Self-Same

Warnings: Explores teen sexuality in an unglamorized, unexploitative, non-kiddie-porn way. In other words, the way it actually happens much of the time. So, be warned: Contains depictions of sexual acts performed by consenting minors.

Author Notes: On the evening of June 19, I was sticking my nose in other people's business, reading beloved friend Rachel's blog (http://ranton.blogspot.com), where I discovered her (then) latest rant. I encourage you to read it. It begins:

After reading her arguments, with which I agree, I thought, "I can do that. I can write a Dawn sex story that is true to life, that isn't kiddie-porn, that has actual meaning and growth and gives insights into characters and situations and that whole human condition thing." And so I did. And, frankly, Judy Blume's "Forever" and "Summer Sisters" are waaaay smuttier than this, and no one ever arrested her for exploiting her underage female characters.

I'm so nervous. I know he wants to, and I know I want to, but I can't stop, like, making small talk because I'm so nervous. Where did Janice and whatshisname go? Oh my god, what's his name? Not Janice's, mine. What's his name? How can this be happening if I can't remember his name? Justin! Right. Good. Okay. I'm still talking, somehow, and then he moves in and I bolt. Idiot. And I hear the proper words come out of my mouth, trying to ask what he thinks is going to happen, and he says just the right thing and I'm not talking at all because his mouth is over mine, and it's...

It's weird. I don't know what to do with my hands or my nose, or, oh god, my tongue. I feel his poking at my lips and I realize I'm supposed to open them. I *know* this. I've read it in dirty books--they don't even have to be that dirty to know to open your mouth. Seventeen magazine can tell you that. The second I let my lips relax, his tongue goes right in. Not far, though, and I'm glad, because suddenly I'm thinking about all the junk we ate tonight and how can you breathe, anyway, with your nose pressed closed and two tongues in your mouth?

He stops kissing me, and I immediately start talking again, all this junk that's crashing around my head and coming out my mouth before I can even sort through to catch the stupid stuff. All of a sudden we're kissing again, and I just know how. I suddenly don't care about the Snickers I saw him scarf down without hardly chewing at all, or whatever else he must have had that made his mouth taste the way dirty pennies smell, and I don't care. I feel his tongue sliding in again and I slip mine over it, and there's this, like, zap of something--heat? electricity? I don't know what. But it feels fast and good and it goes from my mouth straight down to my crotch, which is a total surprise and makes me make this weird noise. My legs are still freezing, but the rest of me is really just not. But I'm glad I'm still wearing his jacket because I can tell from they way they're aching that my stupid nipples are poking all over the place and I can't deal with that right now. I don't want him to see that, I don't know why, but I don't. I just want to kiss him forever.

I hate killing him. He was nice, and he liked me, and when he's got me pinned, I know I shouldn't, but I like the feel of his body on top of me. It's exciting and scary, and I know I should just kill him, but it would feel kind of nice if he weren't trying to kill me. And then I feel this thing against my leg, where there was no thing before, and Justin is pushing against me and I realize what it is, that he's humping my leg like a dog while he's getting ready to bite me, and so I dust him.

I cry. Because I think he really liked me, and because even though it was kind of gross, the humping felt good. And because I realized *I* did that to him. He got all hard and excited because of me, and that's pretty cool.

Giles yelled at me for lying and--I think--for kissing Justin. It was hard to tell what he was mad about: That Justin was a vampire (like I could have known), that I'd been making out with a boy no one had met (including me, really), or just because I was making out. Giles is hard to understand sometimes. He gets, like, super British when he's mad, and uses words like "impropriety" and "eventualities" and "vexing" and "innocuous." If he'd just swear at me when he's pissed--say "bloody" and "bugger" like Spike--he'd make a whole lot more sense.

But the weird thing is that the whole time he was lecturing me, I was thinking that Giles... Giles is a guy, just like Justin was. And like Xander and Spike and Angel, and every guy. He has sex. Or, at least, *has* had. He's kissed people the way I was kissing that night, and his ... his parts get like Justin's got, and I could make that happen if I wanted to. I mean, I don't, because--eew, Giles is like seventy or something and plus he's kind of related--but I *could*.

It made me smile, and I remember that I was sort of twisting and swaying as I was nodding at him, and that my arms were crossed and I kept smiling until Giles stopped talking and glared at me and asked me what, might he inquire, did I find so amusing about this situation, which was, in fact the precise opposite of amusing? Didn't I comprehend the gravity of what had transpired?

