Nocticadia: A Dark Academia Gothic Romance
Nocticadia: Chapter 43

A mild ache throbbed in my arm where a bruise marked Professor Bramwell’s grip. As I lay in bed, I studied the pale purple outline of his fingers, tracing their edges with my fingertip.

After securing my non-bruised arm into my restraint, I flicked off the lamp beside my bed and settled into the covers. The moment I closed my eyes, I could almost feel his hand still gripping me. Holding me. The curl of those strong fingers digging into my bones.

The cool sheets dragged across my bare legs as I turned over to my stomach, the chain of my restraint clanking against the metal frame of the bed as it slid across the steel rail to the other side. I imagined his hand guiding mine down my body, slipping beneath the hem of my panties. Through parted lips, I let out a heavy sigh as I skated my fingers down an already wet seam.

So fucking wet, I imagined Professor Bramwell whispering in my ear. In my mind’s eye, he was bent over me, the muscles of his bare chest pressed against my back, while he ran his fingers over that excited bundle of nerves that practically purred against his fingertips. I turned my face into the pillow, and darker thoughts emerged. Ones where he held me by the back of my neck, warning me to come, or suffocate.

My finger stroked faster, my breaths panting into the unforgiving cotton. I shoved one of my pillows between my legs, letting the firm surface press against the sensitive cleft. The bed let out a quiet squeak as I moved my hips. With my hand freed up, I pulled down my nightgown, springing my breast free. I could almost feel his palm gripping my flesh, fingers tickling my nipple, and his warm breath on my neck.

Be a good little moth, and I’ll fuck you hard. As I rubbed myself against the pillow, I imagined him pounding into me, my smaller body jostling beneath his much bigger form. The feel of his cock pushing deep inside, filling me.

Hot and desperate, I pushed to my knees, propping my ass up slightly, and plunged two fingers up inside of me, shocked to discover how wet they were when I pulled them back out and plunged again. Please fuck me, my mind begged, still caught up in the fantasy of being bent over his desk. Please, Professor Bramwell. Fuck me hard. My belly tightened into hot coils of need, every muscle shaking as the orgasm crashed over me, and I moaned into my pillow. Loud, throaty moans that carried the lust-drunk pleasure of a hard climax.

I ground out the last of it into the pillow still wedged between my legs. With my ass still propped up, I turned my face to the side, drinking in the first sip of cool air, and breathed heavy and fast.

From the nightstand, I nabbed a half-consumed bottle of water, and gulped it back until the sting of thirst faded with my high. Once the lingering swells of euphoria died down, I pulled the pillow from between my legs and arranged it beneath the one I’d nearly smothered myself with. The restraint clanked again as I turned back over, and when I fell back onto my bed, I stared up at the dark ceiling, still trying to catch my breath.

Holy shit. I’d masturbated a few times in my life, but it’d never felt quite so good as that.

Groaning, I turned to my side, letting the small bit of shame settle over me. I’d just fingered myself to thoughts of my professor. Who also happened to be my boss. He had to be at least thirty-something, and while I wished that would have been a deterrent, unfortunately, it only stoked the flames. Something about the man crawled beneath my skin, unraveling dark fantasies like a spool of silk ribbon.

I liked that he was older. More mature. I’d always been attracted to older men.

I remembered having a conversation with my mother when I was about fourteen. Well before she had gotten sick. She’d told me that boys my age were immature and that I needed to wait until they grew up a bit. I’d carried that thought to the end of my freshman year at high school, when I’d met my first real boyfriend, if I could’ve even called him that. I’d mostly referred to him as Ghostboy. He was a senior, about to graduate. I’d been assigned to help him with physics, so that he might actually pass twelfth grade. He’d spent our tutoring sessions trying to get me to jerk him off, and when he turned eighteen, the dynamic of our interactions changed. I’d thought it would’ve turned him off, knowing he could’ve gotten in trouble, since he’d been considered an adult and I was still a minor. On the contrary, it seemed to make him much more interested. Somehow, I’d found it a turn on, too.

He’d told me that I was more mature. Smarter. More beautiful. I’d been so certain that I had fallen in love with him, up until I’d caught him fucking another girl in the alley behind the movie theater, where she’d worked at the time. A sophomore. That had marked the end of my little explorations with Ghostboy, but the experience had unlocked something else. Something much more depraved.

The visual of being dominated and ravished by an older man had somehow entrenched itself into my fantasies.

Until Angelo had started taking notice of me. That’d been about the time my fantasies had fizzled into the recesses of my head.

I’d thought they were banished for good—until Professor Bramwell had gripped me earlier in the night. I hated to admit that I’d enjoyed his bruising grasp a bit too much.

A sound roused me out of sleep, and I opened my eyes to the darkness of my bedroom. The creak of old wood echoed through the room, and I turned to see the closet door across from me cracked open. A breath caught in my chest, as something shifted in the darkness there. The willowy shape of a woman stepped forward, wearing a white gown.

Fiery red hair danced around her shoulders as she glided across the floor, and when she came into view, my heart caught in my throat. “Mama?”

Eyes black as coal gave her a terrifying, demonic appearance. Pale, wrinkled hands reached out as she hobbled across the room toward me. She came to a stop alongside my bed, staring down at me with those doll’s eyes, and her mouth opened wide, wider, too wide. The abnormal unhinging of her jaw had my skin pebbling with goosebumps.

A tingling paralysis seized my muscles. I couldn’t move!

Black worms spilled from her mouth, falling onto me.

A scream ripped from my throat, and I shot up in bed with a loud clank. Confused, I turned to see my arm stretched.

Tethered. Restrained.

The restraint was connected to the headboard. Yes, I did that. I restrained myself. I snapped my attention to the closet, where the door stood closed.

I’d dreamed it. Not real. Only a dream.

Exhaling a shaky breath, I lay back on my pillow, staring up at the ceiling again, clutching the vial of my mother’s ashes that lay against my throat. Tears wobbled in my eyes. I hated these visions of her as a monster. She wasn’t a monster. Not before she’d gotten sick, anyway.

A dark and shadowy memory sat on the fringes of my thoughts. Echoes of screams. Nails digging into arms.

Mama! Please! No!

I can’t breathe!

Eyes screwed shut, I shook my head and buried my face into the pillow.

No, no, no. Don’t look at it. Push it away. Push it away!

The screams faded at the same time the ache at my arm flared again. The bruise from Bramwell.

My thoughts shifted to his pleading eyes and trembling muscles. The laxity on his face as he’d gripped my arm and stroked my skin.

The ache withered.

I unlatched my tethered arm and pressed my thumb into the bruise, desperate for the pain to keep that nightmare from earlier away.

And it did.