"Excerpts from Satsu's Journal" - Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 8
January 18
Okay, life now officially rocks.
After six weeks of sweating in Kennedy’s Slayer Boot Camp… after getting interviewed by a who’s who of Watchers and Senior Slayers… after getting magically security-checked by (that’s when I knew something big was up!)…
You, Journal, now have the honor of being written in by a member of Buffy Summers’s personal squad!
Okay, I should probably be a little less star-struck. This is a military operation, after all. It’s not like I got picked to solo in the Slayer High production of Les Mis. (Although I do belt out a mean Eponine.)
Two other girls and I will be Buffy’s right-hand women, going on adventures… er, I mean operations… with the General herself when her personal attention is called for. Needless to say, that job has an even higher mortality rate than Les Mis. (Eponine notwithstanding.)
Xander Harris called me personally to tell me. When I answered the phone and he told me, I made a sound Slayers should never make, and almost dropped my Nokia in my shredded wheat. Hard to believe I’ve made it this far, this fast. Seems like only yesterday I was playing point guard for dear old Lord Byng Secondary School and watching the other girls make big productions out of covering up with their towels in the shower room whenever I was around. (By the way, if you’re gonna be an out lesbian in high school, it helps if you average 16 points a game and lead the league in steals.)
I’ve met Buffy Summers once already, as you know. She looked at my ska buttons and my Girls Without Guns t-shirt and my weird-ass hair, and smiled at me and told me she wished she knew me in high school. “I wish you did too,” I babbled back at her, and instantly hated myself and turned a shade of red that doesn’t happen in nature.
“You think that was a compliment?” Kennedy told me afterwards. “You should see what happened to her high schools.”
And then she giggled. Kennedy is weird sometimes. I can’t wait to meet her girlfriend, the legendary Willow. (I’ve seen pictures of her, and she seems way too cute to have once almost destroyed the world.)
Ken showed me the files on the two other girls in Squad Buffy. Leah McPhee is from Scotland and has this amazing head of red hair. Rowena Geissner is German and was once a member of their national swim team. Both gorgeous, but I don’t think I’ve met an ugly Slayer yet. It’s one of the perks of this job.
Anyway, on Thursday afternoon I’m getting picked up by Miss Summers’s private jet (swoon) and flown to HQ. I won’t know where HQ is, mind you, until I get there… it’s classified. They told me to prepare for a long flight, though. Better stock up on Sudoku.
(By the way, now that I’m a Big Girl I’m going to start calling you “Dear Journal” instead of “Dear Diary,” OK? I know you’ll understand. J
April 28
You remember, Journal, about the Slayer Dreams? How every so often we have dreams that mean way more than we want them to mean?
Last night I dreamed Buffy, her sister Dawn, and I were standing on top of this big tower that looked like it was something out of Blade Runner. The world was ending, as usual, and there was some big bad portal opening down below.
I knew right away that Buffy was going to jump into that damned portal. Dawn (who looks much different when she’s not 50 feet tall - really pretty eyes) was hysterical, but Buffy said to her: “Dawn, the hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me.”
And then she jumped. I had to hold Dawn back or she would have gone off after Buffy, I think. But then I heard Buffy’s voice in my mind somehow. She said “Satsu, it’s not about not being scared. It’s about doing great things with your fear.”
And then she, or somebody (because she was already gone) said in my ear, “Don’t lose your keys.”
Then I woke up. I thought about what Buffy said, and at first it seemed like one of those things that sound really profound when somebody says it in a dream, but then is just meaningless when you wake up. Like one time, I woke up in the middle of the night thinking I had the secret to world happiness. I wrote it down and went back to sleep, and in the morning I looked at it and it said “All the girls love Spaghetti-O’s.”
But I thought about what Buffy said, and I thought about it some more, and by the time I got down to breakfast I realized I was in love with Buffy Summers.
Huh.
I still have no idea about the “losing my keys” thing, though.