I study in front of the mirror, with magazines I've stolen and underwear catalogues, learning how to look sexy. Not just the body, but the way to *look* with my face, my eyes, my neck. Learning how to use this power I've discovered. I can't practice--really practice, on boys--at home, because first there are no boys, and second, well, they'd think I was stupid and confused and they'd try to talk to me, if they even noticed, about sex and consequences and diseases and pregnancy. Which is totally not what's going on.

So I practice at school, and after, when I tell Buffy and Willow and everyone I'm studying or hanging out. Which is true, because I practice then, too. I wear shirts that stick to my boobs. I steal bras that push me into the right shape for cool cleavage and then practice leaning just far enough over to show just the right amount of shadows. Not stupid and slutty and obvious, just shadows and curves.

My favorite target to practice on is Mr. Davis, my social studies teacher. He's really young, for a teacher. I do this thing with my hair when I'm in class, where I lean my chin really lightly against my left fist and flick the ends of my hair across my lips. That way I can watch his lecture, take notes, and lean over all at the same time. Plus, there's the thing with the hair and the lips. I frown just a little, like I'm really concentrating, when he talks, and take lots of notes, like I don't *quite* get it, and then--when he makes his next big point, I smile so he can tell I got it, and lean over deep-shadow far to take more notes. He stammers every time. I love it.

All this time I'm watching the boys, watching them watching us girls. They're really easy to figure out. Basically they want to boink us all, all the time, and they know that--most of them, anyway--they're still years off. I feel sorry for them. They're pretty pathetic.

I pick my first real target. The boy Kirsty likes, because she was always so mean to me, telling people I was a total after-school-special freakcase who cuts herself for attention. Like she could ever understand why I had to see it. I had pretty freaking important blood last year. Bitch.

It doesn't take much. Just some big sappy eyes (your best flirtation tool: Seventeen, October 2001, page 67) at a basketball game he played at the park after school, and then dropping a bracelet through the seats of the bleachers.

I'm sure it looks all sweet to him, poor stupid Donny. We're kneeling on the ground, looking for the bracelet ("My mom gave it to me, before she..."), and I bump my head into his chin and then look up, all surprised and flustered. I act nervous and embarrassed, but inside I'm Spike-cool. I go to stand up but "lose my balance" and he catches me by the arm and then we're kissing. Easy as that.

It's not right, though, because we're still kneeling. So I do the embarrassed thing again and pull away and stand up, and he starts apologizing and then when we're both up and it won't hurt my neck so much, I make myself blush and stammer when I say it's okay, that I liked it. And so he kisses me again, and God, I want to feel it but I have to let him think it's my first, and that he's in control of it. So I go along with the soft, dry kissing, even though I really just want to see what a non-dead guy's tongue feels like in my mouth.

In a few minutes Donny shows me, and I like it. It makes me tingle and tickle all over, and I grab at him and lean back so the X of the bleacher support is pressing into my butt, and Donny leans into me and there it is, pressing against my middle for a second before he sort of shifts so I can't feel it anymore, and even though I want it back, the fact that he's trying to hide it from me... that's even better somehow.

We don't stop until it's dark and cold under the bleachers, and I have a cold, numbing square on my rear from the metal. It's a weird feeling. My back is freezing, but the whole front of me is hot, and all that heat is sort of sinking and collecting in my crotch. Hot and cold, right next to each other.

The first day of the singing, I almost said something. As usual, they all pretended like I couldn't know anything about anything. It's so annoying. So Tara and Willow ditched out to go do it, and everyone's like, la la, they're doing research. Whatever. I've lived with them in the next room for like a decade now. I know they aren't just "special friends." They're totally into each other. Duh, they're lovers, and they're at it like, *all the time.* Worse than Buffy and Riley. Probably not worse than Anya and Xander, but I've never lived with them, so it's hard to tell for sure.

Anyway, Xander made this stupid comment because he was mad that they were doing it and he wasn't, or maybe because they never let him watch. Whatever. Xander's Xander, but he's still a guy, and therefore he's a total perv too.

So I told them that I know about the stuff, and that I think it's cool, and I wanted to ask someone: "When it happens, is it as nice as they make it look? I mean, okay, they're pervs, but you all seem so happy when you're doing it. I mean, not that I watch, but you know, when you're in love or whatever. Because I like the kissing, and this boy, Donny, I guess I like him, too." But I just didn't think they'd get it. And besides, there they went again, practically spelling it out--S... E... X...--like I'm four and they're talking about where the cookies are hidden.

