Author's Note:Kudos to djkauf for betaing this for me. Pic Credit: Darth Hell. Star Wars and recognizable characters from that universe belong to George Lucas et al.

Okay, this one is a cliffhanger. Be forewarned. Since it's the last one before the big finish, I think it's somewhat justified.

Chapter Seven

Dinner was, in a word, uncomfortable. It wasn’t anywhere fancy, just Friday’s. What made it bearable was the presence of Matt and Eric. They stared down anyone who looked like they were going to say one negative word to us. We couldn’t really stop people from staring and truthfully, I thought Matt was pushing his chest out a little more than he normally does, simply because he was walking beside me.

Lyshaa annoyed me beyond belief until I put Matt’s ring on a necklace and wore it like I’d been claimed. That and some type of fancy jacket I was supposed to wear to dinner so I didn’t look like a complete ho. The dresses we wore for dancing weren’t really meant for casual dining.

The nightclub we went to afterward was a local teen hangout. The only drinks they served were overpriced sodas and energy drinks. The music was turned up to ear-bleeding levels which meant that my ear cones were throbbing for most of the night. The Twi’leks in the movies wore these cone protector things that were a part of their headbands. I seriously had to look into a pair of those if I ever went out clubbing again.

For the most part, the teens that were at the club had already seen the freaky alien show from Lyshaa and me, so there were only a few that gawked when I was dragged out to the dance floor.

It took me most of the first song to remember what Lyshaa taught me and after that, I think I actually had a modicum of fun. There was one thing I was definitely sure of; Matt did.

He spent most of his time watching me move and I was positive the boy knew how to dance. I’ve triple dated with him and Eric since we got in high school. Matt’s got moves.

What he looked like on the floor that night was a white guy doing the overbite thing.

Since Eric drove, I was in the back seat with Matt on the way home.

The one thing I liked about Twi’leks is that it took a lot to make them sweat. I was still fresh as a daisy by the end of the night, and I was seriously horny.

It was all Lyshaa’s fault. We had to ride with the windows down so her pheromones wouldn’t flood the car and put Eric into a coma, but there was more than enough to light everyone’s fire.

Matt took advantage of the situation and well, I allowed him.

Why was I not surprised when we just so happened to pass by the library park over on West Little York, where high school teens went to make out? Frankly, Matt and I were a little too busy to notice the car had stopped. When I heard Lyshaa moan, I pulled away from Matt’s overly eager hands pawing at my breasts.

Pheromones were saturating the still air inside the car. It was so thick I could barely think straight, so I bailed.

Outside of the car, I tugged my dress down and adjusted my breasts back in their respective cups as I took in several breaths of clean air to clear my head.

Matt crawled out the side I spilled out of and shook his head.

“Aayla, come back inside, baby.”

I chuckled in a not on your life kind of way. “I’m not fucking you in the back of Eric’s mom’s car.”

He blinked hard and shook his head again. “What the hell? It feels like I’m taking X or something.”

Leaning against the trunk of the car I nodded. “It’s Lyshaa. She gives off serious sex pheromones; Zeltrons, remember?”

He adjusted himself with a pained look. “It feels like solid steel. I got major blue balls.”

I knew the feeling. “Sorry, man. I’m not taking care of that for you, not here anyway.”

Yeah, you heard right. I was through fighting the inevitable. I was wearing Matt’s ring for God’s sake. We were going to have sex. It was only a matter of when. I’d like for it to be strictly for biological necessity, but I knew better. Twi’leks were sexual creatures by nature. That didn’t mean we were as bad as Zeltrons, but it wasn’t too far off.

“Does that mean if I rent a room tonight…?”

My body was saying yes, but my head still wasn’t that far into the game. “Let’s take it one step at a time, Matt.”

How often did I hear that phrase coming from Blue’s lips? I thoroughly understood it, though. I felt like crap leaving him hanging like that, but there was no way I was blowing my best friend there in the parking lot of a library, much less anywhere else.

The strained look on his face let me know he was really aching down there.

“Can you at least give me a hand?”

He meant that literally, by the way.

