkness loose and she won’t ever fuck me.
And Xander—another wrong, something silvery, splendid, slipping through my fingers. Angel was right that time he pulled me off him; I did forget the safe-word. Or maybe there’s a word I didn’t know the meaning of, hadn’t heard and didn’t care to listen to. The one Buffy, never a poster-child for vocabulary, knew before “mama.”
A word like love.
*
Continue in part [10.]
Length: 12 short(ish to midlength) parts (and a few lines of prologue) in 4 posts.
Rating: R, for language and some images
Warnings: This fic contains reference to slash and some subjects which I guess could be considered controversial.
Pairings: This is not a shippy fic. B/A and A/S are explicitly referenced; many others are hinted at.
Summary: Angel visits Faith in prison. Takes places between AtS S1 & 2.
A/N: Although this fic has a definite time frame, it can't be read as "missing scenes". Among other things, Faith's prison is too far away for Angel to visit this often in one summer. This fic is much more of a "what if", especially towards the end.
Prologue, [1.], [2.], [3.], [4.], [5.], [6.]
7.
Angel’s sitting there, phone in hand this time. I pick it up on my side. “Hey,” he says. Polite. “About last time.” A pause. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Okay.” For the longest time, I don’t think I’m going to say anything. Then: “Me too.”
“I’m glad it happened, though.”
“Buzz off.”
“One of your less colorful epithets,” he observes.
“I’m tired.”
“We needed to get some cards out on the table.”
“Yeah,” I agree, “but I haven’t gone bust yet. Hit me again.”
I can see him swallow, a bob on a fishing line, almost as if he’s going to take the bait. “No.”
“Hit me, ace,” I demand.
He moves his hand, then remembers that there’s glass between us and he can’t touch me. His fingers move, long, spidery white, impatient. “We’re not playing that game.”
“What, don’t like blackjack?”
“I don’t like hurting each other to make you see the things you already know deep down inside yourself.”
“I’ll talk about Spike,” I threaten.
“No, you won’t,” he says simply.
“I’ll talk about—”
“You won’t.”
So poised to do both of those things that I’m swaying on the edge. I’m still trembling when I ask, “What’ll I do then?”
“You’ll be quiet, and you’ll listen to me.” He pauses, tilts his head. “Let’s talk about Wesley.”
“I don’t want to talk about Wesley,” I say.
“Of course you don’t,” he replies smugly. His eyes are all appraisal, confident assessment. “He can forgive you, you know. He has that in him.”
“Thought you said he said I was a lost cause.”
“That’s not exactly true. Wesley . . . trusts me. Even when it comes to you.” Sudden flash of warmth, and this time I recognize it for what it is. That’s Wes-warmth. “But in the end,” Angel goes on, “he’ll always do what he believes is right. He’ll give you a chance, if you let him.”
“You’re saying he would trust me?”
“No. I’m not saying that at all. Wesley isn’t stupid. I think he’d sacrifice both trust and desire to do what he thinks is right.”
“Sounds pretty stupid to me.”
“You could win him back.”
I roll eyes. “My squeeze he ain’t, Angel.”
He stares at me blankly. Then abruptly, asks, “Do you want him to be?”
I smirk. “What do I look like, a home-wrecker? I’m not gonna pull the moves on your boyfriend, gorgeous.”
“He is very good looking, now that you mention it.” Angel simply smiles. “Again.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “I’ll say he’s rompworthy.” Did I just say Wesley is hot? Angel smirks, as if this whole conversation he was steering me to say that without me knowing. Voice low, teeth grit, I grind out, “He’d never think of me.”
“Oh, I’m sure he thinks of you a lot,” Angel says charitably. Then he shrugs. “Has nightmares, probably.”
I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. Grudgingly, because the bastard knew what I meant: “He’d never think of me that way.”
“Why not?”
“Well, first thing—Cordelia.”
“Not since she was in high school.”
Lips fall open and shit, fuck, damn, there’s probably Wesley-warmth in my eyes, too. “He likes his women . . . young?” (I’m only 18, in case you were wondering.)
The corner of Angel’s mouth twitches. “I’m not sure how Wesley likes his women.” Another twitch. “Or his men. Should I find out?”
My jaw clicks shut with a little snap. “You know, you’re . . . not so uptight as you seem sometimes,” I offer.
He can wash away all those parries, blocks, and blows between us just with his eyes, his smile. “It’s been a good summer,” he confides, and does this thing that’d be a grin if it wasn’t Angel.
I grin back. “Tell me about it,” I say.
And he tells me about it.
*
Remember how I told you about Angel and me’s mistress, redemption? He’s bare-ass naked on the floor, begging for it, kissing the cane, gazing up into that vortex of a cunt and believing, with every ounce of his being, that when she takes him in, drains him dry, she’s going to snuggle up with him afterwards. See, Angel thinks the ultimate orgasm is attainable.