I found a really pretty necklace and added it to my collection. Of course, it turned out to make the dancer guy want to marry me, which wasn't what I wanted at all. I mean, first off, he was all pointy-chinned and red, and who wants to be a queen in hell anyway? But he could dance, and I could dance *with* him, and when he danced with me, I had to do what he wanted, and I suddenly understood what the boys feel when I kiss them. Helpless, but kind of okay with it. Like, it may not be what I thought I wanted, but it still felt really good to dance with him.

And after Buffy sang her song, I knew I was on my own. I knew that everyone was going to be babysitting Buffy, not Dawnie, and even though I was happy to have them looking somewhere else, it made me kind of mad. None of them knows anything about me. They all think they do, because they have the stupid monks' stupid memories of stupid little Dawnie, the stupid, cute baby sister. They don't see me. They don't see what I'm doing, what I can do.

Forget the Kissing Power. They don't even notice that I'm, like, a woman. I mean, how can they miss it? Buffy remembers buying me my first maxi pads! The monks made Willow come with me when I needed a bra and Mom was too busy with the gallery and Buffy was too busy boinking Riley all over campus to even notice that I'd grown boobs all of a sudden. Xander was with me at the zoo when we saw the little monkeys having sex, and he gave me a really goofy explanation of the facts of primate life. (You see, Dawnie, among the monkeys, there are screamers and there are howlers.)

I press my hands where their hands have been: my ribs, my hips, my neck and arms and hair and face and shoulders and my back, as far as I can reach back. Then I go to the places they haven't been. I haven't really, either. I mean, I have, but not like that. Usually when I feel like that, which wasn't that often until Justin, I just wad a blanket up between my legs and move, and then the good thing happens. It's quick and it's easy and it gets the itchy feeling out of the way.

So, I mean, I know what's down there. I've had my period for three years, after all, and they did the Sex Ed thing in fifth grade (or at least the monks think they did), so I know what's down there and what it all does. But I'm curious. I want to know how to use it.

I remember an article from a Cosmo I read in a salon one time, when Mom was getting her color done. "How to Please Yourself." I was, like, thirteen then, so I thought it was pretty gross, but now I think back. Explore yourself, it said. Take your time. Treat yourself to a little foreplay. I laugh when I think the word "foreplay." Whatever.

So I do. I take my time, looking, touching, testing, starting from the top. I brush my hair, naked. I touch my lips and make out with my fingers, even though I feel stupid. I feel down my neck to my boobs, pressing and pinching and then just sort of feeling how my hands feel on them, my fingers. Then I go on to my stomach and my butt and my sides, where I'm ticklish, except that it doesn't tickle to touch myself in my tickle spots, it just feels good. I wonder what it'll be like if someone else touches me there, but not to tickle, just to touch.

My hands don't slide right in the water, so I add some soap. Then they glide right over my skin when I start over at my boobs. By the time I push my fingers into the hair, the soap is gone, and it doesn't matter. My skin there is slippery and hot and I feel so good that when the good thing happens, a lot faster than with the blanket, I sort of yell by accident, and Willow is suddenly knocking on the door, asking if I'm okay. I quick grab my razor and cut behind knee, then tell her I just cut myself shaving, and can she put the band-aid on when I get out?

The next day, and for a lot of days after that, I let Donny touch me more. The first time, it freaks me out when his hand slides from my shoulder, where it usually stays and plays with my neck or my hair, down over my boob. It's that flash again, that goes to my crotch, and I'm not prepared for how good it feels.

"Sorry," he says, and I like how he's like, gasping around his words, like he's just taken a mace to the stomach. "Sorry, Dawn. It's just... You're just so..." He makes this groany noise, and I feel the control click back on.

"It's okay," I say, "It's just..." I pause, figuring out how to play it. Scared, or shy, or like, lustful? "It's just a little scary, you know?" There, now he's all protective guy again, and he thinks he's the big strong man. He kisses my forehead (oh my god, he thinks he's all Mr. Big Stuff, kissing me like that!) and says "It's okay, we don't have to. It is freaky. You just feel so good is all."

