"You can say that again," I mutter under my breath.
Apparently I didn't get the memo or the invite had been lost in the mail, because a spontaneous pool party has sprung up in the middle of the forest. And by the looks of it, half of Bon Temp's residents are in attendance.
Some people are swimming, while others are dancing around the pool. A conga-line is threatening to appear right before my eyes. I recognize a handful of the party's guests as regulars at Merlotte's bar. I even see the mechanic, Mr. McFarlen.
"Oh God, I do not need to see that man with his shirt off," I shudder to myself.
The chlorine pool is large, maybe even Olympic sized, or maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about, and that makes it sound like I do. In the far distance I see a large white house, plantation style. Elegant tables surround the pool and a virtual schmorgesborg of fresh fruit and decadent desserts liter the white tablecloths. There may even be a chocolate fountain hiding somewhere.
And again I lament my waistline. I've never been so well-fed on a mission in all of my life. Maybe vampire blood will give me super metabolism to go along with my super hornies. Seems like a fair enough trade off if you ask me.
"Think anyone would notice two more at the party?" Faith asks from her position next to me. Her voice is a raspy whisper in my ear.
Speaking of hornies.
I glance back at the party. Everyone seems to be having such a good time. And my stomach is not-so-subtly reminding me that we missed dinner due to the ill timing of a vampire. I'm seriously hungry and…well, you know what else.
"C'mon," I say to my slaying partner and make my way through the low brush into the clearing where the party continues to rage.
No one seems to notice us, or they do, and they don't care. Everyone is laughing and carefree and having an amazing time like it's the party of the century. Faith and I walk over to one of the long buffet tables and start to make ourselves a plate from the assorted fruits and vegetables on display.
"This is one helluva kegger," Faith mutters to me under her breath as she piles her plate high. I pause my scavenging to take a look at the crowd again. People are in various states of undress and continue to swim and dance and eat and laugh as though they don't have a care in the world.
Maybe it's a Southern thing. Maybe the rest of the world is so burdened with stress that we can't just unwind like this. And then we're quick to judge the people in this part of the country for their different outlook on life. But then again, these people don't have the U.S. Army after them and a masked villain who wants to destroy you and everything you stand for. Heavy.
"I don't think I've seen you two before," a feminine voice observes from behind me.
My body tenses like I've just been caught doing something I shouldn't be doing, and I nearly drop the tower of fruit I've accumulated on the plate. The tone isn't aggressive or accusatory, but there's something about the woman's sing-songy lilt that's like nails across a chalkboard.
Faith and I turn, simultaneously, to find a tall woman in a long, flowing summer dress. It's really more of a gown than anything I'd label as a skirt. Her dark, brunette hair is upswept, away from her face, and I can see tiny springs of baby's breath in her hair.
She looks older than us. Her face is slightly lined with age, but she doesn't look quite 'Mom' age. The most dramatic wrinkles are near the corners of her painted eyes as if she smiles and laughs a lot. Her eye-makeup is applied to perfection, with dramatic eyebrows and heavily lined lids. Her cheekbones, slightly tinted with blush, are delicate and set high on her face. The overall effect makes her look Egyptian or Greek. Like something ancient and carved out of stone.
She takes pity on our awkwardness, and fills the silence with her voice again. "I'm MaryAnn," she says. She waves a hand out toward us in such a graceful, grand way that I feel like I should bow or curtsy or kiss her hand or something. I just nod dumbly, and Faith shoves a piece of melon in her mouth.
"Nice to meet you," I manage to remember my manners. Mom would be so proud.
I scan the crowd nervously, looking for a reason to squirm away from the curious gaze of this woman. Her deep penetrating eyes seem to mock me. I feel like the new girl at school who has the wrong haircut and the wrong shoes and everyone is pointing and laughing at my faux pas. That's what we get for crashing the party, I suppose.
"Hey, I think I see Tara over there," Faith chimes in, taking my arm suddenly.
"Tara?" I give my sister-Slayer a quizzical look and she responds with a 'I'll-tell-you-later.-Just-go-with-it' look of her own.
