Three college-aged women, dressed to kill in brightly coloured silk mini tube dresses, stood in a cluster just outside the door. "Ohmygod," the pink-clad, wild-haired redhead in front said, staring at Giles. "This, like, never happens."
"What what?" A blond head in back bobbed up and down behind her friends' heads.
"You know, the rule that the hotter they sound, the shorter and fatter and balder they are? It just got broken in a big way." The brunette in a green dress and sleek pageboy hair gave Giles a toothy smile. "Hi! We're the Sunnydale Musical Appreciation Coalition."
"Trust fundies," Lili said aside to Giles. "Big yearly checks to the station. Trent says we got to be nice."
"SMAC?" Giles said.
The brunette stepped inside and smacked him hard on the shoulder. "It's, like, our trademark," she said. "Ooh, buff. Is your accent for real? 'Cause me and my friends, we love a guy with an English accent."
Her friend, a pretty young woman with blond ponytailed hair and a slinky blue silk tube dress, skipped in to start poking about the booth with a kittenish excitement. "My last boyfriend had an English accent. He was so hot in bed. Are you hot in bed?"
"Freddy is from Boston, you spaz," her brunette friend said. "And he kisses like a drunken flounder."
"We're musicians," Devon said hopefully.
"Don't get me involved." Oz moved his chair around to sit on the safe side of Giles.
"Oh yeah!" The blue-dressed blonde smiled at him. "You're the Dingoes, right? You were sort of popular with the sorority crowd last year."
"Overkill." The pink-dressed redheaded groupie insinuated herself on top of the desk between Lili and Giles. "You guys gotta play harder to get, not do every gig you're offered. There's such a thing as being too easy, you know?"
"You think?" Lili said, mesmerized by the shapely thigh that shifted inches from her breast.
"Is it getting a tad crowded in here?" Giles commented irritably. The CD player indicated that the track had played out again. He snatched at the microphone, but discovered that it had never been turned off. "This is Rupert Giles and the 70's Tea and Orgy Show," he intoned. "I'm here tonight with Lili, two Dingoes, three tarts, and a partridge in a bloody pear tree."
"Ooh, he's good!" the pink groupie said.
Giles shoved at her hip and skidded her several inches down the table so that he could puts a cassette tape into the player. "In keeping with the theme of the night, The Beatles' 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun'." He made certain that the microphone was turned off this time.
"Classic tune, dude." Devon looked happy now that the blonde blue groupie had gotten pushed almost into his lap.
"Rupert." Lili leaned over the pink groupie's thighs to shove a flashing telephone at him. "Answer!"
"What, now?"
"Studio phone," she explained. "Nobody's in the office this time of night, so the DJ has to take the calls."
He sighed and leaned past the pink groupie's chest to take the phone. The redheaded woman caught his eye. "You do that so well," she gushed.
Giles backed away from her as well as he could and dropped back into his seat. He picked up the receiver. "This is . . ." He studied the telephone and punched the button by the flashing light. "This is KURS, Rupert Giles speaking."
"Giles! What are you doing?!" Willow's voice sounded fuzzy, as if the connection wasn't terribly good. Giles resettled the cord into the receiver, but it didn't help. He held a hand over his other ear and concentrated furiously over the background noise. Willow rattled on obliviously, "Buffy told me to get you! I've been calling your apartment for the last half hour and you really need to get a cell phone if you're going to be Mr. Friday Night Out on the Town. And boy if they hadn't had the radio turned up full blast at the party down the hall, and that was wiggy hearing you cursing over the whole dorm floor --"
"The entire dormitory is listening to my show?" Giles said, not certain whether to be pleased or alarmed.
"Not the whole dorm. Or at least I don't think so. Just the guys holding the hall party on our floor. You've got a really good radio voice, Giles, only maybe you shouldn't talk so loud?"
"Tell them to turn the volume on the radio down," Giles advised her. "What does Buffy want?"
"Oh! Yeah. We were on our way to this party. Not this party, I mean a different party. Okay, not strictly a party, because it's supposed to be a study buddy group, but Parker told us 'BYOB' and the guys we were going along with were hauling along this keg, so I don't think they meant 'Bring Your Own Books'. Besides, who study buddy's on Friday night?"
Giles noticed his track about to end. "Hold that thought." He put Willow on hold, swapped The White Album out for London Calling, and hit the hold button on the telephone again. "You were saying?" he said, plugging one ear so he could hear her over the background babble and music.
"Wha-?" Willow said. "Oh. What was I saying? I like that song! Who --?"
"The Clash."
"Wow, they had some cool music in the 70's! Were they British?"
"Mid to late-1970's, first generation punk, precursors of the 1980's alternative rock renaissance represented by such diverse groups as Husker Du and R.E.M.," Giles said.