So then I know what to do. I make my eyes go all big and duck my chin just a little so I'm looking up at him like a little puppy dog, and I say, "It's okay, really, Donny." I take his hand and blush (and some of it is for real because I'm actually doing this) and put it right on me, right where he wanted it in the first place. And this time, when the sparky thing happens, I'm ready for it, and I like it because *I* did it, and his mouth drops open and his eyes roll shut and his hand, like, jerks and clenches on me--more sparkies--and then he kind of squeaks and grabs me with his other arm around my back and we're kissing even better than before. I feel like laughing because he's so easy, and I'm so strong. Super-power strong--I can make him do anything. *Anything.*

I find out over the next few weeks how easy it is to manage him. A little bit goes a long way, and there are lots of steps in between. After that first touching day, I figure it out. Squeezing one boob while kissing me should last me a few days--maybe a week, even--and then I can let him touch both at once. Over the sweater, though. And then I figure I have at least another week before I give him under-sweater-over-bra, and *that* should do me until after Christmas. By the time he gets anywhere near skin, I figure, it'll be 2002.

And it is, but I forget about *him.* He's starting to want me to touch him, too, and I spend one whole afternoon session keeping him busy by giving him hickeys while I figure that one out. I work out pretty quick that he likes having his chest touched, but I don't want to touch his skin because he'll think that means he can touch me the same way. He still hasn't gotten the Justin Leg Hump on--he's still really careful to hide that, pretend it isn't happening, but I know it is. I just pretend along with him. I'll let him know I know about the stiff stuff when the time's right.

In the meantime, I like to catch him at it. Like the other day at lunch, I saw him across the lawn, walking with Kirsty from their English class. (Of course I know his schedule. I have to if I want to be bending over the drinking fountains at the right time. You should see how guys react to water dripping off your lips, and you, like, licking it up. Geez. Orally fixated much?) I saw him looking at me, and I folded my legs up Indian style, and my skirt is pretty short, and then it was great. They were walking toward me and Janice, near the vending machines, and all of a sudden he like, sat down on a bench and really quick dropped his backpack onto his lap. Kirsty was all miffed, but he wouldn't get up, and I just sat and smiled at him, very sweet, and did the thing with my lips and hair.

It worked, mostly. My plan. Donny was, like, mesmerized by my boobs. Amazing. The way he was acting you'd think he had the feel-good nerves in his hands, instead of me having them on my boobs. I wasn't sure I'd like how it felt if he did it a lot, and if I wasn't surprised by it like I was that first time, but I do. A lot. Good to know.

It got cold, so we had to move the after-school special inside. I found the new place one morning when I was supposed to be in History but was wandering around the halls with a forged pass. Auxiliary Janitor's Closet. There was a table (good for leaning), a dim-from-the-dirt-on-it lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, and not a lot of room for moving around, which was fine. It just meant that it was harder for Donny to keep secrets from me.

He gave up completely the second afternoon we went there. I could tell he was getting all excited and hard down there, and when I felt him try to rearrange us, I sort of pressed against his side with my arm, making him stay where he was, but not actually pulling him closer. Donny stopped and was breathing heavy and then he just relaxed against me and I felt it and had to work to keep from laughing. Not that it was funny, I just felt so strong, so *not* like the stupid baby everyone has to take care of. I was taking care of things now.

And then stupid Willow went and ruined everything. First with the stupid spell that nearly killed us all (I hated, hated, hated being that stupid, scared, help-me-I-don't-know-what-to-do idiot she made me, but getting it all back when the spell broke... that felt good) and made Tara and Giles leave us, and then later with the stupid magic O.D. that practically killed me all over again.

It was super scary at the time, but in a way I'm kind of glad it happened, because I wasn't a stupid baby that time. That demon attacked us and Willow crashed the car, and I *fought*. My arm was, like, broken, hello, and I still fought that thing. And hid a little, okay, but still. And, yeah, okay, it wasn't like I was winning. I mean, if Buffy and Spike hadn't shown up, and if Willow hadn't zapped it back to where she pulled it from, I'd probably be toast. But that's not the point. The point is, I was fighting, and it felt good.

I liked hitting her. She deserved it. And it felt good to watch her realize I'd hit her, that stupid little Dawnie wasn't going to be nice about everything, that she might just lose me, too. It felt good to watch her fall over and cry like a two-year-old, covered in snot and stuff, on the ground, out of control.

And it felt really good to lean on Spike and know that he would help, but that he wouldn't treat me like a baby. I was glad Buffy stayed with Willow. She would have just been dumb and gotten all freako-protective on me, which drives me crazy. Spike gets stuff. The first thing he said when we got away from Willow and Buffy was how proud he was I'd been putting up a fight.

