Unholy Nights: A Twisted Christmas Anthology (6 page)

I didn't see any sign, though, that Jeff was any more interested in my sexy roommate than he was in any of the other guests. He wasn't sneaking passionate glances at her any time I checked, and I checked often because I needed to see who came through that front door. If Julie was going to get Jeff in trouble with the college authorities, I'd have felt a lot better if I believed he was a willing party to his own destruction. He seemed like a nice guy to me. Besides, I was a history major now, and I hated to think he might be kicked out of the department over a flirtatious nineteen-year-old girl.

As soon as I contemplated this, though, I grew annoyed with myself. If Professor Jeff did something that he shouldn't with my roommate, it would be his fault as much as hers. Presuming, of course, that our enchanted mistletoe wasn't
really
enchanted.

Time went by and Will did not arrive. Maybe he wasn't coming. Professor Jeff had only told me he'd be inviting Will. I had no way of knowing whether the boy had accepted. Maybe he had headed home for Christmas earlier than usual this year.

After guessing my first identity (Jack the Ripper), I got Professor Jeff to hit me with a new one. I wish it were as easy in real life to become somebody else.

An older man who looked to be around Jeff's age turned me around to examine my new tag. He grinned when he saw who I had become. "That's a good one; want some help guessing?"

"No hints," I insisted. I like to figure stuff like this out myself.

"I would never," the guy said, winking merrily. He introduced himself as Stephen Silkwood. I hadn't heard of him, but someone told me later that he was a mystery novelist. He, like Professor Jeff, was damn hot for an old guy of at least thirty. He had a woman with him, of course—the cute ones always do. She was attractive, but a bit slutty looking with a plunging neckline and heels that were even higher than mine. She had a couple of piercings, including a gold stud through her tongue. She was sporting a black velvet band around her neck that looked like a slave collar. I wondered what she and Silkwood were into in their private moments.

"Am I female?" I asked them.

"Nope," said the novelist.

"Am I alive?"

The girlfriend looked truly puzzled by the question. Stephen answered, "Yes, although you've died at least once."

"I'm not Elvis, am I?"

He laughed and shook his head.

"So I'm fictional?"

"You are."

"Dracula?"

"Nope."

"But I'm some other fictional vampire?"

"You're not a vampire."

"A zombie?"

He laughed. "Not that, either. Forget the dying thing, since it doesn't define you."

I was wracking my brain over a fictional male who was probably alive but might be dead when Will came through the front door. My heart stuttered for a moment before resuming its normal pace. It had done this on almost all of the occasions when I'd seen Will. No wonder hearts were associated with love and romance; the guy had a powerful effect on my cardiac rhythms.

Vaguely, I heard Slutty Girlfriend say to Silkwood, "Shall I get you another drink? Or..." kittenish, "...is there something else I can do for you, Master?" But not even that interesting snippet of conversation could compete with the way all my senses focused on Will. Julie, still on greeting duty, shot me an excited look while Professor Jeff slapped him on the back with a sticker, which apparently startled him almost as much as it had startled me, given the surprise that flitted across his chiseled features.

He looked incredible. He, too, had gotten himself up nice for the party, in a white dress shirt and even a jacket, although he quickly doffed the jacket when he saw that most of the other men present weren't wearing them. He didn't look at his name tag, but I saw him say something to Julie, and she removed it from his jacket and attached it instead to the back of his shirt, smirking at me as she did so. I wondered if he remembered that Julie was my roommate, and if he'd glommed onto the fact that I might be here, too. Or maybe he figured I'd gone already, or even flown to Singapore. Probably. He probably figured he was safe.

At least I'd have a good excuse for talking to him. "Hi, Will. Am I a woman? Am I real? Am I alive?"

It struck me that he might not know the answer to any of those questions.

The crowd had grown, but since it was now well past fashionably late, people were no longer arriving. Professor Jeff and his various helpers had been relieved of their door answering responsibilities. Jeff and the non-student older types, including his friend Kate and her boyfriend Daniel and Stephen the possibly kinky novelist, started herding us toward the dining room where a buffet supper was laid out. I ate a few munchies, but I wasn't hungry for food. I wanted Will.

