Thread: English 2352 {DearestDarling & Dane Stalling}

The server didn't even give him a choice. The woman looked like she had worked there since the '70s. She set the cupcake down in front of him and he stared at it, wondering why he had ordered it. Maybe just to have something to look at that wasn't brown or orange or avocado. He touched his tongue to his lips, and then he knew why. He picked up the mug and watched the oily swirls catch the fluorescent lights in a kind of bitter black rainbow. A sip confirmed that it was burned, and had been burning for some time. It was right, though that this mild little hell hole should have its version of brimstone in the form of unlimited refills of appalling black coffee. The devil's coffee to be sure. Rosalie had pulled out the pigtails, and it took him a moment to recognize her, she looked fractionally more grown up, not trying to look so much like jailbait any more. Probably wise in this part of town. She found him and slid in. Luke grinned and shook his head. It had been over and now it wasn't over. She had his tie around her neck, and he found it inexplicably seductive. He thought at first that she would return it to him, but she had a look in her eye that dared him to touch it. Yes, Mephistopheles isn't me, but this is the place for him. I think he's probably here. She's probably here. He grinned at Rosalie. Is it you? Maybe it's not you, not me, but us together. A compound corrupting force looking for souls of easy virtue to consume. He put a spoon in his coffee just to watch the rainbows scatter. I'd hardly call a quick facebook scan extensive research, but you would have liked that, wouldn't you? You're interesting enough for it. He licked his lips again. No, I had a little taste of strawberry earlier, a teaser, and I wanted a little more. So. He ran a finger around the edge of the cupcake and put it in his mouth. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't baked here. He was pretty sure this was a fry-only joint. We are both of us cupcake Mephistopheles, eating it's sweet pink soul, he said, and took her hand, dipped her finger in the frosting and licked it off, lingering a little on the pad of her finger. What would a cupcake exchange its soul for, I wonder? She offered sugar, and it would have made the coffee better. No, he said, this is the coffee I deserve tonight. 'Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness,' as the old dropout said. I'm not a devil, maybe, but I might be half of a devil, and that's severe enough. I was clear about the class, and there are excellent reasons I framed it the way I did, Luke said, peeling the paper off the cupcake. It stuck to the cake and pulled big sections of the cupcake away. What was left looked somehow thin and vulnerable. See, I'd like to keep my job. I like what I do, and maybe you don't appreciate it, but so far, the board is happy with me. They have also told me that what would make them unhappy is anything controversial, titillating, countercultural, or fun. This includes, explicitly, anything by Henry Miller, Anais Nin, Nabokov, and certain books by Joyce, Faulkner, and a handful of others. Your education is a separate entity from your grades. Sometimes the latter reflects the former, but in exceptional cases, the education happens alongside the grades, and is not reflected in them. You don't strike me as the type of girl who wants to do your time, get your diploma, and forget everything you learned. Give me a reasonable counter offer and we'll talk. Otherwise, take Helen's class. She owes me a favor, and she'd take you if I asked her to. He peeled a crumbly cupcake chunk off of the paper. Forget school for a moment. Tell me about the band. I mean, I knew the two songs, but where do the others come from?