Burning Desire

An unfortunate modern day fairy tale.

Once upon a time, there was a very regular girl who was very influenced by society; her name was Mary. Mary was a brunette who dyed her hair blonde, that’s what all the girls do. Mary was a size six but she wore a size four, that’s what all the girls do. And Mary didn’t eat carbs, that’s what all the girls do. Mary’s really happy; she just entered her first year of college. Mary does all these things that normal girls do, she goes to movies, drinks every weekend, and has the occasional illicit drug.

 

Mary didn’t know how unfulfilling her life was until she met her Prince Charming: his name is John. She used to believe that she was happy, but things changed once she met John, she knows that John is the one who completes her.

 

John is a charmer, he charmed the undies right off her. Mary isn’t the smartest girl academically, but she’s still doing John’s homework while he gets high on her bed. Once she finishes doing his homework, she moves over to the bed, expecting a reward for her generosity. John kisses her on the cheek, takes one more puff of his joint and tells her to get on top of him.

 

John charms all the ladies. He had three girlfriends at the college. But it’s a big college. It’s not like they would ever figure it out.

 

Mary is a regular girl. Mary gets caught up in having a boyfriend and leaves her friends behind. Or they leave her. People move around in college. Everyone has one friend. It is a place to be you.

 

But the college connects itself. Everyone is connected, if not by classes and friends, than by the Internet. The college has a page where people post to tell other people around the college that they’ve been “spotted”. It’s supposed to be a good thing.

 

These college kids are always connected.

 

One night, one of John’s other girlfriends, Regan, gets pissed when he says he won’t sleep over at her place because he needs to do homework. He picks up is books and leaves her room. Leaving Regan still getting dressed.

 

Regan throws on the first clothes she finds on her floor, black sweat pants and a black sweater. She runs out of her room to catch a glimpse of John’s foot getting onto the elevator. She runs to the stairs and races down them. She peeks around the corner and watches John as he steps out of the elevator and into the hall.

 

Backpack hanging by one strap on his shoulder, John moves through the halls on the ground to the next student residence over, where he does not live. He steps onto the elevator for this building. After he gets in and pushes the floor he wants to get to, the doors close. Regan moves out of the shadows and stands in front of the elevator until the glowing red numbers show her which floor he goes to. 2…3…4…5… 6…No further…

 

Regan pushes the elevator button and the second elevator that was already on the ground chimes open. She enters and pushes the button six. She hasn’t decided yet if she’s sad or pissed. Asking herself a million questions by the time she gets to the sixth floor. She looks at the shoes that stand outside these room doors.

 

She knows John’s shoes, she once spent a whole entire night staring at them as John flipped her over the bed and refused to do any other positions that night. And he only owns one pair of shoes. His shoes are black with blue sides and broken toes that are almost ripped apart.

 

There they are, sitting outside room 626, sitting next to a pair of ugly Toms. Regan sneers at the footwear choice of his mistress. She looks up at the actual door. A pink sparkly nameplate announced that this room belongs to a s**t named Mary.

 

Regan wastes no time and starts texting, messaging, tweeting, and calling her friends to tell him that some s**t named Mary has deceived John into cheating on Regan.

 

These college kids are always connected.

 

Before Mary and John woke up together in the morning, the whole college knew that Mary was a boyfriend stealing w***e and that John was a poor man whose been mislead into cheating with her. John was forgiven for his actions immediately and returned to Regan begging for her love. Regan accepted his apologies in the form of sexual favours.

 

Mary was a wreck. John stopped talking to her and she had nowhere to turn but inward now that her whole world has fallen apart.

 

A few days pass and John stops receiving crying phone calls from Mary begging him to come see her. No one else noticed she wasn’t around. Her friends had left her. Or she had left her friends.

 

Mary’s room was trashed. Her lamp was demolished; her mirror had been sprinkled over the floor. Mary’s phone was sitting in a full sink and her laptop had been used as a bat to destroy her vanity table, all her makeup has been smashed, her makeup resembled paint if the vanity would be a canvas.

 

Mary was lying on her bed, she was curled up with her knees to her face and she looked skinny. Not a good skinny.

 

After a few days of wishing herself dead, Mary sits up and walks to the lounge in her building and uses the payphone to call John and apologize. She tells him he has an essay due tomorrow and she has printed it out for him. John tells Mary she is forgiven and he will be over at eight tonight.

 

John knocks on Mary’s door and she lets him in. He isn’t able to notice the state of her room before she hits him over the head with her laptop and he is knocked out.

 

When John comes to, he is tied up on Mary’s bed and gaged with a scarf. Mary was pouring a liquid around the bed and laughing to herself. Mary climbs onto the bed with John and smiles at him. Kisses him on the cheek and flicks her lighter, then lets it fall to the floor. John tries to scream as the room goes up in flames but he can’t let out more than a muffled sound no louder than a buzzing phone.