Sheena is a punk rocker now

“Haaaaahn…” Gina stretched, rolling over in bed. She opened her eyes as the morning sun greeted her like a long-lost friend.

“Oh… you’re finally awake?” Dawn glanced at her.

Gina stared at her and snickered. “…Yeah, are you?”

Dawn was worn out. For a game show about transforming girls to make them more gorgeous and appealing to the master, she looked just the opposite. She’d spent the entire night reading he rulebook. She had dark bags under her bloodshot eyes and her hair was a mess. But she was smiling.

“I read the whole thing, cover to cover!” She slammed the book shut with a triumphant “thud”.

“Whoa, for real?” Gina said, her eyes widening. “Dude, that thing’s thicker than, like, every book I’ve ever read put together!”

Why do I not find that hard to believe?

“You know that today’s your date with Nick, right?” She asked, yawning. Finally finished, she flopped down onto her pillow for some much-needed rest. “Got anything planned…?”

“Shit!” Gina scrambled out of bed and ran over to her closet. As expected, all her dark clothes had been replaced with pastels. Oh, and she had no idea what to do.

As she scrambled to get her wrinkled dress off, she spotted the patch on her neck. Last night’s events came rushing back to her.

“Hey.”

“Hmm?” Dawn glanced up at her, blinking tiredly.

“What’s up with this thing? This patch.”

“Oh… ask someone else…” Dawn didn’t have time to use her brain, she just went back to sleep.

Fortunately, Sylvia picked just that moment to knock on the door. She had a party popper that she gladly popped, spraying confetti all over Gina.

“Congratulations!” Sylvia smiled. “You, my girl, get the honor of going out on a date with your beloved master!” She checked a comically large watch on her wrist. “And it begins in 1 hour! Better hurry to breakfast!”

“Yeah, great. Can you tell me what this is? And what happened last night?” Gina asked. “Only thing I remember is going to the banquet hall, and then I woke up here. And now I feel so… I don’t know. I’m so light and feathery!”

She felt better than she had in ages.

“Ah, yes. That. Last night, you were having a bad response to going cold turkey off all the **** and ****,” Sylvia explained. “You collapsed and had a seizure.”

“What?!” Gina gasped.

“Don’t worry, thanks to our loving doctor over there, you’re fine,” Sylvia said, nodding behind Gina. Gina glanced over at her roommate, taking a catnap.

“…Really?” Dawn had been such a jerk to her yesterday, and yet she’d still helped Gina when she needed it.

“Yup. She and Holly pitched in some BP and bought you a box of special patches that should curb your withdrawal. So now your body is no longer craving **** and ****. It’ll take a while for the effects to stabilize, so until they do, just keep using those patches. In fact, I’d suggest changing it now,” Sylvia advised.

Gina nodded. “Yeah, no problem.”

“Oh, and you’re out of BP, by the way.”

“Sure. Whatever. Are we done? I need to get ready.”

She glanced down at her half-naked state.

“I have a whole new wardrobe, after all," she mused.

Gina decided to skip breakfast. For whatever reason, she wasn’t really that hungry. Maybe because her body was used to her terrible eating habits, or maybe because whatever chemicals were in that patch had curbed her appetite as well. But whatever reason, it gave her more than enough time to shower, fix her hair, and pick out a new outfit for the date.

A date, an actual date. When was the last time Gina had ever gone on a real date?

…

She couldn’t remember. Maybe never. She usually skipped that step and just went straight to the “legs up in the bed” part.

Now that her brain wasn’t loaded with **** or fighting her dependency on them, she was thinking clearly for the first time in forever. She’d had a quiet freakout yesterday as the weight of the situation had dropped onto her, but now that she’d made peace with that, it was time to think about the future.

Nick Reynolds. Her so-called master. Her first kiss, and the first boy she’d ever liked. She’d spent so much of the last 15 years trying to shoot up and smoke and drink him out of her head, but now that all that junk was gone, what did she even want to do?

Sylvia said whoever wins the competition gets a wish. But what do I even want to wish for? That was something she’d have to figure out for herself.

Maybe this date will give me the answer. It couldn’t hurt to go out and have a little fun. When was the last time I actually hung out with a guy that I liked?

---

At 7:00, the date was about to begin. Sylvia had made it clear to Nick that Gina would be waiting for him outside the elevator. He'd stayed up all night worrying about her condition. After Sylvia informed him of what happened, he'd wanted to go check on the others, but she told him to go to bed instead.

Is she alright? Will she even be up for a date? This is so messed up... forcing her to go out like this after what happened last night... Hopefully, they could get away with a nice, quiet day indoors and have that count for a date.

DING!

The doors parted and Nick’s breath was taken away. Gina looked… whoa.

Instead of her leather jackets and torn shirts, she wore a sky blue camisole that revealed a lot of her glowing skin without looking slutty. Her tan capris clung to her legs and emphasized her slender frame, and instead of leather boots she wore a pair of white sneakers, perfect for a day out on the town. Her blonde hair had been tousled out and shined in the light of elevator, dancing around her heart-shaped face. Her brown eyes twinkled like chocolate, nicely accentuated with eyeshadow that was significantly less intense than her makeup the day before, and she’d touched up her lips with gloss. They were smiling sweetly and looked positively kissable.