The hospital was awful, like it always is. That same doctor was there, the one who kept asking where Tara's family was, back when we took her home the day after Glory thought she was the Key and broke all the bones in her hand and then fried her brain when she found out she wasn't. I hate that doctor. He's stupid and he doesn't understand anything about anything, and he got all weird about Spike. I think he thought Spike broke my arm. Spike scared him though, or put the vamp whammy on him or something, which was nice of him.

It took forever, of course. Like, two hours just to get it x-rayed, and then another two before they put my cast on. After the x-rays, Spike got mad and stole me some pills for the pain, and then I felt better, but they made me all sleepy and weird. And all of a sudden I was crying, and there was Spike, all funny and awkward and pretending to be all tough and annoyed, but really just being his same sweet self. He sat down next to me and put one of his arms around my shoulder and then I was all snuggled up against his coat and him, and he smelled like Spike, that kind of against the rules smell he has--cigarettes and some kind of alcohol and old-penny smell that was so gross on Justin, and something else I couldn't figure out but that smelled familiar and safe--and so I just cried. Not like a baby, though. And he didn't act like he thought I was being an idiot. He just petted my hair and hummed a little and called me love and his brave platelet, and it put me right to sleep.

He was still there when I woke up stretched out on the stupid uncomfortable examining table. I opened my eyes, and there Spike was, sitting in the chair with his head leaning on his arms, which were folded on the bed near my shoulder. He looked asleep. He looked beautiful. Spike's face is all sharp corners and really pale, and his hair... his mouth.

I wondered what he'd be like to kiss. Not like Donny, probably, who's good to kiss, but so easy to make do what I want. Like Justin, then? Scary and exciting? Spike would be way different, though. Better. He's been doing it so long, he must be really good at it.

I pulled my good hand loose of his coat, which was draped over me like a blanket, and touched his lips with my fingers, then put my fingers up to my mouth. I was humming inside, remembering all of a sudden what he'd said earlier, about teaching me some moves, and I put my hand on the corner of his cheek and thought about what Spike would be like, what he'd do, what he'd like, what I could make him do. I remembered some of the dirtier books Janice and I stole and thought about letting Spike do those things to me.

If he were human, Spike would have turned bright red, I know it. But vampires don't blush, so he just got all grouchy, which was fine, because it diverted him from any possible realization that I'd tried to French him in his sleep.

But then I realized that was the best thing. I didn't need a sex talk from Spike, or any of the Scoobies, and if Spike figured out I knew about the stuff, he'd tell Buffy, and then I'd be grounded until forever. So I did the dumb-snotty-teenager act and got out of it.

He didn't say anything else to me while they put the cast on my arm, but when we got home, he waited while I got my face washed and stuff, and then when I came out of the bathroom in my jammies, he was standing in the hallway. Even I could smell the funk of garlic coming from Buffy's room, and I raised my eyebrows at him, but not in a mean way. Just in the usual my-sister's-such-a-freak way. He made a face like he'd stepped in something gross and then laughed quietly and came into my room with me, like he used to in the summer, and scrubbed my head like a puppy and called me his little pint of O-positive, so I knew we were okay again. Then he climbed out my window, and I watched him fly off the roof and then head off down the road with his duster blowing out behind him in that cool, sexy way it does.

After than night, everything changes. Buffy's never home, between her job hunting and slaying, and even when she is around she's not *there*. And Willow's just annoying, with her whole rehab routine. I mean, okay, she's trying, and she's all the time apologizing to me, but she gets on my nerves. I haven't seen Spike since that night, either, and I miss him. He's the only one I think would understand about anything, if I wanted to talk to any of them, which I don't.

The broken arm turns out not to suck as much as I thought. Donny starts, like, carrying my books and stuff, and I love the look on Kirsty's face when she sees us. She doesn't hang on him anymore--finally got the clue. I mean, it's not like we're a big official couple, and they weren't either, but now they're definitely not anything and we're definitely something. But between the book-carrying and the way he watches me all the time, I know people know we have a thing, and that's cool.

But Donny backs off the touching when I come back to school. When we meet in the janitor's closet the first afternoon I can get away, the third day I'm back, he's all concerned and "We don't have to do anything... I can just hold you... blah blah," which is totally annoying. If I wanted to be babied, I'd go hang out at home or at the Magic Box.