He still believes in love.
Once I would’ve said it’s no great shakes. Love is a war; sex is a battle; it’s all about who gets to be on top. Bop into ‘em ‘til their balls’re tighter than paint on a wall, then bust ‘em ‘til they’re broke; that’s how it goes. That’s how it went, until I bagged the wrong guy. Boinked Buffy’s boyfriend and got the fight fucked right out of me.
You’d think it’d take a hard-line, a harder hand than his. You’d be wrong. He kissed her arm, so . . . reverent—just Buffy’s arm, get it, like that single stretch of flesh is his salvation. I’m stiff and shaking at that touch; I’m a convulsing nun in cloisters—just found God; I’m biting Buffy’s tongue and he’s biting Buffy’s breasts—just found how tight and wet she is, how ready we are for love. It’s a sacrilege, this love, a violation of rites, a heathen in my sanctuary—because I don’t understand being touched this way. I don’t even want it; I’m being raped by tenderness.
Then he’s inside me and I finally understand coming doesn’t mean going; we’re together, two—no three—we’re a mountain moving, Muhammad; we’re the moon rising, a child crying, the earth, a birth, light stars love; I’m screaming in Buffy’s voice and he’s grunting Buffy’s name. Then we’re only two, because she was the temple and he was the worshipper and I was the one outside—like you, looking in, a voyeur.
Riley inside me, me inside Buffy: I know how Angel knows what making love is like. After that, there’s no going back. And there’s no getting in, either.
8.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I say.
“How are you?”
“Good. As good as it gets, anyway. How are you?”
“Same old.” He says his line, but he’s smirking.
I raise a brow. “Oh?”
“We crossed three off the board,” he says smugly. When I fail to look impressed, he adds, “In as many days.”
I shrug. “You’re getting cocky.”
“I was always cocky.”
“You were, weren’t you?” I dig in. “You play this puppy dog act, but you really are one arrogant sonuvabitch, aren’t you.”
It rolls right off those massive shoulders. “A man can be both,” is all he says, mild.
“You oxymoron. You can’t be dom and sub at once. Those are the rules of the game.”
“Except that this isn’t a game,” he says, voice tugging velvet bonds. “We’re not playing. We’re living.”
“You aren’t,” I point out.
“Well, yeah,” he concedes, but it’s not gonna stop this bent he’s on. “Humility takes strength, Faith.”
“‘And the meek shall inherit the Earth,’” I mutter.
His mouth opens, eyes widening a little. “Say that again.”
“I read it somewhere once.”
“Well, yeah. It’s in the Bible.” He seems like he’s resisting the word “duh.” At my glare, he’s defensive. “I was raised Catholic. Well, not when I was raised the second time, but you know what I . . .” Now he just looks confused, and unhappy. He moves his hand in an uncontrolled gesture, and brightening, says, “I’m Irish, you know.” Then he frowns again. “Or was.”
“I’m Korean,” I offer.
“So I’ve heard.” He doesn’t miss a beat. I think it’s too much to expect that a little non-sequitur conversation would be enough to throw off anyone who’s ever been in love with Buffy.
“I’d like to be Korean,” I say finally. “I bet they eat better’n me.”
“Most of them don’t.”
“You been there?”
“Of course.” He looks mildly offended that I might think he hadn’t been. “When you get out, we’ll go for kimchi.”
“I’m not getting out.”
“With that attitude? No, probably not. Not in any way that matters, at least.”
“I smell a lecture,” I huff, nose wrinkling. “Or is that kimchi?”
“You have to want to atone,” he goes on steadily.
“What do you think I’m in here for?”
“It’s a start. But it doesn’t really matter where your body is. It’s where your soul is.”
“Are you Buddhist?” I ask. You got to admit, he sounded a little Zen just then.
He scowls. “I just told you I used to be Catholic.”
“See, figures. That religion is all about knowing you’re unworthy. It’s about guilt. It’s about hating yourself and asking the Big Guy to punish you for not being as good as he is.”
“Yes, kind of, and not at all,” he says. His eyes are warm with pity. “Prayer isn’t a weakness, Faith. It’s about being strong enough to beg for forgiveness.”
“Want me to call you Father, do you?” It was meant to come out snarky, an innuendo, but instead I just sound angry.
“Tempting,” he says flatly, “but no.”
“I can’t believe you’re sitting there taking God’s side, of all things.”
“I’m not taking God’s side. I’m taking faith’s.”
“Witty.”
“I’m clever; I can’t help it,” he says, hitching a shoulder, all self-deprecation. “It’s the same in every religion, Faith. Even the ones without a God.” He frowns suddenly. “Maybe I am Buddhist?” He shakes his head, eyes unhappy. “This is much less confusing when you’re just evil.”
“I’ll say.”