(Sidebar: Leah had a dream last night too. She said she and Rowena helped the Winchester Boys fight off a bunch of vamps, and then went out dancing with them. Leah got to date Dean and Rowena got Sam, which suited them just fine, except it turned out Dean danced like a spaz.
I think maybe things would be simpler if I’d just hitchhiked on Leah’s dream and gone dancing with them.)
June 16
When I signed up for this Slayer gig, Journal, I pretty reasonably assumed my tasks would be primarily of the Hitting, Staking and Stabbing variety. Maybe a bit of Stalking thrown in to keep my reflexes sharp.
There was nothing in Orientation about Kissing.
You see, when I realized a few months ago I was in love with Buffy Summers… the Chosen One, the Queen of Slayers, My Boss… I knew it was a problem. She’s not gay, as far as I know, and I don’t know if she’s curious or not. My gaydar (which has never been all that great) just spins around randomly when I’m around her. I do know that there would be problems with her having any kind of relationship with a member of her own squad.
It’s a problem for me, too. Lately I’ve found myself getting a little clumsier and a little more careless because I’m so distracted by her. I don’t know if she’s noticed or not, but it’s a good bet.
I’ve told myself several times that I can be Buffy’s trusted “Top Stake” Slayer, or I can be her starry-eyed fangirl. Not both. So I made a resolution to put my feelings on hold and keep my mind on business. I can always revisit my feelings at some future date when I’m not serving under her. For instance, it’s a very bad sign that the phrase “serving under her” makes me have to look for an excuse to go off for a few minutes of quality “alone time.”
So yeah. Fixing No-Nonsense Camo Military Buffy in my mind and ejecting Sexy Lingerie Black Stockings Bedroom Eyes Buffy. Effective in… three… two… one…
Not working.
Last night, the stars and planets and Powers That Be mocked my pain by having some wicked witch cast a Sleeping Beauty spell on Buffy that only the kiss of true love could break. I say that matter-of-factly because if I tried to explain it in any more detail, it would sound even stupider than it already does.
Willow announced this to all of us… fifty or so Slayers gathered around while Buffy snored away… and I thought it was some kind of elaborate practical joke. I thought everyone knew how I felt about Buffy, and this was their way of making fun of me. Yes, I know that would be silly and stupid and cruel, but I wasn’t thinking really clearly then.
When Willow announced that somebody in the room was in love with Buffy, and everyone had to close their eyes so that person could come up and kiss her out of the spell, my first thought was No Way. My second thought was also No Way.
How could I be sure everyone would keep their eyes closed? And how could I be sure Buffy wouldn’t wake up with my lips still on hers, and I’d be caught red-tongued? For that matter, how could I be sure I was the only one in the room in love with her? Maybe I’d lean in for the kiss and bump foreheads with Xander or Willow or some other gay Slayer?
But then I thought, Buffy needs me… both as my commander, and as the woman I love. It would actually be selfish of me not to go up there and lay one on her. It would be a betrayal.
And so, armed with a firm sense of duty (and a couple of other things firmer than they usually were), I put all my Slayer stealth training to work making my way up to Buffy without my movements giving me away to all the girls around me.
I kissed her, and the weird thing was, she kissed back even though she was asleep. There was even a little suction. Her breath smelled like mint toothpaste - I traded my cinnamon for her peppermint.
I made it back to my spot before she woke up. I don’t think anyone knew it was me - if they do, they haven’t said anything. But, you know, I think I’m the only gay Slayer here since Nasim and Inga shipped off to Sydney last month. So I figure it’s only a matter of time.
But now that I’ve kissed her, that should be enough, right? More than I ever expected to get. So the distractions can stop now. Yep, any minute now.
Sigh.
August 14
I have almost perfect recall for things that interest me. This goes back to before I was a Slayer, or even a Potential. When I was a kid, I used to memorize entire Kids in the Hall sketches and whole episodes of Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon. Stuff that doesn’t interest me tends to go right through my head. (Just ask my algebra teachers.)
