Showing posts with label Scholar's Obsession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scholar's Obsession. Show all posts
It took me a long time to notice that something was wrong in our relationship. At first glance it appeared that we were just having fun and relishing in one another's company. We were young, life was good and we had little to no real responsibility. The times we lived in were liberal and while our parents may not have understood us, we enjoyed ourselves and it was more or less socially acceptable. Certainly surrounding the college in which I was urged to enroll.
I was never especially beautiful or smart, but with them I felt like I mattered. Like I was something beyond a waitress. Between the two of them they had everything I had ever grown up expecting in a man. Hanz was brilliant and emotionally satisfying. Gerald was gorgeous and rugged with the heart of a gentleman. Maybe that was how I lost myself in the beginning of things. I adored the attention, even though I was raised to think that much love was alien and wrong.
Months dissolved and I quickly found myself in a life that I would have never imagined possible. I discarded my world of table linens, cocktails and smiles and replaced it with one of study, headaches and the cool dark that came with the library that I learned to become enamored with.
I was well into my third semester of a four year degree in Art History, pouring over stacks of books that Hanz had plucked from the shelves like they were ripe berries when it all started.
"I was thinking of enrolling again," Hanz said while he studied my previous night's homework for errors. I appreciated the help, but it often felt like my stellar grades were more his than mine.
I looked up from my assigned reading. His eyes moved far faster than I'd have thought possible over my essay, but he abandoned his critique when I turned my attention to him.
"That's wonderful. Virology again?" I asked. I had wondered why he abandoned it in the first place. But it happened before our relationship took root and it seemed to disturb him whenever I asked. I had always assumed the pressure had cracked him somehow.
"Probably. I can probably resume where I left off. The dean said I could keep my credits because my grades weren't that bad toward the end. I'd just have to test out of whatever I left unfinished."
He seemed listless as he produced a red pen and cut a swath of destruction through the my homework. I knew it probably took a couple of days to build up the courage to tell me. I didn't want to scare him away, even if I was irritated with his editing.
"You want to talk about it?"
I offered, closing my assignment. It was late and the library was empty. We didn't need to whisper.
"I don't know, Wendy."
He discarded his pen with a sigh and leaned back in his chair.
"We don't have to.." I offered, trailing off.
He mumbled something about it being complicated. About how he didn't want to neglect what was important. But it seemed like a smokescreen to me. As if he was saying those things for my benefit and my benefit alone.
He was thinking. Something was ticking behind his eyes. I'd later learn that would be quite literal, but then I was unaware of the terrible thing that lived behind the man that I was learning to love.
Hanz needed more courage and support. So later that night as we shared evening meal with Gerald in his tiny dormitory I brought it up. They exchanged glances and for a moment I thought there would be a confrontation. But Gerald's face erupted in smiles and laughter, congratulating our lover. It seemed genuine, but there was a tense hostility between them the rest of the night. Even as the three of us spooned and enjoyed one another after the night was over there was an unsaid gulf between them.
The next morning when I awoke they were gone. I thought about the previous night as I showered and dressed. About how peculiar the whole issue was. Why did Hanz abandon his studies? Why would Gerald fake excitement at an announcement about his return? He was studying Virology himself, it seemed a good fit.
When I returned to the living area from the bathroom they were at our tiny table. Their book bags were stuffed with enough dusty tomes to keep someone busy for what seemed like a hundred years. I smiled and welcomed them home, hoping the previous night had faded from memory.
They offered their own and showered me with compliments regarding the night before. But their faces seemed plastic and their words for the first time since our relationship began seemed insincere.
Gerald patted his lap.
"Come here," he started. "We have something to show you, sweetheart."
I sat in his lap and he embraced me. He was hot and sweaty. It wasn't quite summer yet and the air outside was still chilly.
"Hanz, let's have it." Gerald practically snapped.
He wore a worried expression, but he did hand it over. An ancient book, it's leather cover cracking. Gerald set it before the three of us on the table and slowly cracked the cover.
"What is this about?" I asked.
"This," Gerald said "is something beautiful. Read." He kissed my cheek.
I read the first several pages in his lap. He seemed tense and very nervous. Before long I abandoned him and took my own chair. I lost myself in that strange and alien book. The feel of the crumbling pages between my fingers, the flow of the author's logic, the notes left by a previous reader. A red ink that oozed elegance in its neat longhand.
I could hear Hanz and Gerald arguing with hushed tones in the room. But their voices were tiny and insignificant. My day dissolved into night.
Labels: Barista's Withdrawl, Scholar's Obsession
The next morning was a bleak one. Freezing rain spit on my windowpane and a chill seeped up through the cracks in my floor boards. But Gerald and I were happy. We embraced in my bed and were thankful for one another's warmth. His arms were still mostly useless, but Altima's strength had grown the night prior. She was hard at work mending his body with her dark and mysterious magic.
When she grew weak she urged us to copulate. At first I was hesitant and ginger, but before long it felt natural and wonderful. What I had been told was immoral and wrong throughout my childhood seemed like a vicious lie. She didn't judge us and it felt good to have that validation.
Her claws dug in deep and she fed off of every moment of it. She watched, grew excited and urged us on with her seductress voice that failed to change regardless of whose mouth she used to speak.
It felt right being with Gerald. I knew the damage I had inflicted was necessary, but I couldn't help but feel guilty about it even as I helped Altima repair the terrible deeds that I had carried out in her name.
