4

In the evening after my first day at Sunnydale High, while we Girardi's stayed at my Aunt Joyce's house, I was doing my homework in Dawn's room, stretched out along the bed, while Dawn sat at the desk, both of us working with our laptop computers.

The door opened and her 20-year-old sister Buffy entered, also casually dressed in the same type of shorts and skimpy top that we were wearing. Buffy was a student at Sunnydale U. where she shared a dorm room with another friend of hers named Willow. On Saturday night she'd come across town from the campus to greet us, and did the same on Sunday night.

Dawn greeted her. "Hi Buff."

Her sister smiled and I gasped at what I saw. Then I sat up straight on the edge of the bed.

Buffy asked, "Is there a problem Joan?"

I'd begun trembling again. "You've got fangs." I told her. "You're a vampire."

"Don't worry." Dawn again spoke with amusement. "She doesn't bite."

"Oh yes I do," Buffy, who also looked amused, assured me, "but only at fang-bangs, and then I only bite guys."

I tried to calm down. "But you didn't have fangs when you came over on Saturday, or last night."

"Yes I did, but I kept them retracted. Now I'm alone with my sister and my cousin, so I figure I can relax and just be myself."

She sat down on the bed beside me, with her pair of long sharp fangs protruding downward between her open, smiling lips.

"Ohhhh!" I sighed, put my hand on my forehead and shook my head. "Things here are just too much for me to deal with!"

"It'll be okay Joan." Buffy assured, "All you need is some studly vamp guy to stick his fangs in you, and you'll feel a lot better about everything."

"Right." Dawn added, "I always feel a lot better about everything, when I've got a studly guy sticking a part of himself inside of me."

"So do I," I told them, "but that's when that part is his dk."

They both laughed. So did I, nervously.

I prayed silently, Lord where are you? I need your help now.

Then my trembling stopped.

Now I spoke to Buffy, "I was told that you're the Vampire Slayer."

"True." She said, "That was my title, before the Truce was instituted. Now I'm the Slayer-Vampire. I help enforce the Truce. Me and my team see to it that no vampires harass or do anything to harm any living people, except in the way that's stated in the Truce: Only during legally defined fang-bangs, when there's mutual consent. We also see to it, that none of the living harass or do anything to harm the undead."

Dawn said, "Everyone in Sunnydale knows that you don't mess with Buffy. Anyone who does loses, totally and for all time."

"Not always." I pointed out, "Somebody who did mess with your sister won, totally and for all time."

Buffy chuckled. "No. I wasn't defeated. I got these fangs on by mutual consent. You see, one of the conditions to the signing of the Truce Agreement, was that the Slayer had to allow herself to get killed by a vampire. I agreed, on the condition that I'd be vamped, so I could come back, to be the one in charge of its enforcement.

"Everyone involved agreed to my terms; so at midnight, on the night the Truce was signed, I stood out in front of the Town Hall. Then Spike the Vampire came over to me, and I allowed him to chomp his fangs into my neck, all the way. Then he sucked me out 'til I died."

"I see." I asked her, "You're not only the Slayer-Vampire, you're also the Marshall of the Living and the Undead in Sunnydale?"

"That's right, and I now have the legal authority to stake any vamps, or bite to death any live person, who violates the terms of the Truce."

Then she smiled. "Now since everybody in Sunnydale High knows that you're my cousin, nobody's gonna be messing with Joan Girardi."

Dawn added, "Except when you get nibbled and sipped at a fang-bang where Buffy'll be monitoring things."

Buffy said, "I'm there just to make sure that accidents don't happen. Other than that, I won't spoil anybody's fun."

I repeated, "Fang-bang?"

Dawn told me, "Anya and I are gonna be taking part in the next one on Saturday night. Just a little get together, with a few of our friends at her house. And by the way, we won't just be getting nibbled and sipped. We'll also get drunk, get naked, get laid, and most important of all, get away with all of it. Do you want to come along?"

That night, after Buffy had returned to Sunnydale U, I'd gone to bed in her old room, totally unable to sleep. I couldn't get all the very disturbing things I'd heard and seen that day out of my mind. Very disturbing things, that were routine activities in this community where I was now living. I was actually expected to allow a 'Mr. Goodbite' to stab his fangs into my neck, and suck out "about a coffee-mug-full of blood", at a "little" fang-bang on Saturday night?

I kept thinking of Dawn's question. "Do you want to come along?"

If I don't, I wondered, will I be in some kind of trouble?

