Friday morning I was up before my alarm again, dancing naked around the apartment in another one of my 'moods'. I put the coffee on to lure Melissa out of bed early and it worked.

She was grumpy at first, we didn't have to be at class till eleven so she'd been hoping to sleep in. Once she realized why I got her up early though her mood improved dramatically.

She had a coffee to wake herself up fully while I had some juice, then she took me back to her bedroom and we spend a couple hours burning off all my excess energy in bed.

After that we showered together, and finally I made her a nice breakfast to apologize for waking her up a couple hours ahead of schedule.

Melissa still didn't know why I had those happy-joy-energy mornings, and considering she was still sort of dealing with her own demonic issues I wasn't ready to tell her yet. I worried it would make her feel even more guilty or upset. I knew I'd tell her someday, or she'd find out on her own one way or another. I just hoped that wouldn't happen till after she'd gotten over the shame and stuff about her own situation.

Our classes went ok, we had drama in the afternoon which was kind of a fun class to end the week on. As usual my grades weren't that great, mostly because I sucked at doing anything sad or dramatic or intense. I didn't take that stuff seriously enough, according to the prof. He said I kept trying to turn everything into a comedy.

I didn't mind though, it was still a fun class and anyways it wasn't my major so it didn't matter so much what my grades were in that.

Me and Melissa had lunch at the cafeteria, and she managed to run into another random guy and came away from the encounter with a date for tonight.

I had a feeling she'd already gotten a reputation around the campus, and maybe most girls wouldn't want to have that kind of rep but it honestly worked out in her favour. There was a good supply of horny dudes who were happy for a no-obligation one night stand with a smoking hot 'bimbo' like Melissa.

So Friday evening after we got home from classes, she got herself dressed up in a skimpy revealing outfit, or as skimpy as she could get away with considering it was the end of November and the weather wasn't all that great.

When she was all ready to head out she sort of hesitated and looked at me, like she felt a little conflicted or something.

I just smiled and moved to her side. I stretched up and kissed her on the cheek and said "Stay safe, and have fun!"

Melissa frowned, "You're sure you don't mind?"

"I'm fine," I replied confidently.

I had a feeling she was worried about me being lonely or something since me and Susan broke up. It was a Friday night, she was going to be out all night with her 'date' and I was spending the night alone in the apartment. Not that it was any different from how it was before I met Susan. Back then Melissa went out on 'dates' once or twice a week and I stayed home by myself, but I guess she figured I'd be more upset about it now.

My best friend still looked worried, so I added "After dinner I'm going to call my mom? You know, usual check up on her and make sure she's doing ok? And I'll confirm we're still on to go see her tomorrow."

"Ok," Melissa sighed. "I just feel guilty about..."

"Don't," I replied with a smile. "I'm not jealous, I won't be lonely. You're just taking care of business."

She nodded slowly, "Ok Mara. Thank you. I hope someday soon I can be as relaxed about all this as you are."

I gave her a compassionate look, "Me too. I hate seeing you torn up about this stuff. Now go on, you're going to be late!"

She smiled and gave me a kiss then hurried out the door.

I went into the kitchen and got some nugs out of the freezer and into the oven, then grabbed a bottle of water. I sat down on the sofa and put the TV on, then just relaxed while I waited for dinner to cook.

As I was waiting for my meal Lily commented, "I must say Mara I'm still impressed by how you're handling Melissa's situation."

"Like I said a couple weeks ago," I replied with a shrug, "There's stuff I'm not happy about but I want to make the best of it. And I want to help Melissa to get over the stuff she feels guilty about. So I'm just trying to like, I don't know, make it seem normal? Like I guess the more she sees me accepting it as a normal part of life, maybe the less she'll think it's bad or unusual?"

"I understand," Lily said. I could imagine her nodding her head. "And I think that's an excellent idea."

I had a sip of water then asked, "I know you said you wouldn't talk about her contract, but she's already told me just about everything. There's something I want to know, so I'm going to ask. What would happen to her if she tried to stop doing her part of the deal? Like if she went on strike or whatever, and just stopped having sex with people?"

Lily was quiet for a few moments, and I wondered if she'd just ignore the question.

After a minute of silence I rephrased it, "Ok never mind about Melissa. Just in general, one of your random contracted humans, what would happen if they tried to stop doing their job?"

That seemed to do the trick, like she couldn't talk about Melissa specifically, but she could talk about that scenario in general terms.

"They can't not fulfil their part of their contract," she replied. "If a contract stated they needed to harvest energy four times a month, and after thirty days they hadn't done it four times, they'd find themselves compelled to do it. That compulsion would consume them until they fulfilled their obligations. It could also drive them to take risks and make poor decisions, which could lead to more trouble for them. So it's always best that they fulfil their agreement before it reaches that point."