Gerald didn't seem concerned. He went with the motions and called my name like in every dream I had ever had with him present. I expected his eyes to be dead or otherwise vacant. But they weren't. Gerald was in there, but fundamentally changed through her influence. He was just better.
It seemed odd to me that it took so little time for her to tear him from humanity and it took her weeks of wiggling and gentle manipulation to even begin to cut me free. Was she really that weak when I stumbled upon her in the margins of that terrible book? Or was Gerald that pathetic and feeble minded, even through his overpowering masculinity? I didn't dwell on the thought, for fear of inflating my ego.
As we made love I could feel her build a clockwork heart inside of him. When I pressed up against his back I could feel it tick in unison with my own. It was a dynamo that crossed space and anchored us to her. Weeks ago it would have terrified me, but at that moment it felt strange and wonderful.
It didn't take too long to complete her repairs. She kicked us out of bed like an over zealous mother. When we complained and begged for more she crooned and sang, guilting us from our loving embrace in my tiny bed.
So we groomed together and dressed. I examined him as he put on spare clothes from my dresser. I kept looking for something alien, something altogether different from the Gerald I had known before this all started. I didn't know what it was, but I desperately wanted it to be there. Now I know that I was just looking to invalidate my feelings of contentment and the odd realization that my urges were not unnatural.
I didn't find anything. He moved, spoke, breathed and laughed like he was supposed to. He wasn't some puppet that Altima had created for my own deranged benefit. He was the man I had secretly loved since the moment I arrived at the university. The only thing that differed was that he was now my lover. It seemed like an odd stretch but it somehow made sense.
We emptied my book bag on my desk while chuckling over memories of the previous night. He seemed almost embarrassed over his desire to steal them for his own benefit. I knew the humor made him feel better, so I let it continue past the point of being somewhat funny.
The library was quiet and empty when we arrived. Gone were the days of nervous glances and hiding from the student population in out of the way kiosks. We casually strolled around the impressive shelves lined with texts on every subject imaginable. Few books called out to us, but they glowed iron hot to our strange and twisted eyes. We removed them. There wasn't a single book that was not on the subject of the Progenitors, but they were all very varied despite that fact.
Using the student credits at our disposal we checked out the tomes for the maximum length.
While we were in the library the rain clouds had smeared across the sky, having been boiled away by the sun which tried to shine through. There was still a brutal chill in the air, but the rain stopped and occasionally shafts of light broke through and offered some warmth.
Starving due to our exploits and with decent weather we walked to town beyond the university campus. We took command of my usual bistro table when we arrived, the wrought iron seats still wet with the morning's rain.
I tried to start a normal conversation with Gerald, but he was only interested in what we had just removed from the library. I too felt their pull, but it had become customary for me to play hard to get when it came to her influence.
"Hanz! Hi."
A friendly voice broke us from our investigation. We looked up and smiled warmly.
It was Wendy.
There was a beat wherein Gerald stood, took her hand and kissed it. I could see a flash of his pearly whites as he returned to his seat.
"My name is Gerald. You must be Wendy,"
He began. I could feel Altima pour from his eye sockets. Wendy smiled. You could see her melt before them.
"It's a pleasure. Hanz has told me so much about you."
"Oh, he has? I hope not too much!"
She blushed with me as I sat up and adjusted myself uncomfortably. It dawned on me that Altima had informed me the night prior of the fact that I'd never see the young woman again. That her intent was to abandon her. But here we were yet again. I was under the impression it was due to hunger and my own spartan wallet. But perhaps she too had manipulated that in someway.
But there was something different. If her domination over me influenced her in any way, then her shredding of poor Gerald must have likewise altered her yet once more.
"He was a gentleman. Trust me. Would you like to join us for lunch?"
He eased her, relaxing back in his chair like the man I had always known.
She fidgeted, uneasy.
"My shift starts in an hour.."
"Plenty of time."
He stood up and walked around the table, throwing an old jacket of mine he had borrowed earlier onto a wet chair. He pulled it out for her. She melted into it as he pushed her toward the table with a warm smile.
"Lunch is on us."
He said simply as he returned to his own seat.
We discussed The Progenitors and astronomy. I led the conversation, but Gerald and Wendy provided some interesting views. When our meals arrived they were consumed quickly and efficiently in the lulls of our discussion. The subject eventually drifted to Wendy and her enrollment at our university.
The topics of The Progenitors, astronomy and her intellectual pursuits were just foreplay. Altima reached out and tickled the young woman, sinking her fingers deep into her mind when she spoke. I could see the seed of madness that had started in me sprout and begin to grow.
The hour escaped us. We could see Wendy's peers look queerly at her sitting at our table, expecting her to be in uniform and taking orders. But she didn't.
"Why don't you come with us?"
I blurted out without forethought. A second later I realized it was Altima speaking with my voice.
"We could show you around campus, introduce you to some of our friends. It's really beautiful this time of year, the groundskeepers are some of the best in Isyr."
She didn't have a chance. Wendy bit the bait and she was hooked forever. The poor girl nodded in agreement, completely disregarding her duties at the bistro. But that was nothing now.
Gerald and I stood above her and threw money on the table. We offered our hands and she took both without question.
"You must see the library,"
Gerald started as we pulled her away from town.
"You'll fall in love with it."
Labels: Scholar's Obsession
We did what men most often do after that sort of thing. Altima and I departed from Wendy's tiny apartment with a promise of return. I know she didn't intend to keep the promise as she already had what she wanted, but I did. I had a connection with the young woman, however strange and twisted through Altima's magic it was. On our way home Altima grew tired and relinquished control of my body.
