Rrriiinnngg! Rrriiinnnggg! Knock! Knock! Clearly the person attacking the door and abusing the doorbell at the Summers’ home was seriously impatient.

“Good grief! What’s the problem here?” Joyce Summers muttered to herself as she hurried to answer the banging, which was by now a barrage of blows to the door. She had been washing dishes before being interrupted and now she spared a moment to curse the appliance repairman who swore he’d be there to fix the dishwasher today. Of course, he’d been saying the same thing for a week now.

As she finished drying her hands, Joyce reached for the doorknob. The instant she touched it, she jerked her hand back as if the doorknob were electrified. It was 10:30 PM; this was the Hellmouth. Therefore, no matter how loudly the unknown assailant might batter the door, Joyce would use the peephole first.

“Ahh!” she gasped. All that was visible through the peephole was a severely bloodshot blue eye.

“Zhoysh!” The bellow echoed off the walls. “I know you’re in ‘ere! Lemme in! Pleazh??” The bellow tapered off into a whine and then into a whimper. “C’mon, Zhoysh, I nee’ you.”

Joyce’s shoulders sagged as she dropped her gaze to the floor, sighing. Buffy would undoubtedly have what the kids called a “wiggins,” but Joyce felt she had to open the door. She did and resignedly inspected the person before her.

He was moderately tall, though not as tall as Angel; his blond hair, usually neatly brushed, was in wild disarray; he had a half empty bottle of Jim Beam in his right hand and a full bottle of Absolut Vodka in his left. His arms were crossed and under each arm was a bottle of tequila. There were suspicious looking bulges in the pockets of his duster. He was swaying a bit, as if the front porch had suddenly developed a nasty case of instability. He tried, with uncertain results, to smile at the Slayer’s mother.

“Hi, Zhoysh,” Spike slurred. He shook his head and wagged an admonishing finger at himself. “No, wade a mint, tha’s no’ right.” With owlishly careful over- enunciation, he repeated himself. “Hi, Joyce.” He smirked smugly, pleased with his success at pronouncing her name. His eyes took on a faraway look, then crossed slightly and rolled up into his head as Spike passed out at Joyce’s feet. The Jim Beam, Absolut and both tequila bottles shattered on impact with the porch, spraying alcohol everywhere. Their combined scents burnt Joyce’s nose

.

“Oh, my,” Joyce said to the unconscious vampire. “I guess you can come in. . . if I can get you in.” She tossed her dishtowel onto her shoulder, stooped and dragged William the Bloody into her living room.

She glanced outside but the neighbours were, as usual, oblivious. Locking the door, Joyce looked down at Spike snoring on the floor. “I didn’t think you guys breathed,” she muttered, “so how on earth can you be snoring?” Spike, unsurprisingly, didn’t answer; he just snorted a bit and then subsided into silence. “And how am I supposed to sober you up? Preferably before Buffy gets home.”

Huffing with exertion, Joyce dragged the limp vampire across the floor to the sofa. “How can you be this heavy? Now I understand what they mean about dead weight.” Joyce sat to catch her breath before attempting to hoist Spike onto the sofa. “Yowp!” she yelped as Spike, suddenly rousing himself, grabbed a slender ankle and pulled her to the floor. Joyce landed atop the blond vampire, thus breaking her fall and saving herself from bruising.

Spike held Joyce close and grinned lopsidedly at her. “Hi!” Joyce blanched a bit from the mixture of alcohol fumes on Spike’s non-breath. “It’s meee. ‘ve come back.”

“Yes, dear, I see that.” Joyce pushed against Spike’s shoulders, trying to free herself without showing any nervousness. However, this had the unanticipated effect of pressing her lower body firmly against his.

“Aw, yer glad t’see me, ain’tcha, Zhoysh?” Spike pulled her even more closely to himself. Before she could think of an answer, he clumsily stroked her hair back from her forehead. “Y’know, I like you, Zhoysh. Yer pretty an’ yer nish. No’ like that nassy Shlayer. She don’ like me. Bu’ you like me, don’tcha? Hmm?”

Joyce sought to soothe the vampire. “Yes, Spike, you know I like you.” Spike’s left hand continued to stroke Joyce’s hair and the back of her neck. Joyce found this extremely unsettling. “Why don’t we go to the kitchen and get some coffee or something?” Spike’s hand ceased its stroking of Joyce’s hair and she breathed a small sigh of . . . what? relief or regret? Hastily, she decided it must be relief. It had to be.

