Darkest Love (21 page)

“Sola…” The princess's eyes were wide with pain. But then, with a pursing of her lips and a determined darkening of her eyes, she was down again. Rain's own eyes squeezed shut as he surrendered to the pleasure: the ecstasy of her strong little body pistoning up and down on his. He let her explore, let her set the pace, dropping up and down his cock when she wished and sitting wordlessly when she needed a break.

Eventually she pistoned so beautifully, worked him so lusciously, that he came. His eager seed filled the princess, mixing with the red blood of her virginity and soiling her finally, eternally. He held her for an age after that, kissing her neck and rubbing the pink, pretty lips that had hugged his cock.
Perfectly
, he told her.
You cover my cock perfectly.
He rubbed her clit and caressed the hair-covered lips–the natural lips of an earth goddess.

No spray tan on her
, he remembered Annie saying, and grinned into the princess's hair. No bikini wax either. He ran his hands over Sola's slit, then her hips, breasts and stomach, murmuring softly and kissing as tenderly as he ever had, until the moon was high in the sky and the warm night breeze had started to rush over the bank.

* * * *

“What do you mean I've lost tenure?”

Annie was back in New York, and things were going downhill fast.

Ever since she'd stepped off the plane, her phone had been beeping non-stop. Everyone was eager for Sola-gossip and Annie-and-Sola gossip and Rain-and-Annie-and-Sola gossip.

The blog headlines were out of control. Online bloggers were not constrained by the rules and conventions of the mainstream press and could write whatever they wanted. They were sure making the most of it.
Hottest Girl-on-Girl Since Wild Things–Annie and Sola
, someone had written.
Reverse Oreo: two white-bastard anthropologists around a mocha princess,
ribbed somebody else. Annie didn't know if the casual racism or false threesome rumors offended her more.

Is that why I'm being fired?
The whole country thought she and Rain had seduced the Princess of the Kaamo. Now, staring into the face of the Dean of Columbia, Annie focused hard. She scanned his lips, eyes and jaw for anything: a tightening, a squint, a grind. Anything that would betray the Dean's emotions.

The man's face was stone. He stared back at Annie, gaze level and arms relaxed at his sides. The atmosphere was so intense and quiet that the ticking of the clock filled the room crisply, each movement of the hand sharp and staccato. As sharp, in fact, as Annie's heart.

Dean Truman's blue eyes blazed into hers. Annie stared back.
Oh yeah, it's a stand-off
. He had fed her some crap about research standards dropping.

“You cannot be maintaining your journalling in the midst of all these… other life events,” he said.

“Oh, that's where you're wrong,” Annie said. “I filled three notebooks in the first week at Sivu alone.
Three
.”

“To a lower standard, I'm sure.”

“You have not even asked to look at them!” Annie cried. At her distraught tone, Dean Truman finally showed some emotion, the sides of his face twitching as his teeth gave an unmistakable grind.

Annie opened her mouth to blast him with a list of her findings. At that moment a group of undergraduates clattered out of an adjacent room, shoving and calling to one another. The sound made Annie jump out of her skin.

“Eep!” Dean Truman's eyes widened at her visible jolt and the squeak from her throat. He stared for another half-second then, taking his eyes off Annie for the first time, rounded the oak desk and dropped his behind in his seat.

His fingers formed a steeple on the desk in front of him. “Have a seat,” said the Dean.

“No, thank you.”

“Doctor Childs,” said Truman, sober expression plastered back on his face. “I cannot keep you on staff.”

“This is ridiculous. My performance has been consistent. I was the runner-up for the award at the last Society night. And the only reason I didn't
win
was because Rain Mistern did! Is he being fired at NYU too?”

The Dean stroked his chin. Annie smirked when his long fingers caught in the whiskers. They stopped halfway down his beard, lodging in a knot–probably one created by the globs of cappuccino the Dean was always dribbling down his beard.

He flinched. Then he disentangled his digits and continued: “Miss Childs, the worries about your reputation and performance have been escalating for a while.”

“No one told me.”