So the next day, I make sure he knows I'm okay. I do the desperate kiss, the way I know drives him nuts. I pull on the back of his head, and I breathe really fast and gaspy, and I take his hand and *put* it on my boob instead of just waiting for him to do it like usual. He gets the picture. When I drag his hand up under my sweater, which is not all that easy with one arm in a sling, he pulls his head away from me and does his sweet-boy thing.

It makes me cry a little, because everyone has been so busy apologizing and freaking out about Willow and just dealing with hospital and doctor stuff and work stuff and breakup stuff, that no one really asked me if it hurt. If I was okay, if I could forgive Willow, if I mind that Buffy is going to be working--they asked me all that stuff. But not if I hurt.

He still has one hand inside my bra when he goes all romantic and wipes my cheek off, and I want him to remember that. That he's touching me. That I'm letting him. So I slide my hand up over his and stretch up to kiss him on the cheek, then I push his hand, which pushes on me, and the jolt hits me when he squeezes. My breath goes all hitchy when he does it again, better, and then I kiss him and suddenly we've got this sort of rhythm going between our breath and our tongues and his hand and my boob, and it feels so good. But I want more, I want more of him. I have to show him I'm okay.

I let my hand drop because he doesn't need any help anymore. He has two good hands, and he's using them both now, and my bra is pulled all weird but I don't care because his hands are on me. My good hand (God, I want my other hand back!) is on the low waist of his pants, under his shirt so I can feel the heat coming off him, and before I think too much about it, I slide right down the front of his khakis, to where he's leaning against my hip, to where he's pushing just a little, rubbing.

There's this weird frozen second when Donny realizes where my hand is and we both stop breathing. And then, when he takes the next breath, it's the best thing I've ever heard. He's, like, *begging* me with his voice, even though he's not making any actual words.

It's pointing straight up, against his tummy, and it's bigger around than I would've thought. I feel all clumsy and disoriented. I don't get how it, like, attaches, which is stupid. When I move my hand down to find the bottom of it, Donny whimpers against my cheek and I feel all my blood zoom up to my face. I must be so red. But I like the noise, the little kitten gasps he's making, and I think I found the bottom of it, so I squeeze my fingers around it and then go looking for the top. It's squishier than the rest, and I stop to check it out, patting and pushing and pulling, and all of a sudden Donny's talking and I don't get it until too late.

He never swears, and so I think, Oh my God, I hurt him, I must have hurt him, he's gonna be so mad at me. And then I feel the wet spot on his pants, and I feel him gulping and gasping into my neck, and I realize what I did.

"Is that what happened?" I ask, and I want to make very, very certain, because this seems a lot different from what they said in Sex Ed back in fifth grade, but it's not like in the dirty books, really, either. "Was that you... coming?" The word sounds so stupid. Why do they call it that, anyway?

"Me, too." Donny's blushing and laughing just like me, and for a second I forget about the rush and the excitement of having just done that to him, having just made this boy, like, have an orgasm, and I just laugh with him like he's a normal friend. For a minute, I just *like* him.

I drop my head as the nervous laughing slows down, and my eyes go over his crotch, and the dark spot there makes me go cold and hot all at once, and I suddenly really don't want to be in this closet with him anymore.

God, my boobs are, like, everywhere except in my bra, and I feel really weird, which I hate, but I can't get it together, can't find the normal "time to go home from the make-out closet" cool I'm so good at normally.

Donny looks sort of weird--confused and still blushing and dopey and a little bit scared, and maybe hurt--but I don't really have time to deal with that. I just need to get out of the closet with him and his pants that have sperm on the front of them.

"Yeah. Sorry. Tomorrow." I say over my shoulder as I open the door. I run down the hall and get home just in time to run into Invisi-Buffy with her stupid flying pizza boxes and her stupid look-at-me-I'm-invisible-isn't-it-just-the-funniest-thing-ever attitude, and it's just too fucking much for one day.

I run up and slam myself in my room, and she doesn't even come after me. Not like I want her to with her stupid invisible self, but still. So I sit on my bed and hug my knees and try to stop crying. When I calm down a little, I sniff heavily and wipe my nose, and I can smell Donny on my hand. Bathroom. Now.

I scrub my hands with soap and then start the bathtub filling. I strip fast and get in before it's at all full, and put my head right down into the water so the roaring noise of the water pouring in is all I can hear. It's easier, like that, to just breathe and be normal.