“Frotz,” I whispered.

Looking around, I saw that we were pretty secluded, on the side of the building itself, meaning the other cars that were there were mostly blocked from view. Maybe if I just got it over with quickly I wouldn’t feel so bad.

“Take it out.”

Lyshaa’s moans were becoming louder. We didn’t have too much time to work with here.

Matt nearly ripped opened the tops of his slacks before I changed my mind.

Jesus! I’d never really seen him in that specific stage of… um… screw it. Matt had a raging hardon, okay? Before I lost my nerve, we took up where we left off in the back of the car, except I had something else to direct my attention to while we kissed.

The car was moving and it wasn’t because of Matt and me. Apparently Lyshaa was giving it up on the first date, the slut.

I got down to business and even used the Force to tweak certain areas to speed the process. Before long, I had to jump aside so Matt wouldn’t ruin my dress as he groaned into my mouth. When we broke apart, Matt was whispering to me.

“Thank you… oh man, thank you.”

I cleared my throat and released my grip on him. “No problem.”

The sound of a police siren being flicked on and off followed by flashing red and blue lights got our attention.

Asshole cops always did this, rousting the parkers so they wouldn’t spend the entire night venting their hormones.

“Aayla!” Lyshaa called out.

I double checked my dress to make sure Matt didn’t get anything on me then made my way around the side of the car. Lyshaa had a worried look on her face and Eric had the silliest grin plastered on his lips while his head was hanging loosely, flopping to the side.

“I think I overdid it,” she said.

The smell coming from inside the Avalon was overwhelming. “Turn the air conditioner on full. Matt, give me a hand, please.”

Lyshaa started the car and hit the AC while Matt and I dragged Eric to the back seat, pretty much couples switching places. Then Matt drove us home.

~O~

Eric was grounded and had to have the car detailed to get the pheromone smell out. Lyshaa was sulking because she couldn’t see her boyfriend. Matt was on cloud nine and kept randomly sending me text messages all day Sunday, and I was popping Midol in hopes of quelling the growing knot in my lower abdomen.

It wouldn’t be too much longer.

I used almost all of Sunday in meditation for two reasons: one, I was getting overly emotional again and letting that rule my decision making skills. Once I had slept and was out of Matt’s company, I kicked myself for falling prey to my new hormones. He is a guy! I had better sense than that. Sure, I eventually needed to have sex with him to quell a biological need my body had, but that didn’t mean I had to act like some horny chick in the backseat of a car, did it?

Two: I needed to postpone that particular biological need. If I could control my body enough to ignore Lyshaa’s pheromones then I should be strong enough to make the sex thing a non-issue. Jedi’s and Sith both, had the power to do these things. Sith just didn’t care. They could rape and plunder to their heart’s content because they fed off the fear of others. If I was Darth Talon in truth, I’d just take Matt, use him to sate my desires, and then lock him up in a cage until I needed him again. I wouldn’t need to expend valuable energy countering the effects of being a Twi’lek.

By the time the sun dropped in the west, I came out of my meditative trance and felt at ease. The knot in my abdomen was gone and I felt calmer than I had since the whole mess started with the Sith holocron.

“You’ve got about fifty texts from Matt,” Lyshaa said from the bed, where she was paging through her chemistry text for school.

I glanced at the phone and frowned.

“You can’t avoid him forever, and don’t tell me you didn’t like what you two were doing in the back seat.”

With all the reinforced calm I had built up, Lyshaa’s remark didn’t bother me. “My libido can be controlled. It’s just a matter of concentration; something you could use more of as well.”

She made a hurt noise with her throat. “We were about to have sex! I was supposed to be that way.”

It took me by surprise that they hadn’t had sex, what with all the moaning and stuff I heard coming from the front seat.

“Yeah, and drowning your boyfriend in pheromones to the point where he’s comatose helps you how?

Lyshaa’s bottom lip pouted out. “He was still ready… I could have, you know, but it was no fun with him just lying there.”

“You’re not human anymore, Lyshaa. You have to remember that.”

Her expression at that reminder was like I kicked a puppy.

