Chapter Three - Monumentally Stupid

“Why are you doing this?” I gasped, staring down from where I was bound on the wall of my classroom. The sun was a watery greenish purple flowing through the windows opening onto the courtyard and I could hear birdsong from outside. One of my students, a particularly winsome water deer looked up from the barbecue it was tending and smiled as broadly as a tusked ruminant could.

“We’re vampires!” The deer replied in a high-pitched, trilling voice. “But we don’t like raw meat! It’s gross! So, we’re going to barbecue you!”

“But you’re not!” I protested, struggling against the leather bondage straps. “They just call you vampire deer because of your tusks! You’re herbivores!” The deer stared at me like a…well, like a deer caught in headlights, I supposed, for a long moment before glancing at the other deer sharpening the cleaver next to me.

“Do you think she’s right?” The deer sitting on the chair with the cleaver jumped in surprise, inadvertently flinging the knife against the wall. Its legs jerked outward in all directions in what I imagined was a shrug.

“We should ask Ms. Park!” The other deer replied. The pair turned to Eun-Ha who was sitting on a desk filing her nails to pinpricks. “Ms. Park! Are we vampires?” Eun-ha glanced up at the deer, then to me, then back to the deer.

“You’re not vampires, you silly Cervidae! You’re simply tools of a corporate culture designed to enslave the common man in a never-ending cycle of profit maximization!” Eun-ha laughed maniacally.

“So, we shouldn’t eat Ms. Song, then?” The deer sounded depressed.

“No, you can eat her,” Eun-Ha shrugged. “Companies don’t profit off lesbians so it’s fine to use them as a food source. Be sure to cook the meat well or you’ll catch the gay, though!”

“You unbelievable bitch!” I gasped. Eun-Ha grinned at me; her teeth as sharp as the fingernail she’d filed down to a needle point.

“It’s what you get for not liking BL,” Eun-Ha’s tongue flicked out and began licking her lips with a disturbing slurping sound.

“Then eat me if you want!” I mumbled. “I’ll never read BL!”

“You’ll read every rapey BL I choose if you know what’s good for you, you lowly history wonk!” Eun-Ha pointed her nailfile at me threateningly.

“Never!” I cried defiantly.

“Big words from someone about to be the main course in a water deer luau!”

“No BL! Not now! Not ever!”

“We’ll see,” Eun-Ha grinned at me like a shark.

I opened my eyes and groaned softly. What a weird dream, I thought as my eyes tried to focus on the elegant white ceiling over my head. What were they putting in that artificial butter-flavored grease down Orville’s place? Odd, I thought, I still heard that slurping sound.

Still trying to clear the fog from my eyes I turned toward the sound to find a catgirl with long white hair sitting on a table against the wall. Her right leg was extended straight into the air while her head was between her own thighs. Oh, I thought numbly. That’s where the sound’s coming from. That catgirl is licking her own vagina. Heh, I thought, still staring. It’s a pussy licking a pussy. I smiled at my own joke. I sighed deeply before my brain finally realized what it was seeing.

“What the shit?” I gasped, pushing myself backward on the bed I was lying in. Unfortunately, I misjudged the distance and promptly fell onto the floor between the bed and the wall, legs splayed awkwardly. As I struggled to right myself a face appeared above me.

The catgirl peered at me, her large, heterochromatic eyes studying me intently as if I were a toy she was deciding whether or not to play with. Her hair was long and white and fell about her shoulders in waves. She smiled, her catlike canines reminding me that, although she certainly looked human (except for the ears and tail, of course), she most certainly had more than a little cat in her DNA.

“I’m glad you’re up!” She exclaimed brightly. She stared at the unfortunate position I was in and frowned. “Or almost up. Awake? Yes! Awake! I’m glad you’re awake! It’s been tremendously boring watching you sleep. Did you know you talk when you sleep? What’s BL mean?” I gaped at her.

“Boy…love?” I mumbled hesitantly.

“Who?” The catgirl tilted her head quizzically, ears twitching.

“Huh?” I struggled again to right myself, legs kicking furiously. She extended her hand to me and I grabbed it gratefully. A moment later I felt my feet leave the ground and I was flung onto the bed like a toy. In the blink of an eye the cat girl had pinned me down, arms on either side of my head as she stared into my eyes. She was both staggeringly strong and breath-takingly fast.

“Who?” She repeated. Her hair tickled the tip of my nose, but I was too scared to scratch.

“W-Who what?” I asked nervously. Her elongated canines glinted dangerously in the fading light coming through the open window. She looked remarkably like the catgirls I’d seen in anime but, at the same time, far more dangerous. In no anime I had ever seen did I think for a second the catgirl maid might savage the ojou-sama with 2 cm canines and drag her off by the head. This catgirl looked to be more than capable of just that sort of thing.

“Who does the boy love?” I swore the girl was staring at my exposed throat.

“Another boy?” I managed. She blinked a long, slow blink at me before nodding.

“I see. Oh! Wait here! I almost forgot to get the mistress when you woke up!” She began to get off of me before turning back and smiling. “If you try to escape, I’ll have to hunt you down and kill you!” She exclaimed sweetly.

