The Day Sally Jennings Told a Secret

I should never have had sex with Jill at the end of Junior year.

It almost got my best friend killed.

To be honest, I don't even really know why I did it. Hell, it's not like I'm a Lesbian. I've been getting crushes on boys at least since I was eight. And I've never been all that interested in women either. I mean, sometimes, I would see a beautiful woman like Mrs. Doyle, my ninth grade Earth Science teacher. She was a young woman with firery red hair and freckles. She also had this smile that made me think she was a real cutie. That didn't mean that I was in love with her, though. It was just a sort of . . .girl crush, I guess you could say.

Then, when I was a Freshman at New Paltz, I took a General Psychology class where I learned how some psychologists believe that only ten per cent of the population is completely straight and that only another ten per cent is completely gay. The other eighty per cent is some kind of bisexual thing. Our professor joked that most people who hear this immediately insist that they must be in the straight ten per cent, but I didn't. It sort of made sense to me that I was almost, but not completely, straight.

Of course, it was about then that I proved it by having sex with guys.

A lot of guys.

Hey, it was college. The condoms were cheap--when they weren't free--and nobody was particularly proud of their virginity. Once, I even let a guy do it without a condom for the extra feeling. When, my roommate, Alicia, found out she hit the ceiling and made me promise I would never do anything like that again.

Anyway, it wasn't long after that, that my college experience got really crazy, because of the vampires.

I remember a phone conversation that I had with my mother the night before this story begins:

My Mother: So how are classes going, dear?

Me: Great. (At least, I wasn't failing anything.)

My Mother: And are you dating any boys?

Me: Yeah. A few. ( More then she'd ever know.)

My Mother: And are you doing any extracurricular activities?

Me: Yeah. A few things. Nothing special. (Actually, I recently joined a club for vampire slayers and we just made our first killing not too long ago. I was front and center.)

My Mother: And are you getting along with your roommate?

Me: Sure. I love Alicia. She's awesome. ( True, but she was also a vampire which made my membership in the slayers so much more complicated. I knew that college was going to be exciting, but this was getting to be a bit much.)

Anyway, that was how it stood when I went to the Vampslayer meeting on Monday night.

The current president of the club was a burly boy named Patrick who usually wore his long hair in a ponytail. He was actually surprisingly quiet. For the first part of the meeting, he spent a great deal of time going over things like who was paying dues, and how we would probably need more money for wooden pegs. Also, he encouraged us to be more conservative when we practiced shooting our crossbows.

He finished by asking, "Any questions?"

That was when Jill put up her hand. I always liked looking at Jill. She was a tall girl who was Captain of the Basketball team. She was wearing shorts today, so you could see her creamy white legs. Moreover, she was always smiling with confidence.

"Patrick," she said somewhat informally, "I hope you won't take this the wrong way, but it seems like this club has been going on with the practices for a very long time without anyone meeting any real vampires."

Patrick frowned. "First of all, you know that isn't completely true. Just last week, we had our first slaying."

I smiled because I had been a key person in that slaying. A few members nodded at me.

"Moreover", Patrick went on, "Vampires are not always that easy to find. If we had a higher budget, we could take a field trip to some place where vampires are more common."

"Like where? Transylvania?" asked a boy in the back row. That caused a chuckle to pass through the room.

"Transylvania would be well beyond our budget," said Patrick with a smile, "and anyway, it wouldn't necessarily be the best place to find vampires."

"Well, how did we find the one that we killed last weeki?" asked Jill.

That made me shift uncomfortably in my seat because I was the one who had found that vampire and I had been a little unclear about how I had done it.

Patrick smiled. "I believe the member responsible for that was a Journalism major who doesn't like to reveal her sources. Now, if there are no more questions then I think we had best adjourn."."

That was a relief. I got up and walked out of the meeting.

I was on my way back to my Residence Hall when I heard a voice calling out, "Hey, wait up. I turned and saw Jill standing behind me. She walked up to me with a bright smile that made me smile back. "We never really had a chance to get to know each other. I'm Jill."

"Sally," I said.

"Great. I live in Scudder Hall."

That surprised me a little. "So do I. I don't remember seeing you around much."

"Well, I'm on the third floor."

"I'm on the first." Maybe that's why I didn't see her that much.

"Well, that's cool. Want to come up to my room for a bit? I've got wine."

That sounded just fine. So we climbed the three flights of stairs, and by the time we got to her room, we were talking and laughing. I have a reputation for talking quite a bit, but Jill apparently could talk just as much.

