So, it didn't take long before I ran into Terri and she called in the favor that I owed. It seemed pretty innocent at first. She wanted to move off campus and found a great two-bedroom townhouse just a few blocks from the school, in a great neighborhood. Rent was only nine-hundred dollars a month (which was less than what Buffy and I were paying for our dorm room) and we could split the rent three ways.
Also, we'd have our own kitchen and a private shower that we didn't have to share with sixty other students.
Buffy thought it was a great idea, but we popped in and took a look at the place first. Buffy checked to make sure that the hot water heater had a big enough water capacity for three teenage girls. Buffy likes to take long showers and hates it when the hot water runs out.
I checked for pentagrams, unquiet spirits, secret passageways and dark energies. However, despite a thorough inspection of the place, neither Buffy nor I found anything wrong with the place and Terri, Buffy and I all signed a lease and we all moved in on December the fifth.
Buffy and Terri became instant friends. Of course, the fact that Terri punched Parker in the face certainly didn't hurt in that category. Buffy still watches the YouTube video of Terri punching Parker in the face, every day.
Then Buffy's friendship with Terri became even stronger when Terri revealed that she's into girls now.
"I don't know what it was," Terri said, all animated and gesticulating wildly with her hands, "But when I came to UC Sunnydale I thought I was completely straight. And now I'm surrounding by all of these beautiful girls on campus and I'm like '
she's hot. She's hot. She's hot too!
So is that one. Oh, my God, I just want to throw her in my bed and jump on top of her!'"
"Oh my God! You too?"
Buffy related her story to Terri. Their stories were almost identical. Both were the only child of a two-parent family. Both had grown up with a normal upbringing in a relatively normal home and they had the standard sexual desires. And then they both came to UC Sunnydale and dated Parker and suddenly they were no longer into guys.
The longer Buffy and Terri talked the more they learned about what they had in common. They both dated Parker. Now they now both hated Parker. They were both recently gay. They were both only children. Their parents were both divorced. They were both athletic. They were both into ice-skating. They're both big fans of the movie "
Heathers"
and of course they both think I have a really cute butt.
Terri was a real jock and every morning she would wake up before Buffy and me and do about an hour of stretches and ab exercises and then go on a five-mile run and then come home for a shower and then and only then would she eat breakfast.
Wow.
During my teenage years, my main devotion to physical exercise has been running away from vampires, running away from werewolves, running away from mustalid demons, running away from a demonically possessed mailman...well you get the idea. My sort of exercise mainly involved running really, really fast until I could find Buffy or find a safe place to hide. I was nowhere near as athletic as Terri and I was impressed with her endurance and muscle tone and her rock-hard abs.
At any rate all three of us got along pretty well. We eventually fell into a routine where we coexisted with each other without interfering with each other's schedules and priorities. Buffy and I usually had sex while Terri was out on one of her five-mile runs and then Buffy and I would shower together while Terri ate breakfast and got dressed and got ready for class.
Buffy and I and Terri all had similar class schedules and we were all back home by six or seven in the evening. A lot of evenings we would sit around after class and discuss how our days went before we got down to studying and homework. We were kinda like a family of three sisters living together under one roof.
Except for the part where Buffy and I were having mad, passionate lesbian sex every day. In most families you don't find two sisters that have mad, passionate lesbian sex with each other.
Of course Xander paid us regular visits and we introduced him to Terri. Xander tried to impress Terri with his smile. Also his arms were kinda big and impressive from working construction now, so he tried to impress Terri with his arms, but Terri just took off her jacket and showed Xander her own arms, which were kinda impressive from lifting weights and swimming laps in the pool. Terri liked Xander and they probably would have made for a cute couple if it wasn't for the fact that Terri was a lesbian.
"Her too?"
Xander asked admonishingly. "Will, have all the women in this town gone gay?"
"Personally, I blame Parker. It seems like every girl that Parker sleeps with turns gay."
"What's up with that?"
Xander asked, "And how many women has he slept with?"
I thought about it for a few seconds. There were at least thirteen women in UC Sunnydale's freshmen class that I knew of for sure that Parker had slept with. And there were about twenty others that I strongly suspected.
"Well, it's pretty much a large number."
"This guy sounds like a vampire to me. Only instead of draining women of their blood and turning them into other vampires, he has sex with them and turns them into lesbians. I think Buffy should slay this guy."
"Preaching to the choir, Xand," Buffy said as she walked up behind Xander and me. "But I don't think Giles would appreciate it if I went around slaying humans."
"All I'm saying is maybe he's not really human! Has anyone else thought about that?"
