Part 4
Dr. Marsha Van Buren sat in the quiet corner of her office, her eyes once again on the backside of the door where her most interesting patients had just left. She’d given them a doozy of an assignment, the first one that really promised some results. She’d known that she had little time, but she hadn’t counted on the fact that the book she’d chosen would give her so many good ideas.
The first chapter, entitled “Sensual Massage: A Pleasure Map of Your Partner’s Body,” had given her an insane yet totally logical idea. She’d written the assignment with shaky hands, then slid it into the envelope and sent it along with her unsuspecting patients. Her own body tightened at the image of those two beautiful people touching each other in such a sensual yet platonic way.
That, coupled with their other instructions, was bound to make the sparks fly. It had to work. It just had to. Because there were only three weeks left, and she only had a few tricks left up her sleeve.
If Cordelia and Angel didn’t get their groove on soon, Angel’s psyche would be split, and she’d have to figure out how to give therapy to a psychotic killer. What little she’d heard of Angelus made her teeth chatter in trepidation; she was bound and determined to see that the crazy vampire was banished forever.
***
The thwack of Angel’s fist hitting the punching bag reverberated off the basement walls. He punched it again, his hits repeating so quickly that his fists were nearly blurs of movement. The force was so much that he was hitting the bag farther and further back, not allowing time for it to settle to vertical again. His frustrations were mounting, and the physical exertion was doing nothing to alleviate them.
His mind was obviously preoccupied. It wasn‘t in this basement, in his head where it was supposed to be. His mind was upstairs, in his room, with Cordelia an hour or so in the future. His mind was on their next homework assignment.
The problem was that his mind kept trying to add some extra credit. Very pleasurable extra credit. He imagined going beyond their assignment, beyond the instructions and making love to her. Touching her all over, bringing her pleasure so great that she wept with it. And once the imaginary scenes of making love to her began playing in his head, he couldn’t make them stop.
Their homework assignment tonight involved a lot more physical contact than they’d had before, and while he mostly bought Dr. Van Buren’s theories on the importance of physical touch in his relationship with Cordy, he wasn’t so sure that he could restrain himself if she kept cooking up these erotic scenes for them. Okay, so maybe playing Twister wasn’t erotic in anyone else’s mind, but getting such a close view of Cordelia’s body, not to mention the heightened sensation of her scent surrounding him, had nearly destroyed his carefully erected emotional walls.
During the game, he’d been okay, his mind on other things, but afterward, all day long, her scent had taunted him. Such close proximity to her had awakened something in him, a hunger for intimacy that had lain dormant since he’d realized his relationship with Buffy was doomed to failure.
Now, he was faced with a strangely similar yet startlingly different scenario with Cordelia. He wasn’t in love with her, not yet, but he found every part of his being infused with her in a way that made him nervous. The common bond between his relationship with Cordy and his past love of Buffy was that both women brought very strong, very protective feelings of loyalty to the surface of his soul. They both called to his humanity, called to him to be a man in his own right, not just a man-demon hybrid. They both arose in him a fierce need to protect, nurture and love.
It was the loving that scared him.
Loving Buffy had nearly killed him. Leaving her was harder than he’d ever thought possible, even though he’d always known in the back of his mind that his relationship with Buffy was doomed. Even when he’d first glimpsed her, first felt the stirrings of attraction in him that were so new, so different, he’d known that a vampire and a Slayer couldn’t last. He hadn’t known about the insane clause in his curse then, but he’d known that being with her forever was impossible. And as they’d fallen in love with each other, he’d begun to understand that it wasn’t just because of their roles, it wasn’t just because he was a vampire and she was the Slayer. It was also because of who they were. It was because they were Angel and Buffy. Their personalities meshed well in some ways, but in others, especially the most important ways, they were too much alike.
Although he’d known they couldn’t last, he’d tried to make it work anyway. Angel’s heart had been stolen by Buffy, and he couldn’t just give up. But when he realized what life would be like for her with him, when he’d realized that her life would be a constant balancing act between her natural instincts and her love for him, he knew he had to leave.
