The tale to the noir

4. Birthday



Willow was brushing her hair when the telephone rang. She looked interrogatively at herself in the mirror: it was nearly dawn, who was calling her?
“Hi Will” Oh, it was Buffy! But what a strange voice…weak, tired…
“Hi! Everything all right? And…hey, happy birthday!”
“Will, you’ve got to help me” Buffy interrupted her. Her tone was so unusually peremptory, that Willow shut up. Surely, something was wrong.
She sat on the bed. “Tell me everything.”
She heard Buffy sigh in the handset. “Soonl fil fight with a really dangerous vampire…”.
“More than the Master?”
Silence. Another sigh. “More. Yeah. Much more…I need to stay a bit alone Will. Giles still insists on that silly meditation training, but, you know, it works actually…and I have to get ready. I have to think.” A pause. “Do you understand me?”
“Yeah, but…” Willow hesitated. “Today you turn seventeen…won’t be better for you if you stay with your friends? I know that Xander is behaving as a lout, but if he knew that…”
“No!” Buffarlyarly looked hysteric. Willow seriously begun to worry.
“Right…Tell me what I’ve to do…”
“I need only one day. You’ve to cover me at school, especially with Giles. He’s already sufficiently anxious, you know…tell him my dad’s come to take me, ok?” Silence again. “Will, I know yon’t n’t like telling lies, but that’s a personal favour. I only can rely on you. Please.”
“But of course. No problem.” Willow pretended a confidence she didn’t have. “Willow takes care of that!”.
She listened to her friend’s cold and mechanical goodbye, than she put down the handset and she stood on the bed, the hands on her knees, looking at the sky beyond the window.
What was happening?


Buffy took the bag full of weapons and went out early in the morning. It was a fine shiny day.
And she lied to her best friend. As, the night before, she lied to her watcher.
And lying had been dreadfully easy. Even natural.
She walked along the frontage road. She said hello to a couple of neighbours out with their dogs, and then she stopped in front of the number 1628. A villa like the other ones…appearances could be deceptive, wasn’t it?
She filled her chest with a big long sigh, with the fist clenched. Useless to wait more, she had to go immediately, she felt ready- no, no, damn, she was lying to herself also-, during the day, so if something went wrong she could run away where she was sure no one could follow her…she hardly freed the trapped sight. That was the trouble: a part of her was sure that she would never run away from that house, even if she had got the opportunity to…
She turned back for a moment and she looked at the precinct, at the pastel blue sky. It was almost like a goodbye glance. She knew she wouldn’t have seen things as the same way as before, once she had passed that threshold.
When she was sufficiently near she noticed that the front door was opened and left ajar, as he was waiting. What an arrogant bastard, thought Buffy. The dark inside disoriented her for a bit, but she noticed almost immediately some characteristics: the room disposition was alike the Summers’ one, but the furnishing was so different, European, with heavy and carved wooden furniture and Oriental carpets. No noise. With a suffocating sense of oppression Buffy looked at the stairs.
Ok, step by step.
Upstairs she discovered a soft pink lighting which filtered from under a door. She reached out her hand to take the handle, and she noticed she was trembling. Damn, she had to calm down, and be alert.
The door opened slowly on a strange room, wide and nearly empty apart from some little tables in Nipponese style, halogen lamps and Chinese prints. The curtains which covered the windows were made of a thick and cream-coloured fabric; on the floor there were a couple of enormous angora carpets. She saw him immediately and despite herself her heartbeat fastened.
He stood up, his back turned to her, and he was wrapped up in doing something. He worn nothing apart the trousers of a black silk pyjama. Buffy was impressed by the tattoo on his back, on the right shoulder blade: it looked like a bird…No, it was a bat. Yeah, a bat whose claws made a letter, the A.
“Nice tattoo”, she decided to say.
