Title: The Real Loneliness 9/12
Author: K.V. Wylie
Pairing: Giles/Cordelia
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Sequel to Controlled Descent
Disclaimer: Permission to use these characters relating to BtVS & AtS, has not been given. Joss, Twentieth Century Fox, UPN, WB & Mutant Enemy own TM and copyrighted them. This is purely for fun, and no copyright infringement is intended

It was late afternoon, but dark.  Overly dark, like the gray hollow haze before the tailspin of an eclipse.  The gloom inside the synagogue felt spectral.

Mendi paused at the doorway of a room painted in something best described as interior-refrigerator white.  A single window, high up, made Giles think he was entering a dungeon in a castle.  He wouldn't have been surprised to find straw matting on the floor.

But there was a rug, a couch, some chairs and a table.  A print of people crossing a desert hung by the table, though not directly over it.  You would need to look to the side if you were sitting there, but it was something to break the white of the wall.

Giles jumped as thunder cracked, and startled again when Mendi turned on the light, flooding the room with a bright stark white.

"I asked you to meet me here, Mr. Giles, because there are few breakable objects."  Mendi took a chair at the table, pulling it sideways so that it nearly faced the couch, but not quite.  "This room is used for study, sometimes for storage.  If you wish, we can leave the door open."

"It doesn't matter," Giles said, though he didn't close it.  He sat on the edge of the couch, for either of the chairs would have put him behind the Rabbi.  The comment about breakable objects, and Mendi's hard posture unnerved him.  The Rabbi's voice was decidedly cold.

"Miss Chase came to see me this morning.  You left bruises on her."

Giles stared at him.  "What?"

"She is on her own with you.  She does not have close acquaintances and her parents are not involved.  Your duty lies in being her husband and her friend.  At this moment, you are neither."

The room abruptly dipped out from under Giles.  He grabbed the arm of the couch, trying to steady himself.  "She is afraid of me."  His voice wavered along with the plummeting floor.  "I've done this to her.  I've made her afraid."

"She is not the only one, apparently."

"More?  Who else?"

"Your Slayer.  Mr. Wyndham-Price called me.  I've had a busy day on your behalf."

"Buffy?"  Giles repeated, almost reduced to silence.

"And someone else is worried too, I'm told.  A Miss Rosenberg.  This thing spreads, Mr. Giles.  Instead of offering comfort, you have pulled away.  You are a selfish man."

"…..yes….." Giles admitted, a whisper he could barely hear over the stinging rush of blood through his ears.  Black spots crowded the edge of his vision, and he closed his eyes.

"No, that is not good enough.  Acknowledging this hardly begins," Mendi said in a severe tone.  "What do you intend to do?"

Giles felt fury lance through him, making even the tips of his fingers tremble.  "Do?" he retorted.  "Why does this always fall on me?  Ever since I arrived at this hell hole, I've been cleaning up mess after mess.  Not everything is my doing.  It's bloody well time for someone else to do something for a change, instead of scurrying around like ungrateful swine and dumping it all on me."

Mendi looked unimpressed.  "I will not indulge self-pity either."

"I prefer to think of it as being justifiably pissed off."  It took an effort to get his voice back under control.  When he could, he stood and said harshly, "Thank you for your time.  I'm leaving now."

"You wish to be left alone?" Mendi nodded.  "That is your option, Mr. Giles.  Provide financially for your coming child, pack a bag, and go.  There is no one in your way.  You have been dismissed from the Council and your Slayer has a Watcher.  What is stopping you?"

"You must have had quite a talk with Cordelia.  By the way, I'm not her husband."

"That does make you quite free then, doesn't it?"

Giles pressed his fingertips to his forehead, feeling cold and hot at the same time.  "What are you up to?  I've been here, what, two minutes?  You must have better things to do with your time.  Why are you bothering?"

Mendi didn't answer.  Giles finally pulled his hands from his face and looked down to find the other man regarding him patiently.

"I would prefer you look at me when I answer that question, Mr. Giles.  Why do I bother?  Because I see, standing before me, a good man.  Someone, somewhere along the way, told you that you weren't, and you believed them."

"Are you blind?  Look at the unpleasantness I'm standing in the middle of."

"I can well see it."

"You're not standing where I am."