The road to campus was blissfully lonely.
"She was very nice, I wish you hadn't taken advantage of her."
I said before too long.
"She was very nice. But she wanted it just as much as we did."
She replied, lounging in my mind. I pictured her on an antique sofa kicking off a pair of high heels. I didn't bother to contest her using the royal "we," when I was very much not involved. I should have.
"We both know that you did something to her at the bistro. I could feel you.. I could feel you.."
The words escaped me.
"Manipulating, dear. I was only playing with what I was given. There was a tiny seed in there that wanted us. Badly. I just nourished it. I caused evolution. Just like I'm doing with you."
She said, moaning a little with self content. Altima was getting better at using my voice to speak. At first it was a pale mockery of a womanly tone, like a man wearing a dress. But now she was indistinguishable from the real thing.
"We're never going to see her again, are we?"
I questioned.
"Oh, my no. You like her far too much. I can't have you just running anyway with any old trollop. She was a lovely little cow and she gave me what I needed. But she's dangerous with you."
"Gave you what you needed?"
I asked, confused.
"It took a lot of work to reverse your little pathetic display of self loathing, Hanz."
We passed into silence. I tried to bury my thoughts, unsure if she was able to skim them for information. I wondered what she meant. Clearly her dark power was woven into my very core. Was she that enigmatic, shifting and freezing cold metal? The clockwork heart that I could feel ticking next to my own? Did that somehow heal my cut wrists after Gerald bandaged me?
Moreover, how did sex with Wendy help her do this?
We were nearing campus. The lights of the common area were spilling through the trees. It looked beautiful, like the first time I ever saw it. But Altima denied me this vision and cast my gaze to the stars. They too were beautiful, but it was something more for her. I could feel a sense of loneliness. A hollowed sense of entrapment. She wanted escape. How and where to eluded me.
Then it was gone, obscured by a willow's lazy leaves. She immediately relinquished control and fell quiet. I felt sorry for her. I was sure I wasn't feeling half of what she was, squirreled away in the back of my mind. It pulled on my heart strings and I admired her for the brief flicker of humanity, or whatever passed for it with her. I left her alone.
I could smell Wendy's stink on me. It made me feel dirty and in need of a shower, but I didn't immediately return home. I wandered, eventually finding myself at the library. It had been reopened during my haze. The library guards stood vigil outside of its repaired doors. Whether they expected a return of the monster or just stood out of respect for their fallen comrade, the librarian, I didn't know. But they were armed and quite intimidating.
Not wanting to give Altima any ideas I returned home.
Much of the building was asleep by the time I arrived. I let myself in and made my way to my out of the way dorm. Something immediately felt wrong as I neared my door. A sense of dread overcame me. I slowed my pace and prepared myself.
Altima was conspicuously absent from my thoughts.
I gingerly put my hand on my door knob. I could hear movement inside my room, rustling of papers and foot steps. I narrowed my eyes and thought of a robber. I had few valuables, but the sense of violation made me angry. It was a blind, undirected kind of anger. Like a toddler witnessing his cheap plastic toy being stolen. It wasn't important, but it was mine.
I flung open the door and stormed in. A shout escaped my throat, an uncontrolled primal thing with no meaning. I held one of my fists high, expecting a fight.
There was a gasp of surprise as I advanced. It took me a moment for the scene to materialize in my mind. To realize that my original thoughts were false.
It was Gerald, his arm useless in a sling. He had my book bag opened on my desk, crammed with what I had stolen from the library.
It hit me like a sheet of hot iron. He was stealing my books! The precious things that gave birth to Altima!
I forget all of my fears, my dislike of how she manipulated and controlled me. My loathing of her forcing me on Wendy in some disgusting act of mock physical love. Fight or flight kicked in and I wanted to fight.
"What are you doing!"
I roared.
"It's for your own good, Hanz!"
He said, grabbing the bag with his good arm and throwing it over his shoulder.
"They're mine!"
I said, advancing on him.
"They're not! You stole them! You're losing touch with reality!
We struggled. I could feel Altima's grasp loosen on me. The separation was palpable and painful. Never before had I felt such dread and agony. I could lose her for eternity. If he succeeded in his deranged plan I'd be left alone in the world, naked and unable to defend myself. I'd be my old self, the Hanz that was a son of a farmer and the brother of a whore. The Hanz that could never hope to be with anyone, let alone a woman.
It was if he was cutting off one of my limbs. His actions were driving us apart. I envisioned him dragging her off by hair hair to some cave where he would ravish her. Enraged, I struck him with all of the force I could muster.
He gasped and sucked in air. It wasn't long before he returned the favor.
"Stop it!"
He shouted as my hands clawed at my bag. He pushed me away and I felt my connection with Altima nearly snap. I could feel my mind nearly dissolve, she was the mortar holding my fragmented self together. The clockwork heart faltered. He rushed toward the open door.
"She's mine! You're stealing her from me. She isn't yours to have. She wants me!"
Gerald looked at me queerly, almost meekly. I realized I was right. It came to me in a flash. He was reading one of her books when I woke up that morning. He saw for himself the wonder she could offer, the power. He wanted it for his godless self.
I rushed him and slammed the door before he could escape. There was another brief struggle, but I succeeded in twisting the bag's strap around his good arm.