“…Are ya just gonna stand there with your mouth open like an idiot, or are you gonna say hello?” Gina laughed.

“S-Sorry,” Nick stammered. “It’s just, I was surprised. You look so… different.”

She grinned and cocked her head to the side. “Different… bad?”

“No!” He almost shouted. “Just… different.”

She made a face like she was mulling over his answer. “…Okay then. Good enough.” She strolled onto the elevator and poked him in the chest. “You don’t look so bad yourself, mister.”

That sounded ridiculous to hear. Sure, Nick had spent some time preparing this morning, taking a shower, shaving, actually running a brush through his hair in a vain effort to conceal the grey spots, but all he had to wear were pants and a button-up that he hoped could conceal his gut. He couldn’t compare with the vision in front of him.

“If I’m being honest?” Gina said, her eyes flaring with laughter, “it’s not like I’m 100% responsible for this. I got a makeup kit in my welcome basket last night, and it was filled with all my colors. And, like, I don’t even know my colors. How rocking is that?”

Nick was surprised. “You’re wearing makeup? I couldn’t tell.”

“Ehhrrnnt!” She beeped like he’d gotten the question wrong on a game show. “Wrong answer! You’re supposed to say ‘why Gina, that makeup you have on looks so hot! Yes, I would LOVE to kiss the ground you walk on!’ ...You know. If you wanted to make this a good date,” she shrugged.

“…Yeah, I may not have been on any dates before, but something tells me that’s not correct,” Nick laughed.

“Hey now, I’m just trying to help!” She said, holding her hands up like she was surrendering. “Not my fault if you blow things and don’t get a second date.”

“Oh? So there’s a chance for a second date, then?”

Nick was shocked at how casual they were flirting. It felt like it had been ages since he’d last been comfortable enough to flirt with a girl. Even his conversations with Kim in the checkout line had started out kind of shaky, but with Gina…

It was strange. He hadn’t seen her since they were little kids. And yet it felt like they were chatting it up like nothing had changed. But everything had changed.

“Is this weird?” Gina blurted out.

“Huh?”

“Sorry, I just… well… this is weird, right?” She asked, rubbing her head sheepishly. “You and me? We haven’t seen each other in forever, and, like, after everything that happened… before…”

And just like that, the mood turned sour.

Nick sighed. “Yeah, this is kind of weird. I mean… it’s not like I haven’t thought about you since, well, you know.”

“Since Dakota,” she murmured.

“…Right. I mean, after everything that happened, it was just…”

“It was hard, right?” Gina nodded. “I know. The stuff I did, to forget…”

Her voice cracked, and Nick could see her attitude taking a turn for the worse.

“Okay! New rule!” He said, just loudly enough to startle Gina out of the funk she was settling down into. “No talking about Dakota. Heck, let’s just forget about the other girls and the game show altogether, okay?”

Admittedly hard to do, given they were on a date for the show itself. But Nick really didn’t want that to be on his mind right now. He’d thought it over, and this was a chance to reconnect with a long-lost friend from his past.

He didn’t want to ruin it by imagining how she might be bound to him forever.

“…Okay, it’s a deal,” Gina said, sticking out her hand to shake on it. Nick spotted the number “4” on her hand and winced. A clear reminder of the show, right there in plain sight.

Still, he took her hand. Just a fun date. No strings attached, no expectations of anything else. You’re just going to catch up with a childhood friend who you haven’t seen in ages.

As that thought crossed his mind, his eyes landed on Gina’s lips. He remembered that sloppy, awkward first kiss. Broken as soon as it started when Dakota walked in on them. It had been 15 years since then, and Gina had accrued a ton of experience in that time.

How good would kissing her feel now?

That’s Sylvia trying to get to you! He reminded himself. He suspected the little imp had stuck that lip gloss in the gift basket on purpose, just to get his mind thinking about kissing.

Luckily, the elevator came to a stop just in time to distract him. It was a magic elevator and only had four buttons. One for the master suite, one for the floor with the girls’ rooms on it, one for the lobby, and the fourth, which Gina had pressed. According to Sylvia, it would take them to whatever floor they wanted to go.

“Whoa.”

They had the exact same reaction when the elevator’s doors opened and revealed the shopping district. It reminded him of something out of a sci-fi movie. It was practically an entire city laid out before them, only all the buildings were shops. It was completely empty, as if they were the only two people in the world. A massive glass atrium stretched over the entire area, giving the feel of a domed city on another planet.

Maybe we are on another planet, he thought for a moment. This island certainly isn’t on earth.

“This is so fucking boss!” Gina said. “How the hell did they fit this place into the hotel? Gotta be magic, right?”

They stepped out of the elevator and Nick glanced back to see it was just sitting there in the center of the plaza. No surrounding building, no shaft leading back up, just a box with doors on it.

