Buffy bustled around the kitchen in her Yummy Sushi pyjamas, preparing a light breakfast for herself, her mother, and Dawn. Dawn came in before she was finished. “‘Morning, Buffy. Can I help?”
Buffy was tempted to say “No.” Dawn tended to be a bit of a walking accident waiting to happen, but she refrained. Dawn was still looking a little frazzled, and worried about their mother. It was unusual for her to be out of bed this early on a weekend, too. “Sure. Why don’t you juice some oranges?” The juicer was far enough away from the other things Buffy was preparing that any accident of Dawn’s wouldn’t have collateral damage extending to the rest of their breakfast.
They were just about finished, when their mother came into the kitchen, and saw what her daughters had done. “Oh, my! There isn’t another apocalypse coming, is there?”
Buffy stopped to think for a moment. “Not that I’m aware of. Giles usually keeps me up to date on that sort of thing, and I don’t remember him mentioning anything. What are you doing up, Mom? We were just about to bring you breakfast in bed.”
“Oh, I’ve spent too much time in bed, over the last day. I’m feeling much better this morning. Maybe I just let myself get too tired.”
“Have you taken your pill, yet?” asked Buffy.
Joyce shook her head. “No. Dr. Isaacs told me to only take them if the headaches persisted. I’m feeling fine.” She took a seat at the kitchen island. “That is looking very good.”
They were half way through breakfast when her mother asked “That’s a very pretty necklace, Buffy. Where’d you get it?”
Buffy’s hand went to the pendant of her choker. “This? Xander gave it to me.”
“Xander?” Joyce leaned toward her for a closer look, and Buffy lowered her hand so her mother could see the pendant. “Xander’s Treasure,” she read from it.
“Oh!” said Dawn. “Is that from Xander’s reward? Can I see?”
“Did Xander win some sort of reward?” asked Joyce. “That looks awfully expensive.”
“Uh, yeah, Xander did win a Reward,” said Buffy, as Dawn “Ooohed” over her choker. “But not the sort you’re thinking of.”
“What sort did he win?” asked Joyce.
Buffy told her mother pretty much the same version of the story as she’d told Dawn, the night before. Of course, with Dawn being there, and putting in her own comments, some of the information about Faith, and some generalities about the relationship between her, and Buffy, Xander and Anya came out earlier, rather than later, in the explanation.
Buffy eventually let her story wind to its end. She could tell that her mother had a lot more questions that she wanted to ask, but there was an unspoken agreement between them that those questions could wait until they had an opportunity to talk when Dawn wasn’t around.
They got their opportunity sooner than Buffy expected. They were just cleaning up the breakfast dishes when the phone rang.
“I’ll get it!” said Dawn. She came back a bit later, carrying the cordless phone. “Mom, can I go over to Sharon’s?”
“Of course, Dawn. But I want you home by five. I’m going to invite Xander, Anya…” She hesitated for just an instant. “…and Faith to come to dinner.”
“Okay.” Dawn lifted the phone back up to her ear. “Sharon? … Yeah, I’ll be there in half an hour, or so. … Okay, Bye!”
Dawn ran out to put the phone back, and then came running back. “Buffy? Can I borrow something to wear, for when Xander comes over?”
Buffy’s first instinct was to say “Hell no!” but she saw the look her mother was giving her, so she softened it a bit. “I don’t think anything of mine will fit you.”
Dawn glared at her for a moment. “Buffy, stand up!”
Buffy almost responded automatically to the tone in her sister’s voice, but she managed to stay seated. She was not going to let this Reward thing make her be at her sister’s beck and call. “Why?” she asked, instead.
“You need to see something,” said Dawn.
“Alright.” Buffy got slowly off the kitchen stool she’d been sitting on, and stood in front of her sister.
Dawn stepped up to her, toe to toe, and gazed levelly into her eyes. “Buffy, we are exactly the same size.”
“We can’t be!” Buffy looked down at her sister’s feet, which were just as bare as her own, and she wasn’t standing on her toes, or anything. She looked back at Dawn’s eyes, which were absolutely level with her own. “What happened? You were shorter than me, just a couple of days ago!”
“A couple of days ago, you were wearing three inch heels.”
