Imperfect Interpretations

As the front door slammed shut, Angel looked up and set aside his book. He had decided to take the night off, as Cordelia had an audition that day. He wanted to be there to pick up the pieces.

It wasn't that she wasn't a good actress. It was that there were thousands of good actresses in L.A. She just didn't have whatever the directors and producers were looking for at the moment.

And it was killing her.

She'd been working for Angel for just over three years, and she'd had one print ad and two voice overs in all that time. No matter how many acting classes she took, no matter how many auditions she attended, she couldn't get a break.

Cordelia trudged into the living room carrying a bucket of Kentucky Fried chicken which she dropped onto the coffee table. "Go wild," she muttered, before turning and heading for the bar.

Dimly Angel recalled that she'd been auditioning for the chicken franchise. Dinner must have been the consolation prize. Rising to his feet, he followed her over to the bar, watching her from hooded eyes as she poured straight vodka into a tall glass. As she lifted the glass to her lips, he caught her wrist.

Cordelia gave him an outraged look, but didn't try to struggle, just pursing her lips as he took the glass from her and set it on the bar.

"You don't need that."

"Don't tell me what I don't need," she yelled, now pulling free of his loose grip. "You're not my boss." They both realized the incongruity of her words at the same time. Cordelia flushed and crossed her arms over her chest. "It still doesn't give you the right."

"How about the fact that you're my lover and I care about you," Angel replied softly.

She gave him a disbelieving look and shoved him out of the way as she stormed towards the bedroom they had shared for two years. Angel followed her and leaned against the door jamb, watching her angrilly change into a pair of old sweat pants and a tank top. Grabbing a hair brush, she plopped down at her vanity and attacked her hair.

He realized just how upset she was as he watched her tug through locks she usually pampered. "Delia, you don't have to do this, you know. You don't have to work."

Spinning around, she flung the hairbrush at him. He ducked and it collided with the wall where his head had been. He gave her a disbelieving look. She hadn't thrown a tantrum like this in years.

"How dare you?" Cordelia yelled, rising to her feet, her face flushed with fury.

"I have plenty of money," he began, stopping as he watched her face pale, her eyes widen in shock...and pain.

"I'll earn my own way," she replied in a tight, strangled voice.

"You do. You work hard researching and helping at the agency."

"You don't need me there."

Angel grew distrurbed by the emptiness in her voice and her pain-filled eyes which continued to stare at him. "You provide a comfortable, welcoming home for me," he continued helplessly.

Cordelia swallowed visibily and Angel watched her shoulders begin to shake. "What you're saying," she whispered, "is that I make a good mistress."

"I didn't say that," he back-pedaled, becoming extremely uncomfortable as her eyes grew ice-cold.

"It's your home, your money which provides me with food and clothes. You gave me a job which doesn't need to be done by anyone. I'd research for free, you know that."

"You're invaluable to me, Cordelia," Angel said softly, trying to get through to her.

Slowly Cordelia looked over her shoulder at the king sized bed that took up most of the bedroom. "There..." Agony replaced the emptiness in her expression and with a choked cry she spun and ran for the bathroom, slamming and locking the door behind her.

Angel followed her, not knowing for certain what to do. Hesitantly he knocked, and was rewarded with the sound of retching. Deeply concerned, he knocked harder. "Delia... Delia, please open the door." Sobs now joined the sounds of her being ill and Angel grabbed the door knob, twisting it until he broke the lock. Shoving the door open, he hurried into the bathroom.

Cordelia knelt in front of the toilet, her head resting against the back. One shaky hand pulled the lever, and she curled into a ball on the floor, sobbing wildly.

Carefully Angel knelt beside her and lifted her into his arms. She didn't resist his embrace, but lay limp as he first helped her rinse her mouth, then carried her to the bed. Once there, she curled again, facing away from him, her tears wetting the pillow and her hair. Angel lay down next to her, gently stroking her heaving shoulders.

When she finally began to calm down, he tried again to make some sense out of what was happening. "Delia, what did I say? Why do you think...?"

"Go away," she replied dully, her voice hoarse from sobbing.

"I don't think of you as my mistress," he said softly, trying to comfort her. She shivered and wrapped her arms more tightly around herself, and he tried a different tack. "You're miserable trying to get your acting career going, and you're so very necessary to my fight. Only you seem to know just where to research to find the answers I need."

"Luck."

"No, you're very good."

"I told you I'd do that for free. Just go away, Angel. I'll be okay." The emptiness in her voice told him just the opposite and Angel made no move to leave, continuing to stroke her gently.

"Please talk to me, Delia."

Silence fell for a few minutes and just as Angel was about to reiterate his plea, she spoke quietly. "My father had mistresses, you know. It's one of the things that he lied to the I.R.S. about, one of the places the money went. Daddy didn't have affairs with his secretaries, no he did it right. He found a pretty woman and set her up in an apartment, gave her an allowance, bought her presents. All she had to do..." Her voice choked off in a sob.

