I didn’t want to make him look bad in front of his friends, so I said yes.
Due to her penchant for expanding her vocabulary and the state of her life as it is, Nuria knows the definition of tumultuous verbatim. Excited, confused, or disorderly. Whenever she’s awoken this semester, she felt one of those three strongly. Today is the first day in a long time that she awakes at peace with herself. It helps that the sweet scent of caramel mocha strikes her. She grabs the cup from Tyra as she stretches and yawns. She blows into the cup before taking a small sip.
Tyra narrows her eyes. “No chugging?”
Nuria takes another small sip. “Nah. I’ll savor it this time.”
“Nuria…are you okay? I know last night–”
“I don’t care about last night. Not anymore. So, just drop it. It’s over!”
Tyra recoils slightly. “Okay… Class is in half an hour. I know you were out late, so I woke you so you wouldn’t repeat the offense. Zathony looked- felt- very heated when he brought Koren back. I have a feeling he’ll be even more ornery today.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be there.” Nuria waves Tyra off.
The angel stares at her for a few moments, shakes her head, and leaves. Nuria growls when her solitude doesn’t bring her peace of mind back. She doesn’t wallow too long, however. Her night was long and stressful but she discovered an effective remedy. Even though she originally wanted her first kiss only, the B.O.A. album opened up her mind to sex. Although, none of the songs alluded to the perk she utilized. She was able to purge her intense emotions during her time with Norris. At first, it was physically and mentally jarring, but then once her body adjusted, she took to it like a moth to a flame.
She looks at her cup of coffee, suddenly turned off by the taste. She dumps it down a sink in the bathroom before she gets ready for class. When she finds her red skirt while getting dressed, she goes and hides it underneath Tyra’s mattress, a place fitting for it to rot.
Nuria grabs her math binder and begins her march to class at a casual pace. She doesn’t gaze into the sky, she doesn’t whistle a tune, nor does she smile. She plans to go through the motions without fuss. She steps into the room and exchanges sign language greetings with Professor Marmagar, her gestures less animated than normal. “Good morning, Professor Zathony,” she says tonelessly.
“Good morning, Nuria,” Zathony says. He sounds just like Tyra predicted.
Oh, well.
Nuria’s casual march comes to a halt when she sees Koren seated beside her assigned desk. Just as her shoulders tremble his ears droop.
“Norris, trade seats with Koren,” Zathony orders.
“Aye, aye, sir,” Norris says. He grabs his sketchbook and moves. “Sorry, fuzzy.”
Nuria picks up the pace to her seat. She couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome. If her setback just now is any indication, she’ll need to purge more.
Hopefully, he’ll agree to it. He was pretty fatigued last night.
She covers her inspection by combing through her hair with a hand. There’s no stress to his movements as he sketches.
But he looks fine now. He’s almost done with that ske- aaaiee!
The inside of her cheeks burn when she sees the sketch is an accurate depiction of their activities last night. She snatches the page right out of his book, knocking his pencil to the ground.
“What the hell? I wasn’t done with that!” he says.
Nuria’s reply is silenced by the sound of chalk snapping. Zathony turns and leers over his shoulder. “Why are you two interrupting my lesson?”
Nuria balls up the sketch and burns it away in an instant. “Sorry, professor. Won’t happen again.”
“It had better not. Now, back to our multiplying fractions lesson. Eyes forward, everyone.”
Nuria goes back to taking notes on the subject matter, intermittently checking to see if Norris is sketching her again. He’s engrossed in a new sketch of an angry dog barking at a fence. With that annoyance out of the way, she focuses on how to ask him about last night.
At least I know he’s thinking about it now.
Nuria bides her time until Zathony starts the rapid-fire Q&A portion of the class. And since he doesn’t wait for raised hands, his back remains to the students. Nuria tears out the next blank page from her binder and scribbles a message at the top.
Did you enjoy…last night?
She tosses the paper to Norris’s desk. He pins it down before it slides off, reads it, and almost laughs. She reads his reply and scoffs. “Oh, please.” His boast doesn’t stop her from continuing the conversation. It makes her more eager to go for another round. Their back-and-forth communication goes uninterrupted for longer than she expected. Still, she flinches when Zathony yanks the transcript from Norris.
“Whatever this is that’s so important to take your attention away from my class must be equally educational. Let’s see what everyone else thinks,” Zathony says.
“Um…”
“‘Did you enjoy- ellipses- last night? I’m not the one who’ll be exhausted after the next time. Wanna bet?’”
Nuria starts to sweat and bite her nails. One fight has already happened because of her, and she does not want another.
“‘It’s a sure thing. Okay, we meeting at the pool again?’”
“Oh!” Carnya gasps suddenly. She looks across Norris to Nuria, and the phoenix can tell she already knows.
Please tell me she wasn’t at the pool that entire time.
“Anything to add, Carnya? Are you part of this, too?” Zathony asks tersely.
Carnya sucks on her lips and pretends to lock them shut.
Nuria’s heart thrums in her chest when Zathony turns back to the note. It calms down a second later when Zathony chooses to read the rest silently. He extends the note back to Nuria. “Mind burning this one, too?”
“Gladly!” Nuria snatches the paper and incinerates it. However, she can tell the damage is done when the sounds of whispered gossip reach her ears.
Carnya’s stupid outburst didn’t help!