Before Joyce had a chance to convince herself completely, the blond vampire beneath her began to trace the planes of her face with one long finger. “Bu’ Zhoysh, I gots lotsa shtuff t’drink ri’ here.” At her look of alarm, Spike chuckled. “Nooo, I do’ mean you. I mean dish.” Unceremoniously dumping Joyce off him, Spike drew an unopened bottle of Glenlivet from his pocket. “Shee? I wou’n’t eat you. I like you.” Spike beamed at Joyce, attempting to radiate sincerity and succeeding only in radiating a drunken bonhomie.

Speaking slowly, as if Spike were a recalcitrant five year old child rather than the dangerous two hundred year old vampire he was, Joyce said, “Spike, sweetie, let me have the bottle. I think some nice coffee is really what you need.”

Spike hugged the bottle of scotch to his chest, a petulant expression on his face. “No! Y’can’ ‘ave it! ‘Smine!” A thought began to struggle to the surface of Spike’s drink addled mind. “Bu’ d’ya have ‘ny ho’ shoc’late?”

Quickly deciding that any hot alcohol-free liquid was better than none, Joyce answered. “Yes, Spike, we can have some hot chocolate. And I even have some of the little marshmallows you liked so much last time. Hmm?” She coaxed Spike to his feet, where he stood, weaving slightly and listing to one side a bit, but reasonably upright.

“Here,” he said, thrusting the Glenlivet bottle at Joyce. “You c’n ‘ave dish boddle. I got s’more.” He chuckled and grinned down into Joyce’s face. “I gots lots more,” he murmured in a confidential tone. Spike patted his duster pockets and Joyce heard an ominous clunking. She sighed. Sobering up the blond vamp was going to be a harder task than she had anticipated.

Leaning heavily on Joyce, Spike managed to navigate the treacherous sea into which the Summers floor had mysteriously transformed itself. Joyce considered it nothing short of a miracle that both she and the drunken vampire arrived in the kitchen undamaged. She helped Spike clamber onto a stool and then set about making the hot chocolate.

Spike watched the Slayer’s mother as she moved gracefully around the kitchen, placing two mugs and an unopened bag of mini-marshmallows on the counter by his elbow and putting a kettle on the stove. “I only have instant hot chocolate, honey,” Joyce said over her shoulder. “But the marshmallows will make it taste good anyway.” She turned to face Spike and was startled to find him, chin propped on his hand, gazing at her with a beatific smile on his handsome face. “What?” she asked.

“’S Dru, y’know. She lef’ me f’good. Nev’ comin’ back.” Spike shook his head slightly, as though trying to clear it. “An’ y’know, for the firs’ time since she lef’ me, I don’ feel like I wanna die.”

Ten minutes later, the Slayer’s mother and the blond vampire were sipping hot chocolate. There were no marshmallows left; the ones that had not been put into Spike’s cocoa had been put surreptitiously into his mouth. Joyce had pretended not to notice. She smiled to herself, amused by the sugar-craving vampire.

“I’m soberin’ up, Joyce.” Spike drained the last of the hot cocoa and licked the rim of the mug, seeking the last traces of chocolate. “That’s the trouble with bein’ a vampire, luv, ya can’t get drunk and stay that way. The booze just doesn’t stay with ya.” He sighed deeply, taking in and releasing air he didn’t need. “I miss her, y’know. Drusilla. But she made her choice.” Spike spread his arms and wagged his fingers slightly. “I mean, look at me! You’d think I’d make a better mate than a Chaos Demon, wouldn’t ya?” A hint of unaccustomed insecurity crossed his face. “I’m not that undesirable, am I?”

“No, of course not, dear!” Joyce reached out and patted Spike’s hand. With her hand resting on his she added, “But sometimes things just don’t go the way we want them to. I mean, I thought I’d be married to Buffy’s father forever. His secretary had other plans. And soon Hank’s future didn’t include me.”

Spike turned Joyce’s hand over and gently stroked the inside of her wrist with his thumb. His eyes boring into hers with mesmerizing intensity, he murmured softly, “Then Buffy’s father was a soddin’ pillock who wouldn’t know a good thing if it kicked him in the arse.”

