Milly's Bitten Wish

Milly Mors was trying to concentrate on her favorite book. The yellow brittle pages breathed gently in her delicate deft fingers. She had the worn musty tome since she was very young. Her father always read it after tucking her in, often falling asleep while reading it to her. She loved the book, it was a part of her. But, now in her second year of college, she was finding it difficult to focus even on her favorite parts.

Classes started tomorrow and Milly was not looking forward to it. She was already tired of school. She had never really clicked with anyone throughout high school and even now in college. The image of her mom talking about her proudly back home made her want to die. A sigh slipped out and Milly turned the page, having barely read it. It was her favorite part. The beautiful Vampire Lord had finally made his choice to turn his favorite lover so they could spend the rest of eternity together. Milly's heart and mind always creamed at this delicious section.

She closed the book and tucked it under her pillow. She couldn't focus and she didn't want to ruin the best section of the book. There was no way she was going to be able to read the way she wanted to with her roommate and her boyfriend a bed away. It was the second night in a row she had to listen to all the wet strokes and hushed gasps in the creaking darkness.

Milly turned off the book light and settled in under her covers. She hated her new roommate. She wanted to tell her off. But there was no way, Milly was just too shy, she hated confrontation, she'd rather suffer their horny smells and gushing whispers than cause a scene or make an enemy.

The book left an odor on her fingers like dead leaves. She soaked it in under the safety of her comforter. Her lover was a book. Milly dreamed about that brilliant Vampire Lord sneaking into her bed and turning her every night for years. She could almost feel the violence of his hungry fangs penetrating the tender pearly flesh of her neck and replacing her hot blood with his cold venom. Milly pulled her dark silky hair around her and revealed her pale pulsing throat to the air of the night and whispered her pitiful wish. She swallowed her desires and drifted off into the silver waters of a full moon. The book nestled deep in the cool dark crevice of her pillow.

In the morning, Milly was awakened by the couple saying their quiet goodbyes as the boyfriend pulled up a pair of boxer briefs that scooped up his sullied package. Milly secretly peeped the rippling curves of his muscles that flexed as he gripped his jeans and belt and pulled them up. His biceps bulged and his abs tensed in tune with the jangle of his belt buckle. Her roommate was in a university t-shirt that was just short enough to show off her plump rear and shaved sex. Milly's roommate ran her hands along the solid abs as he struggled to pull his hoody over his head. She leaned in close and Milly heard them exchange vows of devotion between fast kisses and ass squeezes.

Milly laughed to herself as her roommate pecked him out the door. The poor guy, if only he knew her roommate had two boyfriends. Milly turned over and sank deeper into her warm bed since the fun of the peepshow had ended. Seeing his fit body made Milly frustrated. The guy was a meathead, but the image of his junk flopping into the elastic envelope of his boxer briefs, the sounds from the night before, and the leftover smells of their sex making, all of it was starting to infect Milly.

The roommate she had her first year was a bio nerd, Suzie. She was always in the lab, and when she was in the dorm, she was busy studying and eating Korean snacks at her desk, K-pop leaking out the edges of her headphones. Suzie was the perfect roommate. However, this year she was posted up with some slut, for want of a better word.

Classes hadn't even started yet and Milly was already feeling miserable. She rubbed her neck by habit and felt nothing but her dark dewy baby hairs. A small sprinkling of music began to slowly build and Milly let out a sigh. It was her alarm. She sat up and swiped it away on her phone.

Milly grabbed her clothes and walked into the bathroom. One thing she did like about her new dorm was the fact it had its own bathroom, it was a comfort she lacked her first year. After she showered and dressed, she walked back into the bedroom and her roommate was up and putting her makeup on through a small round mirror propped up on her desk.

"I hope we weren't too loud last night," her roommate said.

"No, not at all..." Milly panicked, she forgot her roommate's name, she just referred to her as "the slut" in her head these past few days. Milly glanced around the room and finally found the construction paper heart with her name on it tacked to the wall above her roommate's bed. "I didn't notice at all, Clarissa."

"Oh, that's good," Clarissa said, "by the way my friend Michael might be staying over tonight, I hope you don't mind."

