My Life Is Different

I woke up on the floor.

It took me a few seconds to reorient myself. I had just awoken from an erotic dream, and my mind was reluctant to let go of it. Once I'm fully awake I usually forget the content of my dreams, and I really didn't want to forget this one. It was beautiful and shamelessly erotic in a way that...

Oh, crap. As I awkwardly sat up, I noticed that Buffy and Stephanie were still passed out on the floor. I should probably make and attempt to wake them up.

My very scientific attempt at waking Buffy from her slumber involved me taking Buffy's face in my hands, shaking it from side to side and saying,

"Wake up! Wake up! Hey, Buffy!"

Much to my disappointment, this did not work.

I tried a similar tactic on Stephanie, with similar results. Whatever Hypnos had done to make Buffy, Faith and Stephanie fall asleep was probably beyond my abilities to counter, but I woke up all on my own. Maybe the others would do the same.

I decided that I would wait fifteen minutes and see if the others woke up. If that didn't work, I'd have a five-star panic attack. If none of that yielded any positive results, I'm not sure what I was gonna do.

I sat on the bed, gave Faith a really disapproving look, and yelled,

"Wake up!"

Much to my disappointment, that had no effect whatsoever.

In my frustration, I grabbed a pillow off the bed and threw it at the far wall as hard as I could.

"Gyaaahh!"

The pillow did absolutely zero damage when it hit the far wall, and I still didn't feel any better. I looked around for something else to throw, and realized that there was a book on the bed. I picked it up and realized that it was a spell-book.

It was written in Latin, but I've studied Latin, and I have a 146 IQ. If I get serious about learning something, I'm going to master it. It's just a matter of time. Learning Latin was no big deal for somebody like me.

The first half of the book was full of effusive praise for somebody named Byrhtnoth. Apparently Byrhtnoth was some sort of wizard, and this book was written by one of his biggest fans.

The second half of the book dealt with mystic barriers and shielding spells. I decided I could do with some of that. I slipped the book into my bookbag, and resolved to study the book when I got back to Sunnydale.

"You guys slept through the most exciting part of the slumber party," I informed Buffy, Faith and Stephanie. They didn't seem to be all that impressed.

"If you guys don't wake up soon," I informed the three sleeping beauties, "I'm going to eat all the Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream, and you guys won't get any."

And then; much to my surprise; Faith moaned and squirmed around a little bit in her sleep. I took a step closer, and leaned in towards Faith and she tentatively opened her eyes.

"Faith, are you okay?"

She

looked

okay, but when a centuries-old, immortal being puts a spell on a teenage girl, there's no telling what sort of problems may follow. Caution was a good idea.

"Five by five," Faith said sleepily, as she groggily began to move and show signs of life, "Where's Stephanie?"

As if on cue, Stephanie began to stir, I heard her yawn and then she murmured, "Did somebody say something about Ben and Jerry's?"

Within seconds, all four of us were awake.

"Are we still in Cleveland?" Buffy asked.

"Where else would we be?" Stephanie asked.

We took stock and decided that yes, we were still in Cleveland. We had rescued an ancient immortal being named Hypnos, and now he had disappeared without telling us where he was going. He had promised to come back and do just one favor for Buffy and I, if we ever called on him, but we weren't ready to do that just yet. He had already done a favor for Faith, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember what it was

"We should get Stephanie home," Faith suggested, "There's wackos out there just waiting for a for a chance to get their claws into a sweet young thing like her. I don't like the idea of her out on the streets by herself."

"The streets of Cleveland?" Buffy asked.

"Cleveland is a lot more dangerous than those assholes at City Hall would like you to think," Stephanie said, "After the sun goes down, we've got vampires, sonnefluch demons, shadowers, haunters and succubi."

"Suck you

what?"

Faith asked.

"Succubi," Stephanie replied, "They're shape shifters. They come out at night and they look all hot and sexy. They trick you into having sex with them."

"Wait, sex demons that look hot, and want to get you into the sack? That doesn't sound so bad. Where do they hang out?"

Stephanie shook her head, strongly indicating with her body language that getting into bed with a succubus was a really bad idea. "Succubi drain off a little bit of your life force every time you have sex with them. Eventually sex with a succubus will kill you, but sex with them is incredibly awesome and incredibly addictive, and most people will keep coming back for more even if they

know

it's killing them."

