Burning Desire

by Ami Snow

  It was more successful than I’d hoped. My initial tries at frat parties and college bars weren’t too successful—those boys are really into the tanned Barbie look—but then I started trying the more eclectic college scene, what I was really into anyway. Poetry slams, vintage dance parties, jazz club jam sessions. The outcome was that I lost my virginity a week before school let out for the summer, in a small dark dorm room with a guy who played the saxophone like he’d been born doing it. When he undressed me, I felt like a goddess. He was kind, and gentle, and it was perfect…until I asked him to bite my neck. I whispered it, breathlessly, in the kind of passionate way that I imagined would lead to him pressing me down and sinking his teeth into the flesh of my throat until I dissolved underneath him.

  It did not work out the way I’d hoped. He’d looked horrified, and hadn’t even been able to finish. Clearly he was the kind of boy that hadn’t imagined anything beyond the normal functions of sex. I ran into that a lot, the next couple of years. The couple of boys who were into it were also into way weirder things—fetishes that I didn’t even want to come near.

  All I wanted was a tall, pale, handsome man who would romance me passionately and then indulge my desire to pretend that he was a blood-sucking creature of the night. Too much to ask? Apparently. By the time the Halloween of my senior year came around, I was fairly dejected. In fact, I didn’t even really want to go out. I thought glumly of my first kiss, at that party years ago, and wondered if I would ever find someone willing to play along with my fantasies. My best friend, Ashley, was having none of it.

  “It’s our last Halloween party,” she said flatly, her face telling me exactly how displeased she was with my overall apathy towards the whole thing. “It’s at the Pike frat house, and it’s going to be the biggest party ever. We’re halfway through our last year. After this it’s all jobs, and sad Halloween drinks at bars, and taking our kids out to get candy. Our kids, Megan. This is the end.” She sighed dramatically and fell back onto the bed, one arm over her eyes. After a few seconds of silence, she lifted one arm and peered out from underneath it. “Is it working?”

  I glared at her. “I’m probably never going to have kids, because I’m never going to meet a man who doesn’t think I’m a total weirdo.”

  “Oh, you mean the vampire thing?” Ashley was probably the only person I’d ever told about my strange obsession. “I’m sure there’ll be some hot guy there dressed up like Dracula. Or Bill. You know, the guy from True Blood?”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen it.” Particularly the scenes with Eric naked, paused and rewound multiple times, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. “You think so?”

  “Duh. Vampires are totally a Halloween thing. Plus, if he’s dressed up and in costume, he’ll probably want to play along.” She shrugged. “Not a long-term solution, but hey! It’ll make your Halloween better.”

  I sighed. She did have a point. Halloween was probably my best chance of getting an everyday guy to play along with my not-so-everyday fetish. And dressed up too…as long as it wasn’t one of those cheesy suits with the burned velvet cape. I just couldn’t.

  “So what are we going as this year?”

  Ashley squealed and sat up, clapping her hands together childishly. At least one of us was happy.

  ---

  An hour later, we had a plan together. Ashley was going to go as a flapper, and I was going to go as a 40s pinup girl. We wrote down a list of the costume items we needed, and then proceeded to dig through her closet and makeup bags, a cheery playlist on her iPod in the background. I had to admit, I was already feeling better.

  We found a flared navy blue skirt and a pair of red heels that would fit me, and I had a white oxford shirt at home. Ashley had a friend who would lend her a fringed dress that would fit the flapper theme, and we decided to make a run to the mall later to get a jeweled headband for her. We spent the next couple of hours playing with makeup and hair, and I actually started to get excited. It was the last Halloween party I’d be going to as a college student. And after all, the worst that could happen was that I wouldn’t find anyone interested. It wouldn’t be much different than any other night. At the very least, I’d have fun out dancing and drinking with Ashley and my other friends. I just needed to stop focusing so much on my love life, I decided. There were other things to enjoy.

  I spent most of the next week focusing on that mindset. I didn’t go out very much—largely because I had a lot of homework, but still—and when I did, I made sure it was out with a group of friends. I usually struck out at the club, but weirdly enough this week, when I wasn’t trying at all, I actually managed to hook up with one of the boys from that I’d seen sitting in the back of my English class. He was cute—not particularly tall, but dark-haired with a smooth face and the sort of soft body that meant he read more than he went to the gym. We wound up on a velvet couch at the back of the club that looked like it had seen better days, while Ashley and three of my other friends ground up against each other in an effort to entice a group of guys leaning up against the bar.

  We were talking about the readings from class that week, sitting closer together than we would have without the added enticement of the alcohol, and he reached out to touch my face. He missed, and his fingers grazed my throat. I shuddered, my skin prickling. I had a sudden, drunken desire to grab his head and press his mouth into my neck, and my body against the rest of him. He kissed me, his fingers still touching my collarbone, and I heard myself moan softly.

  It didn’t go much further than that. We made out on the couch, and at one point he took my hand and pressed it against the front of his jeans so that I could feel exactly how much he was enjoying our little rendezvous. By that point, his hand had left my neck and was moving towards my breasts, and I was rapidly losing interest. Mentally, I kept berating myself.