"At the moment, I appear only to be a few feet away."

Giles breathed out in exasperation.  "I'm not really in the mood for…..humour."

"Mr. Giles, please close the door and sit down.  Give me two more minutes of your time, for I wish to ask you one last question."

He could see the hallway, knew the way out.  Twenty seconds to where he'd parked.

"All right," he said at last, resisting an urge to slam the door.  He returned to the edge of the couch.

"The question is simple," Mendi said.  "Do you wish to live?"

Taken aback, Giles could only manage, "*Am* I dying?"  But he felt oddly calm.  Fatalistic acceptance.

"You could, but you would become vampyr, so, in fact, have you actually died?"

"The demon is not me."

"That is a lie and you know it.  You have seen it right before you, and deliberately disregarded it.  The demon Angel and Angelus, they are not two.  He has separated himself and, therefore, one is always dead and one in the fore.  He lies when he claims not to know about it.  What you are feeling is the loss of yourself to another part inside.  Do not let yourself fragment for then, yes, the man that is before me will die.  It is time to accept what you are."  At Giles' expression, Mendi said softly, "However, acceptance entails a little bit of forgiveness.  It also requires believing that you have some value, some worth.  You might, as a suggestion, start by recognizing how many around you are concerned on your behalf."

"Forgiveness," Giles repeated tiredly.  "You saw the bruises on Cordelia.  I can't risk this anymore."

"The risk lessens if you face up to what you are and what you have done, to accept the responsibility and make changes."

"To remember."

"And to feel," Mendi persisted.

Giles shook his head.  "These very things that I don't want to feel, you're telling me to give in to them?"

"Are you afraid of yourself?"

"Is there any reason I shouldn't be?  I know what I'm capable of."

Mendi thought for a moment.  "When you were a young man, you cast spells, you raised demons, and you laughed during it."

"How do you know?"

"I asked a friend of yours, just after you came out of Rapture."

"Who?" Giles persisted.

"I promise to tell you another time.  Let me assure you that the source was legitimate."

"Why would you think that?"

"Because, he didn't want to tell me anything," Mendi said.  "As a young man, you didn't display much fear."

"But I was afraid."

"Part of you, perhaps, but you shoved that down deep.  Then, when you caused a death….."

"When I murdered someone."

"As you wish.  You pushed that part of yourself away, pretended it was something else, even gave it a different name.  And you began to teach yourself how not to feel.  You became, over the years, very good at it.  You could have perhaps gone on in this manner, had you not willingly entered Rapture.  You stirred the maelstrom in your blood; you opened your own wounds.  Is it any wonder that you have started to bleed?"

"And you're telling me to go on, opening wounds.  That seems rather backwards."  Giles tried to get the acid out of his voice, but failed.

Mendi turned his chair, in order to face him, then raised his hands, palms up.  "You're angry.  Why do you keep hiding it?"

"Anger is a strong word."

"Now denial," Mendi murmured.

"It wouldn't be polite."

"I'd rather have honesty than good manners."

Giles dropped his gaze.  "Fine!  You're damn insulting.  You claim to know what I'm feeling.  I don't see how you could possibly have the first clue!"

"I suppose I seem to be a rather passionless man.  I spend evenings tending rosebushes and Sundays driving my daughters to swimming lessons.  What indeed could I possibly know about demons and the darkness in your blood?"

"You want me to be honest with you.  You might try a little of the same."

Mendi smiled.  "Finally.  Mr. Giles, it is extremely difficult to get you to defend yourself."  He lowered his hands as his smile faded.  "This hellmouth has been in existence since the eighteenth century.  Do you think Miss Summers is the first Slayer to come here?"

Giles frowned.  "You're a Watcher?  But, no, they wouldn't have sent me, if a Watcher had already been here."

"The Slayer here before yours was Aulin Tafari, a beautiful and fierce girl."

"The Slayer before Buffy wasn't--"

"Mr. Giles, the Slayer *here*.  I am speaking of nine years ago."

Giles shook his head.  "But I went through all the records.  I don't recall Tafari, or your name either in there.  I have all the journals."

"A complete history," Mendi said quietly.  "Sent to you by the British Council."

And there were gaps.  Intervals between Slayers, Giles had assumed.  The next Slayer was called, but not always right away.

