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Her skin was hot beneath my touch, her pulse thumping in her palm.
Carmilla, ever the bold one, wrapped her fingers around his firm length.
I wanted to put a stop to the proceedings immediately. I never wanted them to end. We may have agreed on being an item, but Carmilla and I hadn’t even come near the discussion of going steady.
I was walking towards the duvet, staring at Carmilla kissing someone. Kissing a girl. Another girl.
I turned to Carmilla, pushing her dark hair out of her face. She had a wild look in her eyes, like she could kiss me or bite me at any moment. I loved it.
I felt like I was treading water in honey, slowly being drowned in sweetness, and the waves were closing over my head. I was losing control, and that terrified me.
Carmilla dropped a small, almost apologetic kiss to the golden curls between Susan’s thighs. When she faced me again, her eyes were searingly clear.
“No more games. This is about us, you and me.”
Perhaps Carmilla had been right, that day in the library. Maybe I was a bit of an exhibitionist.
“Will you let me return the favor?” she asked wryly.
“It’s all right,” she said softly, kissing my nose like we were best friends, like she had known me her whole life. “I love looking at you, Laura. There’s no need to be shy.”
“Show me what feels good,” she said, then slipped her fingers between my slick folds.
“So needy,” Carmilla said, pumping in and out of me. “Will you let me hear you come?” I didn’t have to be told twice. By the time I finished I was writhing and had made a mess of the duvet, but she didn’t seem to care. She was just beaming down at me like I was a revelation straight from the mouth of God, like my base animal nature was a miracle.
What had I been thinking? There had been people watching. De Lafontaine had seen everything.
“Laura?” Carmilla said, her voice slurred with sleep.
Carmilla was always going to be her favorite pupil, her shooting star, and I had somehow tarnished her shine.
They were probably just fine without me, I thought miserably as I kicked rocks down the track.
“Carmilla and I hooked up.” “Maisy owes me money, then. How was it? No, don’t answer that, it’s rude of me to ask. Let me try again: how do you feel about things?” “In over my head, to be honest.” “Are you two going steady?” “I thought we were, but now I see that I was wrong.
“Oh, you do, don’t you? Poor thing. Love is the pits sometimes.” “I was ready to give her everything,”
“Hello?” I asked, pressing the phone tight to my ear. “You left,” Carmilla said, and every ounce of my devotion came rushing back. My knees jellified, and I very nearly had to sit down. “Carmilla?” “You left and you didn’t say where you were going.”
“It’s just, I didn’t think you wanted much to do with me after the party.” “What about how I acted at that party makes you think I’m anything less than devoted to you?”
“I meant what I said on that roof. I want it to be you and me. I want a fair shot with you. So, if I’ve done anything wrong, I apologize, and I—” “You’ve done nothing of the sort,” I said, with a ferocity that surprised me. “You’re a marvel, Carmilla, and I want a fair shot with you too.” “Then don’t let me go. I need you to hold tight to me, do you understand? I’m afraid of losing myself.” “What do you mean? Has something happened?” “I can’t, not over the phone.” “Carmilla, you have to tell me if you’re in any sort of trouble.” “It’s not like that, it’s just that she—” “Who are you talking
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“I’ll tell you the whole of it. But right now, I have to protect Carmilla’s privacy.” “Just be careful you don’t put yourself in harm’s way in the process,” she said, rubbing a small circle into my back. “She’s a tricky girl, that Karnstein. All lovely smoke and mirrors.” “I promise.”
“You used to feed from me and I used to feed from Laura, and that was a closed circle. What happens when locals start realizing they’re being drained?”
“We leave, of course,” she said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world. “You and I, under the cover of night. Won’t that be fun? We can pretend to be spies.” It did not, in fact, sound fun. Especially since it entailed leaving behind my books and my closet of couture clothes and my Laura. “Oh,” I said. I didn’t speak to De Lafontaine for the rest of the drive.