Buffy gave her sister’s body some serious consideration, for perhaps the first time in her life. Dawn was still a gawky teenager, but she could tell, even under the baggy pyjamas Dawn was wearing, that her figure was starting to fill out. Give Dawn another year to mature, and Buffy thought that she might have the sort of figure that would have all the boys drooling after her. She glanced at her mother, and from the expression on her face, Buffy thought that she might be having similar thoughts. Joyce’s gaze shifted to Buffy, and Buffy caught the silent message her mother was sending her, and nodded.
“Come on, Dawn. I’ll help you pick something out.”
Buffy helped Dawn select an outfit from her closet that she assured her sister was both sophisticated, and chic (and, she tried to tell herself, not too sexy.)
After Dawn had gone off to her own room to get dressed in some of her own clothes to wear over to Sharon’s place, Buffy went about dressing herself for the day. Buffy’s pyjamas were loose enough that her nipple rings and chain didn’t show through. She considered redressing in the baggy clothes that she’d been wearing since she learned her mother was sick, yesterday, in order to continue to hide their existence from her mother, but she decided against that. Her mother deserved to learn more of the truth about what was going on. She settled on a tight t-shirt that made the existence of the nipple rings and chain pretty obvious, with a loose, unbuttoned blouse over it, knotted at her waist, so she could make the reveal at a time of her choosing (after Dawn had gone.) A comfortable pair of jeans completed her outfit.
Dawn had just finished getting changed, herself, when Buffy came out of her room. They went downstairs together, and Dawn continued out the front door, after shouting goodbye to their mother. Buffy went back to the kitchen, to get another cup of coffee.
Joyce appeared at the kitchen entrance. “Alright, Buffy. What aren’t we telling Dawn about this reward of yours?”
Buffy sighed, and poured two cups. “Let’s get comfortable, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Buffy prepared her mother’s coffee just the way she knew she liked it, and gave her the mug, before finishing fixing her own. They went together into the living room, and settled on the sofa.
“Okay, tell,” said Joyce.
Buffy decided to start out with a question. “Mom, have you ever done anything kinky? Anything that didn’t involve Stevedore Giles, handcuffs, a police car, and Band Candy?”
Joyce blushed deeply. “Are you ever going to forget about that?”
“Nope!” said Buffy. “So, have you?”
“Your father and I… We used to play games, sometimes.”
“Really?” asked Buffy. She’d never suspected that. “What sort of games?” she couldn’t help asking.
“Let’s just say that Rupert wasn’t the first man to handcuff me, and leave it at that, except…” a bit of a devilish look came over her face. “Your father spent more time in handcuffs, than I did.”
“Oh!” Buffy found the image that conjured up even more disturbing than the images she remembered getting from her mother’s mind of Giles and the police car.
“So, what’s this got to do with your Reward?” asked Joyce.
“Well,” said Buffy, “there have been handcuffs, and other restraints.”
“Really?” asked Joyce.
“Yeah,” said Buffy. “When Gimmel appeared in my room, after he told me about the Reward, and the punishment, he had a checklist. He said he wanted to make my punishment as enjoyable as possible, to offset what the Hellmouth was trying to do, and so he went through the checklist.”
“What sort of checklist?”
“It was a checklist of all my secret fetishes, and desires,” said Buffy, “and as he checked off each item, it was like that feeling got turned up to eleven in me. And then there were some items on the list, that I’d never felt, and that’s when I realized that he was mixing me up with Faith, because they were her fetishes, and I got all those too, all turned up to eleven.”
“What sort of things did you get from Faith?” asked her mother.
“Well, for one, I never used to like girls,” said Buffy, “and now I really do. I like girls a lot! Which is pretty good, or this thing with Faith and Anya would be very awkward.”
“Ah…” said her mother. “…and some of the things from yourself?”
“I think that enjoying the bondage, and the pain, comes from me,” said Buffy.
Joyce frowned in concern. “Pain?”
“I used to have dreams about it, and I…” Buffy hesitated a bit, wondering just how candid this conversation needed to be, but she decided to go with it. “…I always enjoyed pinching myself, when I masturbated.”
“And now?” asked Joyce.
