[ WP ] You awaken in your lover 's embrace to find scales growing on their arm . This is not a usual occurrence .

I jerked violently, my legs pistoning in the sheets. Something had startled me awake out of the depths of a sleep so black that I had to consciously try to purge the traces of it from my brain. My eyes felt puffy and slightly hot, and I rubbed at them vigorously, as if I was trying to push focus into them with my knuckles. 
 
 `` Ungh'' I said, curling into the fetal position. `` My fuuuuucking head.'' 
 
 It was the worst time to wake up, the time when the alcohol in my system had passed through all its various guises, from delightful elixir to sour depressive and now, taking off its final mask, it revealed itself for what it really was- a fucking bastard. Usually I slept through these hours when the beast was sneaking up on me. I could snooze away while the hangover crawled up out of my blood vessels and latched onto my brain with long claws, dream through the time that it took for the foul thing to snake into my gut and replace the late night fast food with a witch's brew that burned me from the inside out. But tonight, or rather this morning, something had awoken me. 
 
 It was hot in my room. Really hot. I threw back the sheet from my body and turned over seeking a cooler part of the mattress. That was when I saw the tattoo. It was a thigh piece, a big kodachrome Virgin Mary in the Iglesia style, all surrounded by neon holy light and holding up two fingers in blessing. If you got really close you could see the two fingers were holding a really thin joint, and that the eyes of the Virgin Mary were red-rimmed and squeezed into slits. This Virgin Mary anyway. Because this Virgin Mary belonged to a girl that had the campus-wide nickname of Babylon Mary. 
 
 `` Oh, shit.'' I whispered. 
 
 `` What's up, tiger?'' 
 
 The voice on the other side of the bed was both raspy and conversational. Babylon Mary was probably used to this kind of situation- someone else's sheets and the sight of a strange array of posters on the walls. It did n't seem to bother her one bit. I, however, was panicking. I'd heard stories, so many of them that even if I gave credence only to the least sensational then I'd still be in trouble. Babylon Mary was supposed to be a hellraiser, a maneater, a real freaky chick. She slept her way through whole houses, turned roommates against one another, stole people's cars and drove them into lakes. I'd heard once that she had slept with a guy whose parents were coming to town the next morning. He'd woken up to find her serving them perfect omelets in the kitchen of his shitty apartment, fresh daisies in a glass cup on the table. His parents had been delighted to meet a girlfriend they'd never heard about, his mom nodding approval over her tea and his father giving him a wink behind the refrigerator. Then Babylon Mary had announced she was leaving for the day, hugged both the guy's parents, pulled down her pants, and taken a shit on the kitchen floor. 
 
 Why did guys keep hooking up with Babylon Mary? I think you already know. Babylon Mary was smoking. She was beyond sexy. Her air of complete unpredictability, combined with the looks of some poly racial supergirl and the morals of a bag of snakes all added up to make her without a doubt the hottest girl on campus. And now she was in my bed. In her panties, and nothing else. 
 
 `` You all right there?'' 
 
 She rolled to face me, collecting the sheets around her so that they came together in front of her breasts. Her hair was wild on the pillow, a mass of dark curls that spiraled uncontrollably in all directions. One lock curled on her cheek, the tip pointing directly into her overlarge green eyes. She grinned, exposing a line of straight white teeth, the incisor as sharp as a scalpel. 
 
 `` Not feeling so hot, eh?'' She reached out a hand to stroke my forehead, and the sheet fell away from one of her breasts. I tried very, very hard not to look at the ring through her nipple. 
 
 Then her hand reached my forehead and I tried very, very hard not to realize that it was n't covered with skin. My eyes crossed themselves while I attempted to look at my own forehead. 
 
 `` Oh, damnit.'' Babylon Mary snatched her hand back, stuffing it in the sheets. 
 
 It was no use. The scales rippled over her skin, growing from her hands to cover her body. They washed over her in a mesmerizing wave, it was almost like seeing several hundred thousand invisible dominoes become solid in the midst of falling. The scales were a beautiful sea green color that changed to a golden orange as they closed in on her neck and then covered her face. The whole thing took maybe a minute. 
 
 There was a minute of stunned silence while I stared at the girl, the thing in my bed. She looked back at me, her eyes unblinking. Finally, when it became apparent that I was n't going to break the silence, she did. 
 
 `` You ever heard of study abroad?'' She asked, her voice much huskier than it had been only a moment ago. 
 
 I nodded mutely. 
 
 `` Well, I chose to study... way abroad.'' She grinned. `` And it's been a fucking blast so far. You do n't want to ruin it for me, do you?'' 
 
 She pouted and I realized with a humiliating rush that she was still hot, even covered in scales. I could n't believe what I was going to say. I bet you already know. 
 
 `` No.'' 
 
 `` Good!'' She clapped her green hands. `` Let's get you up on the ship and cure that hangover, shall we?''
