Blood Of The Luna

Chapter 5

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"Tell me everything."

Ethel was like a hyena on c***k as she hounded me for information on Damian Lockheart. She had been like this ever since I told her that he had come to see me yesterday. Now she was hopping around me and demanding I tell her every little detail about him.

"How tall is he? What does he smell like? Is it true that he has a tattoo around his neck? What colour are his eyes? How does he talk? Did he sound smart, or more like an average meathead? How big are his biceps? What did you guys talk about? Did he fancy you? I'm guessing he couldn't take his eyes off you, could he?"

"Slow down," I said, grinning as we headed down the hallway. We were late for first period already, but that didn't stop her from demanding to know everything about him. Everything she had ever heard was rumours, exactly how I had been less than twenty four hours ago. Now, I could confidently say that I had met and formed an impression of Damian Lockheart.

"He's at least six foot two," I began, trying to remember all her questions. "He smelled like cologne, and he does have a tattoo near his neck. His eyes are golden, and they glow brighter when he's genuinely interested in a conversation. He talks very slowly but calmly, and he sounds very smart indeed. His biceps are as big as my head, and we mostly talked about the union we were being forced into. I don't know if he fancies me, and I'm not sure if he couldn't take his eyes off me. He did do this really weird thing where he looked at me all over with his eyes glowing, and I'm pretty sure he was trying to see through my clothes."

"Like Superman?" she asked with a slight giggle. "That's so naughty. I can imagine those golden eyes roaming all over me. But if he really is the dreamboat that everyone says he is, then I wouldn't mind him looking at me. It would be a two-way street, because I would also be drooling over him."

"Stop it!"

"Oh please," she waved dismissively. "Don't you want someone who will cause you to tingle down there? Why do you think I started going out with Joaquin?”

“Because you think he’s a decent guy who will treat you right and love you no matter what?” I asked sarcastically.

“Well yes, but that’s not the only reason,” she smirked. “I don’t mean to bore you with details, but the man is an animal in bed. He did something to me the other day with his tongue, and I couldn’t stand straight for nearly an hour. Don’t you want something like that?”

“You slept with him?” I gasped.

“Oh, don’t be such a prude,” she laughed, waving dismissively. “We went back to his place after the first date. It was probably the most amazing night of my life. I mean he’s a gentleman in public, and he treated me right the whole time we were together. He held the door for me, he told me how beautiful I was, and he really made me feel special. And when we went back to my place, he f****d the s**t out of me.”

“Since when did you become a slut?” I asked, unable to contain my laughter. Ethel laughed as well, but from the way she was blushing so hard, I could tell that there was something deeper here. She really liked Joaquin. There was something more serious about their relationship which she hadn’t told me about yet.

“Has he taken you to see his mother?” I asked. “That’s when you know a guy is serious about you. Otherwise, he would never take you to see her.”

“He took me to see her after our third date,” she said. “She was a really nice woman, and her pancakes are just out of this world. I think her name was Miranda or something. But it started with an ‘M’. Anyway, she kept asking me all these questions about whether I was going to treat her son right, how close the two of us were, how serious the relationship really was, stuff like that. You even came up in the conversation.”

“Me?” I asked, completely surprised to hear that. “How could I possibly have come up in a conversation like that?”

“Well, she asked me if I was a loner, or if I had dozens of friends that would flock around me all day,” Ethel explained. I told her that I only had one friend, and that was you. She asked about our relationship, and how close we really were. She wanted to know the kind of person you were, how serious you were about school, whether you were an uptight person or more relaxed like I was. I think she was trying to figure out the type of person I was by knowing about my friends. After all, a person’s friends can say a lot about the type of person they are.”

Still, I found it a bit strange that I would come up in a conversation between them. But I didn’t make a fuss about it, because I could see how happy Ethel was. It made me wonder whether I would ever find something as sweet as what she had with Joaquin. Even though they hadn’t been going out for long, I could see how happy he made her and it made me happy to know that she felt that way.

Maybe if things went well with Damian, I would be talking about him in the same manner very soon. The very thought of it made me want to smile.

It seemed strange how I just couldn't shake the image of him from my head all day long. I felt like I had only thought about him ever since he left, and as soon as I woke up in the morning, he was the first person I thought about. I had a sneaking suspicion that I even had a dream about him last night, and I might have been able to recall if that was real or not if it weren't for all my dreams disappearing as soon as I woke up.

Damn! I was really down bad for him. And all this was only after seeing him for one day. What would happen when I saw him more frequently? What would happen when he became a regular person in my life, and I would start seeing him the same way I saw Ethel nearly everyday? Would I still be gawking at him in the same manner?

“Earth to Allie,” Ethel snapped her fingers in front of me, pulling me out of my thoughts. “I can tell just from the ridiculous look on your face that you’re thinking about Damian Lockheart.”

“No I wasn’t,” I lied, feeling the heat immediately rising to my cheeks.

“Right,” she smirked. "Well I still think he's going to be more trouble than he's worth," Ethel said as we walked into the class. "He's like the king of bad boys, and he sounds so hot that I think you should be careful that you don't get burned in the process."

Miss Janet glared at us both as we walked in, but she said nothing as she turned towards the board and began to scribble in silence. Ethel led us to the back of the class, where we dumped our bags and immediately turned to face each other.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"I'm just saying that maybe you shouldn't let yourself get carried away by how good he looks," she explained. "Don't forget all the bad things he's done in the past. And being good-looking does not grant him a free pass to do whatever he wants. You should still be cautious when you are around him."