Oh yeah, definitely magic involved here.

But before Nick could further contemplate the physics involved with transporting an elevator across time and space, Gina had already grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him down the street.

“So, uh… where are we going?” He asked, picking up his pace to match hers. Sylvia had explained that the girls were responsible for planning out the dates.

“Yeah… about that. So, I don’t know if you heard what happened last night…”

“You collapsed,” Nick said. “A seizure or something? Sylvia told me. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“What? Oh, yeah, I’m fine." She waved away his concerns and lifted the hem of her camisole to reveal a round patch stuck to her side. “Dawn and Holly chipped in to get me these special patches, and now I'm totally great! I feel better than I have in years.”

She flashed him a smile. All things considered, for a junkie her teeth looked pretty good. Apparently meth wasn’t part of the chemical cocktail that had constituted most of her blood content.

“See, since I sorta passed out, I didn’t really have time to plan anything out,” she admitted sheepishly. “So I was hoping we could just… you know, hang? Go around the shopping district and check out the stores, have some fun together?”

“Sure thing,” Nick said. “That sounds nice.”

“Rocking!” Gina gave him another toothy smile. They continued down the street and she suddenly pulled to a stop, swinging her head to look at the building they’d just passed.

It was a dive bar.

“Hey, want to check out…”

“Well, that lasted all of five minutes.”

“I’m kidding!” She laughed, socking him in the arm. “Look, I’m not gonna stop doing **** and drinking,” she said. “What am I, a nun? Fuck that shit. But I’m not burning up or getting cold sweats, so hey, that’s progress, right?”

Nick wasn’t convinced. “Gina, I’m worried about you. Just because you aren’t going through withdrawal anymore doesn’t mean you can just take substances without thinking about their consequences.”

“…Fine. Just **** for now, then,” she pouted. “Maybe some weed?”

“Yes, weed is good.”

“Sweet. And crack too.”

“Gina!”

“Kidding, kidding. Oxy’s a better high anyway,” she sniggered. Nick sighed, not sure if she was just messing with him or not.

“Hey! What about that place?” She asked, pointing at another shop that was coming up. A dingy sign hung over the entrance, flashing neon lights. It looked a little out of place on the neatly ordered street, but that just made it stand out even more.

“A music store?”

“Hell yeah a music store! It’s not like I’ve got my phone here. I need something to rock out to,” she laughed.

The pair entered the music store, where a faerie in a black dress was sitting on the counter. She had dark makeup and wild hair that reminded Nick of Gina’s dye job. She had a lip piercing, and her wings were likewise pierced with rings and studs. He wondered if she could even fly with all that stuff in them.

“Hey there, master.” She greeted them with a casual wave. “What can I get for ya?”

“Got any music?” Gina asked.

The faerie raised her eyebrow and pointed at the flashing sign outside that read “MUSIC”.

“I think that’s a yes,” Nick guessed.

“Oh, gee! Really? Who’da thunk?” Gina sneered, rolling her eyes. “So whatcha got?”

“Music,” the faerie grunted.

“No shit. What kinds?”

“All of it.”

“So you guys carry every genre here…?”

“All. Of. It. You want music? We got it.”

If she meant what Nick thought she meant, then… whoa.

“So you guys have every song ever recorded. Like, here. Right here?” Gina’s brain was exploding. She turned to Nick with awe in her eyes. “Dude, can I just like… live here? Forever?”

She may have been joking, but the very real likelihood of that happening to all of them made Nick shiver.

“You really have every piece of music ever made? That’s so cool,” Nick said.

“Yup, pick out whatever you like,” the faerie shrugged. “Music’s free here.”

“Not the best business model,” he noted.

She shrugged again. “We don’t need to eat though.”

Fair enough.

“And it’s not like you can get everything for free,” the faerie added. She flashed Nick a flirty smile that made the ring through her black lip stand out. “Well, you can, master.” Her voice took on a throaty quality. “But for your date, she’ll have to pay in BP if she wants any… auditory stimulators.”

Gina stared blankly at her, the few working fuses in her brain sparking out. “Audy-whats?”

“Auditory stimulators,” the faerie repeated. “You know. Songs that make you want to fuck.”

“…But that’s, like, ALL my music!” Gina groaned.

“What? Girl, I mean magic music that arouses the listener, not you soaking your panties to **** metal.” She shook her head in disgust, muttering something about “kids these days”.

Gina sighed in relief. “Oh, phew. So that means you guys have Wild Gurlz debut album, right?”

“Yep. We got everything,” she nodded.

“So... then you have Black Dynasty’s best hits?”

“Yeah. Everything.”

“Okay, well what about-"

“Lady, does ‘everything’ mean something different in the human world?” The faerie asked. “You want it, we got it. Make me a list.”

While Gina got to work on that, Nick decided to browse. Everywhere he looked he spotted a new music poster, even in places he’d already checked out before. It was like every part of the store was changing to suit whatever he was thinking about at a given moment, and it was kind of trippy.