“Don’t get all mopey,” I said. “You wanted this.”

“I wanted to be a Twi’lek like you.”

I grabbed a towel from the stack by the stairs. “You have hair. Consider yourself lucky. And your problem can be solved with a little bit of control. You actually have to want to do it. Look at me.” Pausing at the foot of the stairs, I opened my arms. “With meditation, I have no desire to run out and jump Matt. I pushed it down and I’ll keep pushing it down until I’m ready.”

“I’m not a Jedi,” she said in her defense.

“Neither am I. I’m Sith, Lyshaa, or at least I was trained to be one. The thing is, I have a choice and I’m choosing not to let some psycho from another galaxy dictate who I am. I’m not letting my body do that either.”

With that said I went up and took a nice long shower. When I got out, and dried off, I realized I’d left my clothes downstairs. Wrapping the fluffy towel around me, I opened the door and caught sight of Kenny poking his head out of his room to see who was in the hall. He caught one sight of me and ducked back inside.

“You’ve finally come out of your hole, I see,” Mom said at the head of the hall. “Where are your clothes?”

“I forgot to bring them up.”

She nodded as I started making my way downstairs to grab them. Before I reached the door she took my arm.

“I thought you should know that your father isn’t going to bring a suit against You-Know-Who.”

I blinked for a moment. “Voldemort?”

She looked at me like I was crazy. “The fuzzy-faced man.”

That surprised me. “What? Why?”

After looking back toward the living room she turned to me. “He doesn’t want any more attention brought on you because of it. He thinks you’ve suffered enough with the change and everything; a law suit that big would guarantee television cameras in the front yard day and night.”

Dad had a point. “But what about what’s due to him? I can deal with the cameras, Mom.”

She shook her head and looked down. “He says it’s not worth it. Your father loves you, Aayla. He loves you so much that he’s dropping his obsession with that man.”

My teeth pressed against each other for a moment in mild frustration. “It’s not right, and we can’t afford this. I know you went into debt to buy my clothes.”

“That’s nothing new, honey. It’s why we have credit cards.”

This time, it was me staring toward the living room, wondering if my dad was out there trying to figure out a way to make some extra money.

“I can make them pay,” I said. Mom looked at me like I just said something nefarious. “I don’t mean it like that. I mean I could visit the fuzzy-faced man’s lawyers and make them give us a deal under the table or take their chance in court. That’s what everyone does anyway.”

“Oh.” She looked like she was considering it. “It still sounds wrong honey. I raised you better than that.”

Even though she was right, I knew I could get them to pay. Jedi made people do the right thing all the time. It wasn’t evil. “Can I go get dressed now?”

Mom gave me a slight smile. “Go on.”

Lyshaa was already in bed by the time I made it down. It was a little early for sleeping, but I’d had a long weekend already. Fishing through my dresser I only found some of the silkier things Mom bought me to sleep in. I really needed to do some laundry. The thought of wearing something like that to bed was not attractive, but considering my other option was to wear nothing at all led me to don the least revealing thing in the drawer.

It didn’t quite make it past my butt. While I thought it would be great on someone like Lyshaa, I wasn’t so sure about its appearance on my body. There was a matching pair of panties that went with it that made me feel a tad less naked and sex-kittenish.

With that done, I crawled into bed and turned out the light. Before I knew it, Lyshaa snuggled up against me and sighed.

“Will you teach me?” she said.

“I’ll get Yoda to do it. He’s more patient than I am.”

Reaching back, she grabbed my hand and placed it in what was becoming its traditional position for sleeping.

~O~

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday went off without a hitch. I’d wake up, go to school, and meet up with Matt and Eric briefly so Lyshaa could try her best to suck off his face. Matt and I would talk about mundane things while this was going on. Bless the boy; he was trying his best to rein in his hormones. It gave me respect for him that I didn’t know he possessed.

Then we’d go home, and do our schoolwork. Lyshaa and I meditated afterward. Life was almost good for a short while.

When we got home Thursday the local FedEx guy was standing at the door, ringing the bell. One look at me and he stopped, taking a step back in the process.

