Layla bid her time until that Friday when she heard the cars come roaring up to the house and watched all the people climb out in black tie attire. She rolled her eyes, it would figure that they couldn't have just a regular dinner party, but something extravagant. She shrugged her shoulders, why not? And snapped her fingers and a long, slinky black dress was on her. She smiled as she went down to join the party.
"Rowena, this place is just too darling. The things you've managed to do with the architecture is stunning." A large woman said walking around.
"Yes, you should have seen it when we first got it. It was horrible." Sloane said walking up. Layla frowned and made his glass slip out of his hand. "Oops, butter fingers I suppose." He said and nodded over at one of the waiters to clean it up and get him a new glass. Layla rolled her eyes and continued to walk through people giving them chills.
Finally when everyone was there chattering away she decided it was time to make her show. She shut off the music that they had playing and made the lights go out.
"What's going on?" A few people whispered. Layla smiled to herself and began knocking out everyone's champagne causing it to smash on the floor and then burst all of the bottles so the champagne went flying everywhere. She heard a few people give out a startled gasp and then made the entire room grow cold, so cold that the guests could see their breath. When the windows frosted up she wrote on them with her finger.
"Get Out." Everyone said, repeating the words that she wrote. Then she let one light shine on herself as she sipped a glass of champagne, knowing that no one could see her. Everyone was staring at each other and she just knew that they'd go screaming at any moment.
"I told you this house was haunted." Rowena said pulling on Sloane's sleeve.
"So it would seem." He said and continued to stare at the champagne flute that was just floating in the air.
"This is wonderful." The large woman said, clapping her hands.
"What?" Layla asked to the crowd.
"Do you think it would do something exciting like this for all of your parties? I mean can you make it come out for certain events. It certainly is a crowd pleaser." The woman said as she walked up to Rowena. Layla's jaw fell open as she saw that everyone was murmuring excitedly about what would happen next. She shook her head and snapped her fingers setting everything back to normal and began to walk back upstairs.
"Aw, it's over?" A few people said, disappointed. Layla just picked up her skirts and ran up the rest of the stairs into the attic. She flung herself on her bed and put her arm over her eyes. What was she going to do now? Now that she showed them all what she could do they wanted her to come like a dog and do tricks for them. She hated them, all of them. Those know-it-all's who thought that everything was a metaphor for everything else. She closed her eyes and let out a sigh.
"Hello?" Rowena said walking into the attic. Layla took her arm off her eyes and opened them up.
"Go away." She spat out.
"Mister or Miss ghost, whoever you are." Rowena said walking into the attic farther. "I know that you're here because it's the coldest place in the ho use."
"I said go away." Layla said again then sighed knowing that Rowena couldn't hear her.
"I just wanted to say that you are welcome to stay in our house and we won't try to get you out." She said in a singsong voice.
"Are you kidding me?" Layla said hopping up off of the bed and standing right in front of Rowena. She shuddered and smiled. "You're the one's who are in my house. And you're NOT welcome, so get out." She said, putting her hands on her hips.
"If you ever want to come down at our parties and let us know that you're there, you'd make a lovely addition and a wonderful conversation starter." She said and walked back out of the room. Layla stood there with her mouth hanging open. She sunk into her chair and wanted to cry.
"I throw everything I've got at them and they think it's a joke." She said miserably and put her head in her hands. "I need help." She mumbled and looked back up. She noticed the piece of paper on the table and raised an eyebrow. Going over to pick it up she read it, then read it again. It seemed like it was the answer to her prayers. She smiled as she tapped the paper against her lips and began to think. If this ghost does what he says he can do she would get rid of those awful people and hopefully spend the rest of the year in peace. It couldn't hurt just to call out his name and see if it worked. It said on the paper, just three times and he'd appear. Why not? She asked herself and she couldn't come up with an answer.
"Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice." She said in almost a whisper.
"Hi ya Babes." A gruff voice said behind her. Layla jumped and turned around. It was the first time someone had actually addressed her in over one hundred years. He could see her and she could see him and she had to refrain from running up and giving him a hug, just to make sure he could see her. He was pale, as pale as she was and had dark black circles around each eye. He also had, what looked like, a bit of mold growing around his wild, white blonde hair which was standing straight on end. He was leaning against the wall in his black and white stripped suit and took out a cigarette to light it.
"Hello." She stammered out when she took her fill of looking at him, feeling embarrassed.
"Hello yourself. Nice dress." He said looking her up and down. He had tried to guess the color of her eyes a hundred thousand times, but he never would have guess they were a deep red violet. When he looked close he could see a ring of deep maroon around her pupils that faded into the deep purple. With that black dress on he could see every line, every curve of her body and it was enough to make him sweat.
"So you called for a bio-exorcism. Let's talk shop." He said and sat down on the edge of her bed. Layla just nodded and sat down next to him trying to snap herself out of her trance.
"I'm sorry, I just haven't actually talked to anyone in so long that I'm not really sure what to say." She stammered. He smiled at her and shook his head.
"Right, sorry. I guess I'm used to it by now. You're still stuck in your haunting phase right?"
