Free The Demon Lover by Juliet Dark

for me was completely different. Shadows stole softly across the floor, skirting the sharp blades of moonlight as if they were actually made of glass. The shadows slipped into my bed and wrapped themselves around me, murmuring words that I couldn’t understand but which sounded like the drone of the surf inside a seashell. The sound poured into my ears like warm oil and spread a feeling of contentment throughout my body. It was like being massaged all over at once. The shadows were everywhere, like a warm bath with fingers and lips, sucking on my mouth, my nipples, and between my legs. As if they were feeding on me and growing stronger with every orgasm they gave me.
    I woke up the next morning feeling strangely refreshed, not sore at all from the heavy lifting I’d done the day before. I unpacked a dozen boxes before breakfast and then decided I might as well use all this energy to move into my campus office. The campus as I drove through it was relatively quiet except for the freshmen here for orientation. They were instantly recognizable from the way they walked in tight-knit clumps of four and six, as if the bucolic ivy-covered campus were a dangerous wilderness that could only be broached by group expedition. I remembered how in my first week at NYU all the kids from out of town travelled together in packs. A city kid, I’d been disdainful of their timidity and dependence, and stayed mostly to myself or socialized with city friends from high school. As a result, I hadn’t made a lot of new friends at college; then I met Paul and I spent most of my time with him or in the library. I supposed it had paid off when I got into Columbia (where the easy camaraderie of college had given way to the competition of grad school), but now watching these kids laughing and jostling up against one another under the stately autumn-colored trees I felt like I might have missed something.
    I parked in front of Fraser Hall, a four-storied half-timbered faux-Tudor building which held the folklore department offices. It was named for Angus Fraser, a famous folklorist who had founded the Royal Order of Folklorists at the turn of the last century, written dozens of books on Celtic folklore, and taught at Fairwick a hundred years ago. My office was on the top floor and, I soon discovered, there was no elevator. On my second trip hauling boxes up the steep, winding stairs a pair of brawny arms relieved me of my burden.
    “You sound like you’re going to expire of consumption at any moment.” I recognized Frank Delmarco, the American history professor who had sneered at the inclusion of vampire books in my curriculum during my interview. Now he was apparently critiquing my stair-climbing capacity.
    “I’m … fine …” I huffed. “I’ve been … doing … a … lot of un … packing.”
    “Yeah, I heard you bought the old LaMotte house. Isn’t that a little big for just one person alone?”
    For a split second I almost told him I wasn’t alone in the house. I felt my face go red recalling what company I’d found in my dreams. Luckily, Comrade Delmarco (today he was wearing a red T-shirt with pictures of Marx and Lenin wearing party hats that read JOIN THE COMMUNIST PARTY) would just think I was embarrassed to be hogging a big house to myself.
    “I may rent out one of the rooms,” I said, although I had no plans to and I instantly didn’t like the idea of anyone else in the house.
    “Really? That’s a good idea—” he began, but I cut him off.
    “You know, it’s funny that someone who disapproves of ‘catering to the common denominator’ would be a socialist.”
    “A socialist? I’m not a socialist,” he sputtered, dumping one of my boxes on the floor of my new office. “Do you have more boxes?”
    “Yes, but please don’t put yourself to any trouble on my account.” I turned and headed down the stairs. He followed.
    “No problem. We socialists like to help out our comrades. Geez, even if I were a socialist,