Another eight days passed without much happening. Well, that’s not completely true. We lost the football game and I found out that my squad had bet a night with a girl. The losers had to send one of the girls off the squad to a boy off the winning football team. How that benefited them, I couldn't figure out and didn't care too much. That was until I was told that I was the sacrifice. I don't know if they believed the rumors, or it was another reason. I refused. The squad wasn't happy with my choice, but Ann volunteered and was given to the MVP of the team.

I also tracked the multi-colored hoodlums to a pool hall. It had apartments on the top floor that were used for entertainment. So, I couldn't be sure if they were there to play pool or go upstairs, without going inside. I wasn't sure of my next move, so I focused on getting ready for Paul's party.

After school, Victoria and I worked on our costumes for the party. It took most of the week. We couldn't afford to waste money buying a ready-made outfit. Neither of us came from well off families so we hit the thrift shop near our apartment. But we weren’t the only ones with the thought of making costumes, so it took us a while. In the end, I was going as a scarecrow. The old fashion kind that has a cloth face and hat. I was going for creepy, not sexy. Victoria on the other hand was going as a raven. She was going to wear a slinky black dress that hugged her body and glue black feathers onto hair clips.

By Friday, we completed our outfits. My mask had gone through several changes, because even wearing thin cloth made it hard to breathe and see. In the end, I had to cut out the eyes and shred the area around mouth, so it looked tattered. We then painted the edges black. But that revealed the white skin beneath. To solve that, I put on black lipstick and eyeshadow. With Victoria's help, I have been practicing with the makeup kit in the drawer. So, after a few trials and errors, I managed to blend it so that the eyes looked like black pits. With some red nail polish for "blood", my creepy costume was a success. We were looking forward to going in "couples" costumes. It just that her dad found out somehow, and she got grounded.

I was allowed to go, but I had a curfew. Although I didn't think my mom would know if I came home late. She had been going out with Roy more often. Even when she was home, Roy was always there. The only benefit was that the more I saw Roy the more average he looked and after four days, my wild thoughts of sleeping with him had gone away.

***

Jeff's house wasn't a house but a mansion. The small gathering, I pictured was destroyed as I saw the mansion packed with hundreds of students. As I walked through the door, there were trays placed on tables. Rows of rings were on each tray with signs labeled 'Girls' and 'Boys', with confetti sprinkled around the edges. I looked at the rings with different color stones, debating if I should take one.

Because I couldn’t decide, I moved off to the side to let a pair of girls go by and when they stopped, I heard the girl dressed as a naughty nurse explaining to her friend with furry ears. Her overly sweet voice was slightly suppressed by the booming music. But I still made out, "The rings are paired... color of the stone... and... takes you to a dark room..."

I missed some of it, but her friend’s shocked voice was loud enough for me to hear, "Oh my god, are you going to?"

I saw her friend nod. “I’m curious...”

“But…” The naughty nurse picked up a rainbow ring before walking further in. Her friend hesitated, looked both ways, and then grabbed a ring with a light pink stone. She slipped it on as she moved to catch up and I watched the shiny ring vanish from sight.

Because Victoria couldn’t come, and that it wasn’t a high school party, she filled me in on some “common” sense of this world. The main point was that my mom and her dad were outliers. Most people in this world seemed to treat sex almost like the “free love” hippies in the seventies. So, a woman having a lover at an early age wasn't uncommon. But the stipulation was that they only "dated" one man at a time. Even if they only dated them for a night, they all followed some sort of ritual I didn't quite understand, that showed they were a couple. It was why sex seemed to be everywhere. And while the parents told their kids to not get into relationships, most were.

It was so bad that finding a virgin over the age of eighteen was like finding a unicorn in my world. When Victoria filled me in on all this, I had briefly wondered why prostitutes were still in business. But it didn't take me long to realize that even in this world, women had standards. So even if they were willing to hop into bed, it wasn’t with just anybody. Even with their hippy attitudes, prostitutes were still considered lowly. And while magic had made birth control somewhat questionable, women just timed their fertile times and abstained during it. So, sex had almost no ramifications.