"Not the worst way to die," Faith muttered as Stephanie led us through another secret passage and we made our way to the front of the house.

Unfortunately, the Cleveland Police were out on Franklin Boulevard. I saw three squad cars, at least six uniformed police officers and two guys in plainclothes that were probably detectives. The jötunn that Buffy and Faith had killed was lying out on the street, and the police had marked off the area with the massive corpse as a crime scene. Yellow and black tape was used to block off a large section of the street. Sadly, Faith's rental car was also inside the marked-off area.

"Oh, that doesn't look good," opined Buffy.

We closed the door without ever actually setting foot outside the house. "So, what do we do now?" I asked.

"This house has another secret passage that leads you out to an area near a high school on West 30

th

Street," Stephanie suggested, "At this time of night, it should be deserted."

I didn't have any better ideas. Neither did Buffy or Faith, so we let Stephanie lead us through another secret passage, and after a long trek underground, we ended up standing in a snow-covered lot near Lincoln-West High School.

From West 30

th

Street, the four of us trudged through the snow, and ended up at Stephanie's small, modest home on Vine Court. Unfortunately, Stephanie didn't have her housekeys with her.

"I had my keys on me when those creeps kidnapped me," Stephanie complained, "But who knows

what

they did with them, after they grabbed me. They might still be back at the creepy house of Franklin Boulevard...or they might have tossed 'em in the trash. I've got no way of knowing."

Faith easily forced the forced the door open, trashing the doorjamb in the process. I felt bad about the damage to Stephanie's humble home, but at least she wasn't the prisoner of two sex-offending wizards anymore.

Stephanie turned on some lights, went to the thermostat, turned on the heat, and then disappeared into her bedroom and changed her clothes. When she returned, she was wearing some tight jeans that hugged her curves in a very flattering way, and a black t-shirt with white lettering that said,

"Please do not annoy the writer. She may put you in a book and kill you."

"I've never been rescued by a team of supernatural heroes before," Stephanie said, as she went through the process of turning on even more lights, "What's the normal protocol here? Am I supposed to pay you, or something?"

"It doesn't really work that way," I explained, "The Scoobies help people because we can. We never ask people for money."

"I'll tell ya what," Faith said on the heels of that, "I haven't had anything to eat today except for a candy bar and a can of soda. Have you got anything to eat in the place?

I'm starving.

Feed me, and we'll call it even."

Stephanie smiled enigmatically at that and said, "I haven't been home in

weeks.

Most of the food in the house will have gone bad by now."

Stephanie opened up the door to her refrigerator and it didn't look good. Most of her food had indeed gone bad. Foods like onions, bananas and celery were the worst. They had rotted from the inside out, and had very nearly turned to toxic sludge.

I helped Stephanie throw the spoiled food into the trash, and we discovered that the only salvageable food in the house was a half-empty jar of pickles, a stick of butter, a container of powdered lemonade mix and a mostly empty jar of Folgers instant coffee.

"I could order some pizza," Stephanie offered, "It's not exactly cuisine, but it'll fill you up."

I could hear Faith's stomach audibly gurgle and growl at Stephanie's suggestion, and suddenly everyone in Stephanie's kitchen was in agreement. Pizza was the

perfect

way to wrap up our Cleveland rescue mission.

I had money on me, and I offered to pay for our meal, but Stephanie refused. Since Buffy, Faith and I had just rescued her from a duo of creepy, perverted wizards and their army of supernatural super-wolves, she insisted that the least she could do is feed us.

"At the

very least,

you guys have earned a free meal," she firmly maintained, "So your money is no good here. The pizza is on me."

Stephanie's wallet was in a drawer in her bedroom. Luckily, she didn't have it on her when she got kidnapped. Losing her cash would have been bad enough, but losing her credit cards, and driver's

license would have been worse. Getting all that stuff replaced would have been a nightmare.

Stephanie was a huge carnivore when it came to pizza, and she ordered the largest size pizza they offered at Augie's Pizza, and told them to top it with double-pepperoni, meatball, sausage and bacon.

"You're an awfully skinny girl," Faith observed, after the pizza arrived, "I'm guessing you don't eat like this very much."

Stephanie held a slice of pizza up to her mouth and took a big bite of it. The blissful look on her face as she chewed was almost sexual in its intensity. I felt kind of like a voyeur, watching her.