“Now, I really like getting spanked,” said Buffy, “as well as pinched, and other things.”
“What sort of other things?”
Buffy took a deep breath. Okay, time for the reveal (or at least a reveal.) She untied the knot at the waist of her blouse and pulled it open, letting her mother see the impressions her rings, and chain, made against her t-shirt.
Joyce looked shocked for a moment. “Are those…?”
“Yep,” said Buffy. “Nipple rings.”
Joyce’s eyes traced the converging impressions of the chain in her t-shirt, down toward her crotch. “And another one…?”
“Uh-huh, I’ve got one down there too. They feel amazing when they come in.”
“Aren’t they permanent?” asked Joyce.
Buffy shook her head. “The nipple rings come and go, depending on my mood, and Xander’s desire. And when they’re gone, it’s like they were never there. So the next time they show up, I’m being pierced all over again.” She blushed for a moment. “I sometimes come, when it happens.”
“So, how long have you had them?”
Buffy retied her blouse. “The first time they showed up, was the morning after this all started, when I was getting ready to go to school. They’ve come and gone a few times since then. They’re never there when I’m training with Giles, or on patrol. And they vanished yesterday, when Dawn called to tell me you were in the hospital. This set has been here since I went to bed, last night. That’s when the chain showed up for the first time too. It, uh, makes it possible for me to play with all three, at the same time, when I’m on my own.”
“And Xander controls them?”
“He can,” said Buffy. “When he wants them to be there, they are. If he doesn’t want them, they’re gone. The rest of the time, it kinda seems to depend on my mood.”
“And your necklace?”
“They first showed up the third day, after Xander finally started to accept what was happening.” said Buffy. “Since then, I’ve always had some sort of collar. Sometimes, when we’re…um…playing…it’s a more substantial one.”
“They?” asked Joyce.
“Oh, Faith’s got one too,” said Buffy. “Hers says ‘Xander’s Surprise’.”
“About Faith—”
“I know she hurt you and Dawn, last year, Mom, but she really is sorry about that.”
“I’m not sure ‘sorry’ covers it.”
“I know, but… I finally called Angel, and got him to tell me what really happened with her in L.A., last year. Every other time we’ve talked about it, I’d just get mad at him, for taking her side, and it always ended with me yelling at him. This time, I really listened to what he had to say. Faith was trying to goad him into killing her. I don’t think she’d made the conscious decision to do that, yet, while she was still here in Sunnydale, but she was heading that way… and yet she never really hurt you, or Dawn.”
Joyce started to object, but Buffy held up her hand. “I know she frightened you both. I know she hit you, and threatened you with a knife, but she never hit Dawn. She just tied her up, and I can tell you, it would have been a whole lot easier for her to smack Dawn unconscious, and then tie her up, than it was for Faith to do it without hitting her first. When she was in L.A., Faith wasn’t nearly so gentle with Angel’s friends. She punched Cordy unconscious, and she tortured Wesley… All to get Angel so mad that he’d kill her. He told me that, at the end, Faith was on her knees in front of him, begging for him to kill her. She thought that she was so bad, that she didn’t deserve to live.”
“I knew that she was unhappy,” said Joyce quietly. “I just never imagined that it was that bad.”
“She still feels that way, a bit,” said Buffy. “She doesn’t want to die anymore, I hope, but she doesn’t think that she deserves to be part of Xander’s Reward, either. We’re working on changing her mind.”
“Can’t Xander just tell her not to feel that way?” asked Joyce.
“It doesn’t work that way,” said Buffy. “He’s got a lot less control over how we feel, and think, than over what we do. If he tells me to concentrate on training, or patrolling, or studying, I do that, but it’s stuff I want to do anyway. Just about the first thing he told me, when this all started, was ‘don’t freak out’ and that’s helped keep me from freaking out over the whole thing, but in part it’s because I don’t want to freak out. He’s tried ordering me not to feel the way I do about him, and it didn’t work. He’s got much more control over my actions. He can tell me to do something, and I’ll probably do it. He can’t make me feel something I don’t want to feel. He can help me feel something that I want to feel, even more.”
“And if he orders you to do something you don’t want to do?” asked Joyce.