“…And that should do it,” Gina finished up. She’d named about a hundred different albums already, and somehow the faerie knew them all. It was like she was among her own people again.

“Now how do you want it?”

Gina smirked. “Oooh, ask me that again after I get a few drinks in me and let’s see how the night goes,” she giggled, batting her eyes.

The faerie rolled hers. “I mean how do you want to listen to the music, lady? Vinyl? Tapedeck? MP3? We could arrange a live showing but that would take a couple days to work out the logistics…”

“Huhum… um… can you burn it all on a CD? And get me a player? I know it’s a lot, but-“

The faerie snorted and rolled her eyes. Nick and Gina took that as a yes.

A few minutes later, Gina walked out with a brand new CD player in her hand and a grin on her face. And it hadn't cost her a single BP.

“Oh yeah, baby!” She crowed, holding the portable disk player up in her hand like a trophy. “Got my tunes!”

“Why did you want a CD player? What is this, the early 2000s?” Nick joked. “We have ipods for that stuff now.”

Gina rolled her eyes. “Come on boomer, nobody has an ipod anymore. We all just use our phones.”

“Boomer?! We’re the same age! …And hey, I think I’m a few months older than you, remember?”

“Then get with the times, old man!” Gina stuck out her tongue.

“Says the 27 year old with a CD player.”

Gina laughed. “What can I say? You and me, hanging out again? I’m feeling nostalgic. Remember back at Camp Saccharine, I had that clunky old thing and we used to take turns with the headphones?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Nick murmured. They were treading in dangerous waters now, and he hoped they wouldn’t end up sinking. “Only one ear actually worked so the sound came out all warped.”

“Well, I thought it might be good to do something like that again,” Gina laughed. She unspooled a set of earbuds. “Only now, thanks to the advancement of technology, we can listen together!”

She offered one of the buds to Nick while she slipped the other into her own ear.

Nick smiled. This was nice. He was on a date with an old friend, having a nice conversation and enjoying her company. He didn’t have to think about harems or transformations or Sylvia resurrecting you-know-who. He could just hang with Gina and listen to music with her.

Gina pressed the “play” button and a blood-curdling shriek shattered Nick’s eardrum.

THIS was the kind of music she listened to?! If you could even call it music, it was basically just noise. The lead singer’s voice was so high and raspy he couldn’t even be sure of their gender, and the words smashed into each other like they were all one long string of syllables. He could barely make any of it out.

“PRETTY AWESOME, RIGHT?!” Gina shouted at him. He **** a smile onto his face and nodded, relieved he’d only be deaf in one of his ears after today.

They continued to bum around the shopping district and checked out more shops, but nothing really caught their eye. Nick was starting to get hungry.

“Wanna get a bite?” Gina asked. “I kinda skipped breakfast this morning, so I’m famished.”

It was almost 12, so their morning activity had come to a close. Gina got to pick where they would eat, and Nick wasn’t at all surprised by her selection- a bar. Maybe it was the one they’d passed before, maybe a brand new one, but either way, here they were.

“Ah, yeah, that’s the smell,” Gina took a deep breath and exhaled. “Beer, cigarette smoke, and cheap body spray.”

Eh, as first dates go, it could be worse.

“Oh cool, they have karaoke here!” Gina said, gesturing at the stage. “Wanna sing something later?”

“…Let’s just eat first,” Nick said. The food was passable. A cheeseburger that was more grease than cheese and fries loaded with enough salt to turn slugs into an extinct species, but since Gina hadn’t eaten anything since she arrived on the island she devoured it with glee.

Something told him that she was used to food like this.

“Will there be anything else?” Their faerie waitress asked with a smile.

“Yeah, can I get some of this stuff?” Gina pointed to a drink on the spirits menu. “Oh, and this. And this, and that, and some of that…”

“What happened to moderation?” Nick asked, raising his eyebrow as a veritable ocean of liquor was deposited on their table.

“Oh? And here I thought you’d be thrilled to get a girl like me drunk so you could take me up to your suite and have your way with me,” Gina smirked, pouring herself a shot of a suspicious green liquid.

“Sorry, not really my style,” Nick shook his head. “Believe it or not, I’m not really into the idea of sleeping with a girl who wouldn't want to sleep with me when they’re sober.”

“Oh yeah?” Gina batted her eyelashes and leaned forward, showing a hint of cleavage. “Who said I wouldn’t be interested in doing anything when I’m sober?”

Nick tensed. That was a pretty big card she’d just laid on the table. He wasn’t sure how to reply to her. Luckily, she took her shot before he had the chance.

“Blegh! That stuff is rank!” Gina winced, sticking out her tongue in disgust. She pushed the bottle over to his side of the table. “Here, have some.”

“…Yeah, I’m not that stupid.”

“Well come on, you gotta drink something. We’re in a bar! You can’t just not drink in a bar. It’s against the law or something.”

The sad thing was, Gina had lived such a messed up life Nick couldn’t be sure if she was actually joking or not.