Since I arrived here in Sunnydale, I thought, I've been expecting God to come to me in some human form. So far He hasn't. Maybe He wants me to pray first.

So I prayed silently. "Lord. You see everything that's going on here, and I just don't know how to handle any of it. I need your advice. I also need your help to avoid the temptations, and I am very strongly tempted.

"If I could avoid the vampire biting, I'd like to go along with Dawn to that fang-bang. I'd like to get drunk, naked and laid, especially when I can get away with it all. But I know I won't be getting away with anything. There are always consequences. 'If I do bad things, bad things will happen to me.'

"The bad thing that will probably happen, is that I'll get nibbled by a vampire who'll have an accident; and I'll die and come back as a vampire myself; so I should obviously avoid going to that fang-bang, or any fang-bang. But if I don't go, who knows what kind of trouble I might be in?

"Lord have mercy on me, a shameless, unrepentant sinner. Amen."

I spent the next few days getting accustomed to my new School and Community. Like I said, the curriculum and classes weren't all that different from how they'd been back in Arcadia. Neither were the kids. However, I did have to make major changes to my wardrobe. I started attending classes dressed in very short skirts or tight shorts, and very skimpy halter-tops. I wasn't ready to start walking around with my boobs naked in public, like a lot of my classmates did after school. I could wait.

I continued hanging out with Dawn and Anya, and a few other girls. I was the only one in the group without a hickey. They all accepted that as a temporary condition, which they expected me to have corrected by Mr. Goodbite, during Saturday's fang-bang at Anya's.

I told Dawn, "I'm not sure if I'll ever be ready to go through with getting nibbled and sipped by a vampire, no matter how sexy he bites."

"Listen Joan." She said, "We Sunnydale girls are not wussy pussies. If you don't get it done this weekend, that's what people'll start calling you."

"I'm not a wussy Dawn!"

"When the Slayer-Vampire's own cousin, chooses to ignore the terms of the Truce, that's what everyone in town'll think. Buffy allowed herself to be killed, to put the Truce into effect, so it's not asking too much for you to join the rest of us, and follow its terms, is it?"

After she told me that, I prayed to the Lord, "If you don't do something to stop me, I'm going to be attending that fang-bang."

That week, while I was attending classes in my new High School, my mother had been looking for a place to rent. She found an apartment just a few blocks from Main Street. On Saturday Aunt Joyce and Dawn helped us move in. Then we went out to have an early dinner at a nearby diner.

We returned to the apartment, just as it was getting dark. Since Cousin Buffy was a vampire, she was fatally allergic to sunlight; so she hadn't been able to help with the move in the daytime. She showed up at the apartment about a half hour after sunset.

About 7:30 that Saturday night, Dawn, Buffy and I came out of my new room, in our new apartment. My Mother and Aunt Joyce were seated on the living room sofa, watching Book TV on C-Span. When we stepped into the room, appropriately dressed for the fang-bang, my mother actually gasped. She threw up her arms, shook her head and groaned in aggravation, while Aunt Joyce smiled sweetly.

We three were dressed in skirts of varying lengths. I wore the one I'd had on during my first day at my new school, along with matching heels and nothing above the waist, except for a necklace and earrings. My cousins were similarly dressed.

Aunt Joyce smiled. "Why you girls look lovely tonight, don't they Helen?"

"Joyce!" My mother shouted. "They're bare breasted!"

"Right." Dawn grinned, put her hands on her hips, and thrust her boobs forward. "I've got a pair of artillery shells, and I'm ready to go bang-bang."

She, Buffy, Aunt Joyce and I all laughed, while my mother tried to suppress a smile of her own.

My Aunt explained, "Their ensembles are considered stylishly chic here in Sunnydale. Now look at them. Our daughters are truly beautiful women, aren't they?"

"Well." My mom hesitated. Then she nodded. "Right. They are. Stunningly beautiful! As long as bare breasts are acceptable…I suppose…"

She thought it over. Then she told me, "Joan. I'm not sure what to say. I hope you'll all have a good time. Just be careful with the vampire boys you'll be meeting tonight."

We three girls with the bare boobs couldn't help chuckle.

Dawn asked, "Careful? Aunt Helen, they're gonna be sticking their fangs in us tonight, along with the part you expect, so they can't help getting rough. That's the entire purpose of the evening. The reason our boobs are naked, is so that when the vampire guys do get rough, our garments won't get ripped to shreds."

"When I said 'careful,' Mom told us, "I was talking about safe sex. I don't know what else to tell you! Just don't any of you die, and then come back with vampire fangs of your own!"