MY LAURA!!! DE LAFONTAINE IS A BULLY AND A MONSTER
“I think I love you,” I blurted. Laura’s expression softened, and she leaned down to kiss me on the forehead. Her touch was light, almost shy, in sharp contrast to her merciless grip around my wrists. “I think I love you too,”
“I would want you even if you weren’t my blood donor, you must understand that. I don’t want to think—” “I don’t. And I rather like being your companion, madam vampire.”
“Laura, you’re back. I assume Carmilla let you in?” “Couldn’t let her freeze out there,”
I stole a glance into De Lafontaine’s bedroom from my vantage point in the armchair, and I watched as she kicked off her shoes and unpinned the studs from her ears and turned down the blankets. Then, she paused. Her fingers grasped the edge of a sheet, bringing the cloth up closer to her face. In the dim light of the bedroom, I spied two tiny droplets of blood on the white fabric, as stark as roses in winter. De Lafontaine locked eyes with me, her gaze burning. Then she shut the door, severing the connection between us.
And with that, she was gone, the door swinging shut behind her. “She’s such a prickly pear sometimes,” Carmilla grumbled, tossing her long legs over my lap.
“Well, I’m not going to sit around and wait for her,” Carmilla said, standing suddenly. “Are you coming, or not?” “Where are we going?” I said, already standing and reaching for my coat. Where wouldn’t I go, if she asked me?
The blood froze in my veins. That voice. I knew that voice.
“You know why she’s different,” De Lafontaine replied. Her expression was one of abject misery. “Do as I ask, and I will forgive you. Do this one thing and we can be together again.”
“Oh, my love,” Isis sighed, closing the space between them. She reached out a thin hand and cupped De Lafontaine’s face. De Lafontaine didn’t pull away. “It isn’t a punishment. It’s proof.”
“This isn’t about me, it’s about you, and it always has been. It’s a small school, Isis. People will put the pieces together eventually.” “And what then, Evelyn? Will you let them come for me?”
If De Lafontaine came back and found us missing, that would undoubtedly raise suspicion.
“What on earth was that about?” “I don’t know,” Carmilla said, doubled over with her hands on her knees. She was taking in great gulps of air. “But I do know that De Lafontaine hasn’t been honest with me. With us.”
“Do you think De Lafontaine has been helping her, all this time? Just putting us off by telling us it’s not our business and that she’ll take care of it?” “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.” “We have to do something, Carmilla.”
“Hello, girls,” she said, tugging off her gloves one finger at a time. “How were the bars?” Carmilla asked, her voice as bright as ever. My darling liar. “Uneventful,”
I sat stiffly as I listened to her undress through the door, from the click of her shoes against the hardwood to the clink of her jewelry in the little dish on her bedside table. “Happy hunting,” I said weakly.
We never told De Lafontaine about that terrifying night beneath the school, but I don’t think it mattered.
I had spent the summer term fantasizing about a winter by De Lafontaine’s side, close as the silk lining sewn into her coat. But now that I had gotten what I wanted, it was nothing like what I imagined. De Lafontaine was moody and demanding, jealous in the extreme though she would never admit it, and either totally neglectful or so saccharinely attentive that it left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. And then, there were the lies.
“I do. Just not when I feel like you only ask me out to keep me away from Laura.”
“You’re one to talk. Pining after someone for forty years.” “That’s entirely different.” “I don’t see how.”
“You’re a mean-spirited little thing,” she said quietly. “But you know me better than most.”
“I spotted you from across the bar. Suffice to say I was surprised to see you. Hello, Carmilla.”
Maybe, in another life, Elenore and I would have been better friends. Maybe, in a world where De Lafontaine never existed, I would actually have real friends.
“You’re the only one who can stop this,” I said, my voice hoarse with desperation and barely restrained tears. I had lost my composure somewhere in the night, and I had no idea how to get it back. “But you won’t, because you’re a coward.”
“I can’t believe I spent so long fawning over you!” I said, my raised voice ringing off the brick walls of the alleyway. “Christ, I was so stupid. You never loved me. I was just a blood bag to you.” “If you knew what she was asking of me, you wouldn’t dare say—” “You don’t care about me at all, do you?”
De Lafontaine had always been mercurial, and her mood swings could feel violent at times, but she had never actually demonstrated material violence in front of me.