“We were right to worry. The recent scandal has proven that to me.”

“The scandal in the gossip magazines? I don't think NW is peer reviewed.”

“Well… Time Magazine compiled a list of your research articles and asked a rival research fellow for his opinion. I believe it was a fellow from Harvard. He pointed out that the prose standard has really dropped in recent years. Since you took up with Rain Mistern, in fact.”

“So let me get this straight… Time Magazine paid a Harvard fame-whore to mass-review my papers over the weekend. They probably paid him thousands of dollars to do it. And he was probably eager to get his mug in the paper. So he did a quick speed-read, took my quotes out of context, put together that
character assassination—
”

“Miss Childs—!”

“And you're actually taking it seriously?” Annie had read the write-up in Time. The man—a recent graduate with about four lectures and three papers under his belt—had parroted all of Annie's negative feedback from the last ten years, making a special effort to point out any statements of hers that had a whiff of sexism or racism. Of course, he had found nothing concrete, but an italicized word and a damning preamble can do wonders when it comes to destroying a fellow academic's reputation.

“That's only part of it,” the Dean snapped. “Miss Childs, it worries me that you are so loose…” His eyes flashed. “…with your reputation. You are a representative of this university, and you have not conducted yourself appropriately. A scandal does not create itself.” He paused, letting the words sink in. Annie felt like punching him in the face, or grabbing that coffee-stained beard and giving it a yank. “I have heard many comments about you and Mr. Mistern over the years. From people who were concerned. They saw you necking with him at events, eyeing him off in seminars. Miss Childs…” He raised a hand, signaling for Annie to be quiet. “…your personal life is your own. That is why I did not discipline you, or raise the issue with you. And no one was recommending I do that. People just hated to see you turning up teary-eyed to lectures, and knowing it was because of your… complicated relationship with Rain Mistern.”

He picked up a magazine on the desk. “This scandal is too big for me to sweep under the rug. Doctor Childs, you have not represented Columbia appropriately and respectfully. I cannot accept this. You have turned the Anthropology Society, and the Columbia science department, into an international laughingstock.”

With a flick of his wrist Dean Truman turned the paper around, showing the front image and headline. There it was: Annie in tears; a headline screaming,
She's a hussy!
And a figure for the percentage drop in Annie's academic output over the last decade: 20 Percent.
Not exactly prolific
, sneered the speech bubble under that one.

“This is trial by media. Are they allowed to print
hussy
in the headline? What is that tabloid?”

“It's
People Magazine
. That line is a quote. They spoke to an anonymous colleague.”

“I just—”

“Annie, I feel your pain. But I think it's best you take some time off.”

“Dean Truman!”

“We all go through bad patches. Personally and professionally.”

A glimmer of kindness appeared in the Dean's eyes. Annie realized he meant well. Truman did feel sorry for her, under all the ass-covering and concern about the department.

“A break will be good for you. It will get you out of the papers. You can rethink your life. And your professional strategy. Prevent this rubbish…” He gestured at the magazine. “…from ever being written again.”

Annie perked up. “So you're talking about a break?”

Truman shuffled. “I cannot guarantee a position for you when you return. I really think…” His eyes hardened again. “a fresh start would be in the best interest of all involved.”

So that's a big fat no.
Annie felt tears gathering in her eyes—a hot, stinging pool that distorted her vision and turned the Dean's figure into a wobbling blob. Annie nodded curtly, then turned on a heel, determined to get out of there before the tears spilled over and raced down her cheeks in pathetic cry-baby streaks.

“I'm sorry, Annie,” he called as the door slammed shut behind her.

“Really stunning, yeah.” Annie's shoes were clacking down the hall. She had barely gotten out of Dean Truman's office and wiped her tears when the phone rang. It was one of Lily's friends, a journalist they both knew who did freelance work for highbrow literary magazines.

Classy lady. And yet, of course, the only thing she wanted to know about was Sola and how good-looking she was and whether her breasts truly were the size of two extra heads. ‘New Caledonian Barbie,' people were saying. Annie decided to break her no-Sola-comments policy just on this one.