That isn't to say there weren't any. Teen pregnancy and exploitation were the main ones. But my reputation that I had been so concerned with, was only relevant if I decided to be a public figure or I openly flaunted having sex. Even then, there were some stars that filmed only "adult" content and were still popular. I figured it really just depended on what they were willing to do in front of the camera. Those type of stars relied on male fans because even though women slept around, they still looked down on those that acted like Ann and absolutely hated those that pried the corner of somebody’s relationship. If I was still a man, I'd absolutely love this world. As a girl, I wasn't as thrilled.

More college students walked by. Some would grab a ring, others didn’t, so taking one wasn’t required. I was thinking about if I should take one, as I continued looking at the rings. There were four different color stones: bright red, soft pink, azure blue, and rainbow. I hesitated. What the girl said reminded me of what happened to me when I first got here. Was that dark room somehow linked to the “Void”. If so, could I find a lead on who sabotaged the other me?

As eyes wondered, I saw that the confetti on the tray with the red stones was in the shape of lips. Curious, I looked, and each stone color had different shapes: pink had flowers, Blue was a dark tunnel, and the rainbow was a mixture of all of them. More people came, and I saw the boys only took the ring that was missing its counterpart. I knew I was procrastinating. But because I was hanging out at the entrance, I learned the images represented what the girl was willing to do. Or more to the point what entrance. Anything outside the body like hands or breasts were free game, but without the right ring, sorry no entry allowed.

People were treating it like a glory hole experience and because privacy was guaranteed, more girls were willing to experiment. I figured their rules for dating didn’t apply if nobody knew. But Jeff couldn’t be trusted. His “it’s not a sex party” was complete bullshit. And while Victoria said he liked me; I was pretty sure he was looking to poke my little fuzzy peach. Since my hymen had regrown, I wasn’t planning on breaking it, so he was out of luck. But if I could gain a spell by blowing a guy, it might be worth doing. In the end, I did what a lot of girls did and took a ring but didn’t put it on. Mine, of course, was the cherry red “lips” ring.

I went to find my friends. Without Victoria, I didn’t know that many people. So, I figured I would hang out for a while and then leave. It’s just that I didn’t know what they were wearing. We had agreed to show off our outfits at the party. I roamed around the crowded rooms. Occasionally, I’d see a person fade away; the glow coming off their finger right before they vanished.

I walked through crowded rooms and realized something was wrong. At first, it was like any other party: loud music, alcohol, and gyrating teenagers. But then I ran into the people using their magic to showoff; from boys juggling fire balls while a few girls were trying to snipe them with water darts, to groups dancing on the ceiling as if gravity was reversed.

That was how I found Ann. She was wearing a brown dress, had leaves in her hair, and packs of condoms taped to her dress. I rolled my eyes at her “rubber” tree outfit. I had seen it before and every girl that wore them were those girls that wanted others to know they were easy to get into bed.

She was turned away, but because of her small stature she stood out. She was talking on her phone, so she didn't notice me approaching. And with so many people circling around, she was unprepared for my sneak attack. I was reaching out to scare her when she said, "You better be sure this time. The charms aren't working." I froze, my arm still extended. "Yeah, I'll entertain your friends, but if it doesn't work, this will be the last time." Her childish voice didn't match the hatred it held.

I stepped back and mixed into the crowd as she hung-up and looked around. Her eyes fixed in one direction and when I looked in that direction, I saw Janet. She was coming back holding two drinks and dressed in a 1950’s poodle skirt. She even had a fifties hairstyle and looked adorable. Once Janet handed a drink to Ann, they walked away. Janet was mid-sentence when she stopped, bent closer, said something and then rushed to a corner. She tried to make herself inconspicuous. After she looked around and thought nobody was paying attention, her invisible ring flashed and she vanished from sight.

I wandered around wondering if Ann had set up a plan against me or if it was her personal charm pendants that weren't working. Her actions since I got here were too close to a bad movie villain.

As I wandered, I noticed that the guys were trading their rings and boosting or complaining about the "quality" of their experiences. Complaints like, "She must have filed her teeth, I'm so sore!", "It's no wonder she was okay with me doing anything, she was BIG", and "She must have gotten here early because she was completely covered." What surprised me was that those rings were just as coveted as the "fantastic lays" and "wild cat" rings. Their trading did mean that while the rings were paired, the girls could have multiple lovers. It seemed to go against what Victoria had told me, but I really didn't understand this world's customs.

I finally saw Jeff being a good host and mingling with a few boys I didn't know.