Once in her room, she invited me to sit down and pulled a half-full bottle of wine out of her fridge and filled a plastic drinking cup for me. "I have popcorn too," she offered pulling out one of those ridiculously large bags of popcorn one gets at the supermarket. "I know," she said, "Popcorn and wine. Real classy, huh? But I tend not to worry too much about things like that."

That made me laugh more, so I drank some of the wine and helped myself to some popcorn. The wine had kind of a funny taste, but I drank it.

"Well," said Jill wiping her brow. "It was kind of hot in that meeting. I hate to be this way, but would you mind if I took a quick shower? The bathroom's just across from here, so I won't be long."

I didn't mind. On some level, I liked the mental picture of Jill's athletic body standing under the spray of hot water.

"Great," said Jill when I told her. "Help yourself to more wine and popcorn while I'm gone. Just remember to keep the door closed, if you're drinking alcohol." She grabbed a towel and toiletries bag and left.

I sank into my chair and finished my cup of wine. I didn't really want more, but I decided to pour myself another glass anyway. By the time Jill got back from the shower, I had finished my second cup and was starting on the third. I felt a little fuzzy, but happy.

Jill hadn't bothered to put her clothes back on. She just had her towel draped over her wet body. "Honestly," she said, "I so hate men!"
,
I didn't know how to answer that, so I just let loose a giggle.

"No seriously, I stepped out of the girls' bathroom dressed like this, and there were a couple of boys passing through. Can you believe they both started making catcalls at me."

"Why wouldn't I believe that?" I said not being able to hold back the laughs.Jill seemed to like that joke because she doubled over. Then, she let her towel fall to the floor, so that she was buck naked. “Seriously,” she said in a voice that didn’t sound serious, “you’d think they’d never seen this before.” She indicated her chest which had a very nice pair of breasts in front of it.

I couldn’t resist another remark. “That’s probably because they never have seen it before.”

“You are funny!” declared Jill having a seat next to me on the bed. Then, she put her arm around me and lay her head on my shoulder. “I like you.”

At that point, I remember thinking that a few hours ago this would have made me extremely uncomfortable, but now it didn’t. I was having a wonderful time. “I like you too,” I said and planted a kiss on her cheek.

“More wine?”

“Sure.”

She poured me another cup and I drank it quickly.

“So,” she said. “Mind if I ask you a personal question?” I was too buzzed to answer, so she just did anyway. “Have you ever had sex with a woman?”

“No,” I said.

She spoke in a lower voice. “Want to?”

I just barely remember consciously thinking that I did. Now, my memories are really fuzzy, but I think I must have stood up just long enough to take off all my clothes before I collapsed onto the bed.

* * *

When I woke up the next morning, I had a little headache, but when I turned sideways, I saw that Jill’s beautiful naked body was still wrapped around mine. That made me feel good. So this was Lesbian sex. Weird thing was that it didn’t make me feel grossed out or even ashamed. It made me feel happy.
Jill stirred. “Hey,” she said glancing at the clock by the side of her bed. “What time do you have class today?”

What was today? Tuesday. “I don’t have class until eleven,” I said.

“Great,” she said. “That gives us lots of time.” She gave me a peck as if to say that she was pleased with me, then she became serious. “We need to have a little talk.”

I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. Now that I was sober, the situation was starting to look different. “Look,” I said, “I enjoyed this, but I don’t think I want to be your girlfriend or lover or whatever.”

“That isn’t what I meant.” She smiled and got out of the bed. The empty wine bottle was on her desk. She picked it up and looked at it. “You drank a lot of this last night. Do you realize how talkative it made you.”

Talkative? That made me a little nervous.

Jill put the bottle down and smiled again. “I know how you know where the vampires are.”

I gasped. For a minute, I thought she was bluffing, but she went on, “Your own roommate is a vampire and you didn’t even tell anyone? What kind of a slayer are you?”

I faltered. “Alicia is a good vampire. I wouldn’t want her slain.”

“Good vampire? Isn’t that what the English majors call an oxymoron?”

“Besides, she’s a useful person for a vampire slayer to know because vampires can sense each other’s presence. If and when another vampire does come to this campus, she’ll tell us.”

“Tell you, you mean,” said Jill almost bitterly. “Look, Sally your rationalizations are all very interesting, but I’m afraid the club is not going to care. They know only one thing when it comes to vampires: Slay them.”

She was right. This was serious. I didn’t want anyone going after Alicia. “Are you going to tell?” I asked.

That made her smile again. “Maybe, I can be persuaded to keep my mouth shut.”

Uh-oh. She was getting ideas about blackmailing me. I had only been blackmailed once before. It was when my little brother threatened to tell my parents about the fifty I had gotten on my math test.