MaryAnn's curious face crinkles into a broad smile. "Oh, you're friends of Tara's," she breezes with a mirthful giggle. "Well, welcome then. Welcome." And with those words, she dances away from us to mingle with some of the party's other guests.
Faith's grip at my elbow falls away, and I instantly miss the heat of her touch on my bare skin. "Uh, what was that?" I ask her, referring to her random name-dropping.
The Boston girl nods in the direction of an oversized hot tub. Lounging inside the tub are two brilliantly attractive people.
"Tara," she states as though the name should be obvious to me. "You know, the bartender from Merlotte's?"
I can't help the smirk on my face. Of course Faith would have learned the bartender's name. That's just so….so…Faith.
As we walk closer to the couple, I'm taken aback by their accumulative attractiveness. I'm used to seeing hot chicks with ugly guys, but this so isn't the case. I remember Tara as the girl behind the bar, but I've never seen the guy she's with before. I certainly would have remembered him.
He's tall with broad shoulders that look exaggerated compared to his tapered, swimmer's waist. He's shirtless, his ebony skin contrasting with his long, powder blue swim trunks. And Holy Cow, that boy's got a washboard stomach you could literally clean your dirty clothes on.
Which reminds me, we're going to have to find a coin laundry soon or I'll be wearing my underwear inside-out pretty soon. Ick. Although if I told Faith that's why I need to do laundry, she'd just wink at me and tell me that it's all the more reason to go without. But have you seriously ever worn a cotton skirt without underwear? Let me say…quite the adventure.
When we finally make our way over to the couple, Faith greets them with that award-winning grin of hers.
"Hey, T," she calls out as if the bartender and she are longtime friends. I feel the grumblings of jealousy in the pit of my stomach. How does Faith always manage to do things like this?
Merlotte's resident bartender looks up at us and I'm instantly impressed with her perfect, dazzling smile. "Oh hey there, Faith," she drawls in her deep Southern twang. "Didn't expect to see y'all here."
Faith shrugs nonchalantly. "I've got an internal radar," she winks. "I always know where the best parties are."
Tara's partner unleashes a laugh and it's a low, rumbling chuckle. She turns to him and smiles. "Oh, this is Eggs," she introduces. "Eggs…this is Faith and…" she pauses, trying to remember…"and Buffy, right?"
He stands up from the edge of the hot tub and sticks out his large hand toward Faith. "Nice to meet you guys," he says in an even lower voice. He flashes a perfect smile in my direction.
"Eggs?" I ask, cocking my head to the side and taking his hand in a long, solid shake.
Tara nudges the man playfully in the ribs when he returns to his seat next to her at the edge of the hot tub. "His real name is Benedict," she reveals, looking at him coyly, "but he's too embarrassed to let anyone know."
Eggs splashes some water at Tara with one of his dangling feet. "You'd better not get my hair wet," she warns in a light mocking tone.
Faith smiles knowingly and nods in my direction. "Unfortunately 'Buffy's' not short for anything. It's just an embarrassing name."
"Hey!" I protest, but I can't help but giggle a little.
Something about being away from the motel and Merlotte's and the seriousness of our stay feels not as heavy as we chat with this couple by the poolside. The moon is out and nearly full. The music is intoxicating and everyone here seems so full of life, it's contagious.
I'm not sure where the music is coming from, maybe from some hidden rock speakers or something. But as I'm deep in conversation with Eggs about the cruelty behind parents naming their children, Faith wanders off, her hips swaying in time with the heavy throb of drums. My eyes seem to be acting on their on accord and follow her finely-crafted ass as it wiggles to the music.
I marvel at her ability to just…be. It's enviable how she's always so natural in any situation. She could be the main course at a cannibal reception and still manage to be at ease. I lick my lips unconsciously as I continue to leer at her swaying form. Her eyes are closed, her hands and arms above her head, waving through the night air as her delicious hips swing back and forth with the music.
"So are you guys are on vacation or something?"
Tara's voice rips me away from my fledgling perverse thoughts.
"Vacation?" I repeat. "Uh, what did Faith tell you?"