By the time the tub's full, I feel okay again, and I start to think about what happened, to work out what to do next, and thinking about it reminds me of the noises Donny was making, and the way he looked at me after, and that makes me itch. When I move my hands down, I realize that I'm all slippery, that it's not from just then. My panties were totally soaked with it, more than usual from just the kissing. It's from doing that to Donny, making him come. So I take my own clue, remembering how he felt in my hand, and I make me come, too.

The next few times, it's okay, but by the time I get my cast off, it's not doing anything for me anymore. It gets all exciting again when I open up his pants, but that rush doesn't last either. Donny just gets more and more like a dumb puppy. He follows me around all the time. In the closet, he simpers and is all, like, worshipful toward me, which isn't as cool as you'd think. It's so stupid. I mean, he must do this to himself at home. What's the big diff when I do it? Plus, I really don't like the mess. It's sticky and it smells funky, and even though the lead up and the kissing and touching is sexy, the end of it is just gross.

But even if I get bored (or, not bored, really, just like, annoyed) with it and my arm gets a cramp, I like that he likes it, that he likes me. I like that people look at how he follows me, how he watches me. They know I have something; they know there's something about me that did this, that makes him act like the puppy. That part, I like.

I go out with Willow whenever Buffy says I can. Will's gotten a little better recently, especially since Buffy's been working. Less shakes-and-puking and more fun-and-trying-to-make-up-for-stuff, which means lots of dancing and pretending our lives are normal.

Xander and Anya are going to Swing Nights at the Bronze, practicing for their wedding, taking lessons. Xander tries to teach me a few steps at home the night that Buffy thought she killed that girl. Of course, typical Buffy, she announces that she's gonna bail out and *then* figures out how not to. I think she likes to watch me freak out. I'm so not giving her the satisfaction next time. Anyway, I don't go with them that night--I go over to Janice's and we discuss the sperm issue--but I go with them the next time. Even if I can't really dance to it, and most of the people are older, it's fun to watch them dance. Everyone's all happy, happier than we've been in a long time, and I'm glad Xander and Anya are why things are cheery.

Anyway, Willow's gone to get more water, and, I think, to scout for Tara, and Buffy's off somewhere, so I'm standing near the stairs by myself, smiling at Xander's funny wiggle, when someone taps me on the shoulder, making me jump, and there's Jack Billings.

Jack's a junior. He's some kind of soccer hero at school, I think, or maybe water polo. Possibly both. Anyway, I'm laughing at Xander when all of a sudden, he's just there, next to me. At first I'm freaked he'd been recently vamped because he's so sneaky, but when he leans in so he won't have to yell over the music, I can see a strong, human pulse at his throat.

"So, you're amazing looking," he says, nodding with me, and I don't really know what to say to that. He takes a sip of his drink and leans in close again, and his breath (so nice that he has breath) blows across my cheek and I realize he's got beer in his cup. Which is really cool. Not because I think drinking is so great, but because he got someone to serve him, which shows determination and, like, street smarts--savvy or something.

I nod and he takes my hand and starts for the door. I'm looking around for any of the Scoobies, to make sure they don't see. We hit the door, and I stop, arm yanking a bit when he takes a second longer to realize I'm not moving. He turns and raises his eyebrows, like, "What?"

"I..." This is so stupid. He's gonna think I'm so lame. "I can't really go, um, away." I roll my eyes. "My sister and her stupid friends are here, and they'll freak if I ditch, but, well, I don't really wanna tell them, you know?" I sigh. "It's such a pain."

We wind through the crowd, past the bar, toward the bathrooms and into a little storeroom with a busted door. Buffy probably busted it, I think as I feel Jack's hand climb up my arm to my shoulder and press so that I turn around toward him.

Maybe it's because I've been kissing Donny for so long that it's just not exciting anymore, like it was at first. I don't know what. But the way Jack kisses me makes my knees just turn to goo. Donny never does that. None of this sweet rabbit kisses stuff. Jack's tongue is in my mouth before I even realize there's kissing happening at all. My head spins a little--like when I first looked off Glory's tower--at the slick feel of it, and then his arm is locked low around my back. When my knees give that little bit, he catches me and pulls me tight against him. Jack's other hand is in my hair before I can even lift my hands, and in the back of my brain, which is running hard to catch up, I think that I must look pretty funny, like a rag doll or something. But I do catch up, eventually. I get one arm up under his and around to his back, and the other goes up the front of us to his jaw. He pulls my head toward him--like there's much closer for our faces to get--and I make that little whimpering noise I remember from Justin as his hand tightens in my hair.