"That's good!" Willow told him. "I didn't know you knew that much about -- I mean you have a nice 70's collection, but --"
"I've been doing some catching up," Giles told her. "Actually, I crammed this week for the job interview."
"Maybe you could lend me your books?" Willow said. "'Cause sometimes -- you know I love Oz to pieces, but I don't know what he's talking about? And there's my music ethnology professor. Giles, do you know what 'percussive tympani' is? It's in my readings for Monday, but I can't find it in my Penguin Dictionary of Musical Terms."
Giles handed Oz the telephone receiver and leaned way over to slip his personal copy of The Who's Meaty, Beaty, Big & Bouncy on the turntable on his left. He thumbed the turntable on, set the needle down on "My Generation", tipped his chair forward to turn the cassette player off, and switched the feed to the other machine.
"No baby," Oz was saying into the telephone receiver. "It doesn't mean anything. He made the phrase up." Giles took the receiver back from Oz.
"But -- but -- he's not supposed to make things up!" Willow sounded close to tears. "This is college! Knowledge is sacred!"
"Welcome to the wonderful world of academia, Willow," Giles said gently. "What did Buffy want?"
Willow sniffled. "What?"
"Buffy. She asked you to call me. About --?"
"Oh. There were these demons. These annoying demons. I mean, they were lewd, Giles. They were swaggering around on the commons making really licentious remarks. They were throwing these balloons filled with this stinky stuff at all the girls. They ruined my favorite pair of jeans!"
"Yes, yes, very delinquent demons." Giles fought to untangle the telephone cord from around several pairs of ankles. "What did they look like?"
"If Cordelia had been there, she could have put them in their place! I mean, where did they get their clothes?" Willow laughed derisively and a trifle hysterically. "Fredericks of Hollywood, I guess. Did those guys really think they were hot stuff? I think not!"
"Besides their poor fashion sense, Willow," Giles urged. "Distinguishing characteristics? Horns, fangs, that sort of thing?"
"One of them had a bad perm," Willow said. "Or at least Buffy said it was. That or the latest in East Coast hairdos. Cordelia would know. They were speaking in tongues."
"You said they made lewd remarks."
"They sounded lewd! And kind of Swedish."
Giles sighed.
"Plus they had more than one tongue each. Or maybe they were forked tongues."
"Now we're getting somewhere," Giles said. "Anything else?"
"Forked tongues, Giles! And, oh, one of them called on a master demon -- Pew Ram, Program, something like that -- and shot these cute little balls of blue fire at us. That was after Buffy hit one. I think she broke a finger. She wasn't expecting it to stay standing."
"You're both all right?"
"Yes, pretty much, but --"
Giles put her on hold. "Will somebody please hand me a bloody Eagles disc?" he yelled at the people behind him.
A green-manicured hand appeared over his shoulder and dropped the case into his palm. Giles slipped it onto the second CD player, waited as the track counter on the first flashed 00:00 and shifted the feed over. He picked up the telephone.
"-- there weren't any can openers," Willow was saying.
"Never mind," Giles told her. "I can't get away right now. Go to my flat and pull Von Wilhelm's Gotterdamonrung out of the box beneath my coats in the bedroom closet. I'm sure it has a reference somewhere in the footnotes about how to ward against this type of demon fire."
"Okay," said Willow. "Are you taking requests? Could you play The Partridge Family's 'I Think I Love You'? And dedicate it to Oz? That's a 70's song, isn't it?"
Giles grimaced and looked over at Oz.
"Excuse me," Oz said politely to the blonde who was trying to sample his ear. He leaned towards Giles.
Giles wrapped a hand around the mouthpiece. "She wants me to play and dedicate The Partridge Family's 'I Think I Love You' to you."
For the first time since he'd known the young man, Giles saw a pained look cross Oz's face. "I don't think the station has it?" Oz said hopefully.
Lili propped the CD against the soundboard in front of Giles.
Giles looked at Oz. "It's crowded in here. Would be easy for me to lose a grip on it. It might get trampled."
Oz shook his head. "No. Play it. I'm a martyr for love."
"That's so sweet," the brunette in the green dress cooed.
"I'll play it," Giles said to Willow. "Where's Buffy now?"
"She followed the demons when they ran off across the quad. They were wearing these horribly spiky high heels. Only demons could run in them. Buffy told me to get you while she figures out where they're headed."
Giles frowned. They were definitely going to have to set up some better way of communicating. "Off you go then," he said, noting that the Eagles song had almost played through to the end. "Call me as soon as you've got the book. If you see Buffy, tell her not to fight the demons again until we know more about them. Got to go. Be careful."
He thumbed the microphone on. "And here's one from a lovely girl, Willow, to Oz." Giles turned the microphone off, put Willow's request on the player, plugged in the headphones and pointedly handed them to Oz.
"The things we do for love," Oz said and put the headphones on.