I kicked him to the ground, an alien sort of strength flooding my limbs. I heard him shout and I felt his arm snap but I wasn't concerned. I kept my grasp and pulled it around and up. He screamed. I wrapped the strap around his neck and squeezed.
I was growing aroused, even as his pathetic mewing body slicked my floor with panic shit. Gerald was beyond me. He was bathing in the afterbirth that was the new Hanz. I grew disgusted by how much I had lusted after him. How I tried to manipulate him so that he would find me attractive and lay with me.
He was talking to me, pleading for his life. But I couldn't hear him. He was too far removed from my life. It was as if I was somewhere else, safe and secure witnessing the terrible things I was undertaking. But she was listening intently. She was learning for me. That seemed to suffice.
The clockwork heart returned. It felt wonderful. I concentrated on its regular, mechanical sound. Before too long it grew louder and more powerful than my own. I welcomed it. I felt my skin strain against muscles that I didn't even knew I had. I was swimming in a sea of strength. My eyes vibrated against my skull.
Altima was dead silent. But I knew she was there. Watching enthralled in the corner of my mind that was her home away from home. She studied him through me. The curves of his muscles through his ruined arms, his heaving chest that rose and fell like that of a little wounded bird.
Her connection to me was a queer thing and whether I influenced her at all is still beyond my guess. It stands to reason that all those days and nights as she flipped through my memories she might have grown to like him.
But as she glared at him with predator's eyes I felt a tiny twinge of something altogether different. I felt what she must have experienced when she first sank her teeth into my those weeks distant.
I felt cold forethought. So she took my body from me and she reached out with my numbed fingers. Her influence poured from me and I could feel her mind caress his. Gerald seemed to welcome this. His breathing slowed and a look of contentment smeared across his contorted face. I could see that he too was growing aroused.
But she wasn't in the mood for sexual conquest. She wanted much more than that. Before long he too was hers.
Labels: Scholar's Obsession
She crooned to me quite literally. She wasn't a blunt instrument any longer, manipulating me in subtle ways or causing mysterious black outs. I could feel her directly and intensely in my mind. She was a part of me, but also distinct and her own entity. Altima had become more of a companion than something I lusted after.
What the clockwork heart was, I couldn't venture a guess. But I could feel it alongside my own, beating a fraction of a second after mine. That was clear, I was leading. Whether that was because she was physically incapable of holding me for long periods of time or not I couldn't say. That was immaterial, however.
After Gerald's departure I stood there breathing heavy and staring beyond the door for a long time, mentally daring him to return so that we could finish our brief but violent encounter. I was angry, the type of red hot anger that bubbles to the surface right after conflict. He didn't return.
I knew my anger was largely unjustified. I wasn't concerned. It felt good. It felt like I was shedding the years of meek servitude I had engaged in. I thought about them and I could feel Altima smile through me, a twisted and terrible expression. Then with one movement of a mental hand she seized one of my worst youthful memories and wiped it clean. It dissolved like a teaspoon of sugar in a boiling kettle.
I calmed and let my own satisfaction shine through hers. I found myself wondering why I had ever feared her. She told me through my own lips that some men are just distrustful of beautiful women from the get go. It made sense and didn't at the same time. I refused to protest.
Still feeling light headed and with hunger bubbling up inside, I decided that I needed to eat something. Returning to my rest room I groomed. It was out of curiosity that I removed the bandages that Gerald had so lovingly applied.
I found my wrist wounds missing. Only a dull ache remained. Frightened, I asked Altima. She laughed quietly.
"You needed a reward. It took courage to do what you did. You needn't suffer unnecessarily."
She said through me. Her voice a female caricature of my own. It seemed mad and it bothered me, but I again refused to protest. It was at this point that I lost the ability entirely. Not out of respect or gratitude, but out of impossibility.
Altima was a kind woman so she eased this discomfort by dissolving memories of my drunken father and his masculine needs in my youth.
I finished grooming and dressed. My outfit was something cobbled out of what I had, but definitely more provocative than what I'd normally wear. By then it was early evening, so we went out to dinner.
It was a strange experience. In town I garnered looks that had thus far been only for Gerald's kind. It felt good to be desired. So I strutted. Altima laughed, saying I was being silly and awkward. She helped by unbuttoning my shirt somewhat and causing my gait to relax. I was behaving "queerly," she told me. I didn't mind the pun.
I stopped at my favorite bistro and took command of a small table. I ate slowly and deliberately, like a machine. I required a lot of my barista. But I was kind, smiled and offered thanks at every turn.
I could feel Altima coveting the woman. She'd innocently move my eyes away from my meal and toward her while the young barista's attention was elsewhere. I didn't see anything particularly interesting, but I could feel my companion flush.
Once she reached out mentally, I could envision Altima's slender arms wrapping around her. The woman twitched and squirmed across the patio while busing a table. My companion smirked through me. This was something that felt wholly wrong, but I complied without question.
The meal and Altima's antics continued. She reeled the barista in slowly, forcing her to gravitate toward me and neglect her other patrons. I struck up conversation with her and the seductress that lived in my head would often add a quip or funny comment in my voice.
I learned that the young woman's name was Wendy and that she was saving up to attend university. She was intrigued by the studies I was engaged in prior to my with drawl from society, but was fairly ignorant of the science behind it. Wendy was nice, if not a bit dull and weak.
This only excited Altima.
It wasn't before too long that I lost control. She consumed wine and dishes that I'd never touch. This seemed to make me sleepy and light headed, but didn't phase her. She complimented Wendy at every turn. It was inevitable that they made plans to meet up after closing.
