Alondra, p.14
Alondra, page 14
“Alondra…it’s just—”
“You need a study partner,” she says, wagging her finger at me. She smiles. “Test’s tomorrow.”
Her green eyes stare into mine. She doesn’t need to say another word. If I wasn’t angry, I’d grab her, pull her inside, lock my lips on hers, and be uncontrollably lost in making out with her—I’m so attracted to her. But I’m still angry.
“Allie—”
“Allie,” she says bitterly with a sad nod. “I like it so much when you call me that. Please call me Allie, Liam.” Because only her best friend and I call her Allie. And Jane’s left her.
“Come in,” I say.
She walks in, closes the door behind us, and checks out my small room. Of course, it’s a pig sty. I quickly move shirts and pants from the chair and bottom bunk.
She plops down on the bottom bunk. Then she gazes out the dark window.
“There’s going to be a building out there in a few years,” she says. “Right now, there’s just an empty lot, if you peer through all tonight’s fog. I know because sometimes I can tell the future. Did you know that?”
“Nothing surprises me about you anymore, Allie,” I say, rummaging through my desk. I grab my textbook. “But it’s not hard to imagine a building there with an empty lot.”
“I see this dorm has significance for something.” And she’s staring outside. “Something that will happen to someone else who will one day hold my book Broomstick.”
“What’s Broomstick?”
“My book,” she says, turning back with her lovely emerald gems. “Don’t you remember? The one at Winona’s.”
I hand her my textbook. Our class textbook, not her freaky witch book. Then she sits on the bottom bunk, and I sit down on my wooden desk chair across from her.
“Thanks,” she says, grabbing the book. “I see lots of highlighting. Good boy. What serial killer would you like to talk about?”
“How about Alondra Billington?”
It’s meant as a joke, but it’s not received well. She loses all her joy and playfulness. Then I remember Jane. She quickly turns from me. I didn’t mean to hurt her that much.
“Sorry.”
“I can’t believe Capper hit you in the face. I didn’t want you there, but he was a total jerk. He’s heard an earful from me over that, believe me. I’m probably going to cast him out of our coven.”
“It doesn’t hurt that much anymore.”
“He has quite a shiner too,” she says, turning back. Her eyes are teary. “I didn’t know you were such a slugger.”
“I used to box in high school.”
“Hmm.” She thumbs through my textbook. “Well, I’m not a serial killer, Liam.”
“I know.”
“Yeah. But Jane’s not so sure.”
“She came by and told me she was leaving in the dining commons. She warned me about you. She said I should stay away from you.”
“She’s probably right. You should. But we’ve had this discussion before. You like fast cars.”
“Why are you here?”
She squints at me as if I’m stupid. Then she gives me her infamous sweet smile. I’m hating that smile right now. “Lee, the only way I’d never see you again is if I became a serial killer and killed you.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“That’s not all,” she says with a laugh. “Even though we cast you out of our meeting, you spoke of a haunting. A demon haunting you is very serious. If a ghost followed you after our exorcism, it could be that the spirit now resides in you. I told you you’re forbidden to attend our sabbaths, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to get rid of what’s trying to harm you. So I’m here to ask you to do something you probably don’t want to do.”
“What’s new?”
“Is that really fair?” she asks, serious again.
I shake my head.
“I’m inviting you to our Sabbath this week.”
“Are you serious, Allie!” I surprise myself with my tone. “Why? This is so you. This is just like Kenosha and Winona’s room. You guys forbid, forbid, and forbid, I get into a brawl with your high priest, then you tell me to come back the week after and join. I don’t get you guys.”
“I’m not asking you to join. I don’t know any other way to get rid of this demon. I’ve called Kenosha to bring another expert to help you at our Sabbath. She is traveling very far. If you have an Ekimmu haunting you, like Winona—and I believe you do if you say you do—then you’re in big trouble. They stick, Lee. It’s gonna take a lot of magic to get it out.”