Giles turned to look through his case of albums, only to find the blonde going through them with an intense look on her face. "Excuse me," he said, trying to nudge her aside.
She looked up at him with immense bright blue eyes. "What do you want? I'll get it for you. I always wanted to be a disc jockey. Can I announce the next song?"
"No," said Giles. "I need the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bullocks. The albums are alphabetical, by artist."
"Uhm." The blonde started going through the albums one by one, starting with the 'A's. Giles reached for the case, but she fended him off with a wickedly high-heeled foot. "I can do it!" she said indignantly. She reached the end of the stack and scowled. "You made me lose count," she told Giles, and started again from the beginning.
He tried again to regain his albums, but a hand suddenly became entangled in his hair from above and behind him. "Smells all coconutty," a husky voice purred into his scalp.
Giles tried to twist around to get loose, but the groupie was well-entrenched in his hair. "Do you mind?" He tried to reach her hands. "I've got a radio show to do here."
The pink groupie sat down on the floor and wrapped her arms around his knees. "We're just trying to help," she said reprovingly, looking up at him with big violet eyes from under her frazzly flame-red bangs. "Daddy won't spank us for trying to help?"
"Daddy won't, but Mommy thinks that sounds like a blast." Lili slid down into Giles' lap, put her heel on the pink groupie's bosom and pushed. "Get your own boyfriend for tonight. This one's booked."
"I'm available!" Devon waved at them from the corner of the broadcast booth.
Lili had turned and was struggling to get the brunette groupie disentangled from Giles' hair. It was like having free-for-all'ing bats buzzing around the booth. "Go torment the musicians, will you?" he yelled at them, and finally managed to get free of the groupies' fingers with most of his scalp intact. "Behave like proper groupies?"
"The musicians don't have fuck-me British accents," the blue groupie pouted.
"He's my fuck-me Brit," Lili insisted, clinging to his neck.
"Phone," Oz told him, pointing to the flashing light on the telephone. He'd taken his headphones off. "And the song's done."
Giles despaired of finding a new album and let the CD player go on to the next track on the Partridge Family album. He grabbed the telephone and worked the receiver around to the ear that wasn't Lili-impaired. "Rupert Giles and the Retro 70's show," he said, somewhat breathlessly.
"Giles, what's happening over there?" Willow demanded. "You're supposed to be working, not smooching all over town. What if Buffy comes into ear range?"
"What?!" Giles looked over at the soundboard. The mike had somehow gotten switched on again. "Shi --" remembering then who was on the other end of the telephone conversation, also that he was broadcasting live to scores of drunken college students. "Shall I turn it off then?" He hit the off switch.
"And is Oz still up there with you? How many bimbos have you guys got up there? I'm coming over!"
"Have you got the book?"
"Book? Oh, yes. Book. I have to get the book first? But, boyfriend! Bimbos! Should I call the police?"
"The bimbos are fine where they are," Giles said. "Get. The. Book."
"But, but, where exactly are the bimbos? My mind's eye is getting strained here!" Willow protested. Giles hung up on her. He knew he'd feel guilty about that later, but at the moment there were more pressing matters. Including the redheaded groupie pressed hard against his legs, her chin now on his knees. She been inching up, encroaching on Lili's stronghold.
Lili turned to watch Giles hang up the telephone, saw the competition, and took alarm. "Back!" she yelled, pushing at the other woman's head. Giles bundled his co-dj up and passed her down to the redheaded groupie, who squealed in surprise and went down with Lili in her arms.
"Yipes!" Lili exclaimed, although from her vantage of lying across the other woman's stomach she looked not altogether unhappy with the arrangement. Giles planted a foot in the small of Lili's back to keep her down so he could lean over and slip the Sex Pistols album out of the case in the blonde groupie's lap. She blinked at him in surprise.
He put the Sex Pistols LP on the turntable and got it spinning as the second track of the Partridge Family album spun to an end. "Everyone good and nauseated now?" he asked his audience. "Hold on, luvs, here comes the antidote." He sent "God Save the Queen" out into the ether and turned the mike off. "Oz!" he yelled at the Slayerette. "Go into the front office and get some duct tape."
Oz saluted and ducked out the door.
"Ooh, kinky!" the brunette groupie purred and tried to take Lili's place in his lap.
"Don't give me ideas," Giles growled at her. He stood, picked her up at the hips and gave her to Devon so that he'd have the floor space to get to the disc library at the front wall of the booth. The narrow shelves, supported by cinderblock bricks, offered a bizarre selection divided about evenly between industrial rock, demos of obscure local groups, golden oldies that looked like they been picked up at garage sales, and Japanese bands that he knew were punk only from the grimacing band shots on the covers. He wondered if he could wheedle some kind of acquisition fund out of the radio station management, whom he had yet to meet.
"Pizza's here!" Oz announced as he stepped back into the room.