"When she turned eighteen," Mendi said, "I refused to have her put to the test.  I was fired and another Watcher came.  I warned her.  I had her under my roof, but it didn't make any difference.  My own daughter was used as bait.  Aulin went in, and failed."

"Your daughter?"

"Was washing the van when you came," Mendi said.  "But Aulin was turned.  This other man fled, back to England.  I had to go after her, Mr. Giles and I had to kill her.  She was as dear to me as any of my own."

Giles closed his eyes.  "Who was this other Watcher?"

"You know him.  A Mr. Travers.  It is a name that comes up rather too often, I think."  Mendi closed his hands in his lap, looking relaxed, but the tension was in his voice all the same.  "In the weeks following, I was…..rather unpleasant.  My wife eventually took the children and left.  It was a year before I came to terms.  I do not wish you to take so long."

Tiredly, Giles leaned back against the couch.  "I'm sorry about your Slayer.  It's horrid that she doesn't even appear in the records.  It cheats her.  She earned the right, at the very least, to have her name remembered."

"She is remembered.  Her name exists.  One of the places is within this Temple, inscribed on a bronze tablet.  And I was not the only one who grieved."

A slow drumming of thunder dispelled the hush.  It sounded eerie within the overbright interior of the room.  Giles waited until it eased before asking, "This supposed friend of mine, I need to know who he is before we go any farther."

Mendi nodded.  "It was you, Mr. Giles, when you were in the hospital after your descent."

Giles felt heaviness settle over him, tightening his chest.  He put a hand up, trying to ease it, as Mendi continued, "When someone says they love you, you disbelieve them.  You don't think you have the right to be loved.  All that you have done, all that you have accomplished or tried to do, you feel is worthless because the shadows of your sins fall over them.  I wish you to see things for what they are, Mr. Giles, and to accept.  Therefore, you need to remember, to see all that has been, to take on the responsibilities that are yours, and to let go of the ones that are not.  You have a future, or a potential of one.  You do not think you do, but that is because, at the moment, you are overwhelmed."  He paused for a moment, listening.  "The rain has started.  Perhaps that will save my sweetbriar."

Giles took off his glasses and put a hand over his eyes.  His head was pounding, sharp pains shooting over his forehead, nauseating him with their intensity.  Mendi's precise voice was truly frightening despite its quietness.  He could feel a precipice before him, a blind step away from the plummet.  He could see nothing.

"I have a future?" he whispered.

"I believe so.  At this point, it all comes down to you.  I wouldn't delay too long, however.  Miss Chase may decide to leave, to take that part out of your hands."

Giles opened his eyes, though the light hurt them.  "I'm surprised she's stuck it out for so long."

"She is committed to her husband."

"We're not married."

"You've taken her and put her with child.  She is one of the responsibilities I was referring to earlier.  Regardless of whether or not you actually love her, you are a husband to her at this point."

"I do love her," he said immediately, sitting forward.  "But I have no right.  She will be such a young…..widow."

"If this is what you fear, you should be telling her, not me," Mendi said.  "One of the debts you owe her is truth.  Another is trust."

Giles was starting to feel irritated with the man again.  "I think the trust part is fairly obvious."

"Trust that you are offering to be with her," Mendi said.  "She is a young woman now.  As her experiences touch her, she will change and grow.  Many women fall in love with their babies, and I suspect she is one of them.  It will make her different, deeper, more of a partner to you.  Right now, she is fearful.  She is afraid to be someone's mother, afraid she will fail at it.  She is unsure you will be with her.  She speaks of you as if you are remote and far away.  She needs to know that she can trust and depend on you, that you will protect her and not hurt her.  If you give her this, she will return the same to you."

"Sometimes, I believe that, but mostly it slips away."

"You are at war with yourself."  Mendi paused for a long moment.  Then, slowly, he unfastened one of his sleeves and rolled it up.  Just past the elbow were two long white scars.  "I did not tell you the truth the other night when I claimed not to have the infection in my blood.  I had once, from my own Slayer when I hesitated to kill her.  I looked into her eyes and saw only my lovely one or, rather, I deceived myself into thinking that was all I saw."

"Nine years ago," Giles said quietly.  "You've lived nine years past it."