“Who’s the package for?” I asked.

He looked down for a moment. “Aayla Walker.”

I smiled at him. “That’s me.”

After I signed for it and he made a dash to his truck, I checked out the return address. It was a PO Box, which didn’t tell me squat.

“What’s that?” said Lyshaa.

I shrugged and dug one of my talons into the tape. No, I haven’t made a trip to the hardware store yet. What can I say? I’ve grown used to having ten little hardened knives at my fingertips. They weren’t quite that sharp, but they got the job done.

Inside was a letter and something rolled up in bubble wrap. My inner geek wanted to just pop all the bubbles, one at a time, but I held myself back until I could solve my little mystery.

With a little Eeep! escaping my lips I realized it was from Doctor Doomah.

“Boo-yah!” I yelled.

Three seconds later the bubble wrap was on the floor and I was looking at something akin to an AC cord attached to a black box with multiple prongs sticking out of the top

Lyshaa picked up the plug from the floor and looked at it. “Two-twenty.”

“The washer,” I said to myself.

Downstairs we went and I moved the washer and dryer apart with the Force. After I unplugged the washer from the two-twenty outlet, I plugged in the charger. A little green light lit up indicating that it was ready. I called the lightsaber to me and set it in the provided slot. The green light switched to orange which I knew meant that it was charging.

I had no idea how long it was going to take to recharge the battery, but frankly I didn’t give a crap. I was going to have a real lightsaber when it was finished.

The geek inside me cheered and I had the sudden desire to hop around like Lyshaa. Don’t worry, I restrained myself.

“What about the rest of the stuff?”

I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face when I turned to her. “This is going to draw more power than the rest. I want to make sure it’s charged first.”

She looked at me curiously. “Anticipating an upcoming lightsaber battle soon?”

I shrugged and went to sit down and take my boots off. “You never know.”

Digging my thumb under the arch of my foot, I rubbed away.

“Do you want me to massage them?”

My eyes ticked up to see Lyshaa watching. “Uh, no… thanks.”

I was seriously thinking my roomie was codependent. She tried so hard to please me and almost always went out of her way trying to be my little woman or something. All she asked was for me to accept it. The problem was that I still couldn’t erase the image I had of her as an emo boy that was so hell-bent on becoming a Twi’lek that he branded himself. Sorry, but that’s somewhat difficult to forget. Otherwise I probably would take her and do all the things to her that I wanted to do to Blue.

Lyshaa was seriously cute and almost annoyingly perky. She would have made the perfect cheerleader.

It almost made me annoyed that she was a boy at all. Frankly I couldn’t see how Matt could see me as I currently am as opposed to Josh. Maybe I was the problem. Maybe I was pushing my own issues off on Lyshaa so I wouldn’t take advantage of her submissive nature.

My attention was drawn to her as she changed out of her school clothes into a pair of shorts and a halter top, neon blue and green respectively.

She was so lucky that I wasn’t a real Sith, and the bad part is that she never realized it.

Darth Talon would have had Lyshaa on her knees every chance she got, doing all sorts of things to satisfy her dark desires.

I shivered at the thought. Part of me found it nauseating and another part was imagining her down there taking care of business, if you know what I mean. That particular part was exhilarated at the thought of making an innocent girl like Lyshaa serve me in that way, totally worshipping every inch of my body. I deserved it after everything that I’d been through and everything that I’d done for her.

A tight knot clenched in my abdomen and I had to grit my teeth to push it away.

“Dammit.”

Lyshaa turned to me. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “I need to meditate.”

She saw my hand pressing right underneath my navel. “Why don’t I just call Matt and have him come over. I’ll take your mom shopping when she gets home.”

Shaking my head, I slipped off my jeans and sat down on the mat I used for this specific purpose. “No, I can beat this.”

Lyshaa sighed. “You’re going to push it away and push it away until it builds up and…”

“Be quite, sit down, and let me meditate!” I snapped.

She jumped and immediately ducked her head, making her way around the bed to sit down and watch me.

I breathed in and closed my eyes.

