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From: Selena Jardine <selenajardine@yahoo.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} Learning Secrets [Selena Jardine]
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<1st attachment, "Once Bitten ASSM.doc" begin>

Learning Secrets
by Selena Jardine

This little bit of Halloween spookiness is published here by kind
permission of Ruthie's Club (http://www.ruthiesclub.com), where
it appeared first, illustrated by Lloyd Meek.

Comments and opinions eagerly welcomed and promptly responded to,
as usual, at selenajardine at yahoo.com.


Learning Secrets
by Selena Jardine

It is all over now for me. She has cast me aside. I am her
leavings. She has moved on to someone else now, her skin cool
next to his warm skin, her hair dangling, forming a cave over his
face, her lips on his mouth, his jaw, his throat. Never my skin
again, never my face, never my mouth. She does not think of me. I
think of nothing but her. She is in my blood.

***

Diane was a gorgeous creature, a golden girl, a living
shampoo-and-toothpaste commercial. She was the girl everyone
wanted, the It Girl of Ford College, the picture beside the
dictionary definition of "student body." She never had a bad day,
a pimple, or a hair out of place. Some girls whispered that the
only way to look that good is to sell your soul, but they were
ugly girls, and bitches besides. Richard, a male, understood
better about Diane and her flawless beauty. The thing he didn't
understand was why she always wanted to have Miranda around.
Everything else became clear to him when it was too late, but
that piece of the puzzle never really fell into place. Why would
she want someone like Miranda--so plain, so ordinary--at her
side? As a foil, perhaps? Miranda certainly did not enhance
Diane's popularity or beauty.

But there they both were, just as usual, when Richard stepped
into Dante's that night. Diane sat in her chair, her long legs
crossed and her blonde hair spilling over one shoulder, laughing
at something an upperclassman was saying. Her eyes were almost
closed in laughter, but Richard already knew they were blue--he
had watched her so carefully for so long. She had an amber drink
in her hand. She never had any trouble getting drinks, even
though she was only an underage sophomore. Her hair gleamed in
the dim light, and the strappy little black sundress she wore
showed off her warm tennis-shoulders. She was absolutely and
perfectly beautiful.

College guys surrounded her on all sides. They were mostly big
guys, athletic types, which is usually the sort that surrounds
girls like Diane. Richard thought that Diane had discovered early
on, probably in second grade or so, that she could pick and
choose her court, merely by smiling and sighing and cuddling her
long eyelashes to her cheeks. By now she was an expert at
selection. There was Bob McDaniel, the first-string quarterback
at Ford College, sitting next to two other football players
Richard couldn't put names to. There was the tall, lanky debate
guy--what was his name?--Matt something, who also played baseball
in the spring. And a couple of other hangers-on, maybe guys who
came over from the bar when they saw that Diane was there.

The only break in the line of athletes, all of whom were angling
for Diane's ready laugh, was Miranda. She was sitting in a
corner, one arm folded across her waist, the knuckles of her
other hand resting lightly on her chin. Her dark hair was scraped
back from the pale oval of her face in a ponytail. She wore no
makeup, and her eyes seemed huge and black in the dim light of
the bar. She was the only person Richard could see who was not
looking at Diane. For one moment he followed her eyes. She was
watching the guy sitting next to her, blond, handsome Nick
Galiakis, Diane's most recent ex-boyfriend. He was talking to her
earnestly, leaning in toward her. Poor sap, thought Richard.
Probably thought plain old Miranda could get Diane to go back to
him. But no one had ever known Diane to turn back once she'd
moved on.

Richard was hoping she'd move on to him.

He walked over to the table where the group sat and stood there
smiling. Diane exchanged one swift look with Miranda, turned her
head to look at Richard, and gave a little cry of pleasure. 

"Sweetie!" she said, and jumped up into his arms. She felt
wonderful, an armful of lovely, fragrant girl. A slight
springiness to her body suggested that she was not wearing a bra,
and she gave him a kiss high up near his ear. He had an instant
erection and turned his body slightly away to hide the fact. 

"Hi, cute thing," he said. "What are you doing here with all
these cave-dwellers?" Diane laughed, and everyone else laughed
along with her. All but Miranda. Miranda merely turned her head
and looked at him steadily for a moment before looking back at
poor, desperate Nick Galiakis. What's her problem? he thought,
and dismissed the matter from his mind. It wasn't Miranda who
mattered. He pulled up a chair, sat down at the table, and began
again the slow process of engaging Diane's full attention.

