Chapter Twelve
Maverick .
“… Therefore, when it comes to Ed Kemper, I believe the nature aspect, given he was submitted to an institution where he was able to learn from other’s crimes, and continue his own secret life of crime, is where everyone is subject to believe it was lack of nurture.
It's a simple dissection of nurture BEFORE nature. The real nature, his nature, was said institution where he was able to learn how to nurture his tendencies. Is that where they, the judicial system, fucked up? To see a child, (Kemper was but fifteen) that needs to be rehabilitated and they believe in putting them behind bars instead of giving them the therapy they need to truly be rehabilitated? Can a killer be rehabilitated, or is the need for vengeance, satisfying that need, the rehabilitation in itself?”
Ahh… so she went philosophical and political on me. A debate where she not only needed to be able to sway her peers, but me. She failed swaying me, but she made good arguments. Nietzsche might possibly be proud… if he were the one grading this paper.
I sit back in my leather recliner in my home office, the light of my desk lamp the only thing on except for the dim glow of the fire I have going on behind me.
I grab the tumbler of scotch, my third, ice clinking against the glass.
I wasn’t going to grade it tonight… but I had to know how her thought process was.
Seeing her Monday and this morning in her little skirt, ignoring me, watching Jonas paw on her, having his arm wrapped around her shoulders, playing with her dark hair, leaning over and whispering things in her ear that made the tops of her cheeks blush pink…
had me on the verge of screaming out “ STOP TOUCHING HER !”
As if my own permanently poor, grease-stained hands wouldn’t dirty up her perfect porcelain skin.
But it wasn’t perfect, was it? There were scars on her soft body.
Old fractures that would still show up on an x-ray.
Brutally forced trauma that probably kept her from sleeping well at night.
A patch of silver hair that revealed her stress.
Her scars ran deeper than the ones on her flesh.
Was that what made her perfect to me? All those beautiful, harsh imperfections that screamed, “I survived! I’m here! ”
God, even that fucking tattoo of hers, intricately placed over the scar she was probably hated the most. Where she probably saw it as ugly I would have roved my tongue all over it to prove to her she was still beautiful.
There was something in Raven Monroe that screamed at my soul and no matter how much I wanted it to stop, my soul wanted all the depraved things she had to offer.
I even tried going to a special nightclub, one where all of your dirty sexual fantasies could come to life for a certain hefty membership price on Saturday night and it had done nothing for me.
Even the name of that club had angered me upon entering.
Inferno .
There was no name, just a neon red flame above a door, signaling the entryway.
I watched the half-naked women dancing in their cages, others get fucked, others servicing their doms and their friends, being beautiful little sluts, and yet, the only one I wanted…
couldn’t or wouldn’t even talk to me. When a gorgeous little blonde with big, natural, pretty tits and pillowy red lips came my way, sinking to the ground on her knees before me, I felt nothing .
Nothing but anger at my own lame dick unwilling to work until I started letting myself remember those moments in my office when Raven was bent over and I was spearing her ass with my tongue.
I shot my load down the blonde’s throat thinking of what it would be like to feel Raven’s plush lips around me instead.
During my time in the FBI, I had helped profile and track down killers with stalking tendencies, their obsessions growing so extreme, wild and untamed like vines that have been left unattended and to their own devices.
Is this how they felt?
During the week I’d catch glimpses of her in the library.
I’d found myself going there almost daily, hoping, almost praying I’d catch her down in the restricted section alone again, but no.
She’d be on the main floor, one of the football twins, the bigger one, beside her, staring at her as she kept her nose in a book or staring out the window, as if completely unaware of the beast sitting beside her, a predator waiting to pounce.
I saw the gleam in his eyes, as if he was trying to figure her out, same as me.
When she would turn away from the window, he’d go back to his book or his laptop and continue whatever the fuck he was working on.
I supposed nothing at all. He was there to study her .
He took notice of every move she made, sometimes peering at her paper, whatever she had written down.
After the second day, he’d huff a slightly irritated annoyed huff, get up, and come back with a different book for her.