Stephanie finally swallowed, made a sound of exquisite contentment and said, "During the time those bastard-sons-of-of-bitches had me prisoner they didn't feed me much. Mostly bananas and coffee...sometimes an apple. It's about time I was allowed to have some

real food!"

"I heard that," Faith replied whole-heartedly, and she raised a slice to her own mouth.

I don't normally eat pizza, and when I do it doesn't normally have such a multitude of toppings, but I had to admit, the pizza Stephanie had ordered, tasted

great.

Of course, nobody enjoyed it as much as Stephanie (the girl moaned in orgasmic-y sounding ecstasy every time she took a bite), but we all thought it was yummy. Faith ate three slices...and these were

huge

slices. One slice was enough to fill me up, so

three slices...whoa!!

Now, a girl tends to get greasy eating pizza, and at one point, Stephanie got a roll of paper towels and proceeded to wipe grease off of Faith's face and hands. Now, Faith is kind of cagey and can get physically violent when people touch her without warning. Faith's body language got defensive and she adopted a fighting posture when Stephanie started to wipe Faith's face down.

"Stephanie, don't," I started to say, and it looked like Faith was about to respond to Stephanie's innocent actions with a head-butt.

And; at the last second; Faith's body language went from defensive to passionate, and she pulled Stephanie forward and leaned in for a kiss.

Stephanie stiffened up at first; and looked like she was going to pull away; but within seconds she relaxed and melted into the kiss, like she and Faith were longtime lovers who had done this hundreds of times.

"Wow,"

Stephanie said, when they finally broke from the kiss.

"Yeah," Faith said, apparently agreeing with Stephanie's sentiment.

And then Stephanie won the award for the most-unromantic-thing-you-can-say-after-a-kiss, by commenting, "Your tongue tastes like pizza."

Faith laughed at that. It was a girly sort of laugh, but it was contagious, and soon Stephanie and Buffy were laughing too. Eventually I joined in, not that it was all that funny, but somehow the four of us were having a moment. We were bonding. Nobody was currently trying to kill us. Stephanie was safe in her home. All four of us were happy, our bellies were full, we were healthy, contented and none of us had a single worry in the world.

"So, who are you guys?" Stephanie asked, "I know you said that you're the Scoobies, but what does that even mean?"

"Buffy and Faith are both slayers," I explained, "I'm a witch, and we've got a guy back in California, who's sort of our leader. He knows things about vampires and demons and magic and stuff. He's usually the one that tells what the most serious threats are, where to find them and how to stop them."

"Okay," Stephanie said dubiously, "And what's a slayer?"

Buffy, Faith and I all got contemplative looks on our faces. Explaining the complex truth about vampire slayers to a normal civilian was kind of tricky.

"Okay, it's like this," Buffy finally responded, "Slayers are like a vampire's worst nightmare. Slayers are super-strong and have super-human reflexes, and we usually have somebody around that tells us all the tricks, and the most effective ways to kill vampires. We're trained in how to use all kinds of weapons, crossbows, longbows, swords, throwing daggers, battle-axes."

"And wooden stakes," Faith volunteered, "Vamps hate getting stabbed with wooden stakes."

"Stab a vampire in the heart with a wooden stake, Buffy elaborated, "And it immediately turns to dust."

"So, are you guys recruiting?" Stephanie asked, "If I wanted to become a slayer, is there like an application process?"

Faith placed a hand gently on Stephanie's shoulder and said, "Sorry, Steph. It doesn't work like that."

"Being a slayer is a mystical thing," I explained, "One slayer has to die before another slayer gets her powers, and it's always completely random."

"The next slayer might be some girl in India," Buffy suggested.

"Or South Africa," Faith offered.

"There's no way to control it," I said, "When a new slayer is called, they could be from anywhere in the world."

"But you're a witch," Stephanie gently protested, "You do spells, right? I mean, you said it was a mystic thing. Witches are all about mystic things, right?"

"Witches can't control when and where the next slayer shows up," I said.

And even as I said that, I wondered

why can't

witches control when and where the next slayer shows up? The very

existence

of slayers came about due to a powerful magic spell. What if a witch cast an

equally powerful magic spell

, in an effort to choose the next slayer? I mean...how hard could it be?