“What do you want?” I asked. “You know, the next time Alicia finds a vampire on campus, I can let you help with the slaying and get some of the credit.”

“That’s a good offer to start with,” said Jill, “but it’s not enough.”

Now, I couldn’t help getting upset. “Look, it’s not like I have money. I’m just a college Freshman.”

“Oh, you must have some,” said Jill. “Do you get an allowance?”

“No, my parents gave an ATM card in case of emergencies.”

That made Sarah brighten. “So you do have money. How much is in your parents’ bank account?”

She wouldn’t really expect me to access that! “Look, every time I withdraw so much as twenty dollars on that account, my parents ask questions. I can’t--“

“So answer their questions. Make up some story about needing an extra hundred dollars for textbooks. You ought to be able to get away with that.”

She may have been right. “And for a hundred dollars, you’ll promise not to tell that Alicia is a vampire?”

“Did I say that? No. For a hundred dollars, I’ll promise to keep quiet for the time being, but I will expect further compensation eventually.”

I sighed. I hated the idea, but I didn’t know what else to do.

* * *

A half-hour later, I walked back into my own dorm room feeling guilty about the hundred dollars, I had withdrawn and mentally trying to work out the story I would tell my parents. where Alicia was getting ready for a class. “Hey Sally,” she said in a friendly voice, “your bed wasn’t slept in last night. Does that mean you’ve been at it again?”

I smiled in spite of myself. The nice thing about Alicia was that she was almost never a judgmental person. When she knew that I was sleeping around, she didn’t make me feel like a slut or anything like that, which made feel even worse about telling her secret. “Kind of,” I said in a sad voice.

“Well, you don’t sound that excited about it. Was it bad?”

Actually, it was good. I shrugged.

Alicia looked alarmed. “You didn’t do it without a condom again, did you?”

Now I couldn’t help laughing. “I didn’t need a condom this time.”

“What do you mean?”

“She and I did it the safest way possible.” Then, all of a sudden, I broke down and told her everything. The funny thing was that Alicia didn’t seem to have much of a reaction at first. She didn’t seem shocked to learn that I had slept with a woman or angry that I had told about her being a vampire. She just sat and listened impassively. When I was done, she reached over and hugged me tight.

“You were right to tell me,” she said. “We can take care of this.”

Something about the way she said that bothered me. “What do you mean?”

Alicia thought. “I am a vampire and this Jill that you mention is a mortal. Yes, she’s supposed to be a vampire slayer, but I don’t think she’s really experienced enough for that to be a problem. Does she wear a cross around her neck or anything like that?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Good. So much the worse for her. Why don’t we meet tonight after dark. You can take me to her dorm room and introduce us.”

This was starting to frighten me. Alicia was not talking like her usual sweet self. “You aren’t going to kill her, are you?”

Alicia shrugged. “Do you want me to? She sounds to me like the sort of person the world could use less of.”

She had a point, but I swallowed. “I don’t want anyone to die because of me.”

That made Alicia give me another pat on the back. “Good for you,” she said. “You stay that way, and if you insist Jill doesn’t have to die, but she does have to be bitten.” She smiled and showed me her fangs.

* * *

That night Alicia and I walked silently to the Hall where Jill lived. I knocked on the door and Jill let us in. Luckily, there was no roommate. “Hi,” said Alicia holding out her hand. “I’m Sally’s roommate, Alicia, and I understand you want to meet me.”

Jill looked a little surprised. “I’m not sure I—“

Before she could finish, Alicia grabbed her by the neck and held her in the air. It was an incredible sight because Jill was a tall athletic girl and Alicia was a petite size, but being a vampire meant that she could do things like that.

“Sally,” said Alicia, “Do you want to watch this?”

I decided that I may as well. Alicia pulled Jill close to her, bit her on the neck and began sucking. Jill struggled for a moment, then lay still.
“You said you wouldn’t kill her,” I reminded.

“And I didn’t,” said Alicia. “She’s a big girl. She’s got lots of blood.” She put Jill down on the bed. “Jill,” she said giving her a few slaps. “I know you feel kind of light-headed now, but listen because there are a few things I need to tell you. First of all, you’d better stop blackmailing Sally. That was mean, and anyway it won’t work anymore, because we have just as big a secret on you. Do you understand that?”

Jill looked dazed, but she nodded.

“Good. And now the good news. You’ve always wanted to find a vampire, well now you have one right in your own. . .body.” She kissed Jill on the cheek. “I bet you, Sally, and I will all be good friends.”