But I’m going to try to write down the events of last night exactly as they happened… not that I’ll ever forget any of it, but I just feel like I need to write it down.
Buffy called me to her room. I figured it was to show that she wasn’t avoiding me, which of course she had been doing for the four days since I got out of the hospital following our beat-down at the hands of Darth Luchador. (Or Twilight as he calls himself, but I’m not going to indulge that kind of pretentiousness.)
She was wearing pink Eeyore pajamas. I had to giggle when I saw them.
“Yeah, I know,” she said, looking down at herself. “They’re all I had clean. I’m not usually this into pink.”
“No, they’re cool,” I said. “Eeyore is kind of my role model.”
Buffy hopped up on her bed and sat there cross-legged. “So,” she said. “Have you been feeling awkward? Because I’ve been experiencing quite a bit of awk, myself.”
“I guess that’s normal. After all, you can’t look at me anymore without wondering if I’m picturing you naked.”
“So are you? Picturing me naked?”
I looked at her, just to make sure she was giving me a wry smile when she said that. Yep - there it was. Wry smile.
“Right now, I’m picturing you reassigning me to patrolling duty in the Afghanistan squad.”
“Nah. No Afghanistan squad. Taliban guys aren’t nice enough to go poof when you poke them with a stick, unfortunately. And hot girls in tight PVC tend to not go over too well with the locals there.”
“Those suits are why I joined up in the first place.”
Buffy smiled again. Then came the key change, as expected.
“Satsu, I know how it is to be lonely. Especially during the past…. eighteen months, nine days and sixteen hours.” She sighed.
“I’m not lonely,” I told her. “I’m in love. We can’t deal with it if we pretend it’s something else. I promise I’m a big girl, and I’m not gonna cry because things are the way they are. I really, really like being in your squad, but I’ll understand if you think I should make a move.”
A few seconds of silence. Wry Buffy Smile was back. “Okay,” I admitted, “That last sentence didn’t come out quite the way I expected.”
“Not the way you thought you expected, at least,” Buffy said, and was right. “But I don’t want you to go anywhere. I told you before… not only are you the best fighter we’ve got, but I really enjoy being around you, and talking with you, and looking at you. In fact, I often can’t take my eyes off your excellent hair.”
I chuckled at that. “It just kinda lies there if I don’t do something with it.”
“Me too,” Buffy said. “I mean, mine too. Anyway, I hope you’ll stick around.”
“So you don’t think I should make a move?” I said with an embarrassed grin.
“I didn’t say that.”
It took me a few seconds to process what she’d just said.
“Ummmm….” I said intelligently.
“We’re both big girls, aren’t we, Satsu? We’re both grown-ups.”
“I hope so.”
“I told you before I thought you were hot, and I meant it. And… I’ve never told anybody this before, obviously, but I’m kind of curious. How it feels with another girl. When I stopped freaking out about Willow and Tara… Tara was before Kennedy…”
“I heard.”
“…After I stopped freaking out, I sometimes imagined them together. What they would be doing, and what it would feel like. I mean, does it feel the same as when a guy does those things to you?”
“Don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve never been with a guy.”
“But I wondered, and I sometimes… fantasized a little. But this is the first time I’ve ever had a girl fantasizing back at me.”
I smiled at her and shook my head. “Sorry, ma’am, but that’s the most naïve thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
“What?”
“You think Willow spent all that time around you without ever indulging?”
“Indulging? We never indulged each other. What have you heard? What makes you think she’s interested in me?”
“I haven’t heard anything, except that Willow is really in love with Kennedy. But she has eyes to see you with, and ears to hear you with, and a nose to smell you with, and… fingers to imagine you with.”