~O~

When I opened my eyes again I could smell a hint of Lyshaa’s pheromones in the air. Looking over at her, I noticed she was in the exact same position she was in when I started my meditation. A glance at the clock and I saw that it was three hours later. Lyshaa was quivering with a strained look on her face.

“What’s wrong?”

She quickly licked her lips. “May I go to the bathroom?”

“Uh… you don’t need my permission to go.”

Her bottom lip curled between her teeth. “You told me to sit and be quiet.”

“Lyshaa, go to the bathroom.”

She got up with her thighs pressed so hard together that I was wondering how she was going to make it up the stairs, but make it she did.

I closed my eyes and rubbed at them over her behavior. “God, I don’t need this.”

More strange behavior from my roomie; one minute she’s a normal girl and the next she’s taking what I say as gospel.

Fifteen minutes later she came back, her cheeks pinker than normal, holding a wet pair of panties. I didn’t have the heart to ask if she wet herself, but I knew she had.

We had a line hung on the laundry side of the basement for hand-washed items, where she draped her panties on to dry and took down my underwear that I didn’t remember washing.

I watched as she folded everything properly and then returned to store it away in my dresser.

“You did my laundry?” I said with a tone of disbelief in my voice.

Lyshaa gave me a weak smile. “I was doing mine and I thought I’d save you the trouble of doing yours, so I did them together.”

There was a part of me that was grateful and another part of me that was creeped out. With everything else in my life going sideways, I really didn’t want to have a down to earth conversation with her about why she was acting this way. Frankly, I had enough problems of my own. If she wanted to wash my panties and bras, then I’d let her.

“May I put on a new pair of panties?” she meekly asked.

“Oh, for crying out loud!” My peace of mind just wasn’t meant to be. “Why are you acting this way?”

Her knees went weak and I saw that she was having trouble deciding if she should stand where she was and shake or kneel in front of me. Don’t ask me how I knew that; it was all in her eyes and body language.

Tears dropped from her eyes and trailed down her face. “I don’t know. When you say things a certain way… I just… I have to do them.”

I tried blinking away my astonishment, but you try making sense of that statement.

“Are you telling me you can’t do anything unless I tell you to do it?”

She shrugged. “Sort of.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true,” she pleaded.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “So, if I told you to wear bland clothes and cut off all your hair, you’d do it?”

Her face lost a lot of its color and more tears fell, but she nodded.

“Why?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

I closed my eyes and rubbed at my temples. “Come here.”

After I sat on the bed, I pointed down on the floor in front of me and Lyshaa kneeled between my open legs.

“Closer,” I said.

She shimmied up until her front was pressed against me. My hands moved to cradle her face as I wiped away her tears. Then I looked deep into her eyes, concentrating.

“Lyshaa, you are your own person. You make your own decisions. If you want to go to the bathroom, then go. You don’t have to ask for permission to do anything that any other person would take for granted. You don’t have to do anything for me unless you want to, okay?”

“Okay,” she said meekly.

“The only thing I want you to do is keep my secrets, other than that, you make your own decisions, alright?”

“Alright… anything I want?”

I nodded with a soft smile.

Before I knew it, she sat up straight and kissed me right on the lips. It wasn’t full-blown like Matt and I did on Saturday, because I was taken by surprise, but it was the best she could do.

When she pulled back, it was with a bright smile again.

“Well,” I said with a dry tone. “I guess I asked for that, didn’t I?”

“You said anything, and I’ve wanted to do that for a while.”

I sighed. “Well, let’s try to keep those types of things to a minimum.”

~O~

There was a little bit of a change in her actions after that incident. Lyshaa wasn’t quite as submissive as before, but I could still see that she wanted my approval for things, even if she didn’t say so. One of the first things she did was to tell me she was going to get her nails done. She didn’t ask; she just told me and left.

Good… I think. One more problem hopefully solved.

The next morning, the first thing I did when I got out of bed was to check if the lightsaber had finished charging. The indicator light was still orange. I sighed. Patience wasn’t one of my virtues, but it was one of the highest tenets of the Jedi. It showed me how far I had to go in order to achieve that lofty position.