Jack's other hand leaves my waist--I grab him tighter at the back of his neck to balance--and slides up my back, around my shoulder blades, pushing there, which feels really good, and then back down to my waist. The whole time, the hand in my hair is turning my head to match his mouth. God, Donny's never like this.

I have another headrush thing when Jack lets go of my hair, and then both of his hands are on my butt, pressing on me and pulling me against him, and all of a sudden I can feel him--he's moving hard and slow against my front, low, and the itch is so strong it sort of aches.

My brain has shut down again. All I can think of is moving with him. His mouth leaves mine and I hear gasping--me, that's me breathing like that, like someone drowning--while he's sucking on my neck. For someone with the Vampire Slayer for a sister, I should know way better than to like this so much, but I can't help it. I do. I wonder if being bit feels this good, if Buffy felt this feeling when Angel bit her, and Dracula. Jack pulls hard on my butt and then one hand is up my shirt, and my brain is back from vampire land and trying to figure out what to make of this when he speaks for the first time since we came back inside.

I think it's the swearing that freaks me, more than the fact that his hand's in my bra and that I'm about to start the Justin-and-Donny leg hump myself. It jerks me back to *right now*. Right now I'm in a small room whose door doesn't close more than half way, and this guy's all over me--and I'm all over him--and my entire weird quasi-family is like twenty feet away, could walk by this exact spot on the way to the bathroom of their gender choice at exactly any second.

He smiles this sexy smile, kind of like the ones Spike smiles at Buffy that make her and Xander and everyone so mad. Like he knows something he shouldn't. Jack smiles at me like that, which makes me melt in places I don't usually melt, and then he casually sticks his hands deep into his pockets, bending forward slightly at the waist, rearranging it in his jeans. I get the I-did-that rush, but it's stronger this time. I feel it *in* me this time. Not just because I made him hot, but because I'm all hot and itchy too, and I can see that he sees it, he likes it as much as I do.

"Dawn. There you are. We were looking for you. We're leaving, and Buffy went out... to that job she does during the night time," (I roll my eyes. She makes Buffy sound like a hooker.) "so we're supposed to take you and Willow home."

I didn't care. I didn't care when Kirsty gave me the evil eye in the hallway, and I didn't care that her little cronies joined in on it. I had other things to deal with. Like how to arrange to be in sight of the jock crowd Jack hung out with whenever possible, but to look like I didn't mean to be. Janice flipped when I told her about Jack, totally jealous and hoping to hook up with one of his buddies. I worried a little bit that Donny would notice, especially since I was wearing turtlenecks for a week to cover up Jack's hickeys, but the boy was still happily living in the land of the fondled penis, so it just wasn't a problem. I mean, not a problem except that I was kind of ready to be done with Donny and his parts.

After the total disaster of Buffy's birthday party, things got way better at home, and weirdly, it helped with the other problem, too. Which seemed sort of karmically odd, because I was in so much trouble. I mean, first with the "no one can leave me" wish and then with everyone finding out about the stealing. But after they all left the house, finally, Buffy and I talked about that, and so we had a plan for giving back the stuff I could give back, and for fixing things up with Anya. So it was all set to present to her the next day when we went to the Magic Box. She was pretty nice about it, considering how much she loves money.

And it helped with the Donny thing because the pay back plan was that I was supposed to do stuff at the shop after school. Manual labor, Anya called it, which meant someone was going to actually notice what time I was supposed to be where. Donny said he didn't mind, but he was pretty much addicted to my hand by then, and he said, after like two days of no touching, that maybe we could just skip our seventh period classes sometimes. So I did, but only a couple of times. I *like* my English class. Plus, getting bored with his whole bodily fluid thing didn't make me feel too bad about weaning him off the closet.

I tried to be as nice as I could to Buffy, because she looked like she was hating being alive even more than usual. And I tried to encourage Bronze fun, so that I could try to find Jack again, but it didn't happen.

Mr. Disappearing Act Finn showed up again and made Buffy feel like crap with his stupid new wife and ninja gear. I mean, I was mad at him, you know? For leaving Buffy like that last year, for not saying good bye to me. Even if I was just his girlfriend's little sister, he'd always been nice to me, in an annoying sort of way. And I felt plain old bad for Buffy, because you could totally tell she was freaking. But at least he said goodbye properly this time. At least we knew he was all right, even if we weren't really.