“Silence!” Zathony shouts. “I don’t know how many times I’ll have to say this but save anything not having to do with my class for your own time! And I’ve warned you once already, Nuria. You will serve your lunch period in this classroom. Carnya will bring you your meal. You can tell her what you want as soon as she switches seats with Norris.”
“Yes, sir.”
Norris being so quick to obey now of all times irritates the phoenix.
“And I see the rest of you, too. Koren, you haven’t taken a single note all class. Last night is over and done. Focus, up!” Shuri, you, too. Rum, eyes forward! Tyra!”
He turns to the angel so sharply that both she and Nuria are rattled.
“You are the class president! Your peers are out of line1 Fix this!”
Tyra’s rattled demeanor loses its smoothness in place of cold, sharp features. She stands and turns, washing the class with her gaze, ceasing the gossip instantly. For the three boys Zathony outed, she locks eyes with them until they adjust their behavior. Koren smacks his cheeks and lifts his pencil. Shuri sits up straight and opens his notebook up. Rum, however, has a distinctly hard time tearing his gaze away from Norris’s back.
“Rum, need I remind you that you’ve already disrupted twice as many classes and activities as Nuria? Continue to do so and I will recommend you serve your lunch period here, too,” Tyra warns.
Pan smacks Rum’s arm and gives him a curt look. He doesn’t soften his expression as he meets Tyra’s gaze but it becomes markedly less combative.
“Thank you.”
Nuria loses the smile she has seeing her brother scolded when Tyra leers at her next. She doesn’t address the phoenix verbally, simply leering at her a few moments longer. Nuria clicks her tongue and turns away.
As if I care, T. Be disappointed all you want. Been there, done that.
The phoenix pretends to correct her behavior so that class can resume without any extra pressure on her. Instead of taking notes as the lesson moves onto ratios, she just scribbles random words from “windbreaker” to “breakfast” to “coffee” to “teeth”. When Norris sneaks back to the classroom with Carnya, an extra burger with them, they convince Carnya to stay quiet about their tryst this time. With that settled, Nuria decides to indulge a different appetite. Together with Norris, she moves around unrestricted, toppling several desks, including hers. When she glimpses her notes in the middle of their debauchery, she gets an idea.
“Bite me,” she commands.
Norris recoils and hits his head against Carnya’s desk. “You want me to…what?”
“I don’t know, is that weird? I mean,” she looks away bashfully, “if licking feels good, then biting should, too. Right?” She jerks when Norris retreats completely. She sits up to see him sweating profusely, barely able to breathe. “Hey, are you okay?” She leans forward and touches his arm. He flees from her touch and the room, knocking her burger to the floor.
Nuria dives to save it only to end up covered in the disparate ingredients, the ketchup sliding down the middle of her face. Lo and behold, that’s how a few of her peers and professors find her. Covered in lettuce, burger, onions, and topless. If she didn’t feel lighter than air, Tyra and Zathony yelling at her would have her catatonic with shame.
I’ll be damned! Sex is a superpower! No wonder so many people make songs about it!
Nuria intercepts Norris on the way to Tameri’s science class and he clarifies his freak-out was a fluke. She drags him to the library. With everyone in Tameri’s class, the library remains empty, so she plays the B.O.A. album in the background. She isn’t sure if she should attribute the higher pleasure she experiences to the music or to the fact she likes biting, or, well, being bitten, specifically on her breasts. She tries to use her mouth on Norris but he panics then. He doesn’t retreat immediately, however.
“You know,” she says as she leans back, “for someone who clearly takes care of his teeth- seriously, they’re whiter than my eyes- you have a real hang-up on using them.”
“Teeth are meant for eating only,” Norris argues as he presses against her firmly.
Nuria moans appreciatively as they settle together. She forces her question out between his thrusts. “Am I…not…appe-appetizing?”
“You talk…too…much!”
“I–”
Control of her vocal cords erodes as she’s only able to make sounds she’s never heard. At first, it terrifies her, but once she focuses on the explosion building inside of her, the magnitude of euphoria, she lets things play out. Her final, shrill screech harmonizes with Norris’s guttural shout. She may see black all around her but she feels more alive than ever. The waves of energy trapped within her body trigger aftershocks whenever Norris moves.
“Oh, fuck! Fuck!”
She shoots straight up when the trapped energy escapes, followed by Norris’s withdrawal. She pouts when the boy rakes a hand through his sweat-slicked brown hair.
“What are you doing?”
“Relax, girlie. Just let me recharge a bit. Not everyone has freakish amounts of stamina.”
Nuria scoffs with frustration. “And here I thought I’d chosen correctly.” She hikes her pants back up while standing. “If you can’t match me, then–”
Norris slams Nuria against the bookshelf in an instant, manacling her wrists above her head. She smiles to see his energy on a different level than before.
“I’m gonna ask you again,” he says, his voice guttural. “Are you sure about this?”
Nuria puts her face right in front of his. “Bite. Me.”
The force he uses to kiss her only briefly stuns the phoenix. Now that she knows he isn’t holding back, she doesn’t either. As they resume, their sex becomes more of a fight. The harder Nuria rides him, the more she’s able to suppress. Tyra’s nagging over her behavior, the expectations of her professors, and the decline of the family she thought she was building; she buries it all.
But that doesn’t stop her from initiating another round for fun. She angles back and anchors her position with the bookshelf. Norris’s next guttural cry informs her that he appreciates her latest maneuver.
And there’s more where that came from!
Four Hearts Academy 