“It depends on how much I don’t want to do it,” said Buffy. “We’ve tried some experiments.”
“What sort of experiments?” asked Joyce.
“There was one, a couple of days ago,” said Buffy. “There was this annoying bird in a tree outside our bedroom window. It was singing really loud, so Xander gave me a crossbow, and asked me to shoot it.”
“What?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said,” said Buffy. “It was just a bird, it wasn’t even an evil demonic bird, so I told him I wouldn’t do it, and he got angry and ordered me to kill the bird, and I got really upset, and mad at him, and told him I wasn’t killing any damn bird, just because its singing was annoying him. I was feeling really bad about it, and I started crying because I was scared that this was going to ruin everything between us, and then he was hugging me, and kissing me, and telling me that he was sorry, and that he didn’t really want the bird dead, he just had to find out if he could order me to do something that he knew I’d think was wrong, and he was real glad to find out that he couldn’t do it.”
“Wow!” said Joyce. “I think you might have been channelling Willow there, for a moment.”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“Don’t be. What if you’d shot the bird?”
“I asked him that. He said that knowing that he had that sort of power, was worth the life of one bird, just to make sure that he’d know that he’d have to be really careful about how he used it, in the future.”
“I’m still not happy with the power he’s got,” said Joyce. “Or with this spell, that’s made you feel this way.”
“Xander isn’t really happy with it either, and I don’t think the spell has made me feel this way,” said Buffy. “It’s just made me realize things I’ve always felt. It’s enhanced feelings, not created them.”
“What about the feelings you’ve got, because Faith felt them?”
“Okay…I like girls now, and I never used to.”
“Are you sure about that?” asked her mother.
“Pretty sure,” said Buffy. “After Willow came out, I spent some time thinking about it, and I tried fantasizing about it, and it just did nothing for me. Now, thinking about Willow and Tara…” Buffy’s eyes glazed over for a moment. She shook her head. “Okay, I’m back. I’ll have to file that fantasy away for later.”
“So, the spell is making you feel something you never felt before.”
“Yeah…except…there was one girl I was attracted to before this started…”
“Faith,” said her mother.
“You knew?”
“I suspected,” said Joyce. “The way you looked at her, sometimes, before the trouble started. How angry she made you, after it happened… There has to be some feeling for someone for them to really be able to get under your skin that way. Your father and I… We tried to hide it from you girls, but we’d been having problems for years, before the divorce, and when we fought…” Joyce dropped that thread of the conversation. “So now you’re attracted to more girls than just Faith.”
“Yeah, but I still get to choose who I’m attracted to. If I just saw their pictures, I’d be pretty attracted to Harmony, or Drusilla, too, but fantasies about them…” Buffy thought for a bit. “Nope. Not anywhere near what I think of Willow and Tara, or Anya and Faith.”
“I still don’t see how you can be so sure that this all isn’t the result of the spell,” said Joyce.
“Mom, do you remember the love spell, the second year we were in Sunnydale?”
“Love spell? I don’t remember anything about any love spells.”
“It was before you found out about the Slayer stuff,” said Buffy. “Uh, do you remember the ‘scavenger hunt’ that had half the female population of the town in our basement?”
“Oh yeah, that was…uh…what was that about, again?”
“Think about it, Mom. Try to remember what happened before you found yourself in the basement.”
Joyce frowned in concentration. “Xander and Cordelia came to the house. He had some scratches on his face, so I sent her to bathroom to get some bandages, and I… Oh My God! I made a pass at Xander!” She leaned forward, and buried her face in her hands.
“I remember that spell too,” said Buffy. “You aren’t the only one who threw themselves at him. You know that little black raincoat of mine?”
“Yes,” said her mother cautiously.
“I found Xander in the library, and I was wearing that raincoat,” said Buffy. “That raincoat was all that I was wearing, and I went up to him, and told him I was his present, and that he could unwrap me. Xander just backed away from me, telling me that he knew that I was only doing that because of the spell, but I wasn’t going to take ‘no’ for an answer, and kept stalking toward him, and he tripped, and fell back onto the steps, and I stood over him, and if he’d ever even glanced down below my belt, he would have seen that I wasn’t wearing anything under that raincoat, but he never did. He kept his eyes on my face the whole time, and told me over and over again, that he really wanted to, but he knew that the only reason that I was doing what I was, was because of the spell, so he couldn’t. That’s what I remembered when Gimmel asked me who I trusted the most, and that’s why I trust Xander.”