“O-Ok,” I nodded. Her grin broadened and she nodded with satisfaction, booping my nose with the tip of her index finger playfully.

“I’ll be right back!” She bounded off the bed and rushed out the door. I let my arms fall to my sides and stared at the ceiling dumbly. I felt a headache coming on and closed my eyes. Why wasn’t this dream ending? The door clicked open a few seconds later and I opened my eyes and turned toward the sound.

“You!” I growled, springing to my feet as the tall, dark-haired woman in an elegant dress strode into the room. This bitch! Oh, she’s going to pay, an animalistic side of me I didn’t even know I had screamed in my head. She’s going to pay for everything she did to me!

“I see you remember me,” The woman muttered blandly, striding across the room toward the table the catgirl had been licking herself on earlier. “That will speed things up nicely.”

“You tortured me!” I snarled, stalking forward. I didn’t see the catgirl and nodded smugly, it would be much easier to rip out her lungs without the catgirl interfering. The woman sighed irritably.

“Yes. And?” She paused and put her hand on her hip. She sighed and fixed her deep silver eyes on me disapprovingly.

“Then you killed me!” I snapped, acutely aware of how off the last statement was. I moved toward the table slowly as she stood still nearby, arms crossed across her chest.

“It happens,” she waved one hand dismissively. I grabbed the silver butter knife on the table and leapt toward her like an avenging angel, the blade flashed through the air with a whistling sound.

“So does revenge!” I spat. That was totally a revenge anime catch line, I thought proudly as the dagger plunged slightly off target and gouged into her arm. Immediately a howl of pain erupted from my mouth and I staggered backward, a ragged gash opening in my arm. I wrapped my hand around the wound and dropped into a defensive crouch like an animal. The woman cocked her eyebrow curiously. She pulled the knife from her uninjured arm and dropped it to the floor.

“A butter knife?” She fixed me with an unimpressed stare.

“Fuck you!” My arm hurt and blood dripped through my fingers onto the carpet as I held the wound.

“And now you’re going to stain my carpet,” the woman sighed. “I understand your desire for revenge or whatever that was, but you can’t hurt me. We’re linked through magic. The pain I would normally feel you receive. Now do be a decent creature and come sit down so I can give you your mission.” I jumped forward in a circus-like roll, grabbed the butter knife again and was back into my crouch in an instant.

“Take this!” I howled and plunged the knife into my thigh. I screamed once again in pain and collapsed to the ground. The butter knife bent and twisted slightly from hitting my femur and was sticking out of my leg.

“What, actually, are you doing?” The woman stared at me impassively, her right eye twitching slightly.

“I forgot the book you wanted me to get!” The catgirl called from the door. She stepped into the room and stopped, blinking slowly. “Are you ok?” She asked me.

“Do I look ok?” I snapped, closing my eyes, and pulling the knife out of my leg.

“No?” The catgirl tilted her head to the side curiously. “Yes?” She shook her head finally as if deciding on something. “No. No you don’t. Are you playing? Can I play, too?!”

“Sayuri, get some lemon juice for the carpet,” the woman sighed, sitting down at the table, and putting her head in her hands. “That is absolutely going to stain.” The catgirl stared down at the book in her hands, then at me, then at the woman at the table nervously.

“B-But what about the book?” She glanced about nervously. The woman sighed into her hands and shook her head in denial.

“Put the book down on the table, then go get some lemon juice,” she grumbled into her hands. “It’s been years. Literally years of teaching you, and this is what I get?”

“I’m still not sure when I’m going to find out how the princess found out,” Sayuri muttered darkly under her breath as she walked past me and set the book on the table before walking back and out the door. “It’s always ‘Sayuri get this! Sayuri do that! Sayuri stop licking yourself!’ How am I supposed to get anything done when I’m doing everything?” She closed the door behind her, but I could hear her muttering as she disappeared down the hall.

“Are you going to come over here or just sit on the floor and bleed?” The woman asked, raising her head from her hands. She opened the book in front of her and began leafing through it as if trying to find something.

“I can’t!” I snapped, hissing in pain. “I stabbed myself in the leg!” I gestured angrily to the wound on my thigh.

“I noticed that, yes,” the woman intoned. “A monumentally stupid action, to be sure.”

“But we’re linked! You said so yourself!” I muttered, shaking my head. I didn’t understand this at all. I’d seen it in an anime once. Two hearts bound together shared each other’s pain. They’d beat themselves and, by extension, each other up all the time. It was pretty funny if I remembered right. Not like this at all. I scowled at the woman who stared at me wearily, as if I were sucking the energy out of her very soul by existing. This was definitely not amusing.

“Stupid half-elf,” the woman shook her head. “The link only goes one way. Why would…you know what? I don’t care. Haul yourself over here before I lose all patience.” She stared meaningfully at the other chair at the table.

“I’ll haul something over on your face,” I muttered incoherently under my breath, staggering painfully to my feet, and limping toward the table. Witty comebacks had never been my strong suit.

“And even more blood. Wonderful.” The woman closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose irritably. I flipped my hand and spattered the blood from my arm across the floor and on the pristine white walls with a smirk. Take THAT, you bitch, I thought spitefully.