"That y'all were on vacation," the bartender states with a small, suspicious frown. "But I ain't never heard of anyone vacationing in Bon Temps."
"Our car broke down," I explain. "We're actually on our way to New Orleans…for, uh...Mardi Gras."
"You're kinda early for Mardi Gras aren't you?" she points out, her dark eyes inspecting me.
"Well you know what they say," I scramble, "early bird…worms…"
I glance at Faith out of the corner of my eye. A crowd of college-aged boys has gravitated toward her magnetic form. Why does she always leave me like this? She should know by now I always stick my feet in my mouth.
"Excuse me," I pardon myself with a quick mumble. "I gotta save those boys from Faith."
I hear Tara and Eggs laugh, but I turn away from the attractive couple and make my way over to my sister-Slayer. Faith has her arms around some tall, lanky boy's neck and I don't like it one bit.
"Mind if I cut in?" I ask, batting my eyes.
Faith's eyes look darker than normal, but I'm sure it's just the dim lighting. After all, we are in the middle of the forest and the sun set a while ago. She gives me a leer and pushes her dancing partner away. Her sudden movement is unexpected and he stumbles backwards and falls into the pool.
I stare, a little slack-jawed as the man resurfaces from blue-tinted water and laughs, shaking the chlorinated liquid out of his shaggy hair. The rest of the party's guests pause momentarily to laugh along with him and then go back to their own grinding.
"A simple 'Yes' would have worked," I point out to my slaying partner.
She doesn't respond, and instead I find one of her arms sliding around my waist and pulling me into her. I feel the heat radiating off her tight body and it makes me involuntarily shiver. She feels like a furnace.
We don't speak anymore. We just dance together, her arms feeling peculiarly natural around my waist. Our lower bodies are pressed tightly together as we move as one with the frantic drums. The music seems louder in my ears than before. Like it's swallowing us up.
And before I realize what's happening, her face has moved and she's staring into my eyes. We're no longer dancing. And suddenly she's kissing me. And I'm kissing her back.
There's no tongue. Just warm lips pressing against lips. And when I realize I'm dangerously close to wanting more than just this, I pull my head back and untangle myself from her slender, yet muscled arms.
"Y-you kissed me," I mange to choke out. Way to state the obvious, Buffy.
"And you kissed me back," Faith darkly retorts.
"I so did not!" I futilely protest. My arms seem to stubbornly cross on their own.
Faith takes a step toward me, invading that personal bubble she's been so fond of popping lately. I wish she'd just pop my…Anyway.
She touches her fingertips to her plush lips. "I felt it, B," she rasps. "You can't honestly think I didn't feel your lips press against mine."
"There wasn't any pressing," I glumly state. "If you felt anything, it was my lips pushing yours away."
Of course there was pressing. I can't be blamed for kissing back when her lips feel so soft and sure and so right in all the wrong ways. And now I'm panicking and running away.
Well, not literally running away. Because that's what Faith is doing. Or more like stomping away.
"Where are you going?" I yell after her quickly retreating form. But she doesn't stop or even bother to turn her head. She just keeps going.
I start to follow her, full knowing if I don't, she'll deadbolt me out of the motel room. She's even locked me out of a tent before. Tell me how that's even possible. But before I can get too far, a hand at my elbow stops me. It's MaryAnne.
"Are you two taking off so soon?" she asks with a slight pout on her mouth. Her eyes look like they're still mocking me, however.
I pull away, but not so quickly as to offend the party's host. "Yeah," I nod. "I totally forgot we were supposed to meet up with some friends later." Which isn't a lie. We did have plans to go to Shreveport with Sookie when she got off her shift.
"Well why don't you bring your friends back here? I promise you the party hasn't even begun to warm up yet," she notes with a coy smile.
I take a moment to look around the yard. Some of the guests have coupled off since we first stumbled across the party, and I'm reminded of junior high make-out parties. You know the kind. Everyone partners up, and then the lights go out. A bad kissing orgy.