“We can talk about the Red Sox, if you want,” he suggests.
“Not if you don’t want to talk about religion.”
His lips spasm in a smile. “That’s why we’re not talking about hockey.”
“That’s why we’re not talking about Buffy.” Then I realize what I just said. My eyes widen and I’m wondering if there’ll ever be a time I don’t want to hurt him, a time when I’m not trying. “I didn’t mean to,” I say helplessly. “I swear I didn’t mean to. Angel, I—I’m sorry. It just—I was just thinking . . .”
He hasn’t moved a muscle since I said her name. Now his head is turning away, eyes dropping, neck exposed. He stares off into space for a moment—at Shawanda, talking to her sister in the booth next to me. “How about those Sox?” he says suddenly, so low it’s hard to hear. He’s looking at me; his eyes are clear, and I wonder if that’s what it’s like to be forgiven.
*
You can’t swing a dead cat in Southie without hitting someone Catholic or Irish. My mother was both from a long way back, fancy that. We still went to church sometimes, and I liked it. I got to wear a dress with flowers on it, and at my First Communion, I fell in love with those wafer things. I was eating Christ, and it made me feel strong. When I prayed, I was talking to a Ghost, and it made me feel brave. When I marched up to St. Brigid’s in my buckle shoes, I was visiting the house of God, and He was even more important than my gran. The King was in my corner, and no one could push me around.
As it turns out, He was pushing me. I hear “turn the other cheek” and I think about how ripe and round a child’s buttocks can look for a parent’s eyes, how red the welts can rise against ready, rosy skin, how black the belt can be. I hear “I am the handmaid of the Lord” and I think about my mother, forced to bear me, to accept the burden of me, when what she wanted was to pluck the fruit of me from herself with all the disobedience of Eve. I hear prayer, and I hear an orgy of submission: men, women, children doling out the blow jobs to Jesus Christ.
Because that’s what it is, isn’t it? Did you know that Jesus asked us to pray in a closet? It’ll be our little secret, children; I’ll show you God if you show me yours; remember not to tell anyone.
Me, I’d prefer to sit on your face and shut your “I’m a sinner; save me” bullshit. I’m a sadist. Like God.
Except that God doesn’t huddle into corners, crying and alone, thinking these thoughts and hating them. I’m not God, but my mother once again, giving me my name because it was the last thing she had and He wouldn’t let her lose Faith.
Are there Buddhists in Korea? I think I’d like it there.
In Korean, my name doesn’t mean a thing.
9.
“Hey,” Angel says.
“Hey.”
“How’re you?” His eyes are already weighing mine. What’s he think he’ll find?
For the first time I tell the truth. “I don’t know.” Then I lie. “Alright, I guess.”
“Something wrong?”
I tilt back my chair and look away. Tapping my fingers on the counter between us, I ask, “Angel, what’s kimchi?”
The corner of his lips twitch, but he isn’t about to laugh at me. “Cabbage, mostly.”
“Yuck!” My chair comes down with a thunk. “You were going to take me out on a date for cabbage?”
His lips stop twitching. “It’s also fermented chili peppers, and I didn’t ask you on a date.”
“I like pancakes,” I announce. “With bananas.”
“Breakfast? Because if you’re into breakfast, I make mean eggs.”
“Who says?” I ask skeptically.
He scowls. “Cordelia.”
“And I’m supposed to believe Cordelia?” I—oh God, a pun. I’m turning into Buffy in every way possible—I’m egging him on.
“Cordelia would make sure I knew if they were bad. In vivid detail. Cordy . . .” He pauses and looks thoughtful, and says the last so soft I almost miss it. “I trust her.”
“You like her.” Should’ve known. For a while there, I almost forgot I was never a cheerleader.
“Yes. She’s my friend. She’s . . . family.”
“Yeah. I’ll bet.”
A subtle shift in posture, and suddenly there’s that silky steel “don’t go there” look—the one I never seem to notice. “Let’s talk about murder.” A turn on the axis of battle. Sometimes I forget we’re still fighting it.
“I don’t know what the word ‘segue’ means, but I’m guessing you don’t either,” I comment peevishly. “Suddenly I feel so brainy.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Don’t you want to talk about it?” he prods.
“God. You’re like a dog with a T-bone steak, pal.”
His lips flatten, jaw sets, brow lowers (can it get any lower?)—you know the serious, sober, “listen to me” drill. “You can’t just hate what you’ve done. It gets you nowhere. Believe me.” He looks down at his hands, and for a minute, its like he despises them. “We can’t change who we are, or what we’ve been.” Then his fists clench and he pulls them under the counter to hide. “I think it’s about knowing that, and—”
“Yeah, we are not worthy. Get on your knees, suck God’s cock. I know the routine by now.”
“God has a monster cock. It’s too big for you to suck,” he observes smoothly. He tilts his head. “I think maybe you don’t know what that act can mean for people who love each other.”
