Oxford Blood (7 page)

Katie gave her an urgent look. “We’re not exactly best
mates, but I don’t think you should be getting yourself into all that. Make
your excuses and come over to our table.”

Before Harriet could move or reply, George was at the table.
She wasn’t sure how he had got there so fast. She wasn’t sure about anything
anymore. Katie could be talking nonsense, but whilst the stories were probably
exaggerated, something told her they had at least a ring of truth to them.

“Sorry about that my dear. Long, complicated phone call from
my uncle. He’s always doing that.” He gave Katie a cold look, maintaining eye
contact for longer than was remotely polite or normal.

Katie glanced at Harriet in confusion. “Well, I’m off to
dance. Have a fun night,” she muttered.

“Wait...” Harriet began, but George turned to look at her
and she instantly felt calmer. He looked arrogant, yes, but not at all capable
of the sorts of sordid behaviour that Katie had suggested. She allowed him to
refill her glass and the conversation resumed. She told him about how she was
considering standing for election at the Union, and he seemed interested. He
told her about a recent holiday to Eastern Europe. Within minutes, she could
barely remember what Katie had been talking about.

“It’s getting late,” George said. “Your friends don’t look
ready to move. Perhaps I should take you back to college.”

Harriet wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but she couldn’t
resist spending some time along with George.

She quickly explained the situation to Caroline and Ben who were
sitting alone, utterly entranced by one another but making no moves to take it
further. Caroline gave her a quick thumbs up as she set off. She was intensely
aware of George’s presence beside her, and was wondering what his next move
would be.

It was dark by this point, and the pale stones of the city’s
ancient buildings glowed in the moonlight. Harriet stood for a moment enjoying
the magical atmosphere that Oxford could cast over the most ordinary evening,
and especially over a night in which love was potentially in the air. It was
however intensely cold and she was keen to get inside. As though he’d read her
mind, George turned to her, slipped off his jacket and helped her into it.

“Won’t you be cold?” she asked, the gesture having left him
wearing only his old fashioned shirt.

He smiled. “I don’t tend to feel it.”

They began to walk towards her college. Harriet’s heart was
racing at the thought of what might happen when they arrived, but she tried to
focus on the night air, the city’s beauty, and the company.

The fifteen minute walk seemed to Harriet to have only taken
about five. The Porter’s Lodge was closed, so they followed the stone walls
around to the late gate, a smaller entrance which students had their own keys
for. It was still a heavy wooden door, so George helped her push it open. He
froze at the entrance.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he said.

“Well I thought that went without saying,” Harriet replied,
“but I’m touched that you’ve decided to be so polite.”

George made the usual comments about how lovely the college
was, whilst Harriet desperately tried to reach a decision on whether she was
going to ask him up to her room. The atmosphere had been so charged all night
that it seemed quite clear what would happen if she did. Was that what she
wanted? She wasn’t sure.

Suddenly, she had an idea. “There’s all this woodland that
goes around the outside of the college, by the river. It’s called the Steele
Walk. How about we have a little stroll around that? It’s really cool at this
time of night.”

George looked intrigued by the idea, so Harriet continued.

“Wait there and I’ll quickly go to my room. I can get a
picnic blanket and some wine and crisps and then we can wander. There’s a
bridge over the river that’s an amazing picnic spot day or night.”

“Midnight picnics. I can see you’re a girl after my own
heart. I’ll come with you to your room first though.”

Harriet laughed and shook her head. “Aw, very persuasive.
But honestly, I’ll be five minutes. Go and sit on that bench and wait.”

George had a puzzled expression. “Are you sure?”

“Quite sure,” she replied, enjoying the gentle power
struggle. “I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

With that, she disappeared into the staircase. As she
entered, she heard the inevitable sound of a party coming from Tom’s room, and
despite her feeling of triumph at how things were going with George, she felt
annoyed again at the way he’d blanked her all term. As she was musing on this
subject, Tom himself appeared in the hallway.