More importantly, he’d left for himself. For his own mental health. For his own self-image, his own identity. Sunnydale, the place that had witnessed his salvation, had become his prison, and he needed to get out and make a name for himself by himself. He had to be a person, an entity, a force for good on his own, not just as the vampire boyfriend of the Slayer. Not just a man who tried to hide the darker side of himself, whose girlfriend wished daily that he were fully human and not the demon that he was. It didn’t matter that he had the same wish. What mattered was that she couldn’t truly accept him, all of him, and that was the hardest thing of all to love about her.
But where Buffy had reluctantly tolerated his demon and embraced his man, Cordelia whole-heartedly embraced them both. There were times when he even thought she was more comfortable with his demon that she was with him as a man. Up until they’d begun these sessions with Dr. Van Buren, Angel had thought that Cordelia was just a breath of fresh air. Okay, maybe a whirlwind instead of a breath sometimes, but still, she was a force of humanity in his life that couldn’t and wouldn’t be ignored. At first, he’d tolerated her foibles, then allowed himself to be annoyed by her. But eventually, he’d gone from being irritated with her to needing her. To relying on her to make him laugh inside, to make him smile. To be her quirky, friendly self and chase away the darkness that always haunted him.
Leaving because of Darla was the worst mistake he could’ve made.
Even now, beating the hell out of this punching bag, he mentally flagellated himself for his stupidity. It didn’t matter that he’d finally hit lower than rock bottom and realized how much he needed her. How much he needed Wesley and Gunn, too. The worst mistake, by far, was that he’d taken Cordelia’s loyalty, her friendship, and ground it under his heel like yesterday’s trash. He’d thought he didn’t need her, and he had never been more wrong.
When he finally came to his senses and returned, there’d been a rift so wide between them that it might as well have been the Grand Canyon. He’d done everything he’d thought possible to get back in her good graces, even buying her new clothes to replace the ones he’d so thoughtlessly given away. But doing that had almost made the situation worse. That’s when their arguing had begun. Over petty things. She was the queen of petty arguments. She was always finding something he’d done and making it seem like he’d just ordered her execution. So he’d get mad and yell back.
And here they were, a month after Wesley had had enough, still mired in confusion and no closer to a comfortable relationship than they had been when they’d started.
Okay, so the discomfort had shifted somewhat. At the beginning, the only sexual awareness he’d had of Cordelia was when his demon spoke its lascivious thoughts in his ear. The same demon that made the same types of comments about any curvy blond or brunette that he saw, whether she was the waitress at Starbucks or the delivery girl. He’d just chalked the errant thoughts up to the impulsivity of his demon, nothing more.
Now, though, thoughts of making love to Cordelia haunted his dreams. The Twister game last week had only served to increase his confusion, with her drugging, intoxicating scent playing havoc with his senses and infiltrating his thoughts. He couldn’t’ seem to escape her, couldn’t seem to think about anyone but her, and it was frustrating him to no end.
So here he was, taking his anger, confusion and frustration out on a defenseless piece of cowhide and stuffing. His knuckles were undoubtedly bruised, but the pain felt good. The pain was real. The pain was something he could deal with. These swirling emotions that bound the soul, the demon, and the man in a tangled web of desire were disconcerting. They didn’t make sense. If anything, she was his best friend, not a sex object.
And yet, in less than an hour. He had to see her naked. Well, nearly naked. And he had to touch her.
What would that do to his dreams?
***
Carefully, Cordelia struck the match to the side of the box and it flared to life with a hiss. She placed the burning match against the wick of the candle, watching as the flame transferred and the candle began to glow. She repeated the process with several more candles, until Angel’s room was suffused with a soft golden light, and the very faint scent of vanilla frosted the air.