  Why can’t you be into this? He’s a normal boy, doing normal boy things. You should be enjoying this. He thinks you’re hot, he’s turned on by you, obviously. You should practically be in his lap right now, not sitting there wishing he’d bite you.

  My train of thought was only making it harder for me to be in the mood. I pushed his hand away, mumbling something apologetically about how I needed to go find my friends. To his credit, he didn’t protest or try to come after me, although I did catch him looking glumly down at his jeans. I had left him with an inconvenient erection, after all.

  By the time I located Ashley, she was on a couch of her own, wrapped around a guy wearing a muscle tee and a pair of cargo shorts so ripped up I was worried his dick might fall out. She’d knocked his baseball cap off (which doubtless he’d been wearing backwards), and I only just missed stepping on it. I dusted it off and set it on the nearby table, which was only slightly cleaner than the floor. I hissed Ashley’s name, but she never heard me.

  I didn’t have the energy to find the others. I texted Ashley a message, which she would probably read an hour or two from now, letting her know I was going home. I walked out of the club, hailed a cab, and went back to the dorms, and the promise of a wine cooler and episodes of Buffy to re-watch.

  ---

  October 31 finally arrived. The Halloween decorations covering the various hallways and cafeterias all were starting to look a little tired and crooked, having been up for the last month or so, but there was palpable excitement in the air, particularly among my fellow seniors. Roughly a mile or so away, at the Pike house, there were students skipping class to hang decorations and make buckets of punch and acquire stashes of liquor and mixers and a few bags of chips. There seemed to be a general consensus among the professors to let us out early, since no one was really paying attention anyway. I went straight to Ashley’s dorm, where her roommate was on one side applying zombie makeup, and Ashley had our clothes laid out on her bed already.

  Ashley’s dress was gorgeous. Black satin with rows and rows of silky fringe, and a dusting of golden sequins across the straight neckline and between the rows of fringe. It was literally a rectangle
—it would have been lumpy and strange on me—but on Ashley’s boyish figure it would look amazing. Conversely, I’d never seen her wear the navy blue skirt, because she said the flare just swallowed her up. But on my curves, I’d look like a model. Well…a model from a few decades ago, anyway.

  Ashley had insisted I wear nice underwear for the occasion. I’d relented finally, choosing a pair of lace panties and a matching bra in a soft powder blue. The bra was fully lace, with no padding, but the underwire went nearly all the way around my breasts, propping them up as if they lay on a shelf and firmly holding them there. The oxford shirt wouldn’t button all the way—a common issue—but Ashley had nixed the idea of wearing a camisole under it, saying it didn’t fit the time period. Instead, the last button stopped in the midst of my cleavage, giving the impression that at any second my breasts were going to burst free of the shirt. I dearly hoped that didn’t actually happen.

  We took turns doing each other’s hair and makeup. Luckily, Ashley had short hair already, and I used a flatiron to give her soft, bent waves. We’d found a black satin ribbon and glued golden sequins onto it, and I tied it around her head, tucking the ends underneath her hair. Her makeup was simple, lined eyes, spiky lashes and nude lipstick. Using an online video, Ashley did my hair in victory curls, rolling it atop my head and then curling the rest that fell down my back in thick spirals. She contoured my face like a pro, used a liquid eyeliner pen, several coats of mascara, and finally a satiny red lipstick. She spun me around and I smiled. I looked fantastic. Every bit the pinup.

  “The guys are going to go nuts over you,” she said, smiling victoriously. “Vampires or not.”

  I privately thought that the crowd tonight was more likely to be into Ashley’s waifish figure than my generous one, but I didn’t let it dampen my excitement. Guys or no guys, this was going to be a fantastic party.

  By the time we arrived, the party was in full swing. Fashionably late to Ashley was about an hour into whatever event was occurring. It was a little annoying, but it was a quirk I’d learned to live with. If I needed to be somewhere on time, I just told her the start was an hour earlier than it really was.

  Drink in my hand, I hung on the fringes of the crowd, scanning it for anyone that I might want to talk to, or flirt with. There were a lot of zombies. A few superheroes, a few more ironic costumes. I saw two vampires, both in the dreaded black pant and white shirt combo, and that tacky cape. Neither of them stirred my interest. Then, the door opened. I glanced casually towards it to see who might be coming in, and my gaze was instantly fastened to the two men who had just walked in.

  They were both tall, one with deep brown hair and the other with hair that looked jet black. They were both pale, elegant and thin with sharp bones. Neither looked American. International students, maybe? Wherever they were from, neither of them looked like they belonged here. I could see several of the girls whispering and staring. I gritted my teeth, and started to head their way, determined to catch their attention. They seemed…different. Maybe my luck would change.

  “Hi,” I chirped when I was within hearing distance. The one on the left turned his head sharply, as if I’d shouted. His eyes, which I could now see were brown, perhaps a shade lighter than his hair, widened, and he made a slight bow. “Why, hello.”

  His companion snorted, seeing the old-fashioned gesture, and stuck out his hand. His eyes were a deep, shocking blue, stark against his pale skin and the dark of his hair. “My friend here is quite silly. It’s very nice to meet you…”

  “Megan,” I supplied helpfully, meeting his hand with my own. His skin was vaguely warm to the touch, as if he’d come out of the cold and was only just recovering.