Angelus turned back, showing no surprise at all, with a book in his hand. “Thanks. It was 1760. A Chinese prostitute made these little masterpieces in Marseille’s port.” He smiled thinking about that. “She also was a masterpiece actually…a miniature with alabaster skin who could take the most amazing postures…”
Buffy’s cheeks blushed, when she remembered what she did with Spike, and the same image with Angelus and the little Chinese doing the same occupied her mind inopportunely. That made her nervous. “I’m not here to recall the good old days.”
Angelus threw the book upon one of the little tables. “Hum…and why are you here then?” He pointed at the bag she had on her shoulder. “That is full of weapons…Do you wanna fight or do you wanna learn? Because if you wanna learn you don’t need weapons. Not the ones made by men.” He shrouded her with a sole, penetrating glance. “You’lrealready armed Slayer. With your power.”
Buffy felt hot, too hot. “Today I turn seventeen” she whispered. “I think that’s the perfect age to learn…I’ve defeated the Master, but it was a lucky chance. With you I’ll lose, I see it. So, if you can teach me more about my powers…ok, I’m in”. She hesitated, but then she finished. “Maybe, guess what, I’ll exceed my teacher and I’ll defeat him”, she ended, keeping her chin high, with all the dignity she had.
He clapped, laughing. “What a good speech…If I had listened to it at the cinema I would have surely felt moved. But you wannna learn. I praise that”.
“So?” she hounded him, more and more nervous. “What happens? You have to blindfold me or something like that?”
Angelus begun to laugh and a series of shivers spread all over her body. “No, wait…let me guess…Spikey blindfolded you?”. He continued to laugh. “Ah, it’s incredible! One hundred and twenty years and he still uses those proletarian-masochistic clichés…” He looked at her again, almost sweetly. “No Buffy I don’t wanna blindfold you. I want you keep your eyes opened”.
Oh, why did he pronounce her name?
When he pronounced it, it was like a blow, a taut sigh, an incredibly sexy sound.
Buffy shook her head, trying to clear her head.
“So, we begin? What can you teach me?”
“Darkness.” He answered, lazily walking in circles, his naked feet that went down on the angora.
“You fight it, but you don’t know it. As all the human beings you conceive it as something totally dark, with no colour at all…but darkness has more than one dimension, more than one nuance, a measureless depth. You can’t only watch it from the opposite line, you have to meet it, fall in its arms, see its breath and its colours.” He stopped, looking at her. “If you really wanna fight darkness, you must taste it before, and understand if you like that taste. And maybe, if you like it, you could have a possibility to defeat it.”
The pink glow of the halogen lamps was brightening up his skin, flowing over it, underlining every shape and every muscle. “And by the way Slayer, don’t you believe that a power like yours comes only from the light, right? Nothing in Nature is made up only by light. A part of darkness is always needed.”
While he was speaking he approached and his naked and exhibited beauty dried her mouth and dilated her pupils. It wasn’t working in that way…a desperate little e, be, buried in her agitated brain was shouting to her that she was already trapped, and that her destiny was already done…
“So Buffy…do you really want that?”, Angelus asked her, turning around her. “Do you want that I teach you how to embrace and taste darkness?”.
Was there still another possibility?
Could she still answer no and run away through the day?
Buffy moistened her lips, although she had no more spittle. “Yes”, she whispered.
She heard him stand for a moment behind her shoulders. “Well. Get undressed.”
She startled. “What?”
“It’s easy. Get undressed, Slayer”, he ordered again, going out of the room. “Take off everything”.
Where did he go? Why had he left?
With a short breath, and the fingers which refused to collaborate, she clumsily took off her jacket, her tennis shoes, her trousers, her t-shirt…she hesitated on her underwear, but he said everything and she was afraid to ask herself which kind of punishment she would have received if she had refused to obey. She was afraid of desiring that punishment…
Why didn’t he come back now?
She didn’t know where keep her hands: she had the instinct to cover herself, but perhaps it was better if she stayed straight and proud, to show him she was free from the charm he believed to have on her…God, what a liar…
At last-oh, yeah, at last- Angelus came back in the room, with a porcelain basin and a big lush. Buffy stiffened. What was the meaning of that? What the hell did he want to teach her with a basin and a lush?