School, boredom, Eric and Matt, Lyshaa sucking Eric’s face, home again home again jiggity-jig.

My life had become routine once more.

It only took a short time for people to stop staring everywhere I went. Sure, I still got poked from time to time for inside information on Star Wars trivia, but for the most part, most of my peers were leaving me alone. Blue still turns around and finds alternate routes whenever she sees me. That’s always a plus.

Friday was an in service day, hence the Junior Prom being scheduled on that particular evening. Lyshaa was bouncing around in nervous anticipation, checking and double checking her dress and shoes, then after the fifth time, she’d check my dress and shoes.

Anticipating a long day, I settled in and tried to move on to the next meditation lesson.

That’s when I heard a beep over by the washer and dryer.

Lyshaa looked up from her minute examination of the hem of her dress and stared at me.

I turned my head and looked at the silver and black colored cylinder and the green light below that. It was done.

“Are you going to…”

I nodded. “Not here though.”

She bunched her eyebrows up. “Why not?”

“That particular weapon is basically a plasma generator contained in a force field, all well over a hundred years old. I’d rather not be in my parent’s house when I ignite it.”

“Oh.”

I wasn’t worried, just cautious. With the Yoda-Gatekeeper hologram, I’d gone over the lightsaber millimeter by millimeter. Everything seemed to be in fine working order, but I just didn’t want to take the chance.

“Want to go for a ride?”

Lyshaa’s face lit up. “Where to?”

~O~

After connecting the charger up to some of the other stuff left behind by my ancestor, the saber got put in my backpack and we lit off to a nearby bayou that I knew had some seriously large storm drains.

It would be underground and contained if anything went wrong, plus it had the added advantage of being dark, so the blade would look that much cooler when lit. I do have priorities, you know.

“Are there snakes around here?” Lyshaa asked nervously as she was following me into the tall grass.

“Uh, yeah. Water moccasins are the most common in places like this. Sometimes you’ll see a copperhead or even a rattlesnake.”

I smiled when she froze in place. “Don’t worry. As long as you don’t step directly on them, they’ll scurry away. It’s not like in the movies where they hunt you down. Just watch where you step.”

There was virtually no water in the bayou and very little trickling out of the storm drain, which was probably runoff from someone over-watering their lawn. I could almost stand up all the way inside the drain, that’s how big it was. I only crouched so I wouldn’t accidently scrape my lekku on the rough cement.

“You think it’ll blow up?” Lyshaa asked nervously.

“If you want to wait by the entrance I won’t take offence.”

She shook her head, still scanning the ground for creatures that might slither or creep. Personally, I wasn’t worried. Through the Force, I could feel what was living in the area and the closest snake was about fifty yards down the bayou. The only thing that was in abundance in our general vicinity was spiders.

“I’m good,” she said.

Unzipping the backpack, I withdrew the lightsaber and pointed it away and down the drain. Checking the settings I saw that it was at full length and maximum power output, which was basically what you saw in the movies. Pretty much any lightsaber had adjustable length. I could shorten the blade down to needle fine size if I wanted to, but that is just too anticlimactic for my taste.

“Here we go.”

I took an even breath and reached out with my limited farseeing abilities. When I didn’t see it exploding in my hand and burning my face off, I pressed the stud.

A low hiss sounded and green plasma ignited, extending the blade out a good three feet.

Even knowing I could control the Force to some extent, and the transformation into a Twi’lek, nothing cemented my belief in what was real and unreal more than holding that weapon in my hand.

I waved it and was a little disappointed that it didn’t make the cool woom-woom sounds that they did in the movies. But seriously… who cares. I have a functioning lightsaber. Screw the guys at MIT that said it was a physical impossibility.

“I think I just came,” said Lyshaa, breathlessly.

Depressing the stud once more, I deactivated the blade and handed it to her. She gave me a little look of awe.

“Really?”

I nodded. “Just don’t cut your leg off.”

She took it and looked the controls over. “Which button?”

“That one. Hold on and let me get out of your way.”