As Spike’s thumb continued its circular massage, Joyce began to feel unaccountably warm. Her heart rate increased, a development Spike noted with a smile. His gaze never left her face as he pulled her hand toward him. Gently, he kissed the inside of her wrist. “You’re a beautiful woman, Joyce Summers, and it’s a right shame you’ve no one to tell you so.”

Flustered, Joyce jerked her hand back. “Now, you stop this, Spike. Right now.” She licked her lips nervously.

Amused, Spike asked, “Are you afraid of me, Joyce? You weren’t before.”

“Well, before you were drunk and sort of disorderly, but you were keeping your lips to yourself.”

Spike slipped off the stool and circled behind Joyce. He bent his head to the right side of her neck, breathing in the scent of her skin and her cologne. Slowly, softly, he trailed his left hand down the back of her neck and around to her collarbone. With his mouth so close to her ear that she felt the words as he spoke, he said, “And you want me to keep my lips to myself?” She turned to look at him and he captured her mouth with his.

Joyce had not been kissed since the unfortunate incident of the band candy. She had never been kissed like this. With skills honed over two centuries, Spike began to awaken potent feelings of longing and desire in the mother of the Slayer. Without any conscious intention, she began to kiss back, her hand reaching up to caress the back of Spike’s neck and hold his mouth to hers.

Spike pulled back slightly and allowed his tongue to trace the outline of Joyce’s lips. She moaned softly. She whispered his name, so softly that had he not possessed the enhanced hearing of a vampire he never would have heard. Placing his hands on her shoulders, Spike turned Joyce to face him. As he bent his head to kiss her again, she pushed against his chest, stopping him.

“This is a really, really bad idea.” Joyce was struggling to regain control of herself, the struggle clearly visible on her face, which was flushed, and audible in her voice, which was shaking. She was also having a bit of trouble remembering how to breathe.

Spike leaned against her hands. He cocked his head to one side and studied Joyce’s face silently for a moment, his eyes alight with deviltry. “You know your trouble, Joyce? You think too much. This isn’t about thinking. It’s about feeling. It’s about wanting. What do you want, pet?” He moved his face closer to hers.

Joyce’s mind was revving, spinning its wheels, getting nowhere. All she could see was Spike’s face, his eyes, his mouth. Somehow, he had insinuated himself between her jeans-clad knees and his nearness was dizzying. Her conscience began yammering in her head: “Joyce Summers, you get away from that man! He’s evil! He has no conscience! He’s not even human! He’s a VAMPIRE! A DEMON!!” The louder her conscience yelled at her, the less she listened. Her heart was pounding and she could hear her blood pulsing.

When Spike leaned into her again, her hands slipped around his back under his duster to caress his shoulder blades. He brushed his open mouth gently against her cheek and down to her jaw and she was lost, all conscience, all rational thought, all reservations gone, flown away on the wings of passion.

Spike dropped his mouth to Joyce’s throat, trailing little fluttering kisses down to the collar of her blouse. Joyce rolled her head back, whimpering a bit, as he flicked his tongue against her skin. Taking her head firmly in his hands, Spike began to explore her mouth with great care and thoroughness. Tongues gently twining together, he allowed Joyce to become accustomed to his taste and feel. Slowly and so gradually that she barely noticed, Spike unbuttoned her blouse and eased it off her shoulders, exposing her lace-covered breasts.

He dipped his head and kissed the tops of her breasts above the cups of her bra. He could hear her heartbeat; it sounded like the entire percussion section of a symphony orchestra. Cupping one breast in his hand, he finished removing Joyce’s blouse with the other. The blouse fell, unnoticed, to the floor.

Joyce’s hands, meanwhile, had slipped under Spike’s tee-shirt. She ran her hands up from his waist to his chest, rucking the tee-shirt up to her elbows. Her questing fingers found his nipples; she began to roll them between her fingers and thumbs. Spike moaned deep in his throat.

“I seem to be way more naked than you,” Joyce murmured. “And that’s just not fair.”

Spike grinned and stepped back to remove his duster. The bottles in his pockets clunked together. He chuckled a bit ruefully as he emptied the pockets of six additional bottles, two each of Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, and Dewar’s. “I’d intended to stay snockered for at least a week, y’know. But this is lots better.” He lined up the bottles on the counter next to Joyce.