It didn't take too much courtship to bed Wendy after closing. Whether Altima's influence forced the young barista subconsciously or she was genuinely attracted to my body was unknown to me. But it happened quick and brutally once we were inside her tiny studio apartment.
Wendy seemed hesitant at first, but learned to like it. This only excited Altima to the point of bursting. It felt wrong and awkward, but there was no avoiding it. I was merely a passenger. In that sense I think she raped us both. Me, unable to control my body. Wendy, the poor weak dear, her mind likely invaded by her pushing and terrible influence.
I learned to like her through our experience. Like how two accident victims bond over their common and life altering instances. I admired her beauty while not being sexually attracted to it as she did disgusting things to my body. Altima selfishly gobbled up sensation leaving me feel numb and removed.
I didn't mind.
Labels: Scholar's Obsession
It was to my great surprise that I awoke in my own bed, which had been dressed with fresh linens. My head felt incredibly light. Sunlight was pouring through an open window and a fresh breeze was blowing. It felt good.
I flexed my hands and stared at my wrists. I was sore, but bandaged. The pain was dull and removed, definitely not the breed of discomfort I should have been experiencing after rooting around inside of my wrists. I was thankful. In that moment I realized I had made a terrible mistake. I definitely did more damage to myself, so my health worried me.
"Hey."
Gerald was staring at me from across the room. He was sitting at my desk. A copy of "Applied Mathematics: The Legacy of the Progenitors" lay open in front of him. He had cracked several chapters by the looks of it.
"Hi."
I squeaked, my mind swimming with jealousy and shame.
"You never tried to explain yourself. I wanted to give you time, but when you disappeared I got worried."
Disappeared? So I did lose several days to her influence.
"I didn't want you to do something stupid, so I came here. You did something stupid."
I held up my wrists and inspected them. He didn't require tutoring in first aid apparently. The bandages were quite expertly applied. They were fresh and clean, very little blood marked where my wounds must have been.
I opened my mouth to explain, but I found the words missing.
"I'm not like you, Hanz. I'm not gay. I don't want to be, either. I like girls."
My heart sank. I tried to disappear into my bed.
"But what you did was stupid. You're the smartest person I know. Did you really think I was going to rat you out? Is that why you did what you did? Is that why you tried to.. off yourself on the bathroom floor?"
There was a beat.
"Yes."
He stood up slowly and walked to my bedside.
"I'm the last person who would hold it against you."
He told me of his atheism and how he felt like an outsider too. About how he found that same glimmer in me and that's why he valued me as a friend. He made that terribly clear. I was a friend and definitely not a love interest. But he would never judge me or allow my secret to become public.
I felt crushed and relieved at the same time. It was bitter sweet.
I wanted to tell him more. That I had confessed my nature to him through no fault of my own. That I at times lost control of myself. That I might be responsible for the destruction wrought at the library. That I saw a seductress in the pages of the very book he was just examining. My interaction with him was just the tip of an iceberg, an inconsequential coincidence.
So I did. It caused her influence to roar back to life. My eyes darted around the room through no control of my own and my fists clenched my bedsheets. But she was weakened. Through it I told him of my blackouts, the mysterious thing inside of me and of her glory. Her wonderful, wonderful glory.
He looked on in horror. After I certain point I knew he wanted to leave, but I continued anyway. I took advantage of his worry that I'd attempt suicide again, even though I thought that a foolish decision in hindsight.
I told him about her living in the margins of the books and her mysterious red script. Throughout my confession she bubbled up to the surface more and more. I could just barely hear her yelling, screaming, raging against me in my head. The words eluded me, but she was angry.
Gerald looked to me as if I was insane.
"Maybe you should see someone."
He stated, a worried look forming on his face.
I laid there and I looked at my bandages. She was still screaming at me. She was so loud that I could feel it in my teeth.
"No."
I commanded. I didn't state, I didn't squeak. I commanded.
"Hanz. There is something wrong with you. Look at yourself, I found you in a puddle of blood on your bathroom floor. You've dropped out of all your classes. You think you're responsible for dismembering a man. You think you're in love with a woman who writes you nonexistent notes in dusty books."
I glared at him, a sense of power over taking me. This was not her presence. I was fully aware and in control. She was there, but I was in control. Perhaps I wasn't, but it felt like I was.
At that moment I knew something was wrong with me. Terribly wrong. But I liked it. I felt confident and in charge. I got out of bed and confronted him. I was nude, fragile and pale. But I wasn't concerned. I could feel a fire burning behind my eyes.
"This from an atheist of all people? You think I need help? Maybe I like her, maybe I like her more than I could have ever liked you!"
I shouted, advancing on him. He slinked back. With every inch he retreated I grew more confident. I knew he was terrified. I fed on it. It didn't matter that he was scared for me.
"Who are you to judge me?"
I clenched one of my fists. I could feel my wrist muscles twitch.
"Hanz. Calm down."
He began to chatter on about how I wasn't thinking clearly and how he understood. But he didn't. His words were nothing to me. He was just pandering, trying to manipulate me into a situation where he felt more comfortable. A situation where he could be in control.
But that was the story of my life. It felt wrong all of a sudden. Far more wrong than my homosexuality. More wrong than the crazy concept of a woman lusting after my attention beneath the cover of a book.
At that point he ceased being my friend through sheer force of will.