“I’ll pass. But I’d love to hear you sing,” he said. One of the things he remembered about Gina was that she’d had a great singing voice back when they were kids. When the counselors made them all sing the camp song in front of their parents, she was the pretty much the only person who could do it on tune.

“You betcha!” Gina hopped out of her seat and grabbed a bottle of vodka, drowning about a fifth of it in one swig. “Just need to do some prep work!”

Yeesh. That girl was a monster. She stumbled over to the tiny stage and hopped on, picking out a song for her audience of one from the machine.

“Ooh, I love this one!” She cleared her throat as the heavy rock music began blasting through the speakers.

“20, 20, 24 hours to go!

I wanna be sedated

Nothin' to do, nowhere to go-oh

I wanna be sedated!

__

Just get me to the airport, put me on a plane

Hurry, hurry, hurry before I go insane

I can't control my fingers, I can't control my brain

Oh, no, oh-oh, oh-oh!”

Nick didn’t want to use the word “awful” to describe her singing, but it was clear that whatever talent she’d had as a child hadn’t been nurtured. It was sad. He still remembered her as that sweet little girl in pigtails, but she wasn’t anymore. That had been a lifetime ago. The Gina DeAmico belting her heart out into the mic was a completely different woman.

“Wheew!” Gina said, walking back to the table and wiping the sweat from her forehead. “Your turn!”

“Oh, no, I don’t sing. No way.”

“You gotta. It’s the rules.”

“Is that anything like your ‘you must be at least this drunk to be in a bar’ rule?”

“Yep. From the same book. ‘How to be Cool and Have Fun, and Not a Boring Party Pooper Like Nick’.”

“I think I read that one. 1.5 star average reviews, right?”

“Hardy har. Come on, just one song.”

“I’ll make a deal with you,” Nick said, grabbing the bottle of noxious green gunk. “How about I do a shot, and then I don’t have to sing?”

“Okay, fine. Then I’ll sing another song!”

“Oop. Gonna have to make that three shots then.”

Gina frowned. “Was I really that bad?”

Ah. Shit.

Nick had been having fun joking around, but he’d messed up.

“Look, it’s not THAT bad, just… you’re out of practice, you know?”

“…Fair enough,” she chuckled, pouring a shot of vodka for herself. “Most of the time I sing, I’m WAY more blazed than I am right now. I’m too drunk to know I sound awful!”

“You seem to be holding up pretty well,” he complimented her. Understatement of the year. Nick was amazed she could still stand with the amount of booze in her system.

“Hey, the night is young,” she said, her chocolate eyes twinkling in the low light of the bar. She held up her shot glass for a toast.

More like the afternoon. It was barely past noon and already she was getting plastered.

“To a night of exciting possibilities,” Gina declared as they clinked their glasses together and took their shots.

The green stuff slid down his throat like slime and tasted even worse than she’d made it out to.

Yeesh.

---

“Sho I wash shaying to thish guy, ‘dude! If you wanna toush my boobsh at leasht buy me a drink firsht,” Gina muttered, taking another swig of vodka.

It was starting to get pretty late by the time Nick decided Gina’d had enough to drink. She was slurring her words and her eyes were out of focus. She was definitely headed for a brutal hangover. Unless those patches of hers fixed that, too.

“Okay, I’m cutting you off,” Nick said, clearing the table of empty bottles. But Gina held the vodka to her chest like a baby nursing from her boobs. But it was pretty clear she was the one who needed her bottle.

“Just one more sip!” She pleaded.

“…Fine,” he relented with a sigh.

“WOOOOO!” She cheered, tilting her mouth back. Her “sip” finished the bottle.

“Hey, come on!” She said, grabbing him by the shirt and pulling him to his feet. She nearly stumbled over herself when she did that, falling back against the chair. “Let’sh do shomething funnn!”

“Yeah, like get you down for a nice nap,” Nick suggested.

She burst into sniggering laughter. “Aww Nick, you’re sho silllllleeee. Hehe… OH! I know, pool they got poolll… shomewhere…”

She scanned the bar for a pool table with her blurry eyes. It was right in front of them.

“…Sure, why not,” Nick shrugged. He hadn’t played pool in years.

“Come on, be more ekshited,” Gina scowled. Then her cloudy face brightened and she put on a face that must have been trying to look seductive. “Ooh, how about… if you winnn… I’ll show you my boobiesh?”

Nick nearly stumbled over the table.

“Hey, come on, don’t joke around like that,” he laughed, trying to play it off.

Gina put her hands on her hips. “’M not!” She whined like a petulant child. “C’mon, it’ll be fun! ‘Sides, I’m, like, a mashter at the pools.”

“…Uh-huh.” She couldn’t even stand up straight. “Gina…”

“It’sh not like you didn’t see them before,” she reminded him, bouncing on her heels to make her chest shake slightly. “Come on, poolsh no fun without stakes.”