"Yes."  A small smile accompanied the single word.  As he rolled his sleeve back down, Mendi added, "It calls to you in the night.  It sings like angels with a thousand promises.  It becomes, after a while, so easy to be angry and to strike out from the pain, especially if you have people around you who will not let you go, who don't understand and who want to keep you away from it."

"I was told by someone once that the pain is not in becoming a demon.  It is in trying not to."

Mendi leaned forward, abruptly stern and direct, the kindly man gone.  "Mr. Giles, we have laid all the groundwork possible.  The next step is to bring all of your memories back to you.  You must decide now if we are to continue and I warn you.  You will not like it."

Giles thought of Cordelia, those evenings when she fell asleep before him, her hair over him like a silken cover, the naked beauty of her face when all her defenses had dropped away.

He met the Rabbi's eyes.

At last he nodded.  "All right," he said.  "Let's continue."

---

'Too quiet,' Wesley thought, looking across the table to Willow.  She'd called the museum this morning and found Giles had called in ill with a migraine, but there'd been no answer at his house.  The day before had been a day off.  Possibly he and Cordelia were taking advantage of the nice weather, Wesley told Willow, but she hadn't look convinced.  Buffy had ducked out of sight too, claiming a mother-daughter bonding day.  And Xander, well, who knew where he was?

Despite her anxiety, she'd been cheerful.  No matter how miserable or upset, she found a way to smile.  The drive to Rohler had been enjoyable.  She'd chattered and told him some truly awful jokes.  He'd responded with some worse ones.  They'd gone to the book seller's, and another bookstore down the street, and were now at an inn being served by a matron in a garishly flowered dress.  She was too frequently at their table, offering butter, jam, and more water for the tea pot after hearing Wesley's accent.  What part of England was he from?  She'd been there once, to London, seen the changing of the guards and gone into the tower.  Hadn't it all been a sight?  But she couldn't get over the way everyone drove on the wrong side.  Stepped off a curb, she had, while looking to the left, and nearly come face to face with her Maker.  The detailed flurried description left Wesley feeling as though he'd been hit by a car himself.  All the while, Willow watched in amusement, hiding smiles behind her sandwich.

But the woman had gone off now, when a bell at the door announced more customers, and Willow fell into a silence that was a little too thoughtful.

"If you wish to call Mr. Giles again," Wesley offered, reaching for his cell phone, but she shook her head.

"I bet he and Cordelia have done the same thing as us, taken a drive and gone out for lunch."

"It seems likely.  It's not so hot today.  Pleasant for walking."

She sat forward.  "That sounds like a good idea, Wesley.  When your ladyfriend comes back, maybe you could ask her if there's anywhere around here that's nice for strolling."

She said the last in a mock English accent, and he sighed.

"Be careful how you put it, or she might think you're asking *her* to go for a walk," Willow added in a whisper.

"With her, I wouldn't go hungry, would I?" he teased back.  "And that frock of hers is quite becoming."

"Her what?"

"Dress," Wesley said, but the woman was coming back, tucking a dishtowel into the tie of her apron as she approached them.

"More tea?" she asked.

"We're fine, thank you.  May I have the bill?" he said, shifting when the woman stood so closely that she brushed his shoulder.  Willow bit down a grin.

"Certainly," she said, sounding disappointed as she wrote up the tab.

"Are there any local sights that we might walk to?" he asked, then quickly amended, "My gi-ah, my friend and I, that is."

"Two blocks that way," she gestured vaguely, "is a trail that leads to a little pioneer museum.  It's only one room and a few plows out back.  A Dairy Queen's by it."

"Thank you."  Wesley stood, dropped some money on the counter, and nodded at Willow.  "Are you ready?"

"Yup."  She got up, straightened her skirt, then found he had offered her, not his arm, but his hand.  A clear signal in front of the proprietor who was now looking between the two and reevaluating with narrowed eyes.

After they were outside, Willow said, "If we ever go there again, we won't get such great service."

"I'm willing to risk it," Wesley said.  "I think she said this way."

They ambled down the sidewalk, glancing in the store fronts.  Rohler wasn't much of a town, an overgrown adjunct to a city a few miles away - one gas station, a hardware store, and homes situated on oversized lots that had probably once been farms.  Sun-faded toys and sewing materials lay in the window of a general store, half-covered by notices of yard sales taped to the glass.