“But what’s that got to do with you feeling this way because of a spell?”
“Oh, yeah… well… I remember how I felt that time, and I remember how I felt another time I was under the influence of a love spell, and this is nothing like either of those times. When I was under the influence then, I couldn’t even consider the idea that I wasn’t in love, that the way I felt was because of an outside influence. If you’d tried to tell me then that I wasn’t really in love with Xander, I’d would have yelled at you, and maybe done other things, and told you that of course I was in love with Xander; nothing else was possible; our love was eternal and fated, and a whole bunch of other mushy nonsense.
“This time, I can consider that you might have a valid opinion. I spent a couple of days, after this started, going back over all my feelings for Xander, from the day I met him, and I know that what I feel for him is real. I loved Xander before this started, I know that. I think you know that. If someone had asked you a week ago, ‘Does Buffy love Xander?’ what would you have told them?”
Joyce nodded. “I’d have told them yes. In the philos sense of the concept, you loved Xander, and he loved you.”
“Philos?”
“What are they teaching kids in college these days?” asked Joyce. “Philos. The love between friends, siblings, parents and their children and so on, as opposed to éros, which is sexual love, or erotic love.”
“Well, we’ve got lots of éros now, but the philos was there all along,” said Buffy.
Joyce nodded. “I believe you.”
Giles looked up as the bell over the front door of the Magic Box rang, and he frowned. Another batch of teenaged boys had come in to ogle Faith, in her skimpy ‘sales girl’ costume. “Xander, Anya, might I have a word with you?”
“Of course, what is it?” asked Xander.
He beckoned them toward the back of the shop. From his conversation with Xander yesterday, before the call about Buffy’s mother had come in, he knew that he would have no difficulty convincing him to modify the situation. The problem would be convincing Anya, and he had formulated a plan to do just that.
He gathered them both in the back of the shop, and spoke quietly with them. “Faith’s costume. It just won’t do,” he said.
“Why not?” asked Anya. She waved toward the boys. “It’s certainly drawing in the customers.”
“Anya, I would be very much surprised if those four boys, between them, could scrape together more than fifty dollars. Faith might sell them a couple of candles they don’t need, for ten times what those candles are worth, but then they will leave. They might come in again next week, and spend another ten dollars on something they don't want, or need, but this shop can not survive if boys like that make up the majority of our clientele.
“In the mean time, I have received complaints from patrons of this shop, who came in yesterday to see what it would be like under the new management, about Faith’s attire. There is a significant overlap between the Wiccan community, and the feminist community, and many of these people believed that I was trying to exploit Faith’s sexuality, and they were not pleased. These were patrons who had spent thousands of dollars here, in the past. Tell me, Anya. How many boys like those…” He nodded toward the cluster around Faith. “…would we need to attract, to justify losing one client, who in the month prior to Mr. Bogarty’s death, spent two hundred and ninety-six dollars in this shop? And that was just one month, mind. She had spent over three thousand dollars here in the past year.”
It didn’t take Anya long to make up her mind. She rushed back toward the front of the shop. “Hey!” she called at the boys. “If you’re here to buy something, then buy it, and leave. If you’re just here to ogle the help, leave!”
The boys retreated toward the door, and Faith looked confused. She hummed her little tune. Anya smiled, and gave her a hug. “I’m sorry, Faith, I’m not mad at you. I made a miscalculation. I’m sorry about that. Why don’t you go back to talk with Xander and Giles. I think Xand might want to change your clothes.”
Faith was still looking confused when she came back to join them. “What was that about?” she asked.
Xander gave Faith a hug, and a kiss of his own. “Giles convinced Anya that, while you look great the way you are, you aren’t really projecting the sort of image that he wants his shop to have. So, we’re going to change it.”
Faith smiled. “Alright, Xander. What do you want me to look like?”
Xander looked at Giles. “You’re the Boss-man. What do you want Faith to be wearing?”