“…Okay, fine,” Nick said, recognizing that he must have been more **** than he thought to just go along with that. But unlike Gina, he didn’t feel dizzy or off-balance in the slightest, because he knew about moderation. Something that was clearly a dirty word in Gina’s dictionary.

“Oh wait!” She gasped. “Whado I get if I win?”

“How about I show you my boobs?” He suggested with a grin.

“Bwehehe!” She broke out into sniggering laughter and clutched the table to keep from falling over.

“I don’t know, what do you want?”

“Umm… cash! Gimme yo wallet, buddy!” She grabbed a knife from the table and made a threatening gesture with it, before bursting out laughing again.

“Sorry, don’t have any cash on me,” Nick chuckled. “Besides, it’s not like it’s any good here.”

“Then… what about thoshe, um… the Bonus Point thingies. Gimme some of those if I win!”

“I, uh… don’t think it works that way,” Nick said, shaking his head.

“Don’t think what works that way?”

Sylvia popped into existence right then and there, startling Nick. Gina was too out of it to really process what had just happened, rubbing her eyes. Then she spotted Sylvia and grinned.

“Oh look! It’sh Shylvia!” She giggled, running over and wrapping the woman in a big hug.

Sylvia gave her a dead-eyed stare, then turned it on Nick.

“This supposed to be a date,” she reminded him. “You couldn’t keep her sober until you got her back to the Master Suite?”

Nick just offered an awkward shrug.

“Shylvia! I jusht had the besht idea!” Gina said excitedly. “Nick an’ I’re gonna play shome pool, and if he wins, I gotta show him my boobies!” She sniggered. “But I want him to gimme some Bonus Points if I win!”

Sylvia glanced at Nick and nodded approvingly, earning her a scowl from him.

“HER idea,” he clarified. “I had nothing to do with it.”

“Yup! I’mma geniush!” Gina grinned. “If I win, I get Bonush Points, an’ if I lose, Nick gets all hot and bothered from ogling my boobies! It’s win-lose!”

“Don’t you mean win-win?” Sylvia asked, raising her eyebrow.

“…That too!”

Sylvia mulled it over. “…Well, as the master, Nick technically does have an unlimited amount of Bonus Points,” she admitted. “And while he is encouraged to use those points to buy presents for you girls, and we can award them for actions that please him, the master just straight giving away points here and there would wreck the game balance… hmm, I need to think about this.”

After about a minute of thought while Gina rubbed up against her, she decided. “Okay, I’ll allow it, since it’s a wager. But Nick better play to win, got it?” She turned to Nick with an expression that meant business. “I don’t want to see any BP laundering here, got it? So I’m going to stick around and make sure it’s a fair game.”

“Yippee!” Gina cheered.

“First thing’s first, before we rack up, how many points will you be betting?” Sylvia asked. “How much do you think a chance to see your boobs is worth?”

“Umm… 1000 BP,” Gina decided after thinking it over with what few brain cells were still working. “Because I have two of ‘em! So, 500 for each one!”

Sylvia glanced at Nick, just as surprised as he was that this girl was still standing. She supposed it didn’t really matter how much BP the wager was for, since she doubted Gina could even hold a cue properly.

“Sounds like a bet,” Sylvia agreed, taking out two slips of paper that represented 500 BP each and set them on the table. “Nick, it’s your break.”

She tapped her cane on the pool table and the balls arranged themselves in a perfect triangle. She set down the cue ball and stepped aside, letting Nick take the first shot. He smashed the alignment with a strong hit, scattering the balls and sinking the 7.

“I’m solids then,” he said, moving to take a shot at the 3. But he just barely missed.

“Ooop, ya burnt!” Gina crowed. “My turn!” She flounced over to the rack of cues and snatched one up, stumbling back to the table. Then she bent over and took a few seconds to align the shot. She looked up at Nick, and suddenly her eyes were more focused than he’d ever seen. He had just enough time to catch her wink before she sank the 11 ball in one shot.

He didn’t get another turn.

“…And that’s 1000 BP for me,” Gina crowed, very much clear-headed as she snatched up the bills in front of a shocked Nick and Sylvia. Gina had cleared the table in an instant.

Gina: 0 BP -> 1000 BP

“You… you hustler!” Sylvia fumed, waving her cane impotently at Gina. She couldn’t do anything since she’d deemed the wager fair. “You tricked me!”

Gina smirked and stuck her tongue out. “Doesn’t feel so good, does it?”

Nick couldn’t help but notice she wasn’t slurring her words anymore, either. He shook his head in amusement. Sylvia disappeared to go throw a tantrum in private, leaving the two of them alone.

“What’re you smiling at?” She grinned, strolling around the table and batting her eyelashes innocently.

“Oh, nothing,” Nick laughed, shaking his head. “But I think I just got a pretty good picture of how you’ve been living your life until now.”

“Hey, a girl’s gotta have game if she wants to make it,” Gina laughed. “And it doesn’t hurt that you’re just about the easiest mark in the world.”

She put on a fake cutesy voice. “Why yes, Nick, I would just LOVE to show you my big boobies! Eeheeheehee!”

