Emily nervously looked to the ground where her tattered wedding shoes crushed dry leaves below her as Beetlejuice and her treaded slowly together through the Netherwoods.  The cool air circled around her and the musty smell of leaves helped set the solemn mood she was in.

She searched for explanations in her head as to how she agreed to go on a date with him, and for that matter, some kind of excuse to get out of one!  

She glanced back over to Beetlejuice, who had decided to continue on with his farting armpit chorus despite her lack of enthusiasm to listen.  The farting noises echoed across the empty forest, as she uneasily walked closer to him, being weary of seemingly empty woods.

After finishing the “gloriously gross” finally as he put it, he loosely put his arm around her waist.  Begrudgingly, she left it, not noticing that it slightly gave her comfort knowing someone was there, even though harmless might not be the word to call him.

“So, babes, now that you’ve been serenaded, what would you like to do on this date that you recently agreed to go on?”

“I didn’t exactly agree to—” She protested, starting to move his hand off her waist, now feeling uncomfortable around him again.  Though, this resulted in him pressing his hand firmly on her butt, she immediately slapped his hand away like a pesky mosquito.

“Oh, you did.” He reassured her, he smiled widely with his green teeth.

“I don’t know what a date is!”

Beetlejuice scoffed, thinking she was using it as an excuse, then when he saw that she was serious he cocked an eyebrow.

“Seriously?” He took a step back.  “You’re a bodacious babe!  You don’t know what a date is?” He asked, she shook her head.  He began speaking in a feminine voice,  “You mean to tell me you’ve never went on a date, come home and call up your girlfriends and talk about how wonderful he is and paint your nails and put on make-up?” Beetlejuice had now turned into a feminine version of him (also known as Betty Juice) and began prancing around.  Emily was not amused.  He shifted quickly into his old self.

“No...I planned a rendevous once...but you can see how that turned out.” She gestured subtly to her tattered self.

“Hmm.  Rendevous, eh?  That your kinda thing? Sounds like fun.  I can...uh dig it.” He raised his eyebrows at her suggestively as he slid towards her.

“If you consider getting strangled to death waiting for your fiancé then yes, I suppose it’s fun.” She glared up at him.

“Well, you know, different tastes.” He shrugged. She thought about just simply walking away from him, but she knew he would follow.

As she obviously became more annoyed and angry he added, “So that’s where you get your beautiful blue complexion!  I thought it was just natural.  The things girls do for beauty these days.”

“It wasn’t for beauty.  I thought I was waiting for my true love!  Turns out he was a murdering thief.”

“So then you ended up here?” He asked nonchalantly, a little curious as how she ended up in the Netherworld.

“No...the story isn’t as simple as that.” She sighed and slumped on a rock.  “I sort of wish it were.  I made a vow that I would wait for my true love to come and take me away.  Then...this man...well, I suppose it doesn’t hurt to say  his name, Victor stumbled upon my dead hand, thinking it was a branch, said his wedding vows and put a ring on my finger...the dead tree branch.” She sighed.

“Who says wedding vows to a tree, anyway?” Beetlejuice interrupts.  A nearby netherworld tree glares down at him and “hmpf-ed” as a branch reached out and swatted him across the back of the head.  “Hey, woah.  No need to get your shrubbery in a knot, there pal.  I’m sure you’ll find a nice two-by-four to call your own.”

He glides over to Emily who had began to walk through the woods again.  “Hey, who needs him, now that you’ve got me!  Besides, I’m the Ghoul with the Cool...if you know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.  And I don’t think I want to know.” She turns away from him.

“Aw, come on babes, it’s okay.  Keep talking, I’ll listen.  I’m all ears.” He said as he turned into a pile of ears, she giggled at the sight of him.

“I don’t know, I just think I should go.”

“Aw, come on.” He pleaded.  “Besides you gotta get this off your...eh...chest anyways.” He said as he glanced down at her breasts quickly before she noticed.  She glanced back where the roadhouse was beginning to distance itself and trees and other odd plants were getting in the way.

“...I guess I don’t have anyone else to talk to this about...”

“I like your reasoning...too bad you won’t reason something else along with that.” He muttered.

He sat down next to her and Emily explained to Beetlejuice the entire ordeal between her, Victor and  Victoria and the adventure that happened, and he listened quietly, surprisingly, with the occasional pulling of ear wax out of his ears to entertain himself.

“And I don’t understand!  The color of the dress is supposed to be right!  Like in the rhyme, ‘Married in white, you have chosen right’” She shouted at Beetlejuice who obviously didn’t care about the color of her dress.

“How does the rest of that go?” Beetlejuice asked, trying to show some interest.

“Oh the rest of it goes like, “Married in blue, your love will always be true.  Married in pearl, your life will be a whirl.  Married in brown, you will live in town.  Married in red, you’ll wish yourself dead–”

“Sounds like my kind of color.” He laughed, she didn’t.  He cleared his throat a little nervously.  “Go on.”

“No.  I think I’m done with talking about marriage rhymes...” She sighs.  “I just wish I was happy.  I mean, I want them to be happy.  I...uh...I am happy that they’re happy, it’s just I know they’re happy and I’m...not...Not like that’s a bad thing that they’re happy and I’m–”

“Babe, you’re over thinkin’ things.  You should be like me.  Just chill.  You should be good at that because you’re dead.” He slid closer to her.

“I just thought I had something...great, and it just turned out the other person didn’t have the same idea.” She looked down sadly.  “Has something ever happened like that to you?”

Beetlejuice had become very quiet, and he looked a little uncomfortable.

“Stuff happens, but what can you do?” He said, looking away.  “I guess you can say something did happen like that to me...not...twice, though.  You must have bad luck or somthin’.”

“What happened?” She said, sincerely concerned, unlike he was to her.

“Oh...you  know...she out grew me...took pills–became normal, whatever you wanna call it.” He tried to shrug it off like his normal self but his voice had faltered and he nearly kicked himself for this awkward moment.

“I’m sorry.” Emily spoke, sympathetically and sincerely.  She rested her hand hesitantly on his.

He turned it over and held it sweetly for a short moment and he smiled innocently.  

His smile turned slowly to a more threatening one and he grasped her hand tighter and pulled her sharply toward him.

“Oh, I’m so sad, I just, you know, have to hold someone to make the pain go away!” He squeezed her tighter as she tried to wriggle away from him.

“Stop it!” She shouted, and she would have pushed him away more forcibly if she hadn’t began to kind of enjoy it. After all, she hadn’t had this much attention or a feeling of being wanted since longer than she can remember.

“Wassamatter babes?  You don’t want me so close?” He let go of her and she inched away, blushing slightly.  “Alright, I’ll just stay over here and let my fingers do the talking.” He crossed his arms, and she was about to ask what he meant when she suddenly began to laugh uncontrollably.

His hands had detached and were tickling her freely up and down her bodice.

After he finally let his hands reattach she smiled directly at him for the first time, he couldn’t help but smile back.

“I think the time for our date has run out.” She said, interrupting the silence.

“The night is still young! But, we sort of had a date, I guess.”

“I agree. I think the best thing about this date idea is learning about each other.”