I couldn't see him clearly; he had been engulfed by a crowd of other guests who wanted him to guess their party-game identities. Because he was tall, I kept getting maddening hints of him—the top of his dark head, the hair still short but a bit wavy right on top, a glimpse of white shirt pulling over tight shoulder muscles as he reached for the bottle of beer that someone was handing him, a flash of one side of his sexy throat.

I drank in all these tiny rewards, content to keep my distance and bathe in the knowledge that he was nearby. As long as he didn't see me, I could keep my fantasy spinning: The one where he would catch my eye across a crowded room and be filled with the same flood of pleasure that was warming me. He was like a drug to me—tempting, orgasmic, and forbidden.

I knew my high couldn't last. When we finally did lock eyes, which was inevitable, what I expected to see was polite disinterest.

I can't. I really can't.

At least he hadn't brought anyone with him to the party. That would have sucked.

7. Random Urgings

Julie came up behind me and grabbed me. "Hiya, Gandalf."

I blanked for a moment before realizing she must be referring to my sticker. I'd forgotten all about it and had never figured it out. She peeled it off my back. "Dumb game," she said.

"It's your precious Jeff's game." I was slightly annoyed. I would have liked to guess my name myself rather than being told who I was.

Julie pointed to an archway in the living room where a middle-aged professorial couple was embracing. "We haven't put up our mistletoe yet. Either we have to take Jeff's down and replace it with ours, or find another spot."

"Maybe you won't need it?" I suggested, but Julie shook her head vehemently.

"I do need it. He's hardly paying any attention to me at all."

I had noticed this, and felt concerned about Julie, who was not having the success she'd been hoping for. Jeff was being Mr. Awesome Host, moving around the place, chatting with everybody. I noticed that he walked with a limp, and remembered that Julie had told me he'd had some sort of accident a couple of months ago. He'd broken his leg and been on crutches for a while. At one point I saw his friend Kate bring him a plate of food. She kicked someone out of an easy chair so Jeff could sit down. I couldn't hear what they said, but Jeff was obviously resisting her ministrations until she got some support from her boyfriend and the novelist. Jeff finally took a seat and accepted the food. His friends hung around him until he'd eaten it, which he did with only mild protests.

But the protection provided by his friends meant that Jeff was not available for Julie to latch on to for more than a few minutes at a time.

"He's got a lot of other guests to entertain, Julie. Besides, there are other professors here tonight. If anyone saw him paying attention to you, it would be bad."

"Nobody's going to blame him for kissing me under the mistletoe." She could be stubborn. "If it's our special mistletoe, who's going to know?"

"Fine." I found my coat from the pile. The package of mistletoe, still in its festive holiday packaging, was stuffed into one big pocket in the down coat. I unwrapped it and handed her the sprig, keeping the accompanying card and its dorky magic verse, which I shoved into my purse. "Let's hang it up somewhere, then."

"We should put it in a corner where not a lot of people will notice it. I mean, we don't want innocent people to be affected by magic mistletoe, do we?"

Since I didn't believe in enchanted mistletoe, witches, magic, or the Great Goddess, I didn't see that it mattered where we put our mistletoe or who got kissed underneath it. I just wanted to do whatever was necessary with the stuff quickly, so I could get back to planning my not-very-well-thought-out campaign to capture Will's heart.

I didn't say this to Julie, of course, but I doubted that even the most passionate mistletoe kiss was going to win her Professor Jeff. If he was the slightest bit into her, he sure didn't show it. He was probably accustomed to gorgeous young college students panting over him. Either he was gay, or he was not susceptible to women who were so much younger than he was.

I didn't think he was gay though, because I'd seen him casting the occasional lusty glance in the direction of his novelist friend's date. She, too, had caught Jeff's eye a couple times, giving him what I considered a come-on smile. Once Silkwood seemed to catch the glance, but instead of looking pissed off, he rolled his eyes as if he was used to it. Then he and Jeff exchanged an amused glance, as if to say, "there she goes again," and I actually felt sorry for the woman.