"Sure," Milly said. Who the hell was Michael? Was this a third boyfriend? The one that just left was Marc, and the one from the night before was Myles. What's up with her and these "M" lettered guys?

"Thanks, you're such a sweety," Clarissa said, turning to face Milly, "and you know, I bet if you wore more than black everyday, you could catch a guy too, you're so pretty under all that drab."

"You're too kind," Milly said through gritted teeth.

Milly grabbed the book from her pillow and shoved it into her bag and left the room. She walked angrily down the hall. She officially hated her new roommate, Clarissa. She wanted to strangle the honey-haired slut already. Three guys, in three nights? Milly felt like she was living next to a brothel. If only these guys knew how gross she was. Milly hadn't even seen her shower once between seeing both of them.

She thought on it while eating breakfast at the dining hall. Maybe she could get a room transfer. But she knew that was hard to do from what she had heard and if she ratted out Clarissa for her obsession with guys lettered "M", she would make an enemy of Clarissa for sure and that would make her own life hell. Milly poked her neon yellow eggs with her bent fork. This year was going to suck.

Milly dropped her fork and checked her schedule for the semester. All her classes were early in the day except for one: Poetry. She remembered when she signed up for it, only times during night were offered for it and they were all taught by a single professor with a strange name. It really threw Milly's whole schedule off, but she needed the class since it was pre-req for so many of her other classes.

Milly dropped off her dishes and left, it was starting to fill up by the time she found the exit. Streams of students flooded in, all wearing the same sweatshirts in different colors, showing off their school spirit. Gaggles of girls and broods of boys, all with one thing on their mind, and it wasn't classes. An excited cacophony of happy chatter and laughter began echoing off the tall ceiling of the place. Milly sighed, maybe if she could just conform with the masses, she could be happy. But it was impossible, she was who she was.

The rest of the day was the usual for a first day of a semester and before she knew it, Milly was back in the dining hall again, eating dinner before her poetry class. The lamps of the campus flickered to life against blueberry skies and strawberry clouds. Milly did enjoy something about classes at night, it gave her a feeling that felt mature. The vibe was different and adventurous, even if it did upset her schedule.

She saw Marc and Myles stumble into each other in the buffet line. Milly watched like a owl as the two struck up a friendship over the tiny hamburgers on their thick plastic yellow platters. The absurdity of the future drama those little sliders were going to cause made Milly smile. They both walked past Milly's table and sat at a table near her. They hadn't noticed her at all, if they had, it would have been even more entertaining to see what conclusion they eventually reached more rapidly. But Milly had always blended into the background, going unnoticed in life, always the top of her class, yet never recognized.

She was like that lost sock, white and soggy, stuck to the wall of the washing machine. Going through cycle after cycle, never plucked out and shoved into the warmth and tumble of the dryer. Forever left in the cold damp washer, spinning, spinning. Life a blur through her little foggy window.

Thinking all this as she walked under the rusty incandescent rows of twin lamps along the path to her poetry class, she slammed into something solid and fell on her ass and wrists. Her favorite book leaped out of her fragile grip and skittered along the stone path.

A little dazed and spinning, she looked up and saw an angel of death, stunning, pale, beautiful, and shimmering in black under the electric buzz of the lamps. He was gracefully crouching down towards the book Milly sent skating into his feet. He plucked it up with his strong expert fingers and flipped it around to peer into the cover. He pushed his tortoise shell glasses into his dark brow and looked down at watery-eyed Milly splayed out on the ground with her dress and mouth open, gaping up at him in awe.

"Ah, 'The Vampire Lord', strikes again," he chuckled and realized Milly wasn't getting up anytime soon on her own, "oh, I guess it's speaks volumes about me, I picked up the book first."

He reached out a wonderful slender hand towards Milly, his dark tweed jacket slipping up his arm and bending into his shoulder pad as he did so. Milly, was dumbstruck by his perfection. He stained the sepia of her vision with the inky smudge of his image. She grabbed his soft silver hand and let him pull her up from the hard cold of the rough stone path. She dusted her hands and rear off and straightened her dress. What was her name again? The dusky curls of his hair poured down in an elegant contrast with his ivory skin. His eyes were like burning lakes of jade snakes. His lips were a roller coaster, with curves in all the right places. The single beauty mark on his left cheek finished off the sublime sentence of his handsome face. The dark stubble in the hole of his chin sucked her in as he asked her again.

