now, maybe that’s for the better. At least from where I’m standing.
I have no idea how to talk about Kara, especially to my mother. When I contemplate doing so, there are either too many words or not enough. All of them are abysmally inadequate for describing the woman’s cosmic-level force over me.
But how? Why?
I still barely know this girl. Even now, after I’ve tasted every inch of her tongue and groped her lithe little body like my life depended on it, that certainty is like a knell in my mind. A toll that grows even louder after Mom pushes her way outside and the store’s bell stops jingling…
Leaving me alone with the chaos of my anger. The black holes of my memory. The ongoing obsession with a woman who keeps defying me with her fire, her honesty, and her truth…even when she’s not in the same room with me.
I jack my head back and close my eyes. With any luck, a few minutes of exhausted sleep will finally hit me. But something tells me that’s wishful thinking. Something attached to the fresh image of Kara that blooms behind my eyelids.
I guess I can call this conclusion official.
I’m pretty much fucked.
Chapter Eleven
Kara
Sitting in the front row may have been a mistake. The murmurs and whispers throughout the lecture hall are more relentless than ever. Am I really surprised, though? The answer, from deep in my gut, is a resounding and disappointing no.
What’s more distracting is how hard Maximus tries not to look at me. When he does, the force of his gaze is an assault on my senses. It nearly matches his passion for the cantos as he reads, his fingers flowing over the air once more. And his silent turmoil when he asks a question and passes over me. Again and again and again.
I quell a rise of frustration. Why would he push for me to come out of the shadows in the back just to ignore me? Half the class passes this way until I resign myself to being as invisible as he seems to wish. He’s lobbing easy questions and getting easy answers.
“The souls who’ve been relegated to the second circle of hell betrayed reason to their appetites. Their sin was giving in to their passions. Now they’re doomed to an eternity in this whirlwind. What does the great gale symbolize?”
No one volunteers to answer this time, likely because the answer is sexual. I roll my eyes and raise my hand.
He clears his throat after a pregnant pause. “Kara.”
“Lust,” I answer flatly.
A few people snicker behind me.
He purses his lips with a nod. “Correct. Of course Dante recognizes several key residents. Semiramis, Dido, Helen, Paris. Finally, Paolo and Francesca, who find just enough reprieve from the endless storm to tell their sad tale. Some of these are familiar stories to most of you. Some not. On first glance, they all seem to carry the same thread, right? Passionate love affairs gone wrong.” He pauses, dragging his fingertips down his beard until they join at the tip. “Did anyone notice one wasn’t like the others?”
The room falls silent. I scan through all the characters’ histories in my mind. Adultery, betrayal, passion, lust, war, a very dramatic suicide on a self-made funeral pyre.
Oh, that’s it.
I shoot my hand up. Maximus makes a show of surveying the rest of the hall for any other takers. Not a chance in hell someone is going to figure this one out, though. Finally he returns to me, his lips tight. His nostrils flare slightly before he calls on me again.
“Dido.”
He pauses. I know I’m right, but I wonder if he’s silently hoping I’m wrong one of these times. The challenge feeds something in me. A dormant instinct, perhaps…or maybe something deeper. I just know I like having it stoked. A lot.
“Why Dido?”
“She’s a suicide,” I say. “She had an affair, but when Aeneas left her, she killed herself.”
“Which means?”
I shrug. “I guess Minos got it wrong when he assigned her soul to eternal torment. Otherwise she got off on the wrong floor. Suicides go to seven.” I smirk when I see him struggle not to.
“Or maybe Dante just has a soft spot for lovers.” His gaze fixes on my mouth, then my eyes. Finally. “We haven’t gotten to the seventh circle yet. Did you read ahead?”
I tuck my hair behind my ear and lean forward on my elbow. “No. I studied the map.”
“Of course she did,” someone calls out in a nasty tone.
Maximus shoots