Silkwood could do better, I thought vaguely, than Slutty Chick. If I was right about my observations, he had a girlfriend he didn't care much about, despite the slave collar. Professor Jeff was single and not with anyone, and someone had told me their friend Kate had only recently hooked up with her boyfriend Daniel after being alone for years. This was depressing, since they were way older than us. I'd always figured that by the time I was 30, I'd have this sex/love/romance thing figured out.

Julie signaled to me. She had managed to waylay Jeff and lead him away from the crowds. "I know you've already got your mistletoe up," she was saying, delivering her 1000-watt smile. "But maybe we could find a quiet corner to hang ours? It's going to get crowded when everybody notices and tries to squeeze in under that one sprig."

"Sure," he said, walking off down the long hallway that ran alongside the living room. "I know just the place—we'll be in there later."

I followed. Since it was my credit card that had paid for the parasitical weed, I felt I ought to take some responsibility for whatever mischief it caused. I had lost sight of Will, anyway.

Professor Jeff led Julie into a room on the left. It looked like a library or a music room. There were several ceiling-high bookcases, bright with the colorful spines of hundreds of books. At one end stood a baby grand piano. Near it, an acoustic guitar leaned against the wall. Beyond the piano was another fireplace, where logs were burning cheerily.

As I trailed in behind them, Julie gave me a triumphant grin. At first, I'd thought the room was empty, but then I realized it could be accessed through a door from the living room. A few people had wandered in that way, including Stephen Silkwood minus his girlfriend and some older folks who were probably trying to get away from the noise. Christmas carols were playing quietly in the library. It sounded like the Vienna Boys Choir, led by the pure soprano of a male whose voice hadn't yet changed.

There was an archway between the piano and the alcove at the end of the room where the fireplace was located. Holiday greeting cards were tacked up along the arch, but there was some empty space in the middle. "This'll be a good spot," said Jeff. He produced a partially filled box of thumbtacks from one of the bookshelves. "Some couples might like to kiss here in front of the fire."

"What a great idea," purred Julie, making sure she was close to him as he took the mistletoe from her hand.

Professor Jeff was a tall man, but his old house had high ceilings. Even though the archway was lower than the ceiling by a few feet, it was still too high for him to reach without a stepstool. I went closer, wanting to help, if unsure how I could. I'm quite a bit taller than Julie, but shorter, of course, than our host.

He gave me the thumbtacks to hold as he stretched up with the sprig and the first tack, but the archway was just beyond the reach of his fingers. He lowered his arms and the three of us looked helplessly at each other, then Jeff laughed and said, "Wait, I'll get something to stand on."

"You shouldn't," Julie said, showing tender concern. "Not with your leg still a bit weak."

"Hey, I'm not that creaky," Jeff objected with a genial grin. Nothing much fazed this guy, I'd noticed.

"Need some help?" asked another voice, and Silkwood was there beside us. He was a couple inches taller than Jeff.

"Sure, if you can tack this up," said Jeff, handing him the mistletoe.

"No problem, dude," Stephen said, reaching over all our heads with the olive green leaves and tiny white berries. He had to stretch, too. "I got this."

Julie, obviously annoyed by the small convention that had now gathered under her bewitched mistletoe, backed off a few feet so she could direct the placement of the plant, which she didn't hesitate to do once it was clear that Silkwood could reach. I felt a flash of envy at the way she was calmly telling these two men what to do, despite having a hopeless crush on one of them. "A little more in the middle. No, slide it another inch to the left. There. Good spot." I reached up and handed Stephen the other two tacks so he could pin the sprig securely. "Be careful, don't crush the berries," Julie ordered.

"Doing my best," said Stephen. He sounded amused. He was probably more accustomed to giving the orders than taking them.

"Okay, looks good. Is it firmly attached?"

Stephen, grinning wickedly, said to Julie, "Yeah, it's firm enough."

So the weird thing was, because I'd been helping with the tacks, I'd ended up smack under the mistletoe. Kinky novelist and Professor Jeff were crowded in there, too. And just as Stephen said, "It's firm enough," I got this extreme hot flash right up from my core that spread like fire throughout my body. Except it spread faster than fire. It was more like lightning—as soon as it hit me, it was everywhere.