I stare at her. She seems to think that’s funny and chuckles. Then she shrugs and flips through my textbook again.
“Jane doesn’t want to talk to me anymore,” she says with a shrug. “Did she tell you that? That hurts a lot. It’s not proven that witchcraft killed Maddie’s parents. Jane believes it did. She claims that when I used her to rid us of the poltergeist with left-sided magic, she and her family were cursed as reciprocation for using the backward pentacle. Maybe. But that hardly means it’s my fault. We expelled the poltergeist and helped Maybelle and Alice, if you remember. Wasn’t that good? Well…” She takes a deep breath, thumbing through more pages. “I don’t totally blame her for being mad. But I love Jane. What happened to her sister is so horrible. But I don’t accept her blame. I don’t. That’s not fair.” She seems to finally find the page she was looking for. “Has that demon haunted you since the night you came to our Sabbath?”
“No.”
“Good. Many ghosts appear due to stress. It’s like the deer we saw when we fucked in the motel room. Stress makes for powerful magic.”
She smiles slyly. I can feel the attraction. And I’m reminded what Jane said about her. Yes, exactly like Jane, I love and hate her at the same time.
She runs her long fingernail, colored witchy black, along a page and asks, “Tell me who the Whitechapel Murderer is? You don’t have much highlighting here. I wonder if you read this chapter.”
I fold my arms, lean back in my chair, and look at her blankly.
“I’ll give you a hint, handsome, red-haired Irish boy,” she says. “Bloody Sunday, 1887.”
I shrug.
“God, I’m glad I came.” She takes a deep breath, closes the book, and leans forward. “You really don’t know? Bloody Sunday was the famous Irish revolt in London in 1887. This is not to be confused with the U2 song “Sunday Bloody Sunday”—which you probably love, since we have the same taste in music—about the British soldiers who opened fire on the Irish in 1972. In Whitechapel, in 1888, this serial killer I’m alluding to went on a rampage. A very famous one. He preferred prostitutes, which were all over this seedy district. Authorities thought he suffered from satyriasis. There’s a psychology term for your major. Satyriasis is…” She winks. “A sudden uncontrollable sex urge. Like a witch’s wandering. In women, they used to call it nymphomania. You’ve heard that word, right?”
“Only this killer murdered his women after sex,” I say.
“I told you, I’m not a serial killer, Liam,” she says, shaking her head and looking back at our book. “I’m not a killer at all. I’m a witch.”
“Jack the Ripper,” I answer.
“You got it! You did read it.”
“The century’s a giveaway. I didn’t remember the dates and all your other facts. How do you remember all those things, Allie?”
“I don’t know. I’ve always been good with dates. Jack the Ripper killed between 1888 and 1891. Dr. Kriegel loves dates. And he’ll grade you an A if you throw them around in your essay. Remember that this silly psycho killer course is really a way to study history, so pour on the extra stuff in your essay. Did the police ever catch Jack?”
I shake my head. She nods.
She’s back to looking through our textbook. “Okay…and…” She plops her finger near the beginning of the textbook. “Here. Let’s go forward to more current stuff. Tell me the—”
But I snatch the book from her hands.
“Hey!”
“My turn.” But then I don’t even look at the book. I look into her eyes with the book sitting on my lap. For a moment, I get lost in those damned eyes again. She smiles. “Tell me the name of the Greek who snatched weary travelers and forced them to fit into his beds by either stretching them on a rack or cutting their limbs.”
She smiles but then she rolls her eyes as if it’s too easy. “Procrus-something-or-other.”
“You don’t know the name?”
“We won’t need to know exact names for the test. We can either omit them on the essay or guess based on the the procrus part in the multiple choice section.”
“Procrustes.”
“How do you remember the name?”
“I like Greek mythology.”
“I don’t think we’re gonna be going that far back in history tomorrow.” She shrugs and snatches the textbook back. “But I can see you’ve been a good boy and read the whole textbook. You wanna go far back, huh? Okay.”