I could feel the clockwork heart beat inside of me. It made me feel good. It aroused me. My eyes lost control of themselves again and I found myself staring at his throat. His twitching jugular. The bead of sweat that was just beginning to seed itself on his collar bone.
Something wonderful was happening.
"Oh god."
He managed to croak. I remember lunging at him, but he was quick and I was still weakened from blood loss. There was a brief struggle on the floor where I did things that I would have under normal circumstances been incapable of. But he ultimately escaped and fled.
It felt good to reverse our roles. He was the one being thrown out after crawling back to me. He was the moral degenerate.
She stopped screaming at me. Instead I received praise. She told me her name. It was beautiful. It was elegant. It was Altima.
Labels: Scholar's Obsession
The walk across campus from Gerald's building to my own was a long one, but it passed in a blur. I almost had wished that whatever subversive agent that lived within me was still active. It would have given me something else to focus on than on my immediate fate. I would have welcomed the bitter, nerve grinding struggle associated with regaining control over my own body.
My head swam. Through my own weakness or the influence of the enigmatic woman in my books I had exposed my darkest and most dangerous secret. I feel a little ashamed to admit that I was more worried about the truth surrounding my homosexuality leaking out than the poor librarian. I'd like to think that it was because I was uncertain about my responsibility, but deep down I think I had known that he met his end by my hands somehow.
I lived in conservative times and while Gerald was my friend, I had a feeling he'd talk about our encounter. My habits were quite illegal and just the accusation would be enough to ruin my academic career. Whatever was left of it anyway. I didn't blame him or society. I was never proud of myself. I wish I could have been, that probably would have made it easier.
I slipped into the college stink of my building and entered my little corner dorm. The stacks of books were still there, piled high on my desk. Their titles and authors were varied, but they were all terribly old and on the subject of the Progenitors.
I could feel their crumbling paper fingers reach into my mind and tickle something primal. They gave me something that the church had never even offered. I knew that they owned me heart and soul. A growing part of me liked it, being submissive to something so awful and controlling. But a tiny fraction of myself, perhaps the real me that was rattling around somewhere, was terrified.
I was scared. I wanted to leave and never return. But I knew that wasn't an option. The dance we had was beautiful and natural, like a gazelle fleeing a lion.
Without thought I sat down and cracked a cover. The words contained within were nothing to me, just insignificant scribbles. But they flowed like a powerful liquid. Before too long the scripture tumbled together and I began to soak it up like a sponge. I passed into a trance and she sank her teeth deep into my mind.
This was something altogether different. Time was meaningless. I absorbed book after book and discarded them like so many parts of my life. The faster I read the clearer I could see her. When she first appeared to me she was just notes in the margins of a dead man's faulty science weeks ago. But now she was a living, dancing creature that slowly took pages for herself. I could see her in every turned page, behind ever dog eared corner.
She was beautiful. Occasionally I could make out a beautiful blue eye staring at me. Other times I'd be able to spot a long, silky leg or a flowing red dress. She aroused me like no woman had ever been capable of. I liked it. It made me feel normal. It made me feel like how Gerald must feel all the time. Like there wasn't something broken inside of me. Like there wasn't something immoral swimming in my heart.
I grew oddly aroused and for the first time in my life I didn't feel guilty. Before too long I lost control of my limbs. I had the realization that it was her and that somehow made it easier. She did strange and humiliating things, but I didn't mind.
There must have been a time when my body passed into unconsciousness because I awoke with a snap in a jumbled mess beneath my desk. Daylight was pouring through my window, but I had no idea what day it was. I vaguely remembered the sunset spilling through my blinds several times.
Vanquished books lay where I had discarded them, useless and uninteresting now. I stood and rubbed my chapped finger tips into my palms, surveying the carnage. Only a single, thin text book remained on my desk. It's gravity was immense.
I felt disgusting and ashamed. I had betrayed what little humanity I had managed to hold onto. The delicious irony being that singular thing was my innate homosexuality, something that few of my peers would consider a property of a moral person, let alone an aspect of humanity to be prized. I felt like I had cheated on a spouse. I had laid with what was essentially a woman.
The events that transpired with Gerald flooded back and I felt a tiny seed of panic grow in my gut. How long had the books held me? It felt like it had been days since I had last eaten, but could it have been longer? Surely the rest of the student body knew by know that I was a degenerate, a nonbreeder. Even if Gerald had postponed his gossip there was no way.
Revolted, I fled into my bathroom and slammed the door. Even there I didn't feel safe. The pull of the last remaining book was incredible. The fear of my exposure was intense. The tiny room where I stood could not protect me against the seductress that lived between sheets of paper nor brutes clad in armor with a penchant for lynching nonbreeders.
In my panic I evacuated my medicine cabinet. The only useful instrument I could find was the straight razor my father had given me as a gift before I left home. It seemed fitting.
Quickly and unceremoniously I opened it and dragged the sharp blade over my wrist. I bled out into the sink. The pain felt good and sharp. I began to to lose control to "A," she slowly seized control of my eyes. They darted around the room in a panic. I could feel my legs seize and my arms cramp, but I held on.
I cut the other wrist several times. I went deep and hard.
I knew it wasn't like me. Maybe that's why she had released me from her grasp. Maybe she assumed I would continue to cower and pathetically fear her control. But at that moment I had clarity.
Almost immediately I became light headed. I could feel her control over me diminish. I smiled as she evaporated from my mind. The book on my desk became a meaningless lump of leather and paper. The truth of my secret seemed fairly insignificant.