“Hey you, having a party?” she asked, too happy about the
evening’s events to stick to her usual plan of ignoring him. Even amidst her
excitement at meeting George, she couldn’t help noticing his perfection, from
his tight jeans to his perfect sculpted face, all cheekbones and full lips.

“Yes. I ought to be getting back to it,” he replied, and
immediately disappeared into his room. She wondered again just what she had
done to upset him. His behaviour seemed to go beyond indifference to outright
dislike and avoidance of her.

“I ought to have taken a chance on inviting George in here,
just to show him,” she muttered under her breath.

Still fuming she climbed the dramatic staircase to her room,
marvelling once more at the scale and the grandeur. It only took a few seconds
to grab her blue woollen picnic blanket from the top of her wardrobe and a
bottle of chardonnay from her tiny fridge. Once she’d sorted everything, she
raced back down the stairs.

She was slightly concerned that George would have
disappeared, unpredictable as he seemed to be, but mercifully, he was still
sitting where she had left him. He was frowning slightly, as though thinking
something over that he couldn’t quite understand.

“Are you okay?” Harriet asked, concerned.

Noticing her presence, he snapped out of whatever strange
mood he had been in, took the blanket and wine from her, and offered her his
free hand. With a rush of excitement that she hadn’t misread his signals, she
took his hand and he gripped hers firmly.

The Steele Walk was quite an eerie place even in the
daylight, but Harriet loved it. To get onto it, she had to use her key to open
a huge cast iron gate emblazoned with the college crest. Despite being only
minutes away from the college and the town centre, the Steele Walk had an
almost magical way of making people feel that they were in the middle of
nowhere, lost in some rural idyll. The lights of the college disappeared from
view and the only illumination came from the moon and its reflection on the
river.

It grew steadily colder. Harriet was relieved that George had
given her his jacket, but concerned that he must be freezing. He certainly
didn’t show it, cracking jokes and pulling her closer into him with each step.
There was a narrow irregular path, with huge trees on either side. The Steele
Walk was circular, broadly following the river, which at points was only a few
steps away. It was necessary to walk very carefully, which, whilst slightly
nerve-racking, had the bonus of requiring them to stand close and to hold onto
each other.

Eventually, they reached Harriet’s favourite place. The path
opened out slightly, to reveal a small, rickety looking bridge over the water.
She dashed onto it and beckoned to George to follow.

He shook his head. “Come down. Let’s spread out the blanket
here and have a drink and a rest. You can’t do that on a bridge.”

Harriet wanted to stay on the bridge. For the last few
minutes, she’d been creating a grand fantasy in which they kissed, high above
the river. She could hardly think of a more romantic scenario. She considered
arguing the point, but felt her legs moving almost of their own volition, and
she returned to stand beside George on the path.

That’s better,” he said with evident relief. He took a few
steps off the path into the trees and beckoned Harriet to follow.

“George, let’s not go so far. It’s really dark away from the
path and we don’t know what’s in those trees.”

George laughed. “It’s perfectly safe. We’re basically five
minutes away from your bedroom. And I have excellent night vision.”

And I’ve just remembered that I’ve only met you once
before in my life, the only report I’ve had on you was highly negative, and now
we’re alone in a dark wood
. Harriet had a sudden sense of panic. The
college might only be a few minutes away, but that was too far for anyone to
hear her scream.

Calm down. He’s just a student. At worst, he might be a
little sleazy; he’s hardly going to be a rapist or a murderer. Whatever Katie
was trying to imply.

“Come and sit down.”

Harriet had the same odd feeling she’d had when coming off
the bridge, of her mind and body being entirely at odds with each other. She
sat down on the spread out blanket, right by George. He put his right arm
around her and she instantly felt calmer, as well as feeling ridiculous for
having panicked so much.

“This is a beautiful spot,” George said dreamily. “I’m
tempted to say something cheesy like ‘nearly as beautiful as you’”

Harriet laughed. “Go ahead. I’m all for cheesy romance. When
it’s coming from the right person at least.”