Then she put her hands on her hips and smirked incredulously. “Really? Come on.”

“Hey, in my defense? Zero dates,” Nick reminded her. “You tricked me with your feminine wiles!”

Gina snorted and rolled her eyes. “You should’ve known better,” she shook her head. “Didn’t you see the transformation votes? I’m a good girl now. And a good girl doesn’t show a boy what she’s working with on the first date!”

“…Pretty sure she doesn’t swindle him out of 1000 Bonus Points either,” Nick grinned back.

“Ah, but you loved it.” She punched him in the arm. “And who knows? There’s always our next date. And we’ve got a whole night ahead of us in the suite. Anything could happen.”

It probably could. But getting beaten so badly had actually sobered him up pretty well, and common sense had taken back its position in the driver’s seat. So even if Gina may have had some ulterior motives for what they wanted to do when they got back to the room, he wasn’t going in for that sort of thing.

---

As it turned out, what was in store for the two of them was a romantic dinner. They’d returned in a fit of laughter to the suite, only to see the golden dining room table set for two. The faeries must have just left because the food was still warm.

“Dude, for real?” Gina looked around at Nick’s accommodations with awe in her eyes. “This place is badass! And I thought my room was cool since it was all black and shit, but you’ve got gold all over!”

“Um, yeah, it’s nice, I guess,” Nick mumbled. He felt a little self-conscious, actually, since this was, in a manner of speaking, the first time he’d brought a girl back to his room after a date. Even if the date wasn’t really a date, the room wasn’t really his room, and he wasn’t actually going to do anything with the girl in question.

“So what do you want to do after we eat?” Gina asked tensely as they finished their meal. “Sorry to break it to you, but I meant what I said. I don’t put out on the first date. …Okay, well, that’s a lie, I totally do. But usually that’s because I want to, not because I was **** by some psycho blonde in a top hat.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Nick said. “Believe me, I feel the same way. I understand you girls don’t want to be here, and I don’t want to be here either. So that works out great. No sex.”

“Right. Just over-the-pants hand stuff.”

Nick choked on his sparkling water as Gina burst out laughing. Sylvia had thankfully thought ahead and removed all **** from the room before they got there. The bar had a big sign on it that read “we refuse service for pool hustlers”.

“Wanna watch TV or something?” He asked, **** to change the subject.

“Nah. Not much a TV person. When you live the kinda life I do, it’s hard to follow shows, you know?”

That made sense. Gina probably didn’t remember most nights. As sober as she seemed (which was shocking, given she’d practically drank the bar out of ****) he wondered if she’d even remember this one.

“We could just chat,” Nick suggested.

“Sure. About what?”

“Uh…”

The biggest issue facing the both of them was the fact that they’d more or less run out of things to talk about. With no big activities to occupy their attention, they’d spent most of their date reconnecting and catching up.

Then Nick had an idea. A wild, crazy idea. But it was Gina, so she might actually be interested in it.

“Gimme a sec, I’ll be right back.”

“Ooh, going to go get some rope to tie me down?” She called after him, cackling like a hyena.

Nick used the antique phone on the wall to call the lobby and make a request. It was a bizarre request, and he doubted they’d be able to fill it, but with Sylvia’s magic anything was possible.

He hadn’t even finished hanging up when he heard a knock on the door.

“Company?” Gina sat up curiously on the couch.

“Delivery.” Nick came back with a guitar in his hands. “What do you think?”

“I don’t play,” Gina shook her head.

“I know, I do.”

“Liar.”

“What? I learned how to play!”

“Nope, those are liar words coming out of your liar mouth.”

“I did! I took lessons for like four years!”

“Your words are the lyrics to a melody of lies.”

“Come on, name a song,” Nick laughed. “I’ll play, and you can sing.”

“…You really learned how to play the guitar?” Gina asked suspiciously. “Because you don’t seem like the type.”

“…Yeah, I thought that if I learned how to play, then girls would be into me,” he admitted sheepishly.

“Okay, I take it back, you’re definitely the type,” she snickered.

“Come on, just pick a song,” Nick laughed, sitting across from her.

“Okay… ‘Your Love Makes me Stab You’.”

“…I don’t know how to play that one, pick something else.”

“…What about… ‘The Devil is my Babydaddy’?”

“First off, gross, second off, no, don’t know that one.”

She gave him a blank stare. “Well, can you do ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’?” She asked dryly.

“Now THAT one I can do.” He tuned the guitar as best as he could remember, and strummed a few chords. Gina burst out laughing and began to sing in her scratchy, off-pitch voice.

“Twinkle twinkle little star,

Boy you suck at the guitar.”

She couldn’t sing any more after that, curling up on the couch and laughing her ass off.

“Oh so it’s okay to mock MY singing, little miss ‘couldn’t carry a tune with a forklift’?”

“Yes, because the fact you actually took lessons makes it funnier.”

Nick couldn’t really argue there.

“You know what this reminds me of?” He mused. “When that one counselor at Camp Saccharine, what was his name again? The dude with the ponytail.”