They found the trail, which was a dirt road, and the museum soon after.  Twenty-five cents admission, the same price as a gum ball from the candy machine in front of it.  Willow offered to pay and they went inside, stepping across an uneven wooden floor on which rested dusty glass display cases.

Over a collection of old coins was a poster explaining the origins of the town.  Willow left Wesley there, running her fingers along the handles of several butter churns as she went around the room.  By a rack of yellow postcards, she found an open diary, dated seventeen eighty-four, and called him over.

"Can you read it?" she asked, for the letters looked weird.
 

He glanced in the case.  "It's English.  What looks like an 'f' is actually the letter 's'.  Also, paper was expensive in those days.  When people filled the page in one direction, they often turned it and wrote in the other.  This belonged to a Catherine Eddy.  Hmmm."  He bent forward, pushing his glasses farther up on his nose as he read.  "We have travelled here, to start again, having left our homes and lands upon which has been laid a devil's curse.  Deacon Bradford, taken from his bed a fortnight past, was seen two nights ago by Silias Creek.  We were not safe indoors, three having succumbed to the apparition of a good man upon whom we could once pledge trust."

He heard Willow move and looked up to find her several steps away.  "You can never get away from it, can you?  It gets into everything," she said.

He led her back out into the sunlight.  "There are places where it never comes, truly," he said.

"Like where?"

"I was once on a beach in Tahiti," he mused.  "That was nice.  Oh, and Monte Carlo, completely safe except for the gambling."

"Tahiti."  She shook her head, unable to imagine him in such a place.

"The founders of this town escaped *to* here, not from it, Miss Rosenberg.  We passed a movie theatre as we came in," he said as he hugged her.  "The residents line up there night after night without any problem.  And that house on the hill….."  He gestured at a farmhouse on a rise.  "They sit on their porch in the evenings and drink lemonade while their children play on a swing set."

"Are you sure?" she asked, happily leaning into his embrace.

"Quite.  Teenage boys sit on the curbs at night, smoking and watching young ladies walk home from church socials."

"That sounds like a Debbie Reynolds movie," Willow laughed.  "You haven't been watching any lately, have you?"

"There was one on the other night, I believe.  Several women wearing big hats were singing."  He pointed at another house, a large one surrounded by trees and bushes.  "We'll live there, shall we?  You can churn butter and sew calico tablecloths while I tend a vegetable garden out back."

"In the kitchen, we'll have blue curtains and a cookie jar full of ginger snaps," she said, following his lead.  "And we'll own lots of cats, all of them big tabbies."

"Well," he said dubiously.  "Perhaps they could be mousers, living in the barn?"

"Ok, in the barn with the horses."

He laughed down at her.  "How many horses?"

"Enough to fill a field."

"As many as you like," Wesley murmured, resting his cheek in her hair.  He could smell her shampoo, rain water and spice.  In their fantasy house, the smell of it lingered in the bathroom after she had a shower, and became part of her pillow in the night.  When he kissed her in the morning before going out…..

He realized belatedly that the direction of his thoughts, and her soft body in his arms, was arousing him.  He pulled back, but she followed.

"It's ok," she said softly.  "Me too."  Pink stole onto her cheeks.  "Take me somewhere?"

---

Wesley started kissing her the moment they stepped over the mat at his house, before the door was even closed.  Her mouth, her neck, a fervent one on her breast through the blouse, then he was leading her up the stairs, to his bedroom and whatever else was up there.

Willow had never been up these stairs before.  She suddenly thought of the fairy tale Bluebeard, who led wife after wife to a tower at the top and made love to her on a bed strewn with flower petals while planning her demise.  But upstairs was terribly normal, everything correctly in its place, the mark of a fussy man.

Would it be on top of the covers, she wondered?  Wild and passionate?  Or would he turn the quilt down and fold it neatly at the bottom before undoing his tie?

He stopped her just before the bed.  '*His* bed,' she thought, looking at it.  The bed he slept in every night.  And she was about to get in it.

Wesley took her cheeks in his palms and kissed her, a slow exploration, and a tickling, itching feeling shot into her groin.

'From a kiss,' she thought, and from knowing what they were about to do.