By the end of the evening, he had more or less succeeded. Walking
home in the chilly October darkness, he remembered the pressure
of Diane's hand in his, the taste of her lipstick. All promise,
he told himself. She'd be incredible in bed. Still, he didn't
want to wait any longer. Diane had a history of jumping from one
guy to another in the space of about three weeks, and Richard
didn't want to miss out. He'd had enough of not being noticed. He
wanted to be the kind of guy Diane Lavalle dated.

In the dark, his eye caught a flicker of movement just behind him
and to the left. 

He turned quickly. No one there. Or... wait. Perhaps there was.
He stood for a moment on the path, indecisive. He hated being
nervous. What if someone was lurking there? Or--the thought came
reluctantly--what if someone needed help? The pale blur he
thought he'd seen made him shiver, and he steeled himself to go
back. The path seemed darker in this direction.

He moved toward the bend in the path where he thought he'd seen
something flicker, his muscles tense, peering into the darkness.
Finally, long after he thought he should have seen something, a
shape took form in front of him. He gave a little half-laugh of
surprise: Nick Galiakis, his back up against a tree, kissing
Miranda. 

Nick and Miranda looked at him silently from under the tree.
"Sorry," Richard said lamely. "I saw something move, and I
thought someone might, uh, need help or something. Sorry."

The two faces stared back at him, pale and drowned-looking in the
darkness. Miranda's mouth was dark with her lipstick.  

"No one needs any help here," she said, and her voice was clear
and firm. "We will be well alone."

Richard could see that. Already Nick was impatient for him to go,
pawing at Miranda's waist, pulling her to him, all but whimpering
in his eagerness. Imagine wanting her after Diane, thought
Richard, with a degree of contempt. He must really be hard up,
poor bastard.

But it was Miranda he dreamed of that night and not Diane,
Miranda with a pale face and a dark, lipsticked mouth, smiling
and saying No one needs any help here. He awoke with an erection
and couldn't remember why.

The next few weeks were full of careful strategic planning for
Richard. He had set his sights on Diane, the golden girl, and he
reeled her in an inch at a time, wanting to see and be seen. He
memorized her schedule and met her after classes, neatly scooping
her up for coffee or a drink. He pretended to be casual when he
met her at basketball games, though he felt threatened by the
presence of the jocks who usually crowded around her. 

Finally, one crisp night, he called her, trying to keep his voice
light. "Want to go to a concert tonight? Natural Brunette is
playing at Dante's if you feel like seeing them." No big deal.
Doesn't matter. Say yes, say yes, say yes.

"Sure!" she said. "I'm so glad you called, because I was dying to
hear them anyway. Want to come get me around seven?"

"Great. Seven," he said, and placed the telephone gently back in
its cradle. Tonight, then, would be the night when Diane would
fall ripe to his hand like the lovely plum she was. He let his
hand linger on the telephone a moment, and he found himself
thinking unexpectedly of Nick Galiakis. He hadn't seen Nick in at
least a week. Funny. Maybe he was holed up in his room with
Miranda. Richard snorted. Yeah, right. Probably just moping over
Diane, was all. That's what Richard himself would have been doing
in his place. But he wasn't going to be in his place. Not after
tonight.

***

Richard and Diane pressed into Dante's at seven-thirty that
evening, the room 98.6 degrees and full of the rich smell of warm
bodies and cold beer. The beat of the music was loud in Richard's
ears, and it was hard to see in the dim light and the smoke. He
looked into Diane's lovely face, making sure she was all right,
and put a casual, territorial hand on her waist to guide her
through the crush of people. Guys he'd never seen before. Girls
with tattoos, one skinny girl with piercings on every visible
part of her body. There were a couple of people he recognized:
one guy from his math class was dancing with a short blonde he'd
seen around campus, and that debate guy, Matt whoever-he-was, was
over at the bar.

And here he was with Diane. He had arrived. Right place, right
time, right girl. Hot damn.

She was saying something in his ear, tugging on his sweater.
"Look, look," she said. "It's Miranda."

Fuck, thought Richard. I don't have time for that. This is not
part of the plan. But Diane was already pushing her way through
the crowd, smiling and excusing herself, moving over to Miranda.

Miranda's hair was still pulled back into a spare ponytail. She
still wore no makeup, and she had on the same dark sweatshirt as
before. The only difference in her that Richard could see was
that she had a little more color in her face than the last time
he'd seen her--scarcely surprising in such a warm room. She
looked at him steadily, speaking in monosyllables as Diane
chatted to her. Finally he looked away, faintly hostile,
uncomfortable and unsure why.  