  He smiled, revealing white, straight teeth. “Megan. My name is Zachary, and this is my friend, Jacques.”

  “You’re not from here, are you?” I asked curiously. His accent was clipped and sharp, different from Jacques fluid, soft syllables.

  His smile seemed permanent. “No, we are not. I am a student from Germany, and Jacques is from France, as you might expect. We bonded over…similar interests.”

  I wondered what those similar interests might be. Up close, they were both breathtakingly handsome. Zachary had cheekbones that could cut diamonds, sharp and high, and a straight sharp nose that made his face appear to be made entirely of planes and angles. On another man it might have been overly harsh, but on him it was beyond sexy. His entire body, beneath the tailored suit he wore, seemed lean and angular. Jacques was a touch shorter, his brown hair falling towards his face, which was model-handsome, but not as sharply defined as his friends’. I could see how muscular his arms were, even beneath the tailored suit.

  “So who are you supposed to be?” I asked curiously.

  “James Bond,” Zachary answered bemusedly. He opened his suit jacket, and I saw the fake gun stashed there.

  “And you?” I looked at Jacques. He smiled, and I felt slightly dizzy.

  Slender white fangs, much better than any pair I’d ever seen, showed. He tossed his head, brown hair sliding into his face, and he pushed it back with a fine-boned hand. “A vampire,” he said, the letters slipping out of his mouth as if he were caressing them with his tongue. I shuddered.

  “My friend has little imagination,” Zachary said dryly. “Would you like a drink?”

  “Y…yes,” I swallowed convulsively, my mouth gone dry. Jacques was everything I had hoped to find tonight. No tacky costume store find for him—he was wearing a suit clearly made for him, the buttons at the collar and just below opened to show his pale chest. Everything else about him said that he was simply a man…until he opened his mouth. I wanted that mouth on me. I couldn’t think of very much else.

  The three of us found a sofa and sat, Zachary handing me a cup filled with punch. I took a sip, feeling my stomach twist with nervousness. This was a totally different playing field than I was used to. These didn’t seem like the college boys I was used to. If I had known better, I would’ve said that they weren’t college students at all. They seemed older, more sophisticated. I chalked it up to them being foreign.

  “What are you studying?” Zachary asked.

  “Literature.”

  “Your favorite book?”

  “Dracula,” I replied. Jacques snorted with laughter, and the look that Zachary shot him could only be described as icy. “Please forgive my friend,” he said, his tone short. “He lacks manners, at times.”

  “You obviously seem to like vampire stories,” I pointed out to Jacques, gesturing at his fangs, which were still showing. Jacques seemed on the point of breaking out into laughter again, until Zachary fixed his glare on him more pointedly.

  “Why Dracula?” Zachary asked. I was on the verge of finishing my cup of punch, and Zachary slipped it from my fingers and handed it to Jacques, who promptly headed back to the table full of liquor. It was clear who was in charge here, and it wasn’t Jacques.

  I shrugged. “I read it when I was a teenager. It just seemed so…sensual.” I shifted uncomfortably. I’d never really gone into this with someone before. “The brides, and how they try to seduce Jonathan. And Dracula’s seduction of Mina…”

  “It doesn’t exactly say that they had sex in the book,” Zachary pointed out. I shrugged. “It seems to me like they did. And if I were her, I would’ve stayed with him.”

  “She was married.”

  I shrugged again, taking a gulp of the drink Jacques had brought me. “To a man who was ready to bang three other women in a castle. Fair’s fair, right?”

  Zachary smiled at that. “So you like vampires, then?”

  I took another swallow of my punch. I was starting to feel more than a little buzzed. “I do. More than like them, really.”

  Zachary cocked his head, and I saw him shoot a glance at Jacques. “Oh?”

  I tried to think how much I should say, but the alcohol was really starting to make me feel fuzzy. “I think they’re sexy,” I admitted.

  Zachary laughed. “Well,
I guessed that much from your description of Dracula. But obviously, they aren’t real.”

  I felt Jacques shift on the couch behind me. He was so close, the slightest movement would have meant us touching. I thought, somewhere in the back of my mind, that I should have felt the heat from his body. But it was as if no one was there. Only his physical weight let me know that there was a person behind me.

  “No,” I said, and I could hear the disappointment in my voice. “But…they really turn me on,” I admitted. I paused, hardly able to believe I was telling this to a stranger. I must really be desperate. “I guess you could call it a fetish. I always want the men I’m with to play along, and none of them are into it. Some just straight up leave…they’re totally turned off.”

  “Play along how?” Jacques spoke up from behind me, and I shifted to look at him. Our arms brushed, and I shivered. He seemed genuinely curious.

  “You know…bite my neck. Suck on it. That sort of thing.” Coming out of my mouth, it didn’t seem all that insane. And yet…”bite me” seemed to be such a turnoff. I couldn’t understand it. From the expression on Zachary and Jacques’ faces, they didn’t seem to get it either. I felt hopeful.