“Maybe those were just rumours,” I said. “How can we be so sure that everything that was said about him was true?”

“If you choose not to believe it, then you and I both know that you’re kidding yourself,” she said.

She was right, and I hated the fact that she was. It made me look at things rationally, and I didn't want to be rational. I wanted to marvel at how incredibly hot he was, and completely lose myself in the fact that I was attracted to a man after years of being repulsed by the entire gender. Finally, here was a man who I could look at and completely forget about my convictions against the entire male species.

And yet, he had to be someone with a reputation like Damian's. Sometimes, the cruelty of life's jokes was almost so funny that it was impossible to not laugh.

Throughout History, I didn't pay attention to a single thing Miss Janet said. I kept thinking about Damian, and how I would have to remind myself each time I was around him that this wasn't really him. There was more to him than met the eye, and he was like an onion because of all the layers there were to him.

Also, it could be pointed out that he was exactly like an onion, because the deeper you got into the many layers, the greater the likelihood that you would end up crying.

After History, Ethel and I separated and she went for Geography while I had biology. I spent the rest of the day debating on whether I should push Damian away or not. The right thing to do was clear to me, but it was also the last thing I wanted to do. Truth be told, I wanted to get to know him. I wanted to see if he was truly the same person everyone said he was. His reputation preceded him, but I needed to know more. Maybe the next time I met him, I would ask him to tell me about himself more. That way, I could get a pretty good idea of how he saw himself.

Sometime around fifth period, I got a text message from an unknown number. As soon as I saw who it was however, my heart skipped a beat and I nearly leapt into the air in joy. It was from Damian, and the message read:

'Hi, it's Damian. I will be waiting for you outside your school when you're done. See you soon.'

I bit my lip to keep from squealing in delight. How exactly did he know that I had been thinking about him all day? Had he also been thinking about me all day? If so, that would explain why he would come to see me.

I felt giddy all over, imagining that Damian had spent the entire day thinking about me. Was he as fascinated by me as I was by him? Did he replay the conversation we had over and over in his head, trying to pick as many little details as he could from the interaction?

I showed the text to Ethel when she met up with me in the cafeteria, and she actually squealed in exactly the same way that I had wanted to.

"No way!" she exclaimed. "Damian Lockheart is actually coming to our school? That is going to be so mind blowing when he arrives. No one here is ready for him."

"Neither am I," something reminded me to point out. "I'm absolutely not ready to see him."

"But why not?" she asked. "I've already told you, all you have to do is remember that appearances can be deceiving. That way, he won't ever get anything past you. And you can look at everything he does more clearly."

I tried to repeat that to myself over and over again. Damian was a bad boy, and that was what I should focus on primarily. His first impression had been a surprising one, and he had turned out to be the exact opposite of what I had imagined. Maybe people had just misunderstood him, and most of the rumours I'd heard about him were actually lies. This wouldn't be the first time that something like this happened.

"You're right," I said. "I'll keep that in mind when he gets here."

As soon as we sat at our table, Joaquin and his friend Justin came over to sit with us. The latter sat beside me, while Joaquin squeezed in beside his girlfriend, causing her to giggle like a little schoolgirl.

"Hey babe," he said, kissing her on the lips straight away. I turned my face away, feeling awkward as they locked lips. Joaquín's hand was wrapped up in Ethel's hair, while her own hand was around his neck. They seemed to have forgotten that there were other people sitting in front of them, and I had to clear my throat when I became apparent that they weren't going to stop for several minutes.

"You realise we're still on school property, right?" I asked.

"Who cares?" Joaquin replied. "I don't care about any f*****g rules when I want to kiss my girlfriend. Let's see who tries to stop me."

"Well, I'm concerned for Ethel's future," I said. "If she gets expelled, then it will be my fault. So the two of you need to knock it off."

They both chuckled, and Joaquin pulled Ethel even closer to him, so that their shoulders were practically rubbing each other the whole time. They were staring at each other dreamily, and I had to fight the urge to spoil this happy moment for them. I chose to focus instead on my food while I avoided looking up at them.

"You know," Justin said beside me, "there's nothing stopping me and you from doing exactly what they are doing."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, if you want to lock lips with someone, then I'm sure we can reach an agreement over this matter."

"Not in a million years, Justin," I said, raising my hand to stop him before he could kiss me. He frowned as I did that, and one eyebrow shot up questioningly.

"You don't want to kiss me?" he asked.

"I don't."

"But why not?" he asked.

"Because that is my choice," I said. "And you need to respect that. I'm sure you can find someone else that's willing to kiss you."

Nevertheless, he persisted. And after a few hours of him pretending he would die if he didn't kiss me, the bell rang and I quickly left the school. Justin was right behind me however, and he kept asking for one little kiss.

"Come on, Alyssa," he said. "No one will ever know."

"I said 'no', Justin," I snapped, already looking around for Damian in the crowd. I couldn't see him, which probably meant that he still hadn't arrived yet. The sun was beating down heavily on us, and I was beginning to sweat. I thought about just walking home, and maybe seeing him another time. I was just about to head off since Ethel was going with Joaquin for another ride on his motorcycle, when Justins's arm suddenly fell on my shoulder. I was about to turn around and chastise him when my heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach at the sight of Damian holding Justin in the air, with one hand wrapped around his neck. His eyes were ablaze when he looked at him, and I had to take a step back from his terrified I was.

"Don't you dare!" he growled. "If you ever lay a finger on her again, I will not hesitate to break your fingers. Do I make myself clear?"

Holy s**t, what exactly did I just get myself into?

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