I was in the seventh grade the first time a boy ever French-kissed me. He was in eighth. I remember running home straight afterwards and vigorously brushing my teeth to get the taste of his tongue out of my mouth. I vowed I'd never kiss a boy ever again. It's weird how things turn out. The last two people I've kissed were Satsu and Faith.
Faith. Who I still have to chase after before some vampire finds her. Or the cops.
I manage to wiggle out of MaryAnn's peculiar stare, mumbling a few apologies as I stagger away. The tile around the pool is lined with empty booze bottles and discarded clothing. And with uncanny stealth I'm able to make it back to the line of trees where Faith and I first stumbled upon the party, without falling into the pool.
I can't see my sister-Slayer ahead of me in the forest. And with my new super hearing, I don't even hear her or smell her storming away. I'm not too worried though; I assume she just made her way back to Merlotte's. Sookie's there. And lots of alcohol. When in doubt, you can always find Faith near the alcohol.
When I walk up to Merlotte's, the parking lot appears nearly vacant. It's not what I would have expected having been at the popular bar for the past few nights. When I step inside the building, however, I'm greeted by a sentence I can't say I've ever heard before:
"Sure she was a horrible waitress, but is that any reason to kill the girl?"
My ears immediately perk up and I scan the room, trying to find Faith. There aren't too many people in the bar. In fact, it looks like it's closed. There's a few employees scattered around, gathered in small groups and talking in hushed voices.
I finally see Faith sitting at one of the smaller circular tables next to Sookie. The blonde's head is down and her shoulders slumped forward. And Faith's got her arm around the waitress's shoulders.
What. The. Hell.
How dare she kiss me, leave me, and then fling herself on the next available blonde.
I storm over to Faith. "You left me!" I vent.
Her dark eyes flick up to see me, not surprised that I found her so quickly. "Now's not exactly a good time, B," she warns me in a low voice.
Sookie looks up too then, sitting up straighter in her chair. I see Faith's hand on her bare shoulder and it makes me boil. But then I see the Southern girl's blood-shot eyes and I quickly forget my petty jealousy. Her mascara is smudged and her nose is red.
I drop down to a crouched position so I'm in front of the waitress. "Sookie," I murmur, the concern clear in my voice. "What's wrong? What happened?"
Her shoulders shudder slightly as another unwanted sob wracks over her form. "It's – It's Sam," she simpers. "The cops think he killed Daphne."
The name doesn't register and I look briefly at Faith. Her eyes are dark, but there's nothing in them to give me an indication that I should know who Sookie is talking about.
"Who's Daphne?" I brave.
"She's…well she was the new waitress here," Sookie explains. "Not a very good one though," she mumbles, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand.
"Sam found her when he was getting ready to open for the dinner crowd tonight," Sookie continues. "In the meat freezer. Without her heart."
My mouth drops open at her admission. Another body. Another dead body.
"And the police…" I trail off.
"Those red-neck, ignorant bastards think Sam did it!" Sookie yells, her pretty face getting red from anger. "They put him in handcuffs like some common criminal and took him away."
Faith momentarily restrains the girl, coaxing her back into her seat. I can see her hand at the back of the waitresses' neck. Sookie's hair is up in its usual ponytail and Faith strokes the skin there in a reassuring, calming way.
What the hell is going on?
"We'll find out who did this, Sookie," Faith reassures the blonde Southerner in a patient voice.
And I know, without a doubt, that we need to solve this soon. Not just because Sam's in trouble. Not just because the bodies are starting to pile up. But because I need to get Faith out of this town and away from Sookie.
Because if she's going to be soothing any blonde girl, it should only be me.
After walking Sookie to Bill's house, Faith and I went back to our motel room. Sookie obviously wasn't up for driving to Shreveport that night, but Faith insisted in a calm, placated voice that looking at the security tapes could wait. I bristled slightly when she said it. Did she no longer care that someone had tried to kill me?
Sookie insisted that she'd be fine, though. In the morning she'd visit Sam at the local jail and see if his bail was manageable. Then we could go to Shreveport that night when she got off of work.
I asked if she'd still have to work, what with Sam in jail, but she just gave me a strange look and said that just because he had been unfairly accused of a crime he hadn't committed, didn't mean that the people of Bon Temps wouldn't need a place to have dinner or get a beer.