"Delia..."

"You give me a place to live and pay me way more than I'm worth for answering phones, just so I can have nice clothes to wear and not have to rely on Suave for my hair, and..." The sobs began again. "After the first time, we just both assumed that this was my place in your life."

"Do you have so little self-worth, Cordelia?" Angel snapped, suddenly angry. "I never forced you into this bed. I never demanded you give your body to me. I never would, and I thought you knew me better than that." He rose from the bed and stormed silently out of the room.

*****

The sun had just broken the horizon in the East when Cordelia made her way out onto the porch that covered the whole back of the house. It was still night over the ocean, but lightening enough for her to see the waves crashing on the rocks at one end of the cove. Silently she slipped into a chair next to Angel, cautiously watching him. He was brooding, staring blindly out to sea.

"The sun's rising," she finally murmured.

"I know." He didn't look at her.

Cordelia drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around them. She felt miserable, both physically and emotionally. Dozing in and out between crying jags had left her exhausted and with a persistent headache behind her burning eyes. Finally, about an hour before, she had begun to accept her lot in life.

Over the years she'd learned to accept a lot less, a lot of different things than she had been raised to accept or to expect.

The one thing she had retained through the sudden poverty, the move to L.A., falling into the role of demon slayer, was her beauty. She had hoped to use it through acting, but she had always known she could use it to get a man.

To become just like the women she had grown up despising.

Slowly she uncurled her body and rose to her feet, reaching her hand out towards Angel. He glanced at it, then looked up at her calm expression. "Come to bed?"

"...Delia..."

She gave him a quavery smile, then turned and walked back into the house. Once in the windowless bedroom, she turned on her bedside lamp, and stripped off her clohtes. Naked, she slid under the sheets, pulling them over her breasts, fixing her eyes on the door.

Angel followed her a few minutes later. Not looking at her, he removed his clothes, placing them in neat piles on the bench at the foot of the bed, then joined her beneath the sheets, laying on his back and staring at the ceiling.

Hesitantly Cordelia reached out and brushed her fingers over his arm, then turned onto her side. Taking a deep breath, she lowered her mouth to his. The kiss was brief and she stared puzzled into his cold eyes, before sitting up, clutching the sheet to her.

"I don't want a mistress, Cordelia," Angel said, his voice hard. "I want a companion, a partner, a lover."

"I'll leave by this evening," she stammered, her heart pounding in her chest.

Sighing, Angel sat up, propping himself on one hand. "And go where?" She flushed and nibbled on her lower lip, and he continued. "Face facts, Delia. You don't have any money. You aren't having any luck with your career. You wouldn't last a week on the streets. You proved that when you first came to L.A."

"So I stay here with you doing the one thing I *am* good at," she replied bitterly.

Angel cursed under his breath and she stared at him, stunned. He never swore. "Don't you understand? I would do this for any of you. Give any of you--Willow, Giles, even Xander--a place to live, money, clothes and food, if you needed it. I have it; you need it."

"I can't take charity," Cordelia mumbled, unable to meet his fiery gaze any longer.

"It's not charity. Don't you see what you give to me? And, I'm not referring to this," he yelled, sweeping his arm over the bed. "Companionship, friendship, caring, compassion... forgiveness. Those are things I need, that money can't buy, and you give them to me freely."

"But...you deserve those things, even if you don't think you do."

"But no one forces you to give them to me, just as no one forces you to share my bed. I would never do that, Cordelia. Never. If you want to move into the guest room and just be friends, I'll accept that. I won't be happy about it, but I'll accept it."

"I don't want that," she stammered.

"Neither do I. I...like having you as a lover, Delia." His voice softened and he touched a gentle finger to her chin. "I would miss you very much if I could never touch you like this again."

Cordelia sighed softly, rubbing her chin against the pad of his finger. "Angel..." Leaning down, she kissed him tenderly. His lips parted beneath hers and his hand moved around to the nape of her neck to pull her against him. The kiss deepened and Angel lay back, lowering Cordelia to her side in his arms.

"Stay," he whispered.

"I have no where to go..."

"Stay because you want to, because you want to be my lover."

"I do...but...we have to be equals."

Angel tried not to let his frustration show. "If your career was on track, that would be one thing, but it's not and it just seems to be a great frustration for you. I guess I just don't see the point. In many ways, I'm still an old fashioned man, Delia. In my day, women didn't need to work."

"Maybe they needed to, they just couldn't. It's important to me, Angel. You're right; it is frustrating, and maybe I'll never succeed, but I can't stop trying."

"It hurts you so much."

She gave him a quirky smile. "Life hurts. If it didn't, how would we know we were alive?" She ran one hand down his arm to his hip, then pressed herself against him. "This is something I have to do, Angel. Please don't ask me to stop."

He sighed softly, then groaned as she wrapped one slender leg around his hip. "Minx."