Then I saw it. My vision was slowly darkening as my skin grew pale and sickly, but something shone through my ruined wrists. It was fluid and bright, like polished metal in the sunlight. I looked at my razor sitting in my sink with my gore and it seemed intact.
I could feel it moving inside me. It was alien and wholly different than anything I had ever witnessed. I inserted a finger into one of my ruined wrists and felt it. It was cold and solid, like it had been bathed in ice water.
I rooted around further as the darkness closed in. The pain was intense and agonizing. Before long I collapsed from it and lack of strength. But even on the floor in a crumpled heap I stared at it. I squinted, trying to resolve the last fragments of light making it to my mind. I could swear I saw her in there, in the dynamic, moving metal. I could feel her clockwork heart beating alongside mine.
I passed into glorious unconsciousness.
Labels: Scholar's Obsession
I was there for a long time. Eventually my eyes ran dry and I had to settle with dry sobbing. I felt like something had been ripped from my chest, as if my humanity had been stolen from me and replaced by something horrible and mechanical.
As one would expect news of the disaster spread like wildfire through the tiny community that surrounded the college. The crowd outside the library swelled and idle conversation once again seeped into my ears, which I wish could do a better job of blocking out the inane chitterings of the tiny selves that concerned themselves with something beyond them.
Thankfully our headmaster was once upon a time a colonel in the emperor's army. As a military man he did the thing he knew best. He called in the legionaries, a garrison of which was stationed in the town just down the way. While he was far from imposing some form of martial law over the student body, he knew that large groups of young and impressionable adults were likely never a good thing.
So the crowds dispersed. For that I was incredibly thankful. I hugged my legs and rested my forehead on my knee caps, willing myself away.
It wasn't before long that I felt a heavy gauntlet clad hand on my shoulder. I hadn't heard anyone approach, so I was initially startled.
"Hey, you don't look so good."
A warm eyed legionnaire greeted me. He was a young captain not much older than myself, probably in his mid twenties. His chest plate was emblazoned with "AENEAS" in a neat serifed font.
"Listen. We're under orders to secure the area. You're not hurting anyone, I know. You must have been close to Mister Admes. But I need you to go home."
I swallowed hard. I didn't want to go home.
"There'll be a memorial service for you to grieve at in due time. Here isn't the place, kid."
He furrowed his brow looking for more words.
"Sorry."
He gave my shoulder a squeeze and left me there. He didn't look back. After he disappeared beyond the bushes that stank of my sick I realized that the librarian was dead and that the rumors weren't close to the truth. I felt hollow. If I was somehow responsible, I was now a murderer.
I made it to my feet and jammed my hands in my pockets. I walked away while staring at my shoes.
It wasn't before long that I found myself at Gerald's dorm. I stood outside his door for a long time, waiting for the courage to knock. I could feel eyes in the hallway drill holes into the back of my head. But I wasn't concerned with their little minds of their perception of what was normal or not.
I lightly tapped. Ice water ran through my spine.
The door cracked open and the smell of college boy stink and cheap incense wafted out.
"Hanz? Oh fuck. You fell off the wagon again. Come in."
I shuffled in and collapsed into a chair. He sat too, giving me plenty of space. I had never been to his room. It was the polar opposite of how mine used to be. Messy, filthy, devoid of any academic reference tool.
"He's dead."
I croaked, my eyes watering.
"Yeah. I know."
I didn't know the librarian particularly well. But no one knew that.
"It happened so fast. I just... woke up and ran. When I got there... it was a mess. What could do such a thing.."
It felt like he was studying me, but his eyes were kind and his expression sincere. I ran a hand through my hair and offered a pathetic smile. It cracked instantaneously and I broke down into full sobs again.
It was so alien. I didn't share my emotions with anyone. I didn't just arrive and hang out with friends. Likewise Gerald likely never had a man collapse emotionally in his dormitory before. But I had caused a chain of events that lead to this point. There was no turning back.
It took him awhile to work up the courage to awkwardly embrace me. It was brotherly and warm. I felt a little better.
I wanted to lie to break the silence. I thought of saying how the old man had always been there to help me find what I needed, how he was a genius in his own right. I wanted to say something good about the man whom for all intents and purposes was my murder victim.
But Gerald hated the awkward silence more than I did.
"I know you were spending a lot of time there. He must have meant a lot to you."
He offered weakly. There was a beat.
"Yeah."
"But he's in a better place now."
Gerald was an atheist. I had always respected the courage he must have had to be so open about it. It felt wrong that my weakness had caused him to pander to my theology.
"You know you don't believe that."
I managed to say while trying to steady my breathing.
"I don't need to."
He broke his embrace and pulled his chair closer to mine. I wiped my eyes, which were already puffy and red. He was like an anchor. His presence steadied me and kept me connected to the earth in a sea of madness.
I felt better with him watching me. However wrong it was, I wanted to stay. I didn't want to go back to the horrors that hid beneath my bed.
My eyes slid over and connected with his. I didn't notice that they were no longer under my own control. I could feel a smile form on my face.
"You're beautiful."
I said, but it sounded wrong. It sounded artificial, like hearing your own voice on a tape recorder. It was me, disembodied and crammed into something tinier than myself.
A look of confusion slowly spread across his face. It was replaced by sheer panic within a fraction of a second. I saw it all in slow motion.
It was then that I realized that I was no longer myself, but a passenger in my own body. That I had exposed my secret and likely alienated the only thing that could pass for a friend.