I thought about that for a bit, then asked "So ontop of being a contractual obligation, it's almost like a biological compulsion? What I'm getting at is like, thinking back to your cat analogy right? Everything has to eat to live. So you consume souls, that's not a choice and you can't just stop doing that because it's how you survive? So for a random unnamed human who's contracted to you, there's no way for her to just choose to stop doing that. It's part of who she is, part of her nature?"

Lily was quiet for another few moments as she thought that through, then finally responded "Yes Mara. That's one way of looking at it. They don't have the option to stop fulfilling their contract, so from that point of view, they don't have a choice. Though I must stress, they would have chosen to sign the contract in the first place. That was a choice they made of their own free will. If you want to frame it as a biological imperative, then they made the choice up front, to accept that biological imperative in return for whatever other benefits they desired."

"Gotcha," I nodded. The oven timer dinged so I got up and headed to the kitchen as I added "Thanks Lily."

A couple minutes later I was back on the sofa in front of the TV eating my nugs. I'd already gotten undressed while Melissa was getting changed. I was just lounging in a nightshirt now, having a nice quiet relaxing Friday night.

After dinner I tidied up the kitchen and washed the dishes and stuff, then turned the TV off as I sat back down on the sofa with my phone. I tapped mom's number and waited.

The phone rang a few times, but mom answered it just before it went to voicemail.

"Hello?"

I smiled, "Hi mom! I'm not interrupting your dinner am I?"

"Hello Mara!" She sounded like she was smiling as well, as she replied "No, but dinner will be ready in another twenty minutes so I can't talk long."

"Oh ok," I checked the time, it was after seven o'clock so she was eating kind of later than usual tonight. "So before I forget, are we still good for me and Melissa to come by tomorrow? The usual, we'd get there in the afternoon and stay over, then head for home by noon on Sunday?"

Mom seemed hesitant, "Oh um... Actually Mara do you think we could reschedule? Something's come up and it's not... I'm going to be busy I think."

I was surprised but nodded "Yeah sure. Melissa's out right now but we can look at next weekend maybe and get back to you? What are you up to tomorrow?"

"Ok Mara, that sounds good. Maybe give me a call on Monday and we can make arrangements to get together another time."

I noticed she didn't say what she was doing this weekend, and overall she almost sounded sort of evasive. It was starting to make me worry that something was wrong.

"Mom? Is everything ok?" I didn't like to pry but after her recent scare with Verothilas I didn't want to take any chances. "Can you tell me what you're doing tomorrow that you don't want me and Melissa around?"

She just started to say something when I heard another voice in the background. It was a woman's voice, and it sounded like she was talking to the cats. I heard her say something about Pumpkin and Spice.

I felt a pang of fear as I worried our demonic enemy was there at my mom's home. "Mom? Who's that? Who's there with you?"

Mom probably heard the anxiety in my voice, she sighed "It's a friend, Mara. Relax, it's not Vera Travoise."

"But who's there?" I asked again. I was still worried, and I figured demons could disguise themselves and we already knew they used more than one alias.

She sounded a little hesitant as she replied, "Her name is Carol. Carol Ingram."

I frowned as I thought for a few seconds. "I don't think I know her? Is she a friend from the restaurant? Or one of our old neighbours?"

"No Mara," mom sounded equal parts amused and exasperated, like she didn't want to go into all this but at the same time she knew I was worried about her so she was humouring me. "She works at the university, in the admin office. I met her at a little Bistro on campus a while back, and we've had lunch together a few times since then."

That let me breath a sigh of relief, knowing it was someone safe. And my mood went from worried to happy, I was glad my mom made a new friend.

The phone got a little muffled but I heard my mom's voice tell her friend, "It's my daughter. Sorry, I'll just be a few more minutes ok?"

Carol's voice was too muffled to make out what she was saying, but it sounded positive. Then mom was back talking to me again.

"Sorry Mara, as I said dinner's almost ready and I don't want to be rude to my guest."

I smiled, "Ok mom. You didn't say though what you're doing tomorrow? I don't want to be nosy but you know I worry about you right?"

She hesitated again, then sounded almost embarrassed as she replied "I've invited Carol here for the weekend."

"Oh ok," I replied. That made sense, I figured if she had her friend staying over she didn't need me and Melissa there too. "Ok mom, you two have fun and I'll talk with you on Monday."

Now mom sounded almost surprised as she replied, "Thanks Mara. Have a good night. Tell Melissa I said hi."

"Will do," I smiled. "Bye mom, I love you."

"I love you too Mara," she said before we disconnected.

It wasn't quite the long relaxing chat I was expecting, but I didn't mind. I was glad she'd made a friend, and it sounded like she was going to have a good weekend.

I got myself another bottle of water then relaxed on the sofa and found something to watch on the TV for now.

It was about ten or fifteen minutes later when I suddenly wondered what my mom and her friend were up to that took a whole weekend, and why she sounded embarrassed about it. There was one obvious answer that came to mind right away, but it didn't really make sense since I didn't think my mom was into girls.

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