I apologized for my short-sightedness.
"Did Sookie say there was any connection between the two stiffs?"
When we got back to the room, Faith dashed into the bathroom before I could claim dibs.
Faith always leaves the bathroom door open, unfortunately even when she showers. She said it's habit; she doesn't like being in that small of a space. And leaving the door open makes her claustrophobia a little better, I guess. But at least we can still talk while she's getting ready for bed and I'm doing the same. Efficient.
Although I don't know how many times I've passed a motel bathroom in which she's been showering and had to look the other way. Low-grade motel shower curtains don't leave much to the imagination.
"No," I reply, talking louder than usual so she can hear me over the running water. "The first woman wasn't even from Bon Temps, so no one knows anything about her. And the waitress, Daphne, was new to town." I pause, thinking for a moment. "Maybe whatever's doing this is targeting just the non-locals?" I speculate.
Great, that probably means we're next.
At least the appearance of another dead body has given us something to talk about. And something to take my mind away from the fact that Faith kissed me at the impromptu orgy. Even just the specter of intimacy has made my body run hot.
"So I guess we should be worried then, huh?" she calls out, literally reading my thoughts.
"Wouldn't be the first time some evil creature wanted to rip out my heart," I half-joke through the thin walls. "You almost done in there?" I call out. Faith's taking her sweet ass time getting ready for bed, or whatever she's doing in the bathroom, and I begin to become impatient.
"I'm almost done," she complains. "Don't get your panties in a twist."
"Hmph. I'll show her," I say to myself. Faith always makes fun of me because I don't get undressed in front of her like I'm the Queen of Modesty. "Well, won't she be surprised when she comes out and I'm already in my pajamas." This day has been too long and too confusing for me to wait for her any longer.
I pull my tank top off and give it a slight sniff. It doesn't smell too bad despite the heat of the day. I could probably get away with another day of wearing it before it has to be washed.
I wiggle my skirt down my hips and my underwear slips off along with it. Standing in just my bra, I take unnecessary time folding my clothes from the day and set them on the chair next to my bed. I reach behind my back, my hand deftly moving to the bra fasten in the center of my back, and eventually shrug out of the lacy undergarment.
I hear the toilet flush, but think nothing of it until I see Faith walking out of the small bathroom, flossing her teeth. She's wearing the minimal pajamas she's become accustomed to wearing around me. And I'm totally naked.
My hands move to cover up my body parts, but there are too many parts and not enough hands.
"Y-You were taking so long in there," I hastily explain. My eyes dart around the room, trying to find where I put my pajamas from the previous night. Oh crap, I didn't sleep in this bed last night, I suddenly remember.
Faith drops her eyes to the thinly carpeted floor. "I-I'm sorry. I thought you would just wait…"
A small bubble of nervous laughter erupts out of my mouth. "It's okay!" I squeak. "It's not like you haven't seen this all before, right?"
Her eyes snap up to meet mine. She's not gawking at my nudity or my vulnerability like I would have expected; her smoldering gaze instead is locked on my face. "It's been a while since I've seen you." The way she says it, I'm not quite sure of its meaning.
Faith's voice is rough and dry, much huskier than her usual tone. "You don't have to hide, B," she rasps quietly. Something in her voice stops my instinct to scamper over to the bed and cover my form with stiff, cotton sheets.
She steps closer to me, and I feel like a field mouse paralyzed with fear in front of a stalking serpent. Before I realize it, she's standing in front of me. Her hands slowly move to meet mine and she gently forces my hands away from my body, taking away my last shred of shocked modesty. Her dark chocolate eyes take their time as they sweep over my naked body. It's as if she wants to memorize every dip, curve and freckle on my nude form.
I feel myself blush a million shades of red. My skin is probably blotchy from my face down to my breastplate. I've never felt so naked before in front of a lover. Holy shit, I realize. I want Faith to be my lover.
"Faith." I whimper her name, feeling completely at the mercy of her languid stare.
I can't take it anymore. I just need her to touch me.
TBC