“And you would?”
His eyes flick away from mine, no other part of him moving. When he speaks, his eyes are back on mine. There’s pain there, and a longing he can’t disguise no matter how hard he’s trying, and maybe I should be reveling in the hurt or pitying the grief, but all I can think is—did she suck his dick? Buffy’s bubble-gum lips wrapped around his hard cock and was that the perfect moment? Or was he inside of her? Did he go down on her too? Did she let him come in her mouth?
Would she let me—
“The reason I’m here isn’t because I have the answers,” he says abruptly. “It’s because I have the same questions you do.”
“So,” I say. Now I’m looking away. “I killed someone.”
“I know.”
“I killed more than one someone. And I wanted . . . wanted the mayor to Ascend so he could . . . we could . . . Is this what you want?” I demand, voice husky and harsh to close my throat on the stammering and stumbling. “Am I really supposed to be sitting here wishing I didn’t do these things? ‘Cause that doesn’t seem so productive to me.”
“It’s not what I want, no. But have you thought about it, Faith? Have you let yourself think about it at all?”
“I have nightmares,” I say bitterly. “That’s enough, right?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t leave it in the darkness. Let yourself care. That’s how it starts.”
I scowl. “How what starts?”
He takes the phone away from his ear and for a second, I think he’s going to leave me. But he rests the receiver on his chest, leaning back, looking away—as if searching for the words. I wonder if he had a heartbeat whether I’d hear it through these phones. At last he lifts the receiver and says, “I wanted redemption for a long time. It wasn’t until the moment I saw Buffy that I thought maybe I could get it. I loved her and . . . everything changed.”
“Sweet story.”
His stare is always so still. It's freaky. “Are you going to make me regret it?”
“No, I meant it,” I say quickly. Shit, he’s trusting me. What do I do with that? What do I—what would Buffy do? “She . . . has that effect on people,” I say finally, choking up. “Buffy does.” Shit, her name, he doesn’t want me to say—“I mean—I mean, she does. I didn’t mean—”
“We can talk about her, if you want to.”
“What, think I’m ready now, precious?” Sarcastic because I don’t know how else to handle this.
“No. I am.”
Once he said I had the power to hurt him. He said it like he was giving me a gift. “She may not take you back,” he says after a moment.
“Look, I know that already.”
“But you’re hoping for it, aren’t you?” he presses, then he shakes his head. “Maybe once, she would have. She has . . . such a capacity for . . . forgiveness.” His lips move over that last word like a hungry man tasting something forbidden and sweet. Like a sinner letting the Eucharist dissolve in his mouth. “But the inevitable will one day happen,” he goes on. Now he spits it out. “She’ll grow up.”
“And you hate that.”
That still, still stare. “Yes.”
“She won’t stop doing the right thing,” I try to reassure him. “She’s a stubborn bitch that way.”
“I don’t know about that. Sometimes . . . it’s so hard to find your way.” He’s looking down at his hands, as if they could point him in the right direction—or destroy the right direction altogether, with the single flick of a white wrist. “You have to accept that. Some things can never be forgiven.”
“You should know,” I say softly.
He nods. “I should know.”
*
Buffy.
Everyone thinks I want to be her—but that’s not why I stole her body.
When her mother looked at us, I didn’t want her to see Buffy, but I didn’t want her to see just me either. I wanted her to see us both. I wanted her to love us both, twin daughters, sisters of a single mother calling. I wanted us to have a Watcher who watched us both, who treated both the same, who still wanted the freak deviant that is a second Slayer.
In the end, I just plain want her. Stealing her body was the only way I was ever going to feel her wanting me back. It was the only way I could feel her breasts, soft and heavy in my hands, dusky nipples tightening under my touch; her quim—shivering, shuddering, fluttering for me and falling apart with my fingers; her voice, hoarse with longing for me. Stealing her body was the only way I was ever going to feel her loving me—because she loves herself, more than I could ever love me.
I meant what I said—she has that effect on people. Her mother with her golden-halo hair holding her and hugging her. Giles with his British stuffed shirt ready to make his Ripper days look like Leave It To Beaver reruns if he thought it would keep her safe. Angel . . . sinner to saint in less than a day and why? Because he caught a glimpse of sour-apple sucker eyes and a priggish up-turned nose, heard a cheerleader voice and her guileless girlish quips, sensed a do-gooding bent a mile wide and laces so straight she won’t ever let the darkness loose and she won’t ever fuck me.
And Xander—another wrong, something silvery, splendid, slipping through my fingers. Angel was right that time he pulled me off him; I did forget the safe-word. Or maybe there’s a word I didn’t know the meaning of, hadn’t heard and didn’t care to listen to. The one Buffy, never a poster-child for vocabulary, knew before “mama.”
A word like love.
*
Continue in part [10.]