“No. No finger-imagining. I’d know if she was finger-imagining me.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “No you wouldn’t. Not if Willow has mastered this newfangled door-locking technology the kids today are all so crazy about when they’re alone in bed, or on the toilet, or in the shower…”
“Satsu,” she blurted. “Would you like to have sex with me?”
I had to grab hold of the edge of Buffy’s dresser (as casually as possible) to keep my knees from wobbling too much.
“I’d like to make love to you,” I said. “But having sex with you would work too. Except… I thought you said it wouldn’t.”
“Well,” she said, looking down at her bare feet. “Maybe I was being a little selfish when I said that. Selfish to you and selfish to me. Can you be selfish to yourself?”
“I’m pretty sure,” I said.
We stood there looking at each other in idiotic silence for like half a minute. Her eyes wide, maybe a little bit scared. My knees went right ahead and wobbled, despite my best efforts.”
“Would you like to do it with our clothes off?” I asked perfectly reasonably, honestly not realizing until a couple seconds later how idiotic that sounded.
But it broke the tension a bit. Buffy laughed. “That would probably be the less messy way.”
“You’re anticipating a mess?”
“Sometimes there’s a mess,” she admitted. “Yeah… I’m thinking this one might get messy.”
This wasn’t doing my wobbly knees any favors. So I knelt down and unlaced my sneakers.
“How do we do this?” she asked adorably. “You’re the expert here.”
“I’m no expert, really. I’ve only been with three girls in my whole life.”
“So the scoreboard reads Satsu 3, Buffy 0.”
“I guess it’s time to break that shutout, then. In my fantasies, it usually starts with you watching me take all my clothes off. Uh, but the way I imagine it it’s right after we’ve been sparring together, and we’re both all tired and sweaty.”
“I’m kinda tired,” Buffy said. “And getting sweatier by the minute.”
I stood up and kicked off my sneakers. Then I unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans. “I can’t believe we’re doing this. I can’t believe this is happening,” I said softly.
“Me neither,” said Buffy. “Wait. It is really happening, isn’t it? This isn’t some damned shared Slayer dream, is it? Because I’ve had those before.”
I looked down inside the front of my open jeans. “Physical evidence is telling me yes, this is really happening.”
“Good. Make it keep happening.”
I pulled my pants down to my ankles. Didn’t bother stepping out of them just yet. I straightened up and started pulling up my shirt, breaking out in goosebumps as Buffy devoured me with her eyes.
I wasn’t wearing a bra. I usually don’t… one advantage of having small tits and a large sweatshirt collection. Several months of chilly Scottish weather in a drafty old castle had made me intimately familiar with hard nipples. But as my sweatshirt came up over my head and off, they seemed like they were ready to pop right off my chest and bounce across the floor to Buffy.
“I think I know where I’d like to start,” she said, staring at them.
“They agree completely,” I replied. “Um, I mean I agree completely.”
As I walked unsteadily over to the bed and the Buffy sitting atop it, I started to feel almost like I was having an out-of-body experience. So this is what it feels like to make love instead of just have sex, I thought. Even if the love is only on my end.
I successfully stifled a giggle at my own double-entendre, there.
The next fifteen minutes are kind of a delicious blur. I remember kissing her harder and longer than I’ve ever kissed anyone before, and that she was the one who brought tongues into it. (I know, it’s very high-school for me to care about that.) I remember exploring her tongue with mine, and imagining how good that tongue was going to feel in other places. And that thought made me reach down with one hand and awkwardly wriggle out of my panties, without ever breaking the kiss.
I remember her holding her arms up over her head as I slipped her pink tank top off her, and then undid her bra, and hung them both on the bedpost. She has the most beautiful breasts, not much bigger than mine, and I rewarded her for that fact. I’ll always remember hearing her little gasp of surprise and pleasure, right in my ear, as my mouth closed around her nipple for the first time.
And I’ll always remember the silky-soft feel of her bare breast, contrasted with the pencil-eraser hardness of her nipple under my tongue. The slightly salty taste, and the slightly musky scent of her. (She was sweating quite a bit in fact, and trembling a little too.)