Joyce stopped him with a hand as he moved to kiss her again. “I am too, um, mature to do this on the kitchen floor. Can we go upstairs?”

Barely were the words out of her mouth before Spike had scooped her up in his surprisingly strong arms. In a matter of moments, or so it seemed to Joyce, the two were in her bedroom. Spike laid Joyce gently on the bed and stood next to it, dropping his clothing carelessly in a heap on the floor. He had no shyness; no false modesty about his nudity. Joyce thought she had never seen such a perfect body.

Time took on an elastic quality for Joyce. It seemed to her that she stared, transfixed, at Spike for long minutes, memorizing the lines and planes of his body. She was captivated by the play of the moonlight on his face. The greyhound leanness of his physique thrilled her. His arousal and the fact that she was responsible for it excited her. In truth, all this took not minutes, but moments.

Trembling, Joyce licked her lips and unhooked her bra. Suddenly feeling foolish, a middle-aged woman about to bed a man who appeared to be many years her junior, she flushed and covered herself with her hands. “This is stupid,” she muttered.

Her over-active conscience took the opportunity afforded by her sudden insecurity to speak up. “Joyce Summers,” that inner voice said. “This is ridiculous. You look old enough to be his mother, almost. Your body is not good enough for him to see. Get rid of him.”

Spike saw the flush come over Joyce. He saw the self-doubt in her eyes. He slipped into the bed and took her hand. “I said you think too much, pet. Don’t think at all. Just feel.” He slid her hand down his body until it touched his erect penis. “Can’t you feel how much I want you?” His voice was husky with longing and his eyes never left her face as he leaned over her.

“But...” Whatever Joyce had intended to say was swallowed by Spike as he took her mouth with his. Her hand roamed across his hip and up his back, caressing. As Joyce drew her hand back to Spike’s chest, he broke off the kiss and caught her hand with his own.

With his voice thick with desire, he whispered, “Now I’m way more naked than you. And that’s not only unfair, it’s a bloomin’ shame.” Joyce moved her hands to unzip her jeans. “No, let me.” Spike’s voice would allow for no argument.

With a tantalizingly slow touch, he stripped Joyce of her tennis shoes and her socks which he tossed carelessly onto the floor. He spent a minute massaging each foot, wanting to explore every inch of this woman who had begun to intrigue him so. Joyce had never realized the erotic possibilities of feet before. His every touch was sending shockwaves of pure lust throughout her entire body. She began to squirm. Her blue jeans, which normally felt so comfortable, were feeling stiff, unwieldy and scratchy. She wanted out of them.

Just as she thought she would scream, Spike unzipped her jeans and slipped them off. They joined the tennis shoes and socks on the floor. Her panties followed a moment later. Joyce lay on the bed, trying not to think, bathed in moonlight. “I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman than you are right now.”

He lifted one foot and kissed the instep. Then the ankle. The knee. He kissed, nipped and began to lick her inner thigh. The air was heavy with the scent of desire, both hers and his. As Spike’s mouth moved toward her nest of light brown curls, Joyce put a hand on his head. “Wait!” she gasped. “I never....I mean Hank never....you know..”

“Never?”

“No, he thought it was, I don’t know, unmanly or something.”

Deliberately, with his intense blue gaze fixed on Joyce’s face, Spike put out his tongue and licked her. Joyce’s back arched and she cried out. He opened her and began to lick, nibble and suck. He flicked his tongue rapidly across her clitoris and then sucked hard on it. As her climax began to hit her, Joyce’s feet drummed against Spike’s back. A mortal man might have had bones broken from the pounding. As the waves of orgasm continued, Spike held his mouth tightly to her. When she had subsided into panting moans of undiluted bliss, Spike kissed his way back up her body to her mouth, pausing to pay homage to each erect nipple. When he kissed her mouth, she could taste herself on his tongue.

“Wow.” Joyce stroked Spike’s hair.

“Never?” he repeated. He leaned on an elbow, propping his head on his hand, the other hand beginning to toy with Joyce’s breast and trace the nipple lightly. “Well, if I ever meet him, I’ll be sure to tell him, in great detail, how delicious” Spike nipped Joyce’s earlobe “and delectable” he sucked on it, making Joyce hiss “you taste. Then...I’ll let him live...he should live a long time thinking of my tongue on you.”