He pulled her to him until buttons dug into her.  She opened his jacket and tried to tug it off his shoulders, but she felt so weak, his long kiss making her shaky.  So she lifted her arms around his neck, letting him hold her up, and the action rubbed her up over something very hard and prominent at the front.

He abruptly broke the kiss, sucking in such a hard breath that his teeth ached.  If she did that once more…..

He stumbled to the bed and sat down, bringing her alongside of him.  "Take this off," she said, pulling at his sleeves.  "Too many buttons."

A small part of his brain thought he should ask her what she meant, but he was practically incoherent, the result of mixed desire and terror.  What was he supposed to do?  She was flushed along her cheeks and neck, nervous likely, and probably needed slow touches.  But, oh God, he just wanted to get on top of her and let go in a frenzy.

He swallowed, or tried to anyway.  It was difficult.  She'd said something about his shirt.  All right, he'd start there.  He took off his jacket, then hesitated.  Where could he put it?  On the floor?

At that moment, her face turned up to his, her lips still parted from his kiss, and she smiled.

The jacket went on the floor.  The shirt followed in a few seconds, only two buttons left intact.  Then there was an undershirt.

When it went, she stroked his chest, feeling sweat in the hair and the rough pounding of his heart.  She moved her hands down, feeling ribs and the slight rise of his stomach, but stopped at his pants.  The bulge there rose so high, his zipper was exposed.

He resumed kissing her, massaging her breasts until the nipples were tight and hard.  She undid her blouse and her bra, and her breasts fell into his palms.  She arched against him but, strangely, one of his hands disappeared to fumble behind her.

She turned.  He was taking the covers down.

Willow looked at Wesley.  He paused, returning the look.

"W-we can stop," he offered, almost choking to speak.  He was willing to cease, if she wanted.  If she did, however, he was going to have to run right outside and rub against a tree, after a courteous excuse me.

She shook her head before lying back.  As he gazed at her, he realized the tree option would be embarrassing but far easier.  What on earth was he supposed to do?

"Wesley?" she crossed her arms over her chest, unsure why he hadn't followed her down.  Was he seeing something he didn't like?

"I'm not sure w-what I should….." he said in a strangled voice.

Oh!  This she understood, though she was startled.  He really was gorgeous without those glasses and that stuff in his hair.  She would have thought…..

She clamped down on *that*!  She really didn't want to know.  Here and now, that was the best time period to deal with.

"I don't have a lot either," Willow said.  "I mean, some, but not, um."  She stopped.

His eyes darkened in concern.  "If I would be your first, then, perhaps, we should wait."  Seeing her lying there, trying to hide her exposed chest, made him feel dreadful.  The need to find a tree sharply receded.

"There was someone else, but only recently," she disclosed quietly, not sure what that would make her in his eyes.  She looked to the side, seeing part of a green pillowcase.  "If you'd rather not, that's ok.  I know I'm not like those ladies I saw in the restaurant."

"You're not like them.  You're beautiful, so so beautiful," he said, touching her hair and stroking it over the sheet.  "I can't stop looking at you.  And your hair, I've never figured out what shade it is.  Red-gold in sunlight, rich auburn indoors, it takes colour in and holds it."

"Really?" she asked, caught by his tone.  She looked back at him, saw the solemn expression.

"I feel inadequate," he said slowly.  "I don't know how to make you want me, to want…..this.  I've never….."

"Never?"

He took a long moment.  "Never with a woman.  I have, well, but not with, uh--"

"Is it that different?"  She blushed.  "I'm sorry."

"It's different."  Wesley touched her cheek.

"We did all right the other day," Willow said.

He found himself smiling.  "Yes, I suppose we did."

"I think the first step is that you come down here with me," she tried, feeling a little less awkward.

He did, lying down on his side.  She rolled to face him, then kissed him, softly at first, deepening it as his hands moved back to her breasts.  He stroked one hand down over the waistband of her skirt, trailing his fingers over her thighs, and then between them.  She pushed against his fingertips.

"Please, will you take this off?" he asked.

"Both together?"

He smiled as he reached for his zipper.  They lifted their hips in unison, tugging off their garments and letting them fall over the edge of the bed.  Her underwear beat his to the floor as he paused to watch her thick curls come into view.  But as he reached to touch them, she put her hands down self-consciously.  "No fair, Wesley."