The revelation, a few moments later, that Buffy was wearing pink Pokemon underpants sent us both into fits of giggles, but somehow failed to break the mood.
“When you start wearing Pokemon panties to bed on Saturday night,” I told her, “You know it’s definitely been too long of a dry spell.”
“Tell me about it,” she said. But when I slid those panties down her legs, I saw that dryness was not going to be a problem tonight.
That out-of-body feeling started to come back as Buffy kissed her way down between my breasts and down the length of my belly. I fought it back, though… I definitely wanted to be in my body for this.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered, from just south of my belly button.
“I know,” I gasped back. “It’s wonderful.”
“Let me know if I should be doing something different?”
“I’m three-quarters of the way there already, Buffy. Please don’t do anything different.”
“What’s with this Buffy business?” she purred teasingly. “Aren’t you supposed to call me Ma’am?”
As she went down on me, I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to think of other things, to make myself last longer. I tried to imagine it was someone other than Buffy doing this to me. But I couldn’t… that was her soft blonde hair tickling my belly, and her soft cheeks rubbing against my inner thighs, and her graceful back my legs were wrapping around, desperately trying to hold her there and keep her from vanishing into thin air.
And then she plunged her tongue deep into me, with less mercy than she plunges a stake into a vampire, and all was lost. I came so fast and so hard I thought I was going to die... turn into a pile of dust right there on the bed. I don’t recall if I remembered to call her Ma’am or not.
As soon as I had my nervous system back under my conscious control, I snarled and flipped Buffy over onto her back, hard and suddenly enough to make her gasp.
I pinned her arms down to the bed and sat astride her thighs. “Nobody makes Satsu Yamada come like a prom-night virgin and gets away with it,” I whispered, giving her my best evil grin. “You’re gonna pay for that.”
Buffy went wide-eyed and put on the most adorable damsel-in-distress voice. “Oh, please have mercy on me. Won’t somebody save me from the terrible naked, beautiful Slayer? What are you going to do to me?”
I showed her what I was going to do to her. By the time my mouth got down to the lower edge of her ribcage, her smooth, lovely legs were slowly and steadily kicking and squirming beneath me. By the time I got to her navel, her tummy was heaving and she was hyperventilating.
Reaching my destination, I saw she was so aroused that just breathing on her might be enough to set her off sooner than I wanted. So I started teasing her terribly, like the wicked, wicked girl I am.
I licked, kissed and nibbled the soft skin of her inner thighs. I used my fingertips and the tip of my tongue to trace up and down the valleys between her thighs and lips. I used the back of my fingernail to tease the sensitive little bridge between her vulva and her bottom. I took a mouthful of her neatly trimmed pubic hair and gently tugged it with my teeth.
She whimpered and sobbed and pleaded for mercy, and on three separate occasions I had to intercept her hand and push it away, as the naughty girl tried desperately to end the torment by taking relief into her own hands. But I wouldn’t let her.
When she finally stopped saying words and just started making random sounds, I slipped my finger into her. Searched with my fingertip for just the right spot… found it… tickled it. Stuck out my tongue and lapped her bulging little pink bulb once, twice, three times.
Her whole body stiffened for a few seconds like she’d been turned to stone. Her vagina grabbed my finger so hard, for a second I thought I might have to leave it behind. God, that woman has some muscles down there.
The she gushed and flooded like a waterfall in springtime. She sounded like she was trying to scream, but all she could do was make these weird, desperate, squeaky sounds, like a rusty gate on a windy night. Then she didn’t seem to breathe at all for a few seconds, until she finally gave a long, loud gasp.
I kept tickling and licking until the hand pressing powerfully against the back of my head finally relaxed, and started playing with my hair.
Buffy had been right to anticipate a mess. Laundry would need doing in the morning.