The look on her face was more than enough to know that I’d made her millennium.

Lyshaa waved it around a little, much like I did and then her voice dropped as low as she could make it while she did a really bad Darth Vader impersonation.

“The Force is strong with you, young Skywalker. Join me and together we will crush the Emperor then rule the galaxy together, side by side, as father and son.”

I snorted.

“Can I hit something with it?”

I shook my head. “Not here. We’ll test it out on things later. I just wanted to make sure it worked right.”

The plasma collapsed in on itself until the lightsaber was just a simple metal tube once more. Lyshaa looked at it wistfully and then handed it back to me.

~O~

When we got back to the house, most of the other stuff was charged. Taking a look at the other lightsaber, I frowned. It was made out of a different material, Yorik coral. I recognized it from my dreams. It was Darth Talon’s person weapon. Cade must have taken it as a trophy or something. Even though it fit in my hand like it was personally made for me, it had three red focusing crystals inside, the mark of a Sith blade.

The practical side of me won over and I undid the housing to remove the power cell, snapping it onto the battery charger.

Having a second weapon would be wise, even if it was Sith in origin. There was no telling when something would break on my main one and with no way to readily replace the parts, I would be defenseless.

It wasn’t that I was being attacked on a daily basis or anything, but still. I felt much more secure just having something there, just in case.

Lyshaa squeaked behind me. “We’ve only got four hours to get ready! Oh my God… where’s my lingerie!”

I stood there for what had to be two full minutes watching Lyshaa panic as she went through her drawers and then back through them again until she found some really risqué stuff. Then she dashed upstairs.

“I call the bath first!”

Obviously, it wasn’t the estrogen that made her crazy. I had that in abundant amounts in my bloodstream and I was perfectly sane. After thinking about the total amount of time it would take me to get ready, I came up with twenty three minutes. Don’t worry; I’ll break it down for you.

Thirty seconds to disrobe, ten minutes for a shower, two minutes to dry off, two minutes to brush my teeth, four minutes to dress, another two minutes for the annoying heels, and one minute to switch items from my backpack to a clutch purse, one minute to walk back and forth to the bathroom, and one minute to check over everything.

Okay, it was twenty-three minutes and thirty seconds; call it twenty four. I really didn’t see what the big deal was all about.

To waste time, I cleaned up the area a little, packing away the items I charged, straightening the bed, and setting out my dress, heels, and underwear.

“Looking forward to the big night?”

I glanced up at my mom standing at the foot of the stairs and shrugged.

“It’s just another dance, Mom; it’s no big deal.”

That earned me a raised eyebrow. “Is everything okay, honey?”

I nodded. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

Her movements told me that it was time again to have a mother-son… mother-daughter chat. She sat on the edge of the bed while I was cross-legged on the floor with my back up against the end.

“Anything I can help with?”

It was obvious that she didn’t really like the silence that followed.

“Is it about tonight?” she asked. “Is Matt pressuring you to do something you don’t want?”

That brought a mild snort from me. “No, Mom. Matt’s fine. I just wish things were easier.”

I leaned into her palm when she set her hand on my head and softly cradled me. “And I wish I could tell you it’s going to get easier as you grow older, but the truth is, it only gets harder. You just learn to deal with things differently. Everything isn’t so universe altering.”

Snaking a hand around her calf, I set my chin right behind her knee and tried to relax. “I love you, Mom.”

~O~

The boys arrived in separate cars this time. We spent far too much time having corsages pinned, pictures taken, and fawns being overed. Dad was even acting a bit possessive.

He pulled Matt into the kitchen when he arrived and had a chat with him. I suspected Mom might have been involved with that one. When Matt came back out, he was looking a little sheepish and wouldn’t tell me what they talked about. I just glared at my dad before he came in and gave me a hug.

“You have a good time tonight, Aayla,” he said. “I know you’ll be responsible, so I’m not going to tell you to be responsible.”

It’s funny how parents do that; laying on of the guilt trip, I mean.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too, Dad.”

~O~

Interlude Two:

“Observation: The presence of Darth Talon is curious.”