But as soon as the dark eyes of the vamp dwelled on her every doubt disappear in the most total and immediate excitement.
“Your body”, he said putting the basin on the floor and dipping the lush in the water. “Your power is in your body. You must take care of it, treat it as if it were a temple”. He stood in front of her and, after he raised her hair, he approached to wash the back of her neck and her back.
Oh Heaven…Heaven…Heaven…Buffy searched painfully another word for her thoughts…Everything useless. There was only Angelus, and his large and smooth chest which brushed her firmed nipples and that chain, that chain he worn and that she noticed just now…And which swayed, back and forth, in the cavity of her breast. And the hot water was sliding from her neck till her bottom.
And his hand that was holding her hair, the rhythmic pressure of the lush…Oh, Heaven…Heaven…yeah, a black Heaven was coming…
Angelus’ voice, although really near, seemed to come from an incredible distance. “Have you ever asked to yourself why there are no male slayers?”
He moved away to wash the lush in the water again, then he knelt, massaging her gluteus and her thighs. Looking at him standing like that, his dark-haired head at a few centimetres from her belly made her feel dizzy. She tried to reach his shoulders.
“No” he stopped her peremptory. “Don’t touch me.”
He washed her feet then he stood up to concentrate on her breast. “So, have you ever thought about that?”, heisteisted moving the lush around her nipples. “Answer”.
Buffy blinked her eyes a couple of times. “uh…no”. She was concentrated on the part of his shoulders that bended trough his upper-arm, the vague imperfections of his skin…so paradoxical, but so true…She imposed herself to look at that point to ignore the streams of hot water which from her chest stopped on her pubes’ locks.
“Only a woman can slay a vampire”, he was explaining to her, quite. “Women and vampires are alike, the two weigh scale.” The lush was on her right hip now. Shivers, a cloud of painful, burning shivers. “Blood Buffy. That links us. With blood women creates, with blood we destroy, but blood is at bottom of our power. The root. The source.” Now the left hip. Oh God…God…”Your strength is blood Buffy. That blood which flows from your deepest recesses, which moves with the tide, which pulses in your fibres as our victim’s veins do, while they give us their life to extend our death”.
Again, Angelus knelt. He introduced a hand between her knees and he made her open her legs a bit, then he begun to brush softly her private parts. Buffy startled: the lush was soft and so hot. Oh God…Somebody was gasping really loud in the room. Who?
Was there anybody else?
Oh, I am…God, I’m gasping so loud…
“Do you feel it Buffy? Do you feel that heat which radiates from your centre?” He observed her, from his underneath position, with his angel face, a deception belied by that too morbid mouth, by that too dark and disturbing eyes. “Do you feel the energy which spread in your blood?”.
He used the lush with a soft and titillating kindness. Buffy stiffened, waiting the orgasm, so dangerously imminent…but when the top was nearly there Angelus went away, putting back the lush and he begun searching in a settle.
Buffy gasped, shocked, her legs which threatened to crack. He gave her a black silk petticoat. “Put it on!”.
Still shocked by an uncontrollable inner tremor she obeyed and the soft fabriuldeulded to her humid skin.ck sck silk, the same Angelus was wearing, that swished when the vamp moved. And he was moving, as a feline that studies its victim.
“Collect the energy” he whispered. “All your emotions; fear, anger, excitement…Collect them in your blood, in the original core, let them hoard…and then, free them.”
Buffy breathed in and out. Emotions…fear…anger…excitement…
“Think about the first motion your instinct suggests you”, he continued. “And free your power”.
She was contemplating his lips, the shape they assumed when he talked.
Emotions…fear…anger…excitement…
She did not realise what she was doing. An instant before she was preparing a fist, and an instant after Angelus went on the carpet.
He whistled, holding on his elbow and rubbing his chin. “My congratulations! A good straight right…” he challenged her, arching an eyebrow. “But was it really the first motion your instinct suggested you?”