But that could wait. I crept up to snuggle with Buffy. We were both as sweaty as if we’d just had that sparring match from my masturbation fantasy.
“That was… that was… wow,” Buffy said.
“That was wow pretty much covers it,” I agreed.
Less fun that having sex, is dealing with the fact that you’ve just had sex when one of you is in love and the other isn’t… when one of you is a citizen of Lesbia and the other is a tourist with a one-night visa.
She told me what a wonderful experience it had been, and then told me it probably wouldn’t go any further and I shouldn’t mention it to anyone. Pretty much what I expected. My incredible bedroom skillz had failed to lure her into the toaster-oven aisle.
No matter. A hump-and-dump was better than I’d expected. But when I got up to leave, she asked me to stay the night.
And that made me feel so wonderful that I almost didn’t die with embarrassment when Xander and Renee barged in on us, and then Andrew, and then Dawn, and then Willow.
Almost.
And then a vamp attack, right inside the castle, and a stolen Scythe. We’re getting ready to deal with that right now. It’s terrible of me to say, but I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful for a vampire invasion.
It felt like the Universe itself was trying to slap me silly for having the gall to diddle its precious Chosen One.
But you know what, Universe? Fuck you.
Because nothing you do to me can change the fact that Buffy asked me to stay the night.
September 3
Well, Journal, you are now being written in (electronically) by the new squad leader of Tokyo Slayers.
I wish I could say I was happy. But I plan to be.
We went to Tokyo, got the Scythe back, killed all the filthy little vampires.
But Buffy and my personal feelings for each other were getting in the way. Causing us to have arguments… questionable orders given by her (which is bad) and those questionable orders getting questioned by me (which is worse).
So when it was over, I told Buffy I need some time away from her to come to terms with the whole “my feelings vs. reality” thing. I asked for the Tokyo command, and she gave it to me.
Then we slept together again.
I don’t know why. Maybe it’s like an alcoholic taking one last drink before going on the wagon. Maybe I thought it would be the last time I’d ever see her, and I wanted her to remember my love for her this way.
This time, Buffy was much more confident and much more skilled… she “did more things,” as she would put it. (For one thing, she remembered this time that she has fingers as well as a tongue. Yum.) And this time, no embarrassing interruptions. Although it seemed like every time I climaxed, I would envision a beautiful snake with glowing silver eyes. God, I hope it’s not a phallic thing.
All I could think about was how loving Buffy was, even if she’s not in love with me. She’d obviously given some thought to what she’d do with me if we were ever together like that again. She cared that much about me, and she’d considered the possibility that she’d be making love to me (or at least to some woman) again.
And as wonderful as that was last night, today I almost wish she’d been cold to me instead. That way I could be good and angry with her, and go meet someone else just to spite her, and maybe move on with my life. But I can’t. Not yet. Not while there might still be a chance.
This morning, I went to the airport to see Buffy and the others off. I said goodbye to Leah and Rowena, and they told me they’d miss me. I expected Leah to be nothing but rude comments and snarky looks ever since that night in the castle, but she’s been really nice.
So I stood there at the airport in front of Buffy, told her I wouldn’t let her down, and how happy and proud it made me to serve with her. (I stopped myself from saying “under her.”) Then I kissed her right on the lips, in spite of the fact that a whole bunch of Slayers were looking right at us, and I turned and walked away. She didn’t run after me. It would have been stupid if she had.
So what do you think, Journal? Can I cut it as head of Rising Sun Slayers? I was born here (well, in Osaka actually), but I haven’t lived here since my family moved to Vancouver when I was five. I speak fluent Japanese, but with a Canadian accent (Haji me ma shi te, eh.) And I’m a girl stupidly in love and trying to forget.
Oh well. At least we cleared out most of the vamp population, so maybe things will be quiet long enough for me to get my bearings. I just hope we don’t have to deal with Gojira or any other kaiju anytime soon. I’m beat.