Joyce turned to Spike. “Can I..? I never, y’know, either.” Her pupils had widened with desire until her eyes looked black. She trailed a hand down Spike’s lean stomach to where the line of hair began, the line that led to her goal.

Spike, never one to need coaxing in this area, grinned at her and rolled onto his back. “Feel free, pet. Have a ball.” Joyce grinned at the double entendre. “Or two.” Letting his legs fall to the side, he allowed Joyce full access to himself. She knelt between his legs and leaned over him, propping herself on her hands.

Joyce took her own time in getting to her destination, stopping to lick at each of his nipples, then tracing the outline of each defined muscle. As she reached his cock, her conscience made one last futile assault on her. “Don’t do it! It’s wrong!” Joyce took Spike’s cock in her hand and muttered to her conscience “Bugger off!”

“What??” Spike asked, hoping she hadn’t been talking to him.

“Never mind,” and Joyce cupped his balls with one hand and took his cock into her mouth. Like the rest of him, it was cool but not icy. And like the rest of him it tasted wonderful. She licked it like an ice cream cone, swirling her tongue around the head. This action wrung a groan from Spike. Joyce smiled and filed that away for future reference. She took her cues from Spike’s reactions. Things that made him hiss or moan or made his cock twitch she did again. She paid particular attention to the head of his penis, sucking and licking and swirling her tongue around it.

“Joyce,” Spike was panting now. Her mouth, hot and wet, had driven him close to the edge. “If you don’t want me to come in your mouth, you’ll stop that....ohhh...and that, too!”

With a quick movement, Spike lifted Joyce and impaled her on his throbbing cock. She rode him, his hands on her breasts, rubbing her nipples. She braced herself with her hands on his thighs. Her head rolled back as she began to come. Spike thrust upwards and came along with her. Her cries sounded like birds high in the heavens. His sounded like lions roaring in the African night.

Her hair tangled and disheveled, she collapsed onto the body of her demon lover, who, not breaking their contact, rolled her onto her back. He stroked back her hair from her eyes. She was truly as beautiful a woman as he had ever seen. Sweaty, flushed, panting from exertion. And breathtaking, if he’d had any breath to take.

Joyce opened her eyes and looked at Spike, his face only inches above her own. “Wow. And it could have been like that with Hank?”

Spike scowled playfully at her. “No, of course not! He’s not me.” He bent his head and kissed her deeply. She felt his cock, still inside her, begin to harden. His mouth smiled against hers. Moving back only enough to allow for speech, Spike said, “See, luv, there are advantages to havin’ a vampire lover.”

A door slammed downstairs. Both the occupants of the bed sat bolt upright.

“Mom? Mom? What happened down here?” Buffy was coming up the stairs. In an instant, Spike had opened the window and leapt, naked, out of it, landing with a thud in the bushes under the window. Joyce jerked the covers up to her chin, just as Buffy got to the bedroom door.

“Don’t turn on the light, honey, I have a headache.”

“Oh, bummer. What’s with the liquor in the kitchen? And the mess on the porch?”

“Oh, oh,” Joyce thought frantically. “Oh, yeah, it was a gift from a, um, client. I dropped some on the porch because of the headache. And, um, I came to bed.”

“Okay. Just wondering. G’night then.”

As soon as the door to Buffy’s room closed, Joyce was out of the bed, gathering Spike’s discarded clothing. Nude, she went to the window. Spike was there, standing like a naked Romeo under an equally naked Juliet’s window. Joyce wrapped his clothes in his duster and dropped them to him.

“Thanks, luv,” Spike whispered. His body gleamed like ivory in the moonlight as he dressed quickly. Touching his tongue to the centre of his upper lip, Spike asked, “May I, um, come again?”

Joyce laughed softly. “I certainly hope so.”

Spike turned and walked, whistling, down the street. Joyce watched him go and returned to bed. “My, oh, my,” she thought. “Oh, what a night.”

Epilogue

“Mom?” Buffy looked at her mother with a puzzled expression. “Why are there two mugs here? And where are all the marshmallows?” Her confusion deepened. “And why is your blouse on the floor?”

Joyce just smiled, rather like the canary that ate the vampire.

The end