Pyromaniacs at Midnight
an excerpt

Its not that she doesn’t like Stephen, thinks Meryl as she presses the cold glass bottle to her lips. He’s just rather lovely as a person but she cannot ever imagine wooing him, like you’d woo a lover. She’s seen how Elissa and Brandon are with each other, and it doesn’t seem the same. The vodka, pepper-infused and therefore deeply spicy, burns her throat and makes her feel like sneezing, but it makes her brain fuzzy and warm. The alcohol heats up her stomach and makes her feel like dancing, and so she does, in the privacy of her shared dorm room. Arii is often absent, away at her friends’ or sister’s room. She twirls and balances on one foot for a moment, but she’s wobbly and over-extends, and falters. Another press of the bottle for her one-person embarrassment, no one’s watching her but she feels like there should be people watching her, in her white socks and dark rolled-up jeans and sloppy grin. She takes up dancing again, moving quickly through the pepper-infused air, feet making soft noises against the carpet. She just wants to kiss Stephen, she thinks, kiss his sticky mouth (as she imagines it would be sticky and hot) and then perhaps trail a hand down his back, for good measure. That’s not like wanting him in her bed, wanting him like the Prince of Charmont wanted the Princess of Elessander. Those two got caught in one of the swan-boats in Pygmy Lake, the Princess’ skirt up around her tight creamy thighs and the Prince’s very moist fingers hastily wiped on his doublet, but they got married and everyone thought it was very romantic anyway. Although, Meryl thinks a bit drunkenly, it couldn’t have been very romantic at the time, the swan-boats have very hard floors and benches. And it was winter when they were caught, she remembers, it was cold then. The Princess must have been freezing and ashamed when she was standing in front of her regent, a sharp, nearly cruel man who must have looked very disapprovingly down his long nose at her.