Giggling, Cordelia kissed him again, hungrily, as he wrapped his arms around her and rolled her onto her back. Propped above her, he settled between her spread legs, feeling her heat warm his perpetually cold body. The scent of her arousal swirled around him, and he groaned into her mouth, his hands cupping her breasts.

One last rational thought hit him, and he lifted his mouth slightly, murmuring, "Delia, we can't fix things through sex."

"We're not. We're...putting things aside for a moment." Her hands ran down his back to caress his muscular buttocks, and he groaned again. "Angel..."

Her long, strong legs twining around his were his undoing, and with a sigh of surrender, he lowered his mouth to hers again. His teeth nipped at her lips, his tongue tangled with hers, as their mutual desire grew and their bodies clung together, his warming from the contact with her feverish flesh.

Cordelia's body grew slick with perspiration, and, as his mouth slid down her neck and chest to capture one pert nipple, Angel listened to her little gasps of pleasure. Her fingers twined in his hair and she pressed him to her breast, her back arching off the bed. Angel switched his attention to the other nipple, nipping at it until she cried his name, then his mouth moved lower.

Her stomach rippled beneath his tongue and he tasted her heat and desire, almost able to taste the blood just under her skin. Sliding one hand beneath her bottom, he lifted her off the bed, raising her for his pleasure. The fingers of his other hand slipped between the damp, neatly trimmed curls between her legs, and into an inferno.

Whimpering, Cordelia tried to push his head down, needing his tongue on her clit, but he flashed her a wolfish grin, and nipped at her inner thighs, grazing on her trembling flesh.

"Angel!"

"Patience is a virtue," he replied as his mouth painted kisses across her lower stomach. Taking a breath, he drew in the heady scent of her arousal, and smiled as she tried to buck her hips upwards. Carefully he slid one long finger down her cleft and inside her. Her muscles clenched around the digit, and her legs clenched around his head.

Cordelia's hands slid bonelessly out of his hair and onto the tangled sheets. She tried to even her breathing, but her desire pulsed through her, making her want to slam up against his teasing mouth and yell his name.

Another finger slid inside her and she moaned throatily, her inner muscles squeezing and relaxing as he began a gentle thrusting motion. Angel's teeth scraped across the top of her thigh, then his tongue licked its way from her belly button to the apex of her curls.

All her attention focused on the fingers churning inside her, Cordelia was unprepared for the flick of his tongue on her throbbing clit. Her body bucked and she whimpered, her fingers digging into the sheets.

"More..."

Angel's tongue lashed out again, tasting her secretions, rubbing against her hard nubbin. He felt the first quiver go through her and sped up his fingers, lapping hungrilly at her clit.

Cordelia's orgasm crashed over her, making her shudder and twist beneath his mouth and hand. Gently he sucked at her clit, his fingers slowing, bringing her down, as the pleasure washed through her.

Lifting his head and sliding his fingers out of her, Angel easily turned her onto her stomach. Moaning softly, Cordelia squirmed up onto her knees, pillowing her head on her arms, her eyes shut, as her release continued to quiver through her.

Moving between her parted legs, Angel rubbed the erection he'd been ignoring along her wet cleft, making her moan his name again. Taking her hips in his hands, he thrust into her to the hilt.

A sated smile on her face, Cordelia bucked back against him, driving him deeper with each thrust. A hazy warmth filled her as his hands caressed her hips and his mouth drifted over her shoulder blades. Their bodies moved easily together. Angel had a great deal of control and thrust at a steady pace, feeling her body respond and tighten around his cock. Building her pleasure back up again was one of the things he enjoyed doing the most, and he knew when he'd acheived that point by the gasps issuing from her slack lips and the sight of her fingers digging into the pillow.

Panting softly, Cordelia lifted her head, raising herself onto her propped arms and shifting the angle of her body. The next thrust hit her in just the right spot and she groaned, slamming back against Angel's pelvis.

His fingers tightened on her hips and he gritted his teeth, feeling the throbbing in his cock grow as her inner muscles tightened. Wrapping one arm around her waist to hold her to him, he slid the fingers of the other hand into her wetness, finding her clit distended and pulsing. Squeezing it gently, he was rewarded by Cordelia's pussy spasming around his cock.

Pounding into her, he felt her second orgasm hit, and he grunted deeply, letting his own climax overtake him. Their bodies churned together in mutual satisfaction until they both collapsed, spent.

Angel slumped onto his side and watched as Cordelia sank onto her stomach, listening to her breathy whimpers of pleasure. Slowly she turned to face him, her face glowing with perspiration and pleasure. She gave him a sleepy smile, then snuggled against him.

"Delia," he sighed.

"Not now, Angel. It's just a bump in a very long road." Her eyelashes fluttered against his chest, and Angel turned onto his back, pulling her with him. As she drifted quickly to sleep, Angel turned off the light and stared into the darkness.

It wasn't a bump...He was very afraid it was a chasm, and chasms tended to grow.

The End?

I don't think so...<G>