The Zen-like quality of lighting the candles helped to calm her, but it only delayed the inevitable nervousness that she’d been holding back since they’d opened their homework assignment this afternoon. A quick glance at the clock both relieved her and intensified her jitters. 32 minutes and counting. 32 minutes until Angel would join her in this cozy, golden den. 32 minutes until she would stand with a towel clutched securely around her, and he with one around him. 32 minutes until she would release it, lay down, and feel his hands on her body.
32 minutes until total, complete psychological and emotional meltdown.
Because sure as she was standing here, feeling Angel’s hands on her skin was going to make her burn from the inside out. Feeling him touch her back, trace the line of her spine with his thick, long fingers, would be her undoing. He wasn’t even here in the room with her right now, and already her skin felt hot. Her face was flushed, her heartbeat elevated, her breathing erratic. If just thinking about him made her like this, how would the real thing affect her?
Cordelia couldn’t say for sure when this transition from buddies to would-be lovers had happened. Even a week ago, before the Twister assignment, she’d still only thought of him as a friend. Okay, so a sinfully good looking, hot-bodied, emotionally close friend, but a friend nonetheless. But during the twister game, remembering their sessions with Dr. Van Buren and the talks about lust and their feelings, had stirred to life something inside her that she wasn’t sure had ever been evoked before. She’d felt desire before, felt physical pleasure, but she didn’t ever remember her very essence being challenged by someone. Her attraction to Angel had wormed its way down to her very soul, and she wasn’t sure how to handle it. How to process it. Or even worse, how to control it around him.
Still more frustrating were the dreams she’d had every night for the past week. The first night had been a faceless onslaught of pleasure, only a shadow above her that stirred her body to life and taunted her until she woke up in a breathless, dizzy sweat, wanting, needing and craving some satisfaction. It wasn’t until two nights later that the shadow had been given a face. That the shadow became Angel. That she’d realized with startling, jump-in-a-cold-lake clarity that she lusted after Angel in more than just a casual way.
Tonight’s homework assignment wasn’t going to help matters at all. Shaking herself out of her growing worries, Cordelia walked into the adjoining bathroom and retrieved several fluffy towels, then took them to the make-shift table set up in the middle of the room next to Angel’s bed. Candles surrounded her on all sides, and in the dim light, the shadows wavered as she shook a few of the towels out and placed them strategically on the table top. A small stand nearby held various fragrant oils, and she shook them up for a bit before rearranging them fussily. Then, placing a rolled towel at the head of the table, she stood back and surveyed her work.
With nothing to do, her mind immediately went back to the instructions for tonight. They were both to strip naked, then wrap themselves in towels, and give each other full body (or as full-body as they dared) massages. During the massage, the massager was instructed to talk about his or her past loves, to state why they’d fallen in love (or been attracted), what the relationship had been like, and why they’d parted. They were to spare no details, and the person being massaged was allowed to ask any clarifying questions he or she wanted.
Cordy wasn’t nervous at all about going through her rather short list of exes. She hadn’t been truly in love with any of them, even Xander, and it would be no problem to rehash all of that with Angel. He knew most of it anyway.
The part that worried her was hearing him talk about Buffy.
She didn’t know why it brought such fear to her heart, but it did. If anything, Cordelia just wanted to pretend that Buffy didn’t exist. These weird, new, disconcerting feelings for Angel aside, Buffy’s return, or more aptly, Angel’s return to Buffy, meant a total upheaval of Cordelia’s life. Even if Cordy and Angel never got to a point where they were together as lovers, Buffy’s return to his life would still feel like a total abandonment. Cordy would be losing, at the very least, her best friend, and it hurt to think about him leaving again.
She would just rather not talk about it at all. She didn’t want to hear him say he was still in love with the Slayer. She didn’t want to hear him lament the curse and how he’d be with her if he didn’t have it. She didn’t want to hear him reminisce about the time before he found out about the Angelus clause, and she didn’t want to sit around and wither inside as the topic made him sink further back into his broody self and away from her.
But she had to. She had to listen to him talk about her, because that was their assignment. And she had to listen to it with the added torture of his strong hands on her skin.
A glance at the clock again. Oh, god. 21 minutes. 21 minutes until her life was over.