"Are you alright?"

The question hung out in the darkness of her mind before it registered and she came back to her senses.

"Oh, yes," Milly said, tucking an obsidian strand of hair behind her flaming ear, "sorry about that."

He handed the book back to her and she took it into her embrace. His eyes flickered and bright white pin lights shone briefly behind the black holes of his pupils. He pushed up on the bridge of his glasses and the light from the lamps above hid his eyes with a glare of golden light.

"You should be careful out here in the dark," he said, "you never know what kind of monster you might run into." He smiled formally and walked by Milly. Her eyes hungrily followed him down the path she came. The night wind of summer ran its fingers through her silky black hair as she watched the man of her dreams disappear into the cold light of a building.

Milly hugged her book tight to her small bosom and continued along the path. She tried to remember every detail about him, he was so striking, so perfect. He was molded from the hollow in her heart, she knew he fit in that gap of hers and left no space for doubt. He checked every box of her and even some she didn't even know about. She turned her head back once more, even though she knew he wasn't there. Once last glimpse, anything of him she could steal, she wanted it greedily. Milly sighed heavily fidgeting with the corner of her book and continued to her class.

When she entered the room, she knew immediately she was in the wrong place. It was dark and no one was there. She checked her schedule again and realized the hall was wrong, she needed to go back the way she came. Milly checked her phone, she was going to be late. She hurried out the hall and back down the path as fast as she could without running. Her first day, and she was already making a bad impression. Her heart pinched.

She arrived outside the correct door this time, panting and a tad bit sweaty. Milly closed her eyes and collected herself, she could hear the professor already talking on the other side of the door. She hoped the class was big enough and dark enough, she could slip in unnoticed. She opened the door gently and stepped in.

It must have been the loudest door in the world. The screech of it shocked Milly. The entire class stopped and looked up at her, including the professor.

Milly's heart sank even deeper when she saw who the professor was. His beauty pierced her like a golden arrow under the lights of the lecture hall floor. That same inky smudge was leaning on a table and gazing up at her with his cruel jade eyes. He folded his arms and called out to her over the silhouetted crowd of other students.

"Well find a seat Miss Mors," he said. Turning away, he continued his speech to the class.

Milly's heart was too loud in her ears for her to hear what he was saying. She still felt everyone's eyes on her as she tried to find a seat. Row after row, she looked down and they were all taken. The only seats available were down in the front row. She self-consciously walked all the way down and sat in the first row. Her sweat had turned cold, and her nerves were shot.

The professor was just a hopscotch away from her across grey carpet. Milly fumbled as she tried to take out a notebook and a pen. The professor was writing his name on the board in smacking chalk.

"You can call me Mr. Sea, or Professor Sea," he said, turning around from the chalk board. "I'll be teaching the sublime art of creative poetry this semester. In a second, I am going to hand out a sheet of questions that will let me know where everyone is, so I can better guide the bunch of you into the void of creation." He called over a young teaching assistant who haphazardly snatched up a pile of papers and began going down the rows handing them out. Mr. Sea picked up a small pile of the papers himself and did the same.

Milly couldn't take her eyes off of Mr. Sea. She felt ashamed at her thirsty glances, but his image filled her soul up with a gooey warm light and she couldn't help herself. Her eyes felt like they were made just to look at him, only completely filled in by the pattern of this stranger. She also felt the opposite, as if he was made just for her, he was too perfect even in his imperfections. Milly was starting to overheat, she never felt anything like it before. When he walked over and stood in front of her seat. The crotch of his black jeans were face level with Milly. She tried to inhale as much of his scent as possible. It was like a mix of dead leaves and spicy pine. It intoxicated her. Milly felt her head swimming in a tide pool of desire.

Mr. Sea licked his finger and pulled a slice of paper from the stack and placed it down in front of her. She looked up at his gaze and two white stars briefly probed her dreamy lidded eyes. He quickly moved along to the next row. Her mouth watered. Milly's head felt like a steamy cauldron that swirled with his scents and looks, she was trying to keep it from spilling over and splashing in hot drops across the white of her paper. Milly looked down at the sheet they were handing out.