“Not quite head-sized, no.”

“Watermelon?”

Annie slammed her heels harder into the floor with every step. She'd known Rain had the power to make smart women lose their heads, and it looked like Princess Sola was his equal there. He'd met his match.

He's probably fucking her by now. Maybe I SHOULD just jump into bed with them.
With a bit of luck, media power minus career consequences was a perk you could transmit sexually. Annie could bet that no matter what those two did Rain would not be getting a talk at NYU, and Sola would not earn so much as a raised eyebrow from her warriors.

“Not so big that her figure is not recognizably human.”

“Ha. I've always heard that Barbie's breasts were improbable. And her body is emaciated.”

Annie swung the door of the science department open, enjoying the wind on her tear-streaked cheeks. Hurriedly, she fished her sunglasses and hat out of her bag, eager to cover up. The people mulling in the university gardens were less gossip-hungry than the paps at hotels, but she didn't want to risk causing a furor. “I was a child of the women's magazine body-confidence era too. Most women under sixty have read those articles pointing out that Barbie wouldn't be able to menstruate if she was real. Are they really printing
New Caledonian Barbie?
”

“They are.”

“Sola is a Sivu woman, of the Kaamo tribe,” Annie said. “Not a New Caledonian. She is a princess in a hunting culture with strong familial ties, aggressive characteristics and religious beliefs reminiscent of Shamanism. It's very different to any tribe in New Caledonia. And the tone of this debate…” Annie kicked a rock in frustration. “…is getting lower and lower and lower.”

“So does the princess menstruate?”

Annie's teeth grinded. She lowered her voice to a hiss. “Oh yeah. I saw it gushing out of her, Lucy. Honestly.”

“Ha. Well. That could have been because Rain gave her a pumping. They're saying he took the princess's virginity. Annie…” Lucy lowered her voice to her own scandalized hiss, either misreading Annie's reaction or deliberately ignoring it “'Stained' is a word that's going around.”

“Oh?”

“Oh yeah. As in, you guys have
stained
her. When the Atlantic ran their
New Caledonian Barbie
headline they used a stock image of blood dribbling onto white sea sand. Paradise lost!”

“I can imagine.”

“It was very controversial. Have you seen it? A heavenly scene with lush palms and shells and crystal waters and then… a bit of blood.”

“Virgin blood? From the breaking of the hymen?”

“I believe that's what was implied. So…does Sola menstruate?”

“No idea, Lucy.” Annie was starting to feel sick. “The Kaamo use blood in a lot of their rituals. The reporter may have read about that. The blood could be from their pig slaughters, their fetishization of menstruation, their cannibalism.”

“Fetishization? Cannibalism?”

Annie pressed the green button on the phone.
Beep!

There were so many stories going around–so many lies. And her career was already ruined.

What does it matter if I make things up?
Annie was ready to throw caution to the wind.

* * * *

“I know what you were planning, bitch. Now you've got your just desserts.”

Annie couldn't believe what she was hearing. She had strolled into the student guild cafeteria for lunch, enjoying the relative peace and quiet—just a few she's-a-celebrity stares came her way—and then Mandy Paulson had accosted her.

“My just desserts?” Annie shot back. “That's rich.”

“Ah, rich dessert! Did you mean to make that pun?”

“Oh, very funny, Mandy. Har-har.”

“You've got rich desserts on the brain. You know, if you could…” She cast her eyes down to Annie's lunch tray loaded with pastries, and then up over her stomach and full breasts. “…control your appetites, you might get your figure under control.”

“Thanks for the advice.” Annie smiled, breaking off the edge of her custard scroll and popping it in her mouth.

“I know you got Rain out of New York on purpose,” Mandy hissed.

Annie stared down at the lunch on the other woman's tray—a juice box and a health bar—and then cast her own eyes over Mandy's flat abs, impressive breasts and angry, stress-wrinkled face. The woman was putting so much effort into her looks–breast implants, dieting–and then ruining it all with an ugly frown.
Makes you look six hundred years old…bitch. Worse than your usual five-oh-oh
.