“The right people being arrogant, entitled toffs, clearly.”
With that, he drew her even closer and kissed her.

Harriet closed her eyes and kissed him back. It was perfect.
A feeling of warmth began to spread all through her body despite the evening’s
coldness.

After a few glorious minutes of this, George pushed her back
onto the rug. She briefly considered resisting before giving up and deciding to
go with the flow. His kisses became harder and more urgent, as he pressed down
on her, pushing her into the woodland floor. One hand cradled her head whilst the
other ran up and down her body. She shivered slightly as a hand slipped under
her dress and began to lightly stroke her thighs. One tiny, conscious part of
Harriet’s brain was shocked that she was allowing someone she’d met only a few
hours previously to do this, but the rest of her mind was a blur of excitement
and arousal. She made no attempt to protest, instead running one hand under his
shirt to feel the muscles in his back, and twisting his pale hair around the
fingers of the other. She wondered dimly how far she was going to let this go
but couldn’t see herself making a move to stop things anytime soon.

Harriet quickly began to feel that she was nothing but a
pile of nerve endings, and was desperately hoping that George would stop toying
with her and move his delicate fingers a little higher up her leg. Instead,
George lifted himself onto his elbows and looked down at her. Keeping himself
propped on one arm, he stroked her face with his free hand and stared into her
eyes. Harriet began to feel that the wood was spinning, and briefly remembered
Katie’s warning about girls with no memories. Quickly however, all her worries
stopped. She wasn’t sure quite where she was, but felt entirely safe and calm.
Her only conscious thought was wanting George.

Without breaking eye contact, he tilted her head back and
began to stroke her neck. Harriet felt completely detached from what was going
on as George felt for a pulse and ran his fingers up and down the vein. The
movement was incredibly relaxing and Harriet let her eyes close.

A second later, she felt a sharp pain on her neck where his
fingers had been. The pain quickly faded, to be replaced with a slight feeling
of pressure in the same place, and an enormous feeling of pleasure spreading
through her whole body. For a few moments, she didn’t dare open her eyes, and
wasn’t sure she’d be able to if she tried, but eventually she forced herself to
confirm what she’d thought but hadn’t believed could be real.

George’s head was bent over her neck. He was sucking hard –
drinking her blood. At first, the absolute terror fought with the incredible
sensations she was feeling. Quickly however, common sense prevailed over
enchantment and she began to scream.

“Get off me. Stop it. What the hell are you doing?” she
shouted, trying to push George away. As soon as she did so, the enchantment
broke and she felt the pain she’d expect from someone biting down on her hard.
Trying to move him physically was impossible, but as she continued to shout, he
sat up in shock.

“You’re awake? How?”

“What do you mean how? What kind of psycho are you? Let me
go George!”

George still straddled her and kept his arms either side of
her body so that she couldn’t move, but his drawling voice was gentle. “Calm
down Harriet. I don’t want to hurt you. I just need to feed. Now I’ve started,
I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to stop.”

Harriet fell quiet, and he went back to stroking her face.

“Now, either you continue to struggle and it hurts worse
than anything, or you can relax and let me work my magic and it’ll be better
than the best sex you’ve ever had. After which, we can actually have the best
sex you’ve ever had, or you can wander back to your room. You’ll be a bit dazed
and confused, feel a bit weak for a few days, but it won’t do you any real
harm. Now what do you say?”

Harriet couldn’t think of a rational answer. She wished
desperately that things could go back to how they’d been ten minutes
previously.

Before she could speak, George was dragged off her. “What
the fuck are you doing?” shouted his assailant.

Harriet tried to take advantage of the moment to get up and
run, but her legs felt too weak. She realised that she must have lost more
blood than she’d thought.

She turned instead to watch the confrontation. To her
amazement, her rescuer was Tom.

Gripping George, he screamed at him, “You don’t know who
you’re dealing with.”

In the semi-darkness it was difficult to see exactly what
was going on, but George appeared shocked, as though Tom had been entirely
unreasonable in stopping his attack.