Xander then went on a long, convoluted, pseudo-intellectual rant on how Parker was some sort of sex-demon. He referred to Strange Tales, Weird Tales and Doctor Strange comics as research sources to try and back up his hypothesis of Parker the sex demon. I smiled and struggled to keep from laughing. This is one of the reasons that I love Xander so much. He can almost always make me smile.
Terri broke into our conversation and suggested that since it was December that we put up a Christmas tree and decorate the house with mistletoe and a Christmas wreath and other Christmas decorations.
"Hello? I'm Jewish over here,"
I said with exaggerated indignation. "Not everybody in Sunnydale worships Santa!"
Terri was instantly apologetic. "I'm sorry, Willow I just assumed that you were... I mean most of the students at UC Sunnydale are... I mean, I didn't know you were Jewish. You never said anything."
Xander suggested a compromise. "Well, couldn't you guys put up a Hanukkah tree instead?"
That made me smile again. No matter how many times we're attacked by vampires and demons and malevolent spirits, Xander always manages to keep his sense of humor.
"Okay, a Hanukkah tree," Terri agreed with a friendly smile on her face.
"With a Jewish Star of David on the top," I quickly added.
"With a Jewish Star of David on the top," Terri agreed.
Decorating the house for Hanukkah turned into the major project for the month. Whenever Buffy and I weren't in class or studying or doing homework or having sex (
hey, sex is important!)
we were working on decorating the house for holidays.
We frosted all the windows and put up snowflake decorations even though we lived in Sunnydale, where it never snows (well, except for that one time in 1998 on Christmas Day). And of course Buffy and I put up mistletoe in our bedroom and I set up a menorah in the living room, up on the mantelpiece.
Buffy and I decided to invite Xander over to our house for Hanukkah. Terri invited her girlfriend over for Hanukkah.
When I met Terri's girlfriend I was rather surprised. Terri is athletic, extroverted, slender and self-confident, so I was expecting her girlfriend to pretty much be more of the same.
But when Terri brought her girlfriend over to the house, I was surprised to find that she was bookish, introverted, shy, insecure and plumpish...not yet fat, but certainly voluptuous.
I politely asked Terri about their stark differences, and she explained it this way:
"I tried dating a few athletic girls during my time here at UC Sunnydale, but it never worked out. The athletic girls just tended to be too competitive. Every time I accomplished something, they felt obligated to surpass me and then gloat about it. I don't need that in my life right now. What I need more than ever right now is somebody who's supportive. And that's Tara. She supports me in everything I do."
And when Terri and Tara snuggled together, Tara got this adorable crooked smile on her face. That smile seemed both nerdy and seductive both at the same time. I'd never seen a smile like that before, but it was probably the first thing that drew Terri to Tara.
At any rate, the four of us were getting along so well, we all decided to blow off homework, pop some popcorn and do a movie marathon. Buffy went through her collection of VHS tapes and we grabbed some movies that everybody could agree on. We ended up with Heathers as the first movie of the evening (both Terri and Buffy love that movie), and after we finished with Heathers, we'd pop in Undercover Blues and then the Fifth Element.
I kinda have a crush on Milla Jovovich. I think she's really hot. Tara agreed with me on the subject of Milla Jovovich's hotness, so we already found something we had in common.
The four of us managed to fit on the couch all at the same time. We had to scooch in in order to fit, but that just made it all the more snuggly. Buffy's hand rested on my thigh while we watched the Heathers movie and that seemed to make the movie more enjoyable.
We were at the part where two of the school bullies were vainly attempting to intimidate Jason Dean. Jason Dean (better known as JD) was calmly facing them down and I was admiring his coolness and calmness in the face of adversity, when the doorbell rang.
"Who the hell is that?" Buffy asked, obviously annoyed. We were all snuggly and watching one of Buffy's favorite movies. It was really bad timing for anybody to come and vie for her attention.
Both Buffy and I got up to answer the door, and we were both surprised to find Spike leaning up against the front of the house with an apathetic look on his face.
"Spike, what the hell are you doing here?" Buffy asked, clearly annoyed.
"Yeah, good evening to you, too," Spike said sarcastically.
Then he took a drag off his cigarette and added, "It's not like a really wanna be here, but I made a deal with you and Rupert, so I came all the way out here to Slayer-land to bring you this."
With two fingers, Spike reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a mini zip lock bag. Since we hadn't invited him in, he couldn't reach across the threshold, so Buffy leaned forward, took the bag from him and handed it to me.
I examined the bag underneath the light and said, "This looks like a lock of somebody's hair."
"Yeah," Spike responded, "From one of those soldier boys. I figure you can do your witch mojo on it and it'll lead you right to him."
