An Education in Malice

by S.T. Gibson

She wore her dark hair long and it fell over her shoulders in waves. Her lips spread into a smile as she silently took me in with warm caramel eyes, and I thought, for a shining moment, that she was seeing me as I was seeing her: As absolutely perfect.

Love turns some people into birds or beggars, but you make me into architecture, into a sanctuary of soft and holy spaces shaped to catch the sound of your voice. These eyes: rose windows bathing you in light. These arms: alcoves open in shadowed embrace. This heart: a confessional dark enough for your sins. This mouth: a bell driving away demons and calling you home.

De Lafontaine’s piercing eyes met mine, stealing the breath from my lungs, and then, without remorse or hesitation, she bit down.

I didn’t need any other teacher, not when the light of her brilliance shone bright enough to illuminate my whole life.

But this girl, this Carmilla… she undid all my domestication. One smile from her and I wanted to loose my hair and chase her barefoot through the woods, I wanted to knock her to the ground and pin her like a butterfly, I wanted to dig my teeth into her plush lower lip, I wanted, I wanted.

October crept in on quiet stocking feet.

Unless keeping us starved for her approval, fighting over scraps of her love like neglected puppies, had always been her aim.

“Well, what a miserable little band we all are. Bound by blood and secrecy, with no recourse to anyone but each other. It would almost be romantic, under more advantageous circumstances.”

She kissed me with a martyr’s agonized desperation, like I was the only sword she ever wanted to fall on. I kissed her right back like the cutting edge of a blade, trying to inflict as much damage as possible.

I wanted to fall at her feet and worship her. I wanted to desecrate her in every filthy manner I could imagine. I wanted all of her, in every way, all at once.

She was the velvety expanse of space wrapping around me, the kiss of asteroid dust against my exposed skin.

“Time wears away the contours of love like a rock washed smooth by the ocean,” she said, her vowels slightly slurred. “You won’t even remember the color of her hair, in time.”

What is a vampire but a vulture and her companion but an accomplice, after all?

After all, what horror wouldn’t I tolerate, if it was meted out by the hand of my beloved?