The music changed. "Diane?" he said, interrupting their
conversation. "Want to dance?"

Diane held Miranda's gaze as if she had not heard Richard at all.
The corners of her lips turned up, making her look slightly sly
and knowing. Then Miranda reached up almost tenderly to Diane's
face and touched it lightly, once on each cheek and then on the
lips. Diane held still as if hypnotized as Richard watched,
uncomprehending. When Miranda had finished, Diane nodded
slightly, as if a secret had been exchanged, then she turned to
Richard. She was even more radiantly beautiful than she had been
when she walked in with him, glowing with life and health. For a
moment he was staggered. Beside her, Miranda smiled. It was not a
pleasant smile. 

"Oh!" said Diane at last. "Sure!" And she took his hand and
stepped with him onto the dance floor.

Finally, thought Richard, and put his arms around her. The room
was so hot that her skin felt barely warm to the touch. He could
feel the pliant muscles of her lower back under his fingers. He
could smell her hair. Dancing with Diane. He didn't close his
eyes. If there were people he knew on the dance floor, he wanted
to catch their reactions. He felt great, except for the
uncomfortable feeling that Miranda was watching them. He ignored
that niggling sensation and held Diane more tightly.

The music pounded on and on, rhythmic, hypnotic. Diane moved
restlessly in his arms, tossed her golden hair, and then looked
up at him. "I have to go to the bathroom," she shouted over the
music. "I'll be right back." He smiled, nodded, and let her go.

Fifteen minutes later, he was looking through the crowd, standing
on tiptoe, searching fruitlessly for any sign of Diane. Where the
fuck had she gone? She couldn't still be in the bathroom, unless
she'd gotten sick and passed out or something, and if that had
happened there'd be people going in and out, some kind of a fuss.
Dammit, he thought. Dammit. Where is she?

The thought came at first as a surprise. Miranda, he thought, and
it was a relief to think it. Miranda will know. He turned around
immediately to go look for her in the crowd. Just behind him, he
found Miranda standing there, her face slightly amused in the
flickering light from the dance floor. Relief flooded him, but
also the metallic taste of fear. Had something happened to
Diane?

"Have you seen Diane?" shouted Richard. Miranda nodded. "Well,
where is she?"

"She left." Miranda's voice was pitched low, and it carried. 

"She left?" Richard couldn't believe his ears. "What do you mean,
she left? When? Where?"

Miranda still looked faintly amused. "About ten minutes ago, with
Matt Levine," she said. "I do not know where they were going, but
I would suppose somewhere a little less crowded."

Matt Levine. The big debate guy, baseball in the spring. Richard
looked at Miranda, and suddenly all his anger crumpled. He felt
lost. Right place, right time. No girl. He'd missed his chance,
and now here he was with the consolation prize. He put his head
in his hands, the music pounding all around him, then looked
around furtively. Was anyone witnessing this humiliation?

"Come on," said Miranda, very close to his ear. "Let's get out of
this." She moved through the crowd without difficulty, taking
Richard in her wake. He followed her not to the door by which he
had entered, but a small side entrance, and they slipped into the
darkness.

Outside, the last night of October blew through the branches of
the trees. Richard shivered and hunched into his coat, watching
his feet shuffle through dead leaves behind Miranda's confident
stride. He thought, not wanting to, about Diane and Matt, two
perfect orthodontures locked in a perfect kiss.

"Miranda," he said, unhappily. "I know you're pretty good friends
with Diane. Do you think you could find out from her what
happened tonight?"

Miranda stopped and turned. She stood under a tree ahead of him,
in the dark, on a soft carpet of pine needles. "What happened?"
she echoed. "What do you mean?"

He took a step closer. Her hair was no longer tied back, and it
hung thick and dark around her white face. Her eyes looked huge
and black in the faint silver light of the October moon, all
pupil, and she was smiling slightly. He could see a slight gap of
smooth, pale skin between her shirt and the waistband of her
jeans.

"I only mean that I'd like to know if she..." He had been going
to ask about pre-arrangement, about Matt Levine, about Diane's
fickleness. Suddenly, he wanted instead to reach out and touch
that gap of soft, tender skin at Miranda's waist, slide his hand
up across her ribs to cup her breast. The desire was so strong it
was almost compulsion, and he stepped closer to Miranda, almost
touching her body with his own. She didn't move, only looked into
his eyes with that faint smile. He found he had an erection so
hard it was painful. 

