Page 12 of Dark Ink

“I’ll ask one more time,” I said through clenched teeth as I squeezed the edge of the desk so hard I thought it might splinter, “who in God’s name did that to you?”

Did that to me, I thought, but did not dare say aloud.

Before the girl could answer, the door at the bottom of the lecture hall banged open. Necks all around me snapped in that direction as Rian Merrick barged in without warning, dragging along with him some random student. He began to look over the class row by row with a sort of manic thoroughness. I stared in shock and confusion with everyone else.

The girl with the tattoo giggled, covering her mouth, and elbowed her friend, having completely forgotten about me, the girl who was forever inked into her skin. “Speak of the devil!” she said. “The sexy, sexy devil!”

And then, “Do you think he’s here for me?”

Rian

I’m not sure which drew the most attention: the sudden noise of the auditorium door banging against the wall, Tipperary, squirming and swatting at my fist the back of his collar, or me, panting like I’d been running for miles. Whichever it was, we had everyone’s full attention.

My eyes darted wildly around the lecture hall as Tipperary grumbled, “Mate, let go of me,” and drywall tumbled to the floor from the hole the doorknob had punched through.

Where was she? Where was she? My heart was racing. I could feel her pulsing through my veins, burning me from the inside, and I hadn’t even shot her up yet. I hadn’t run my nose along her thighs, heated her lips with my flickering finger, tasted her nipple on my tongue. I hadn’t breathed her, smoked her, injected her and yet I pulsed with her, throbbed with her, fought to not go under with her.

“Professor Merrick.”

I vaguely heard my name. It was like the snap of someone’s fingers in front of your face. The pat of their hand against your cheek. Annoying at best. Dream-destroying at worst.

“Professor Merrick, can I help you?”

A girl in one of the back rows was pointing down at me. Laughing. The girl next to her was giggling. The girl behind her was not.

I let go of Tipperary as my arms fell limply to my sides. He cursed me out, called me a freak and left. The class’s professor asked again if he could be of any assistance. I answered him this time.

“No,” I said, not daring to take my eyes off her in case she disappeared again. “I’m afraid there is no assisting me at all.”

“I’m sorry?”

Sunbeams from the windows cast her face into light and shadow. She was partly hidden behind her laptop, but I wanted her naked at her desk. I wanted to see her whole body bathed in light and dark. To trace the line where light met dark all the way from the top of her head to her toes. I wanted to fist my hand into her raven hair to see how long her strands held onto the warmth of the sun.

I wanted to tease the vein along her pale, elegant neck with my tongue, down to the valley between her breasts. To dive to her soft valleys and explore the delicate skin of her inner thighs from the folds of her pussy to the pucker skin behind.

“I’m afraid there’s no help for me,” I said, answering the professor.

My Raglan Road girl looked away when she noticed the other students turning in their chairs, searching my eyeline to find what had so transfixed me. She ducked her gaze as her beautiful cheeks reddened. A colour for my palette: white and black and red. As murmurs began to circulate, the rising of cicadae in the summer, my Raglan Road girl slipped down further in her chair. Her eyes darted to me over the top of her laptop. I could see red there, too.

“Alright class,” I shouted, clapping my hands. “Let’s put away those useless laptops of yours.”

“Professor Merrick?” came the rather confused, rather timid protest from the professor of this class.

“You’ll need pencil and paper,” I announced as I turned to the chalkboard.

I frowned at the scribbles of useless information: design standards, discussing the client’s needs, putting the client’s artistic sensibilities above your own. I searched for the eraser. If I could have torn the whole board down and just written on the wall, I would have.

“If you do not have pencil and paper,” I continued as I snatched up the eraser. “A pen and the outside of your laptop will do just fine. Or the top of your desk. Or your neighbour’s back. Or your very own skin, ladies and gentlemen.”

I was halfway through erasing the board with big, wide sweeps of my arm before the professor (really, why the fuck was he even still here?) tapped my shoulder.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

The professor glanced toward the auditorium of what used to be his students and leaned forward after nervously licking his lips to say with a slight laugh, “I don’t quite understand what’s going on here.”

The students were shifting in their chairs, waking up from their sunny snoozes, leaning forward, chairs screeching on the old wood floors.

Something was happening.

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