There was some quick and awkward fumbling and groping as what passed for me betrayed my screaming mind. I tried to steel myself, but I was emotionally and physically drained. I didn't have the energy, even though my hand formed a vice like grip on his arm. I must have hurt him, because I felt the air evacuate my lungs as he punched me in my gut.
Doubled over I muttered something, but I was too busy panicking in the back of my own head.
Eventually his door was opened and I was thrown out in a sprawling mess. It slammed shut behind me. It was then that whatever had possessed me departed. It felt like a sudden crash. Energy that I didn't know existed evaporated.
I laid there, a mess of legs and arms. I felt violated. I felt as if I had been raped. I had also been robbed of Gerald and likely rightfully labeled as a non-breeder.
I slinked away humiliated and terrified.
There was no one to comfort me. I wanted to die.
Labels: Scholar's Obsession
The walk home was uneventful and clarifying. I kept largely to myself, letting my newfound sense of individuality apart from "A" and her enigmatic longhand seep into my pores. I still couldn't wrap my head around much of what had happened to me, but it felt good to have a sense of self again.
It felt good to have more contact with Gerald.
There was a brief moment after I had arrived where my eyes slid across the old wooden floor boards to where my book bag was hidden from view. I managed to steel myself against the twitches that crept into my arms and legs, but I could feel them in hiding. They were like termites gnawing on my self control. Not wanting to ruin the progress I had made that day, I denied myself their pull.
I salvaged several letters from home out of my rubbish bin and tried to read my mother's poor hand writing and understand my uncle's tenious grasp on the Isyrian language. The act only served to frustrate me, so I abandoned them where they had originally been found.
I attempted to ease my mind and relax, but there was little to do. I didn't dare crack a book, regardless of subject for fear of her return. Nor did I feel any artistic pursuits such as writing or sketching. I settled with cleaning the remainder of the mess that had become my home.
It made me feel at ease. I thought about my family in the hinterlands and their struggles with the farm, but they weren't much to me anylonger. I tried to feel ashamed, but they seemed so dim from me. Even before my encounter with "A" they were far from my mind. Now they were little more than characters in a serial to me. A little piece of fiction delivered to my door by a bookseller disguised as a postman.
Once I grew tired enough I washed and allowed myself to slip into unconsciousness. It came fast, it felt good to relax my sore muscles.
I had distorted dreams filled with flight and travel. There was vivid moment wherein I remember Gerald sitting on my lap and my trembling hands cutting a lock of his hair which had suddenly become long and golden. We smiled, but his face contorted in agony and he dissolved into the red script of "A." I clutched at the words, only managing to catch the negative bits and phrases.
I awoke in a cold sweat. My finger tips were red and chapped, stained with black ink. The field journal, along with several other tomes unknown to me populated my desk. I was also nude. I felt my face flush.
What had happened? I clearly remembered willing myself to sleep and my frustrated attempt at catching up with mother. Moreover, I did not recall disrobing prior to bed. And I certainly did not recall reading that which I had recently forbidden myself from.
I frantically dressed and abandoned my dormatory.
I ran away, pumping my legs until I could until feel the cobblestones beneath my soles and I could only hear my own pounding heart. I had no direction in mind, but I quickly found myself in front of the enormous gothic building from which my madness had arisen, the university library.
The doors, usually the height of two men and clad in heavy iron bands and locks had been torn asunder. I could see the remnants of one several dozen meters away from the building. It had been smashed into mostly splinters. Terrifyingly it was smeared with something not too much unlike blood.
Constables where milling around, likely collecting evidence. Thankfully due to the large crowd gathered outside no one noticed my arrival. Breathing heavy and my mind swimming, I allowed myself to dissolve into the crowd.
"I left just before they closed. The poor old librarian. He was always so nice. I hope he makes it."
"They say it would have taken an army to break through those doors."
"...... constable interviewed me. He asked a lot of weird questions."
I picked up snippets of conversation and gossip. The morning was cool and breezy, so my sweat dried quickly. Soon I was just another gawker.
Further inspection revealed a brief, but terrifying glimpse inside the ancient building. Behind armor clad legionaires standing a vigil, I could just make out the ruined interior. Shreds of paper and splintered bookshelves populated the once quiet place of learning. The ornate lighting fixtures were largely reduced to scrap metal and broken glass.
I gathered from the crowd that the head librarian, an ancient man whom I barely knew, had been rendered bloodied and partially dismembered at closing. Rumor said he was either in a coma or mute. Whether it was due to the horrible experience of having one's limbs removed or from head trauma was a popular point of debate.
I was mortified. Before too long I felt sick, so I departed. Once I was clear of the crowd I allowed myself to vomit behind some bushes. I allowed myself to rest against a tree and collect my thoughts.
Had I in some way been responsible for the events that had happened the night prior? The alien stack of books stamped with the seal of the university seemed to indicate so. Had I, in my sleep, paid a visit?
I heard of people doing powerful things with adreniline and endorphines, but partially dismembering a librarian and rendering the building a terrible mess of shredded paper and splinters seemed a bit of a stretch.
So if I was not responsible, what had happened? Was it related to my obsession and my madness? I could feel my intellectual vanity urging me to return to the scene or my apartment, to study the terrible events and determine my connection.
But the courage to do so escaped me. I was weak and tired. I couldn't return home.
So I sat there and wept.
Labels: Scholar's Obsession
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