She’s back to flipping pages, and I’m enjoying watching her pale fingers move through each page and her furrowing her brow and smiling to herself. She’s thinking, and I enjoy thinking about how she’s thinking about stuff. I tell you, I’m hooked. So? Sue me.
“Ah, this one. Who is the serial killer in history with the most kills? There’s something not to be proud of.”
I can’t recall. I’m too busy enjoying watching her. She looks right into my eyes again and raises an eyebrow, cute as hell. Then she throws her long dark hair back.
I shrug my shoulders.
She deflates hers. “Oh, come on.”
“I think it was in the fifteenth century or something? Some freak they tortured for a really long time because he kept a log of his kills.”
“Who? And don’t joke with Alondra Billington again. This was a man. You might have noticed they were sexist even with the list of serial killers in history.”
“I don’t know.”
“Think of a backward cross. Christ-man. Cause you’ll never get the name.” She looks at the book and reads: “Christman Genipperteinga. The book says he lived in Germany in the sixteenth century and logged nine hundred and sixty-four kills. The freak was disappointed that he didn’t hit a thousand.”
“I thought you said we don’t need to memorize all the names.”
“Yeah, but don’t you love saying that name: Genipperteinga?” And she laughs real hard and touches my hand. “You won’t forget it now.”
“Next,” she says, raising a finger and flipping through more pages.
As she’s flipping, her fingers slow and she loses her mirth. She seems to get very serious. She puts the book on her lap for a moment and stares down at it.
“Do you mind if I stay here for the night? I’m… having a hard time.”
I think if she was a different sort of girl, she’d cry. I come over and sit by her on the bed. She leans on my shoulder.
“I don’t care what Jane says,” she says quietly, “I have to be with you.” She wipes her eyes. She snuggles deeper into my side. “I’m so sorry,” she says quietly. “God, I’m so sorry I hurt you. You don’t even know how much. I’d rather Cap have hit me. You come to our Sabbath again like that and, whatever the rules, you’re welcome. I don’t care anymore. Okay?”
“I’m sorry too.”
She moves from my arm and peers deeply in my eyes. Her eyes are moist. A tear runs down from those green gems. “Our first fight,” she says with a sad smile. She very gently touches the side of my face, which is still bruised, and frowns again.
I put my arms around her and embrace her more tightly.
“I think I’m falling in love with you, Lee,” she says quietly. “I really am.”
19
CREEPERS
I can’t sleep. It’s not Alondra breathing over me on the top bunk keeping me up. That’s loud, but soothing. It’s that I haven’t slept since Winona and her possession. The image of that lanky creep keeps popping up in my mind. And this isn’t like some scene from a scary movie. It was real.
I’m tossing and turning. I open my eyes and stare at the bunk above. The moonlight is shining over my face through the closed curtain. And, even though it’s like three in the morning, I hear people occasionally walking down the hallway outside my room. Oh, and my face still stings. The pain doesn’t help me sleep either.
“Lee,” Alondra whispers, “are you sleeping?”
She’s up now too. “No. I thought you were.”
I hear her moving over the sheets with the creaking of the upper planks. Then I see her shadow fall by my side. She’s wearing one of my T-shirts and her panties. It’s warm enough inside. I’m just in underwear. Which is a bit shameful after she surprises me by lifting my sheets and gently climbing under the covers with me.
“What are you doing?” I whisper.
She smells nice. It’s always some natural scent. Tonight, it’s festive, like pumpkin and cinnamon. I feel her run her fingers along my hair and kiss the back of my head. It’s a habit of hers. She loves my hair.
She puts an arm around me and runs her fingers along my arm.
“Can’t sleep. I thought you could use some company. Did I wake you?”
“No. Worried about the final?”
“Are you kidding?” she says with a snicker. “I could teach the class.”
“That’s true.”
“You?”
“No. We went over everything.”
I lie on the pillow and she nuzzles her head against mine.