He kissed her nose, then shucked off the rest of his clothing, including socks which went flying away like two fuzzy projectiles.  She giggled at the sight.

He placed a hand overtop of hers.  "Now?"

"Um hm," she whispered.  She felt his fingers touch her mound, so hesitantly that it tickled.  He smiled at her before stroking between the folds, a bashful delighted smile that made her quiver.  She bent a knee and raised a leg slightly, to make it easier for him, then reached down to his shaft.  It was very stiff and seemingly pointed at her, wet at the slit with a silky dew that she could rub over the head and ridge.

He gasped at her touch, and had to catch his breath before he was able to kiss her again, running his tongue into her mouth as he moved his fingers into her.  She was so wet that she'd soaked the insides of her thighs, the moisture allowing his fingers to slide in easily.  As they did, he discovered such a profound heat that he gasped again.

He gently eased her on her back, a position which allowed her legs to spread fully.  Her pussy opened before him, the fiery red hair nestling a swollen clitoris.  He stroked up to it and she jumped.

"Um, not at the tip," she panted.

"Where then?"

She looked away timidly, so he kissed her, long strokes along her jawbone and cheek, encouraging her.  "Where?  Please?"

"At the…..sides," she whispered.  "Or underneath."  She put a hand over his, to direct him, then closed her eyes in pure pleasure.  "Can we now?" she asked.

He managed a half-asphyxiated, "Yes," before getting to his knees to reach for a bedside table.  She opened her eyes to see him ripping open a small foil packet.  He was embarrassed to put the condom on in front of her, which she thought was sweet, so she helped him, squeezing a bit of the top while he rolled it down.  Then he moved between her legs and put his penis to her opening.

Despite her lubrication, she clearly felt his size.  He was a big man, big hovering over her, and large down there.  She felt stretched, like a telephone pole was entering her.  But her vagina accommodated him, the initial pain giving way to an exquisite friction as he pushed all the way in.

Wesley paused, looking at her small form underneath him.  He'd heard her sudden intake of breath, and worried at it.  "Dearest?" he asked.

She met his eyes and flashed him a sparkling smile.

"Is it all right?" he asked.

"Yes.  Oh yes, Wesley," she cried happily.

"My love!"  He kissed her deliriously as he began thrusting.  But he was being so careful.  She could tell by the slow way he began each push in.

She ran her hands down a trickle of sweat on his back, ending her caress at his buttocks which tightened at every plunge.  She heard him gasp at her touch, and then he suddenly seemed to expand within her.  She moaned herself when the jolt vibrated through her clitoris, and cried out again when he pushed so deeply in her that she could feel his entire weight mash into her pussy.  He began to throb wildly.  The realization that he was having an orgasm, right at that moment, sent her reeling into her own.  She jerked uncontrollably underneath him as sheer pleasure spiked through her.

It didn't end slowly.  After it peaked, little thrills and rushes seemed to continue almost endlessly, pulsing and streaking through her vagina.  He hadn't yet softened within her, and the feeling of being so full kept exciting her, each one of his twitches bringing an answering one of her own.

Willow finally came out of her haze to his voice murmuring endearments between kisses.  She laughed as she hugged him, for he was calling her by every lovely thing under the sun *except* her name.

He raised up to look at her, chuckling in response to her laughter.  She grinned up into his gold-brown eyes and asked, "What is it going to take to get you to call me by my name?"

"Whatever do you mean?" he asked innocently.

"*My* name.  I mean, yes, I *really* like the others ones you've called me--"

He cut her off with a kiss.

"But!" she said, trying to be firm.  "My *name*, which is--"

Another kiss.

"Wesley!"

He met her eyes and said softly, "Graceful Willow.  My own."

She gazed up at him, almost transfixed, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

"Is that what you wanted?" Wesley asked, his eyes dancing because he already knew.

"Um…..uh huh," she managed.

He reached down to hold the condom as he slid out of her.  Then he laid on his back, hugging her to his side.

"Say it again?" she asked.

"Willow," he repeated tenderly.  "Mine."  He took her hand and put it on his chest.  "Yours."

She closed her eyes as she snuggled to him.

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