"What's the matter?" asked Miranda. Her voice was mocking. "Cat
got your tongue?" Richard blinked. For one moment, it looked as
though her pupils were vertical slits, like a cat's. He was
seeing things in the dark. She passed the tip of her own tongue
thoughtfully across her own upper lip and looked at him with
steady, hungry eyes.

"Go on," she said, softly. "Invite me in." So Richard reached for
her, quickly, clumsily, and issued the only invitation he knew
how to give. He kissed her. Her lips were surprisingly cold under
his, but they were pliant and eager, and he felt her arms, thin
and strong, go around him. 

"You're cold," he said, pulling her closer. He was trembling. He
wanted her then and there, wanted her naked on the scratchy floor
of pine needles, his cock inside her slick cunt, but he wanted to
appear at least this thoughtful. "Should we go somewhere?"

Miranda laughed, a low, triumphant laugh, and her teeth flashed
white in the moonlight. "I am not cold," she said. Suddenly
Richard shivered, goose bumps rising on his arms and back.
Something was wrong here, very wrong. He had to get away, try to
call Diane, see what had happened tonight...

Miranda leaned forward, her eyes half-lidded and hungry, and she
kissed him. Once. Twice. Three times. Richard forgot Diane, Matt
Levine, Dante's. Her lips were cold, but the inside of her mouth
was hot and wet. Silently, she trailed kisses down his jawline.
She licked the salty hollow of his throat over and over, tracing
the veins with her tongue. Richard forgot his college classes,
his humiliation, the October night. She put her hands under his
shirt and scratched his skin lightly with her fingernails,
brought his nipples to hardness, lowered her mouth to suck the
pebbly tips. She scratched a little deeper, nails sharp just
below his nipple, and drew a thin bead of blood. She laughed with
satisfaction, and licked and licked. Richard forgot his social
ambition, his family, and his friends. He moaned.

Richard lay on the pine needles, naked, a slim pale woman on top
of him. He could remember her name and almost nothing else:
Miranda. Her hair dangled over his face, shutting out the light
of the moon, but her skin was so white it was almost luminous,
and he could see her great eyes. Her hands were on his chest, and
she leaned forward to kiss him. It was a dizzying kiss, or
perhaps he was light-headed. She kissed him again, and then
shifted her weight--what weight there was--farther down his body.
His throat again, where the great pulse beat. She dwelt lovingly
there for a moment, her tongue flicking over the warm skin. Then
lower. Even now, Richard ached to touch her lovely body, her
breasts gleaming in the moonlight, but he didn't dare move.

He felt her cold lips and hot, wet tongue on his chest, his
waist. Richard moaned again. His cock throbbed and ached. He knew
he was afraid for her to suck his cock, knew that the picture of
it disappearing between those dark lips filled him with unformed
terror, but he couldn't think, couldn't remember why. 

Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. And her lips moved on without engulfing his
cock. He drew a long, shuddery breath of mingled relief and
disappointment, his head whirling. Miranda's tongue found the
warm hollow where his thigh met his pelvis, and she sucked there
gently for a moment, her tongue moving in broad sweeps over the
taut tendon.

Then she raised her head with a look of amused regret. "I can
find no source there. I prefer that place for the pure style of
the thing, and it leaves no marks, but ah well. I do retain
certain old-fashioned sensibilities, and you have such a pretty
throat, Richard." She gave one more lingering kiss to his cock,
her teeth just grazing the skin, and moved with lithe grace up
his body. Her skin was cool against his as she settled down over
him.

"Oh, Richard," she whispered. Long breath out, long breath in. "I
think I might just have to fuck you when I do this part." She
reached behind her and guided his cock into her pussy, pressing
back until he was buried inside her. She was wet and hot, and he
groaned. Pleasure and terror. 

Miranda began to move, back and forth, stretching up, her hair
dangling again over Richard's face. He thrust into her, unable to
help himself, and she arched her back. "My relatives ask me why I
spend so much time with that beautiful idiot girl at the
university," she said, a little breathlessly. "I never tell them
how good she is at finding me pretty boys like you."

Then she leaned forward, her tongue seeking out the vein in his
throat, caressing it delicately. Richard closed his eyes, images
whirling through his brain. The October moon. A cat's vertical
pupils. Diane's golden hair. A pale oval face, saying, No one
needs any help here. Miranda's smile, her breasts, her hair, her
huge dark eyes. And then Richard felt the sweet poisonous sting
at his throat, Miranda's tongue moving and sucking at the tender
warm flesh, her mouth cold and hot around her tiny sharp white
teeth. Through the whirl of confused images, he felt her pussy
around his cock, pulling and rippling as if she were in the
throes of orgasm. With his eyes still closed, and her teeth in
his neck, his cock buried inside her, he came, crying out.