“I, uh— I hadn’t really given it much thought,” said Giles. “Something professional, sophisticated, but casual, and comfortable. Something pleasing to our male clients, but that won’t alienate our female ones.”
“You want me to come up with something professional, and sophisticated?” asked Xander.
Giles nodded. “I have every confidence in you.”
Xander sighed, and tried to think. Professional, and sophisticated. What woman did he know who was professional, and sophisticated? He started to smile. There was a flash of light.
Giles was very surprised by the result. He had a niggling feeling that he’d seen it somewhere before, but Faith looked very good in the new clothes that Xander had provided for her. From her shoes, with only two inch heels, up along her sheer hose covered legs, to a knee length skirt, with a slit that went up to mid thigh. She was wearing a blouse that had a couple of buttons open at the top, with a light dress jacket over top of it. The choker and pendant at her neck were the perfect highlights to the ensemble. She looked like the epitome of a professional woman.
“Yes,” said Giles, “That will do perfectly! Xander, you continue to rise to my expectations!”
“Glad to help,” said Xander.
“Yes, well, there is another thing that we need to take care of. As Faith’s official parole officer, you need to sign off on her employment forms.”
“Employment?” asked Anya. “She’s our slave!”
“Ah…yes…well, the State of California, and the United States Constitution take a rather dim view on the concept of slavery. If Faith is to continue to work here, it will be as my employee, and she will receive appropriate compensation.”
“Well, I guess I could just order her give me the money,” muttered Anya.
“Ahn!” said Xander. “Any money Faith makes, is Faith’s.” He fixed his gaze on Faith. “You understand that Faith? Your money, is yours. If you want to contribute your fair share to the household budget, that’s great, but anything above that, it’s your decision what you spend it on. Is that clear?”
Faith snapped to attention, for a moment. “Sir, yes Sir!”
“Very well. Carry on!” said Xander.
Faith and Anya went back toward the front of the store. Giles gave Xander a puzzled look. “What was that about?”
“Oh, I just couldn’t get into the whole slave thing, the way Anya has,” said Xander. “I thought it would be better for me, and them, if I treated Buffy and Faith as soldiers, under my command. Especially when we’re patrolling, and such. They’re my Slayers, I’m their C.O. It’s their duty to follow my orders. It’s my duty to look out for them. See that they get the things they need, and give them the freedom to grow in their abilities and talents, in the ways that are best for them. And part of that, unfortunately, is keeping a rein on some of Anya’s impulses.”
“Yes, well, Anya is from a very different culture than ours. For most of her existence slavery was an accepted norm, and not just the racially based slavery of American history. Slavery, in one form or another, has existed throughout all of human history. The slaves might have been those unfortunate enough to be on the losing side of a war, criminals, or people with debts they could not pay, or just those who were not fortunate enough to be descended from whoever passed as the local nobility.”
“Doesn’t help me feel better about it,” said Xander.
“Then consider this,” said Giles. “The American model of slavery is one of the worst of a rather bad lot. In other cultures—where you couldn’t differentiate between a slave, and its owner on the basis of something so superficial as skin colour—many slave owners lived with the knowledge that, under different circumstances, they might be the slaves, and the slaves might be their masters. There were always those who were arrogant enough to believe it could never happen to them, but there were realists, even then, and they tended to outnumber the others. Slaves might have been property, but they were valuable property. Property to be protected. The slave owner sometimes had a legal duty to protect their slaves, and their families. The Ottoman Empire was run by its slaves. The sort of treatment that many black slaves received in earlier centuries of American history would have been seen it as an incredible waste of a valuable resource.
“Xander, you, quite rightly, have been taught to have a strong aversion to the concept of slavery. That aversion springs, in part, from one of the worst forms of slavery that has ever existed in this world. Anya comes from a different tradition. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that she herself had been a slave, when she was first human. As a woman, from that time, the odds are rather slanted that way. Even a ‘free’ woman from her time, would most likely have been considered to be the chattel of her father, or her husband.
“I think it would behove you to have a talk with her, about just what she thinks about slavery in general, and, more specifically, what she believe the obligations to be, of both a slave, and a slave owner. You might find it enlightening.”
| Chapter 24 | Contents | Chapter 26 |