It was a single page with thirteen questions. Milly filled out her name and date at the top and continued down to the first question.

1. Where do you see yourself in 454 years?

Milly's eyes widened at the question, was that a typo? She filled in the only obvious answer she could think of: Dead.

2. You find yourself at the bottom of a road that you can no longer continue along, where are you?

Milly spun the pen between her lips as she read the question over again. She shrugged and wrote down: A dead end.

3. You feel a current under your wriggling toes in the wet sand, a dark cool tide flows under you and begins to wash out your legs, you are drifting now like a jelly fish in the deep black, your legs washed away like sand on the shore. You are drifting, drifting along the twinkling rushing of the dark sea, you feel your mind and body clearing out. All the chattering thoughts die and drift away like watery sand. The dark void of your mind is now as empty as the blackness of the night sea. How do you feel Milly?

Milly drunkingly scribbled down: good.

4. Great, now let's begin. When's the last time you masturbated and what were you thinking about?

A few weeks ago back home, I had bit my tongue hard during dinner. The pain and blood that filled my mouth reminded me of The Vampire Lord. I went in my room and started reading my favorite part while I swallowed my own blood and fingered myself.

5. Imagine this, I open my fist and show you some strange seeds in the palm of my hand. I let you pick your favorite ones and I push you down onto your rug burned knees in the muddy fertile soil of the field of your mind. I pull you by your long silky black hair and straighten your head out so I can jam these favorite seeds of mine deep down into the folds of your fertile grooves with my strong soft fingers. How does that make you feel?

Too good.

6. Great, now Imagine you let these seed grow and grow, and they spin out into a wild fantastical orchard full of strange wonder. And now you see me tending the luscious fields of your mind, fending off any intruders and taking care of all your delicious little fruit that buds and ripens like dirty thoughts. My tools raking and digging your soils. My body and mind eating and enjoying the fruits of our labor and the succors of your desires. Wouldn't that just be grand?

Yes, absolutely.

7. What do you say?

Please.

8. When Michael is really giving it to Clarissa tonight and your fingers starve, recite the poem in your head and I'll take care of you.

Okay.

Milly was awoken with a startle when the screech of the door in the back of the hall started going. She wiped the corner of her lips with her black sleeve and looked around in a daze. What happened?

"Miss Mors," Mr. Sea called out to her, "first you were late, and then you slept through the entire first class."

He was packing up the papers and the teaching assistant hovered around him like a lost soul looking for some direction.

"I'm sorry, I have no idea what happened," Milly said.

"Bring me your questionnaire," Mr. Sea said without looking up.

Milly looked down at the sheet on her desk, she had only managed to fill in her name. She checked it over, the first question was different.

1. Where do you see yourself in five years?

"Miss Mors," Mr. Sea said.

Milly grabbed the sheet and stood up, rushing it over to him. Embarrassment swamped her, she had never turned in a blank assignment before. He took the paper and looked up at her.

"You're giving me a blank paper?" He asked with raised eyebrows. He sat back in the chair at the table that was in the center of the lecture floor.

Milly didn't know what to say, she had no excuse, "I'm sorry, I must of fallen asleep, I haven't been sleeping well, my roommate is a... she snores."

Mr. Sea steepled his hands in front of him and crossed a leg looking up at Milly deep in thought.

"You know you seem like a smart girl," he said. The assistant next to him squirmed in a sudden and strange way distracting him for a second before he continued, "I even read some of your work from last year, I thought we might have been a good match. But, the display today, being late a few minutes is one thing, but falling asleep the whole class..."

Milly felt like she was going to cry, she had rarely if ever been reprimanded by a teacher like this. Mr. Sea saw this and lessened the harshness in his voice.

"I understand semesters can start out pretty rough sometimes, going to the wrong rooms, promiscuous roommates, lack of sleep, etc." he said. He took out a small pad of cream paper and a fountain pen. He ran the sharp tip of the pen against his tongue and began writing down lines in a smooth flowing crimson cursive. Milly watched the beautiful motion of his hand as it masterfully scratched the pen along the virgin skin of the paper, tearing into it with bloody lines of tall cursive strokes that bled through the stationary.