HK-47 stayed to the shadows of the dwelling across the street from its final mission for its former master.

The presence of a Sith Lady didn’t make a difference to the Assassin Droid. The mission must be carried out.

Switching to infrared scanners, it could tell there were only three humans inside the dwelling. Its former master’s holocron beacon was underground. That meant the life forms currently occupying space between the droid and the holocron must be interrogated for its prey’s location and then disposed of.

“Statement: The evening is looking up.”

As the droid stood to make its way across the street, unseen in the night, a two-wheeled conveyance stopped in front of the house, pausing until two four-wheeled conveyances stopped and several humans alit and made their way to the entrance of the dwelling. The rider of the first conveyance seemed to be the commander even though she appeared much younger and scantily dressed in a form-fitting red white and blue uniform.

“Query: Will these meat bags ever let me perform my duty uninterrupted?”

End Interlude

~O~

Lyshaa and Eric had already gone ahead, while I was alone with Matt in the front of his father’s new Mustang. Since I wasn’t choking on fumes that I normally associate with Matt’s body spray, soap, after-shave, cologne and sundry other manly products, I assumed his mother had a talk with him about the proper application amounts.

That put me in a positive mood for the evening. All I wanted to do was go eat, go dance a little, and then go back home and sleep in my bed, all by myself for once.

Lyshaa had plans of her own that involved the use of a hotel room and some nose plugs. I try not to involve myself in her sexual oddities whenever possible.

When we arrived at Vargo’s, the valet that opened my door gave me a wide berth with a mix of surprise with a tinge of fear in his eyes, so did the doorman. By the time we made it to the woman with the reservation book, I was the center of attention. She just stared at me until Matt broke her attention by stepping between us.

“Reservation for two, under Brown.”

She made a show of looking and running her finger down the page. “I’m sorry sir. I don’t have you in the book.”

Matt blinked and looked confused. “What? I made the reservation almost two months ago. Check again: Brown, eight o’clock.”

This time she didn’t check, so I did, remotely. Clear as day, in my head, two-thirds of the way down, was Matt’s name.

“Is there a problem?” A male voice said from behind me.

He was edging on forty and everything about him was crisp and snooty looking.

“Yeah,” said Matt. “I made a reservation two months ago. I even double checked last week. Now she’s saying I’m not in the book.”

“Hmm, that is curious,” said the man. His eyes trailed down the front of my body and then back up again. “Perhaps you’d like to try another establishment.”

Even my constant meditation over the course of the last week wasn’t doing me much good. I was getting pissed because I knew why Matt’s name had mysteriously disappeared.

I tugged on his arm. “Let’s go, Matt.”

Let it never be said that I couldn’t reign in my temper if circumstances warranted.

“What? That’s bullshit. You don’t serve black people here?”

I would have snorted a laugh out, but frankly I was too annoyed. “They don’t serve red people. Let it go.”

His arm was tense, so I had to add a little oomph to my tug. He scowled at the owner or manager, whoever he was, but didn’t cause any more of a scene. His car was even waiting for us when we stepped back outside with the motor running. The valet hadn’t even bothered to move it, knowing we’d never get inside.

It sounded like Matt left an inch of tire rubber at the entrance when we pulled away. I set my hand on his leg and said, “Relax.”

He must have really been keyed up over that, because even with a touch of the Force added, he’d only calmed enough to not make the car swerve into traffic.

“That’s such horseshit, Aayla. That was racism.”

I looked over at him. “And who would you like to call? I don’t think metas have their own political action committee, or whatever just yet.”

Matt shot me an angry look. I knew where it was really pointed, but still.

“Just let it be. We’ll go to the prom, dance some, and have a good time there, okay?”

He sighed and headed in the direction of the school.

~O~

Interlude Three

As HK-47 watched the conveyances leave the dwelling it accessed its sensors once again.

“Declaration: Sith-spit. I hate it when the item I am tracking keeps moving. Query: Should I follow my former master’s holocron or should I interrogate and kill those that once held it. Query: Is there any reason I can’t do both?”

End Interlude

TBC...

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