HER NIGHTFALL DESIRE

Reacquainted

Isadora took a number of months to establish herself in the area around Atlanta, Georgia. She settled into an upscale, secluded neighborhood in nearby Mableton. As customizations were made to her large estate, she began to familiarize herself with the area. Georgia was a state in which she had never spent much time, though she loved the variety of forest environments that blended into the suburbs and city areas. It was a perfect environment for a vampire, and she wondered why she hadn't visited there before.

She selected an appropriate mode of transportation. Though Atlanta was a large metropolis, it held the opportunity for enjoyable driving experiences. She typically preferred a traditional luxury sedan, but she bought a new jet black Audi sports coupe. It implied fun and speed, without seeming pretentious. The car was sleekly contoured for speed, a style of vehicle that was something entirely new and different for her. Maybe it was that, for the first time in recent memory, she actually felt as young at heart as her nearly thirty-year-old appearance suggested. After only one test drive across the I-20 highway at high speed, she knew that she made the perfect choice. It made her feel playful.

Unlike previous identities, Isadora decided to forgo the diversions of a career. This time she intended to utilize her accumulated wealth to its fullest, allowing her more time to focus on independent projects. She had a couple of diversions in mind, but only one of them had sandy hair and pale blue eyes.

Her careful searching revealed that Joshua was living locally, and she easily located him on the Website for Robert Fulton Community College in downtown Atlanta. Professor Joshua Smith was teaching sections in history for the college as one of their recently-hired faculty members.

Isadora hadn't seen Joshua since he was a pre-teen, when she had secretly attended an evening baseball game at his junior high school. He'd

been a sandy-haired, lanky youth with an awkward manner about him, which she found both endearing and amusing at the time. Years later, she had seen a photo of him standing in the back row of a group of high school baseball team members as part of a newspaper article about their winning the state championship.

She decided to enroll with the college and take the only evening section of U.S. History that Joshua taught in the upcoming fall semester. It'll be fun, she mused. Her last college course was in the 1960s at Pennsylvania State University. Suffice to say, I won't be transferring my transcript, she added with a smirk as she completed the online enrollment application.

It was Monday night and the end of the first day of fall classes at Robert Fulton Community College. Joshua shuffled his lecture notes for about the fifth time as he sat in his closet-sized office that was barely wider than the doorway that led into it. His desk faced a wall-sized window, which at least gave him a view of the campus grounds, though he hated having his back turned to the door. There was barely room for a bookshelf on the right and a narrow computer hutch on the left next to his guest chair. Nevertheless, he was grateful for the opportunity to teach full-time, being twenty-six and fresh out of graduate school. The marketplace had been competitive due to the state's recent poor economic conditions. It was a small community college, serving only about four thousand students each spring and fall semester. But Joshua loved academia, unlike many of his friends who had primarily valued the socialization of their collegiate experiences. Knowledge was a passion, and now a labor of love for him.

He glanced at his watch, realizing his evening class was about to start at eight-thirty: the last section of the day, as luck would have it. He picked up his notes and textbook and made his way upstairs down the simple-tiled hallway lined with classrooms. His was Room 203 on the left about midway down the hall.

When he walked into the classroom on that first evening, he glanced around at the faces before him. There were four rows of tables and chairs split on two sides by an aisle up the middle, to accommodate up to thirty- two students. Only twenty-one were enrolled, and he had been warned by the associate dean to expect two or three students to drop.

There were a variety of stories represented in the faces he saw. Some were younger high school graduates trying to start their college career with poor ACT/SAT scores who couldn't yet qualify for university admission. Others were working adults striving to get an educational edge or promotion in their careers. A few others were interested in avoiding the large general education class sizes of Georgia State for a more intimate setting. There appeared to be a half-male, half-female distribution, and he noted that it was his first class that semester that didn't have anybody sitting in the back row.

After welcoming everyone to his Early American History class, he began calling roll, glancing up at each face in turn to try and associate names with faces: Bibbons, Cosby, Darby, Franks...

Isadora was running late. She had nearly forgotten to get a textbook and was making her way from the college bookstore with her notepad and text in hand. She wasn't sure whether she would actually attend the entire course, her main interest being the opportunity to see Joshua after so many years and listen to him lecture. Her curiosity intensified as she mulled her prolonged absence in his life.

Absence, Isadora chastised herself. As if I've had any real part in his growth or development. Any tie that she felt to him was solely based upon the memory of his youthful aid on that fateful summer day. Aside from killing his abusive father, she had merely played the role of an anonymous financial benefactor for him and his mother. After that, she'd restricted herself to only watch from a distance. Nothing more. But then, wasn't that the plan, to stay out of his life and allow him the opportunity to grow up in a "normal world?" Her previous attempts to develop close relationships with humans always ended badly and, more often than not, fatally for the humans in question.

Isadora broke from her reverie, darted into the classroom as roll was being called, and slipped into a chair at the back of the room. Then her green eyes darted towards the front, following the sound of what had to be Joshua's very mature-sounding voice.

When her eyes settled on the fit young man standing at the podium, she arched one eyebrow in surprise. The Website photo didn't do him

justice. His features were accented by a masculine, yet gentle face framed by neatly-maintained sandy brown hair. She was happy to see that his eyes were still the beautiful, pale blue that she remembered from when he was a child, though she readily admitted the term "child" hardly applied to the strapping man that stood at the front of the classroom.

His conservative navy blue slacks and tie looked professorial, while his white Oxford shirt fit snugly to his muscled chest, further accentuating his athletic build. Joshua's pleasing appearance was completely unexpected, and she felt an immediate dual desire rise within her. Part of her appreciated him sexually, while another part was sizing up her prey. She still considered humans as prey, even though her hunting activities were curbed many years ago by the easy access to blood bank supplies. Somehow blending into society was easier if she weren't being hunted by humans for draining people of their blood.

Oh Joshua, how you've changed since I last saw you, she contemplated as another wave of desire washed through her.