“Oh, David? What about him?”

“You remember?”

“Uh, duh? He was a high schooler, Nick, all the girls at camp had a crush on him.”

Nick pouted. That revelation stung a little more than he expected. “I thought you had a crush on me?”

“I did. But there’s crushes on guys your age, and then there’s crushes on older guys who play guitar. Totally different things, ask any tweenage girl.”

Nick gave her the stinkeye and she just smirked.

“…Anyway, remember how he wrote that song for us to sing?”

“Oh, yeah, totally!" She laughed. "And then we all got in trouble ‘cause of the lyrics? The camp director was so mad…”

“I think that’s why he got fired.”

“You sure? I thought it was because he and counselor Shelby got caught making out in the supply closet.”

The two shared a wistful look and laughed.

Nick actually felt good. It had been so long since he’d thought about Camp Saccharine without feeling like shit. There were so many bad memories associated with that place because of what had happened with Dakota, but with Dakota alive again and Gina here with him, he was starting to remember the good memories, too.”

“How did that song go again?” Gina asked, straining her memory to try and call back the lyrics.

“I’ve got no idea about the melody so I’m just gonna strum,” Nick decided.

“Good. That'll sound better than if you actually tried to play it right.”

He flung a pillow at her and she ducked away, giggling.

“Okay, gimme a beat!” She urged him, and he began to play. Or more accurately just run his fingers up and down the guitar in a jagged amalgam of noise. Gina began to sing.

“Welcome to Camp Sac, we’re happy that you’re here!

To hear us sing a song, about our awful time this year!

Oh, I don’t want no more of Ca-amp Sac!

Please mom, I wanna go! But dad won’t let me go!

Please mom, I wanna go home!

(Bum bum)

The kids here, at Camp Sac, they said were mighty fine,

They’re bratty and they’re noisy, and do nothing but whine!

Oh, I don’t want no more of Ca-amp Sac!

Please mom, I wanna go! But dad won’t let me go!

Please mom, I wanna go home!

(Bum bum)

The food here, at Camp Sac, they said was mighty fine,

It tastes completely awful, and it’s full of grease and slime!

Oh, I don’t want no more of Ca-amp Sac!

Please mom, I wanna go! But dad won’t let me go!

Please mom, I wanna go home!

(Bum bum)

The adults here, at Camp Sac, they said were mighty fine,

They’re lazing on the patio, and drinking beer and wine!

Oh, I don’t want no more of Ca-amp Sac!

Please mom, I wanna go! But dad won’t let me go!

Please mom, I wanna go home!”

That was all they could remember. Gina was rolling on the floor in conniptions by the end of it.

“Not too bad, I’d say,” she laughed, sitting up. “Could have sounded better, but at least the guitarist is cute.”

“Hey, a few more sessions like that and we’re ready to take this on the road!” Nick laughed.

They kept “playing” songs together until Nick felt the tug of sleep on his eyelids.

“Dang, it’s really getting late…” Gina yawned, wiping her eyes. “I can’t remember the last time I actually went to sleep voluntarily. Usually I’m just passed out.”

That made him wince. When she said stuff like that, it stung.

Then Sylvia's loud voice echoed through the room.

"ATTENTION ALL RESIDENTS OF THE MASTER SUITE. IT IS NOW TIME TO GO TO SLEEP. THOSE OF YOU NOT IN A BED, PLEASE ENTER ONE IMMEDIATELY. PENISES NOT INSIDE A VAGINA OR OTHER ORIFICE SHOULD CONSIDER THE SAME. THAT IS ALL."

"Ow," Gina's head was ringing.

"I guess that's her way of telling us to go to bed," Nick grumbled. "She did say we have to sleep in the same bed together. I guess staying up all night isn't an option."

"Ah, well. I'm tired anyway." She stumbled to her feet and nearly fell over. Whether from exhaustion or **** he couldn't tell.

“Come on,” he agreed, helping her over to the bed. “Time to go to sleep.” Sylvia had made it clear that they had to sleep in it together. But that was all he was going to do. Sleep.

“You sure? Last chance if ya wanna have some fu-unnn…” Gina’s eyes were unfocused. As sober as she might have seemed, it was clear there was still some **** swimming around up there.

Nick shook his head.

“I’m good. I had more than enough fun with you tonight,” he said, tucking her into bed. Suddenly, out of nowhere something came over him and he gave her a slight peck on the forehead. Just a little goodnight kiss. Then he climbed into bed next to her and let the let the sweet caress of sleep take hold as he listened to Gina snoring softly beside him.

---

Kissed on the Forehead by the Master! +0 VP (but still, awww, how sweet!)

---

Sylvia grinned as she watched the two of them sleep beside each other. So they didn't get anywhere serious. Still, they had closed a lot of distance, which was the point. Nick was certainly getting more used to interacting with girls. Soon he'd be fucking them.

"That was our first date of the week!" She told the cameras. "Stay tuned for the next one! We have seven more to go, and then you'll have to decide which one was the best!"