"There won't be another new slayer until I die," Faith told Stephanie, "And I don't plan on dying anytime soon. So, even if Red could pick who is gonna be the next slayer, it'd be a long time before she got to pick one. I'm very nearly unkillable."

"So, you're like super-sexy, vampires fear you, and you're very nearly unkillable," Stephanie said, "You might just be the perfect roommate."

Stephanie had an extraordinarily amicable and intimate look on her face as she said this to Faith. She and Faith had just met a few hours ago, but it was pretty obvious that she had already developed a strong emotional bond to our junior slayer. Then she reached for Faith's hips, shoved her fingers into the back pockets of Faith's tight jeans and tried to pull Faith closer to her.

In reaction, Faith placed her hands on Stephanie's hips and said, "Steph, are you asking me to move in with you?"

"Well, think about it," Stephanie said, "I'd be a lot safer with a slayer as a roommate. Vampires would be afraid of you, and if I ever got kidnapped, I probably wouldn't have to wait three or four weeks to get rescued. And I'm pretty sure you find me attractive. Or, am I wrong about that?"

"No, you're not wrong," Faith admitted, "You're a babe. You're eye-catching, but if I move in with you, what's it gonna be like? You got loud neighbors that play the drums at three a.m.? Am I gonna have to sleep on the couch? You have an irrational ex-boyfriend who's gonna show up here one night all drunk and murder-y? Do you owe thousands of dollars to a local loan shark? I gotta know about things like this before I move in with you."

Stephanie smiled and shook her head in negation.

"No loud neighbors," she said, "I've never dated any boys, so no irrational ex-boyfriends, I've never borrowed any money from any loan sharks, my finances look good, I make pretty good money from my writing, you see. I'm a published author with short stories in Asimov's Science Fiction, Erotic Periodic, Science Fiction Magazine, Startling Stories and Weird Tales. Oh, and I've got a queen-size bed that's easily big enough for two adults to sleep in without ever getting in each other's way."

"Really now?" Faith asked.

Stephanie nodded her head in agreement, and then Faith asked if she could see this queen-size bed.

The path to Stephanie's bedroom led through the living room, and that gave Faith a chance to notice Stephanie's PlayStation game-playing system.

"You got any good games for this?" Faith asked, showing the sort of obvious enthusiasm that marked her as a gamer-girl.

"I've got Parasite Eve," Stephanie said, pulling the game disc up off a pile of other game discs, "It has the absolute most kick-ass graphics of any game currently on the market."

"Parasite Eve, huh?" Faith asked, carefully examining the words and images on the game-disc case.

"I thought you wanted to see my queen-size bed," Stephanie said, obviously amused at Faith's apparent interest in her PlayStation game. I had never realized before that Faith was so intensely into computer games. She had never mentioned her interest in computer games back when she lived in Sunnydale.

"Yeah, absolutely," Faith said, setting the game disc back on the pile.

Apparently, Faith loved Stephanie's queen-size bed. In a move that totally took me by surprise, Faith took off her shoes, got up on the bed and bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. Faith is nineteen years old. She's also a legal adult who's done a lot, and seen a lot, but watching her bounce up and down on the bed, I could almost believe she was a ten-year old child.

"This bed brand new?" Faith asked, "It seems really resilient."

"I bought it about ten or eleven months ago," Stephanie replied, "But a good mattress can last ten or twenty

years."

"So, almost brand new," Faith said.

"Yeah," Stephanie said.

"I've never slept in a bed that was almost brand new," Faith said, sounding playful and mischievous, "Wanna take it for a test-drive?"

"Well, it's a bit early for bed," Stephanie said, "But if I'm gonna sell you becoming my roommate, maybe I could go to bed now and take you for a test-drive on my queen-size mattress."

At this point Stephanie took of her shoes and began to take off her socks.

Now, my IQ is twenty-two points higher than Buffy's, nevertheless sometimes Buffy figures stuff out quicker than I do.

"Okay, you guys take that bed for a test-drive," Buffy said, "Will and I need to be getting back to Sunnydale. We're gonna see if we can't grab a cab back to the airport."

"What? Now?"

I asked, "What's the rush? I don't have any classes until Thursday."

Then Buffy leaned in intimately close and whispered in my ear, "I think we should give them some privacy. They're probably going to be at it all night."