A tactic, to gain her trust. She’d peer up at him behind those thick lashes and take it from him with a small gracious smile.
She had stayed after class today as I took my seat in my office, looking down and avoiding my face, defiant little mouse, put her paper on my desk, turned, and then walked out.
Not a fucking word. Not a fucking glance.
Not even a goddamn knock on my door. I hadn’t even known she’d entered my office until the handwritten paper was before me, I looked up and she already had one foot out the door.
Quieter than a fucking church mouse.
I throw her paper into the fire behind me and chuckle darkly.
Oops.
Just as well, I need a reason for her to come into my office on Friday.
____ _
She’s not in my class on Friday.
I count her as absent. Which will hurt her GPA since attendance is ten percent of her grade. Oh well. She should’ve turned in her paper.
I keep the rules to the debates short. 1) No cursing. 2) Keep your wits about you. 3) No shouting.
None of their arguments, including Jonas’ come close to the arguments Raven wrote down.
No philosophical jargon or thoughts. They state facts, wrong opinions, throw in circumstantial and hypotheticals, which I fail them on.
It’s all so fucking boring . They’re spouting the same shit, just twisting words, and tweaking their sentences so they aren’t verbatim.
If I’ve learned anything about the elite , is that they ever hardly think with their own lizard brains.
Those that believe they’re more intelligent than others is because they regurgitate things they’ve heard and make themselves believe they believe it, too. Not because they have their own thoughts. None impress. None invoke or awaken my own thoughts or opinions.
I sigh, relieved when they leave.
After my last class, I spot her leaving the music hall, carrying the large case I can only assume is her cello. She passes by me, taking her sweet scent with her and as per usual, ignores me. I almost reach out to stop her.
Off campus, the streets are buzzing, alive with students going to watch the game at the pubs and sports bars all across town.
I visit Inferno that evening.
My dick doesn’t work again.
I’m thirty-five years young, and my fucking dick will only work at the sight of a silent siren, a brown-haired vixen with caramel eyes in fishnet stockings and a tiny yellow-and-black plaid skirt. I’ve been reduced to jerking off to memories of her like a teenager.
I’m pathetic.
________
Monday comes around, and she enters my class wearing thigh highs, not fishnet stockings. The beast inside of me wants to feel them wrapped around my waist. I glower at them .
I teach on a lesser-known alleged serial killer, Dennis Nilsen, as she practically sits in Anderson’s lap.
She twists her torso toward him, her skirt riding up her creamy thighs when she crosses her legs, an asscheek hanging out and my own lizard brain almost short-circuits in front of my class when I let out a soft growl which captures her attention for a split second and does her best, to once again, ignore the fuck out of me.
That’s it, Siren. My beast calls to you and you hear him. You know him. Come to him.
I hide my growing, painful erection behind my podium until I can control it.
I can’t .
She leans closer to Jonas, sharing a textbook, and he wraps an arm around her, holding her closer. I pull my glasses off, put them on the podium, put my hands on my temples and groan. The words fly out of my mouth before I can stop them. “Class is dismissed. Miss Monroe, a word.”
Jonas’s sharp eyes snap to meet mine.
He kisses her goodbye, slowly, sweetly, as if it’s agonizing to part ways with her.
I roll my eyes, waiting for the jealousy to rise in me, to strike… but it doesn’t. He can be all the good things for her. The roses, the dates, meeting mommy and daddy in their far away castle. I am not a sweet man. I am not a nice man.
I am a man with sick, twisted, borderline sadistic tendencies, and all I want – need - is for her to stop torturing me.
To put an end to this… itch. This ache. This annoying pain in my side that feels as though I’ve broken a rib.
All I need is one touch. One kiss. One lick.
One taste. Just. One. Fuck. And that’s it.
Oneof each so I can put her back in her little perfect box and give her back to her golden boy.
Except what’s in the package may come back a little bruised… a little ruined… the thought sends ripples throughout my blackened soul. Awakening it.