"Yeah, I've got another year and then I'm free." She said, smiling.
"Ready to get out?" He said taking a drag.
"Desperately. I'm so tired of this house and these people and..." She started. It was all so much. She was so tired and lonely that she started to feel the tears well up in her eyes.
"Hold it Babes, before you go crying all over my suit. You've been here for almost one hundred and twenty five years. It's a long time and I know, you're probably starved for contact with someone else." He said. Layla tried to dry her eyes and nodded. "When I was finished with it I ran around like a five year old I was so happy to get out of that place and not go straight to Saturn. Sandworms, gotta hate'em." He said. She smiled a little bit and nodded.
"There ya go Babes, a little smile." He said.
"When you were released? How old are you exactly?" She asked and shifted to where she was leaning into him, focused on what he was saying. He smiled at her, watching her act like an eager child was charming.
"Old enough, I lived through the plague if that gives you a good idea." He said and crushed his cigarette out on the floor, stomping it with his black boot. "That good enough for ya?"
"I suppose that's enough. So can you help me get these people out of my house?" She asked.
"Why do you need help now? What's so different about these people than the rest of them that you threw out. You've been doing all right for so long and now these ones trip you up?" He asked her. Layla drew back a little and looked at him. She had been startled by him at first, but she could see glimmers of charm in him and, if you got past the mold, he was rather attractive and she felt it pull on her.
"I tried everything I could think of and they either ignored it or they loved it. I finally brought out everything I had tonight and they just ate it up. They actually wanted me to come down and be their little dog doing tricks to entertain their guests." She spat out in disgust. He looked down smiling before looking back up at her.
"I know the kind, had a couple of them about twenty years ago actually. Called in for a bio-exorcism when the couple that were doing their haunting had made the couple laugh and entertain their guests at a party. When I came along they were expecting a show and I gave it to them." He said and then frowned. "Went pretty good, but when I tried to get my end of the bargain filled they ended up pulling the rug out from underneath my feet." He said with an obvious amount of anger.
"What happened?" Layla asked. Beetlejuice didn't respond immediately as he thought about the Deetzes and Maitlands all those years ago.
"Huh? Oh well I was trying to get out, permanently, but in order to do that I've got to marry a living person and well, she decided to renegotiate after I fixed everything for her." He said. It was mostly true, he just neglected to say that he'd sort of forced the girl into that position and he did drop her father from the second story. Last time he'd heard about her she was living in New York somewhere with a couple kids and a husband.
"Well I don't know exactly what I could offer you. I'm not living you know." Layla said blinking her eyes at him.
"There's other ways of payment." He said and gave his most charming smile. Layla had to admit that she was charmed and she smiled herself, cocking her head to one side and letting her hair fall down over her shoulder.
"Whatcha lookin' at Babes?" He asked
"Are you sure you can scare them away?" She asked smiling mischievously. "I mean, you don't seem that scary to me. In fact I think you're growing on me." She said. The minx was trying to get him and he smiled at her.
"This scary enough for ya?" He asked. Layla watched as his entire body seemed to open up and everything was falling out. Her face changed from amusement to horror as she screamed and tried to back away slipping and falling off of the bed and into the corner of the room. As suddenly as he'd done that, he closed everything up and smiled down at her. "Scary enough for ya?" He asked. All Layla could do was sit there and stare up at him, her eyes wide with fear. She just nodded her head slightly. She knew that if she tried to speak, she'd just end up babbling. He chuckled and held out his hand for her.
"Don't worry Babes, I do that stuff only if I really have to. Normally I'm scary enough on my own." He said. Layla looked at his hand and wondered if she had the strength to stand up. She held out her hand and he grasped it hauling her up hard enough for her to slam into his body. She knew that he'd done it on purpose, but when she was close to him she felt hard muscle beneath his suit and a slight belly, but not bad. He felt nice against her and she stayed there a little longer than she'd intended to, desperate for some sort of contact.
Beetlejuice couldn't help himself when he'd hauled her up from the ground. He wanted to feel her. She was so soft and smooth, delicate like a flower against him. The material of the dress she wore was so thin he could feel every single cure of her skin and especially her breasts, which her heaving at that particular moment.
"Do you think it will work?" She asked as she slowly pulled herself away from him and looked him straight in the eyes. With her heels on she was about the same height and only had to look up a few inches to see into his clear emerald green eyes.
"Sure it will Babes, I come one hundred percent guaranteed." He said and smiled down at her, looking into her incredible eyes.
"Layla." She said.
"Huh?"
"My name, it's Layla."
"Pretty name, course you already know mine."
"Right, that's one thing that confuses me. If saying your name three times brings you here, does that mean that saying it three more times will send you back?"
"You got it."
"So what am I supposed to call you? I certainly don't want to send you back." She said. Beetlejuice smiled at her. So she didn't want him to leave her huh? This was going to be interesting.
"I suppose you can just call me BJ." He said.
"Okay. Well then BJ, how do you propose to get these people out of my house?" She asked raising an eyebrow and putting her hands on her hips.
"I guess you'll just have to see Layla." He said and smiled down at her.