Richard forgot everything, this time even his fear. 

***

When Richard opened his eyes again, he was disoriented for a
moment. He was no longer in the woods but in a bed, his own
narrow dormitory bed. The room was dark and still. He groped for
the bedside lamp and looked at the radio clock in the pool of its
light. Nine p.m., November 1. He had slept an entire day.

His body ached as if in withdrawal. He walked to the mirror over
the sink to look at himself, and was only half-surprised to see
that he was white as a ghost, his eyes sunken, the stubble on his
cheeks standing out sharp and dark. The sore on his neck looked
odd, and it burned and itched. Still, that was not the worst
thing. By far the worst was the burning and itching in his mind,
the longing for Miranda herself, her body, her cold lips, her
tongue on him. He wanted her back. He hungered for that sweet
numbing sting. He could feel his desire for her like a drug, like
a poison, in all his veins, but he knew his hunger would never be
satisfied. She had moved on.

He turned away from his exhausted, translucent image, the
metallic taste of disgust in his mouth. His glance fell on the
telephone. Miranda, he thought, his mind bumping against her like
a moth against the glass outside. He looked in the student
directory, his fingers shaking. No. No Miranda Glass in the book.
It was what he had expected, but the dead end made him feel
hollow.

Then his eye, roving in despair, fell on another name. Nick
Galiakis. He sat for a moment, lost in thought, remembering that
handsome face talking so earnestly to Miranda in Dante's, that
lost look so similar to the one he'd just seen in the mirror. (I
wonder how long I'll be able to see it in the mirror, he thought,
and shivered.) He saw again Nick's hands pawing at Miranda's
waist, heard Miranda's voice assuring him that no one needed any
help, no, no one needed any help here.

The sore on his neck a maddening itch, the sore in his mind a
maddening compulsion, he picked up the telephone.

***

Six months later, one fresh spring night, Dante's was crowded to
bursting. Spring fever emptied the library and the dorm rooms of
Ford College and filled the dance floor. Graduating senior girls
in tiny flowered dresses squeezed past gyrating freshmen, trying
not to spill the beers they held, and went back for more when the
spill inevitably occurred. In every corner, people displayed
flashes of fresh sunburn on nose and hip and thigh, winter-pale
skin out in the air again at last. 

Over in one corner, almost obscured from view by the laughing
people sitting around him, sat the gorgeous young man of Ford
College, Nick Galiakis. Some people whispered that getting over
Diane Lavalle was the best thing that ever happened to him. Not
only did he seem to be better-looking now than he used to be,
blue-eyed and blond and muscular, but he had an infallible
magnetic charm that other guys could only envy with sick longing.
The table around him was full of girls, their eyes trained on his
dimples. Black-haired Amanda Cobb, president of Eta Rho, her hand
on his arm, flanked by two other girls from her sorority. Alicia
Reynolds, head of the swim team, shaking her sleek blonde
charioteer's head in a laugh.

The only break in that line of female beauty was Richard, with
his pale skin and shaggy dark hair. No one could really
understand why Nick wanted to have Richard around in the first
place. There he sat in a corner of the booth, the only person in
range not looking at Nick, nodding slowly as Joan Andrews talked
to him with her earnest face upturned. 

"I don't know why he broke up with me," she said, unhappily,
looking into his eyes, which looked huge and black in the dim
light of the bar. "Did I do something wrong? Do you think I could
talk to you about it? I know you're really good friends."

"I think we could talk about it," said Richard. "Maybe we could
take a walk."

They got up and moved through the music and the crowd to the
door. Richard turned, looked back at Nick, and met his eyes. Nick
cast a short, questioning glance at Amanda Cobb. Yes, nodded
Richard. She's next. He stepped after Joan into the warm spring
night and breathed deeply.

His hunger for Miranda never receded. She flowed in his veins,
scrabbled incessantly at the back of his mind. But he had found a
way to take the edge off the desperate need. Miranda's own way.

A beautiful stalking-horse. Lovely prey, asking to be taken. And
springing to the teeth, to the tongue: fresh blood.

Joan smiled up at him nervously. "Are you all right?" she asked.


"Perfectly all right," he said, his white teeth glinting in the
moonlight. "No one needs any help here."


Edited by Father Ignatius

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