“You’re warm,” she says. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“I haven’t slept well since Alabama. I can’t stop thinking of the demon.”
“I should never have taken you there. But you haven’t seen it since that class, you told me?”
“No, but his image is burned into my head.”
“Try to forget it. We can try to fall asleep together.”
So I start drifting off thinking that I actually might sleep in her arms. I’m okay with that. And, I suppose, being in my girlfriend’s arms works ’cause I find myself getting drowsier.
I jerk awake. Alondra, who’s still holding me, is shaking. She’s whimpering.
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
“I’m sorry,” she says in a broken voice. “God, Lee, I want out of my coven. That day you ran from my house, I didn’t blame you. I wanted to run away with you. Let me run away to Atlanta with you. Jane’s right. Let’s run away together and leave Hawthorne forever.”
I turn and she digs her head into my chest and cries some more.
“It’s okay,” I whisper as she shakes.
“Hold me. Please.” And, this time, she turns so her back is to me. There’s not a whole lot of room in the bed.
My fingers glide over her back. I massage her skin.
“That’s nice.”
She takes my hand and brings it under her shirt, my shirt, touching her chest. I feel lace.
“It’s the bra in the store,” she says with a giggle. “Remember?” She wipes her eyes. Then runs my hand under the bra and over the curves of her naked breast and nipple. “Even better.”
I feel very aroused. I’m hard. She seems to notice and pushes her butt against my erection.
“I didn’t sleep in the same bed to be naughty. Honest.” She turns and our lips touch, then our tongues. “But maybe I should have,” she adds with a giggle.
I touch her other breast, near the sheet but, before I know it, she takes my hand and moves it between her legs. I’ve never touched a woman between her legs before. She guides my finger inside her. She moans.
“Oh, Lee,” she says, breathless. “Kiss me.”
She is moving my finger gently in and out of her. I readjust, feeling harder. Then she lets go, but I don’t stop stroking her. Meanwhile, she probes my leg until her hand lands on my erection. She moves her hand up and down over my underwear, kissing me hard on the lips again. The kiss reminds me of her hard, passionate kissing during her wandering in the motel. Then she reaches inside my underwear and touches my bare cock.
“Maybe,” she says between kisses. “Maybe we should be naughty tonight. Eh, tiger?”
She yanks down her panties under the sheets and throws them off the bed. Then she moves on top of me, mounting me. She reaches back and lifts her shirt over her head, revealing the lace bra. Then she unlatches the bra from behind. Her pale breasts shine in the moonlight and a streetlight shining through the partially open drapes. I can just make out her face, her gentle smile. She rocks slowly back and forth over my underwear. I groan. She opens her eyes wider over that.
She leans down and kisses my lips tenderly again. As she presses her groin over mine, we make out some more and I can hear the sound of our wet lips. She whispers in my ear, “I said fuck earlier because I adore watching you get aroused, Liam. You blush. I want to fuck that. I want to fuck that right now.”
She yanks my underwear off under the sheets and tosses it from the bed, like she did with hers. Then she pulls the sheets off us and straddles me again with her breasts close to my face. She leans even closer because her head is nearly touching the bunk above. Then she grinds against me again, moving faster and moaning.
She repositions. I’m surprised to see that just a slight change in position helps her manage to work my cock inside her.
My heart races, but not only from arousal now, from fear. I didn’t have time to get a condom. Am I too late? She was so fast. Being neurotic, I start thinking of STDs. I think of Rachel and Capper and all the other initiates in ceremonies she’s possibly made love to. I think of Jane’s warning again, and wonder if this is how she’s going to hurt me. She’s going to get me sick with a sexually transmitted disease from unprotected sex. It makes me want to get her off me. But she’s moving faster. Harder. And it feels so good.
“I need to get a condom,” I say, breathless.
“I’m clean, Liam,” she says, shaking her head.
“We should stop,” I push her to the side, but she’s still pushing me inside her. “We should stop. Let me get one.”