She was on him in a minute. “Shut up”. She took his face, passing her thumb on his mouth to open it, and then she filled it with her warm breath. “Shut She She kissed him, pressing, voracious, desiring his blood’s taste, inebriating with his musk’s scent, and she took his member in his trousers.
She felt it growing up, becoming harder, and raved she left his mouth to stand upon him,ing ing to guide it inside her. She wasn’t expert…at that point it had always been up to Spike…but she wanted him. Souldouldn’t wait anymore. And it was easy at last…maybe too much.
With a typically feminine sexy gesture she put her petticoat up her hips and she begun to move, asking him only with her glance an answer in his dark distant eyes…but Angelus didn’t cooperate. He lied relaxed, with a lazy smile, indifferent.
She fastened the rhythm, unsatisfied, concerned. Was she committing some mistakes?
Damn, help me!
“You don’t free anything…”he whispered, provocative. “anything at all…”
Buffy reacted beating his chest with little angry fists, on the edge of a top she knew she couldn’t reach all of her own. She moaned, frustrated.
Suddenly Angelus took her wrists. “Do you want I s I show you what it means free your power Slayer? Do you want Buffy?”
She was nearly crying, and she nodded. Oh yeah, free me…please, free me…
He transformed with a roar and, still inside her, he put her on her back, pushing her under himself. The rhythm immediately changed, becoming slower and more resolute.
He made love differently from Spike, he moved his hip in a way she was forced to follow him, to experience like that his pushes with more depth…and every push was a flash of blinding pleasure which she felt in her stomach.
And his face…She had never seen him in his demon-face…he was still so particularly handsome. His eyes were yellow and bright. He has golden eyes, Buffy told herself amazed, God, he has golden eyes…and that teeth…suddenly she desired to be penetrated in all the possible ways. She wanted to feel him, everywhere.
“Bite me…”, she implored him. “Please, bite me…”
But Angelus didn’t listen to her. He fixed her arms over her head, entering in her with no mercy and Buffy was overwhelmed by more that one orgasm, one inside the other; a unique, multiform wave of ecstasy which ran through her, from her feet’s fingers till her hair.
And the black oppressive sky fell down and swallowed her.


Was the day still outside?
Did it really exist?
Or the whole world had disappeared and only that room, that carpet had remained?
And was it normal that she felt her body so dilated, with no stable borders?
Bored of the decorations on the roof, she turned to her lover, the Scourge of Europe, who was looking her quietly, the face on his crossed arms.
She had scratched him, during their sensational embrace. A dribble of blood was coming down the complicated tattoo. She reached out a finger taking a drop and she tried to taste it, but Angelus stopped her hand. “No. You’re not ready for that blood yet.”
Looking in her eyes he sucked her finger. Buffy sighed, bending her back a bit.
“Is that what will happen?” she asked. “You’ll do that to me?”
He smiled, looking incredibly young. “I won’t do to you anything that you don’t want to…”
Oh God…all right then…
Buffy took off her petticoat and she rubbed herself on the carpet. “Do you need some suggestions?”



“So?” Joyce cried from the kitchen. “How do you feel after having turned seventeen?”
“Nothing special” mumbled Buffy squatted on the sofa. On the TV screen, a 40’s couple was singing a sweet classical song, in a musical of the period. “I’m just older.”
Her mom appeared bringing a small cream cake with a candle on its top. “What a lot of sadness…Something’s wrong?”, she asked, while her smile becoming less convictive. “I know that cake’s not so beautiful, but the plane had landed in late and…”
“No, what are you saying?” Buffy apologized. “I’m just tired…you know, the party at Willow’s house was so funny…”
Joyce sat next to her, with a doubtful expression. “Xander was there I suppose…You are still angry right?”
Buffy shook her head. “Yeah…but don’t worry. You’re cake’s beautiful and I love you.”
“Me too my darling. Happy birthday!” She gave her the cake. “C’mon, if you blow out the candles, your wish will come true!”
Buffy smiled and she put her head on her shoulder, cuddling up to her. “Mmm…then I’ll let them blow out…”