August 14, 18__
Frederiche,
The events of which I shall tell you in this letter had laid hidden in the forgotten depths of my mind for years. I hesitate to even put them to paper, but for me to speak of them to you in person as you had implored of me would be impossible, for I fear my mind would not survive such a retelling. but, as you have been insistent in your letters that you learn of that fateful night, I fear I have no choice but to tell of it. but be sure that I do so in warning, not indulgence. my hope is to deter you from your course, lest your own questing curiosity down a path that shall undo you as it had me. For these events were indeed the prelude to my scandalous expulsion from the women's college at the Miskatonic university and the subsequent ruining of my good name and,I fear, that of my very psyche.
It was In the summer of 1884 that I received the letter that would change my life, I had been accepted into the only women's college at the Miskatonic university of Arkham, where I had applied to study a course in biology and botany. but I soon learned upon my attending of the faculty ground how rare a study that was among the women peers of my age and it was a great effort for me to ever find the proper resources to conduct my studies properly. As so, I spent a great deal in the University library which officially was bound to the use for the other colleges but not ours, but said rule I found rarely enforced, and I found myself a regular haunt of the quiet halls of said library.
Our college and dormitories lay a little outside the normal campus, owing to an effort of the strict staff of our faculty to limit the mingling of the students of other colleges with the girls entrusted to their care by usually very reserved fathers. so it was no small trek for me to visit the library, and always I required permission first from the overly protective seniors of our dorm house. and as so I always endeavored to make the most of my visits, usually freeing up my schedule to spend the entire day there and save the time of multiple walks between the part of town where our dorm lay and the campus.
However, on that fateful night, and unbeknownst to me that it would be the circumstance of a great misery that shall befall me, I had in my research been fully absorbed in a great tome of lore on philosophy regarding the nature of plants. and I came not to my senses except when the light had grown too dim to read by and I found myself straining to make the word legible to my eyes.
I startled, for even If I left now and in a hurry, I would make it back to the dorm by midnight and I would surely be greatly reproached for such a behavior, if not getting a detention from ever going to the library again. Besides, a walk down the town at such a time was not a cheery prospect that I looked forward to.
My soul elated when an Idea came to me. Not far from the campus lived the old widow Mrs. Morris, one of the first alumni of our very college and I had with a couple of other girls been given leave to spend a few days with her to help with a history project she was working on in her private time. She knew a great deal of the staff and surely if she was to tell them that she required my help and had not let me go afterwards fearing the lone trek through the night no one would question her validity. and it wasn't yet too late that I could make it to her home within a reasonable hour.
Thus resolved, I hurriedly finished gathering my papers and returning the old tome back to its place and hurried out of the library, weary of watchful eyes.
I was staring at the gargoyle shaped brass door knocker, when the door creaked open and the bolt chain which kept it closed snapped with a clink.
"Ms brown!. Is something the matter?" exclaimed the eye that peered out at me through the crack.
"uh... good evening, Mrs morris. I seem to have stayed a bit late in the library. I'm afraid the dormitories will be closed by the time I make it. I wouldn't want to raise a fuss but if you..."
"Oh .....oh dear. Yes, I imagine so. you can come of course."
The door shut again and then the sound of the bolt slid open and then the door was thrown open and Mrs Morris beckoned me enter.
"Come in. come in"
She was in her nightgown and I feared that I may have disturbed her sleep, but she assured me to not worry and that she was staying up for some light reading.
Mrs Morris lived alone in a two story manor house that she had at a time shared with her late husband, a faculty member of a respectable degree, and her three children.
She offered me a light supper and despite my polite refusal she insisted I join her and we shared a light meal,after which she offered me a glass of wine with a conspiratorial wink and promised not to tell any staff. I wished to impose no further on her hospitality, and she showed me to her youngest son's room where I had spent the nights before when I was helping her with her work. She bid me good night and left for her own room.
I had not a change of clothes on me, and I was not in the habit of carrying a spare night shift to library outings. The idea of imposing on Mrs Morris once again felt unwelcome to me and decided not to. Besides, it was late in May and the nights here in town were not terribly chilly as is the custom in my country home. I was not accustomed to it, but sleeping naked didn't sound such a bad prospect.
So deciding it would be a better solution, I started to undress and ready myself for bed. I wiggled out of my layered skirts and lowered them past my hips till I could easily step out of them. I untucked my white shirt and after the pain of unbuttoning my vest, pulled it up and over my head. I neatly folded all garments and laid them stacked on the nightstand. feeling a chill run up my spine despite the warm night. I stepped out of my shoes and next came my black thigh high stockings, I rolled them carefully down my legs, feeling the draft of air upon my bare smooth skin. it sent a shiver through me as I stood in nothing but my pair of white panties and brassieres, grateful for my past self for the decision to forgo a corset and the pain of squirming out of it.
I divulged myself of the rest of my undergarments save only my pants and quickly blew the candle and slipped under the sheets, as if fearful of prying eyes against my stark nakedness.
I laughed at the absurd thought, the window was shuttered and the door securely shut, it was just a silly thought and I quickly laughed it out of my mind. It must be the unusual situation I was in, which upon reflecting on, I felt a thrill come over me. The conscious thought that had been forming in the back of my mind finally bubbled to the forefront of my thought; I was sleeping naked in a young man's bed.
True, the youngest Morris son hadn't been home for over eighteen months, but still. It felt too much like sharing a room with a stranger and felt nothing like the shared living quarters of the girls' dorms. The room simply... held too much of him, his presence marked within its walls and upon its every aspect; A trunk by the foot of the bed that held his clothing wasn't fully shut, a piece of cloth from a shirt poked out of its corner and stopped the lid from sealing. The night stand by the bed held a distinctive stain where he liked to leave a glass of water by his bed at night. The desk on the opposite wall of the room from my bed (his bed) carried a few stacks of books, their arrangement a mental fingerprint of his preference of reading. It was too dark to read any of the spine titles but I dearly wanted to do so, to get a glimpse of that young man through the ideas that must have formed his early adulthood. But I resolved to not leave the safety of the bed and the comforting modesty of the sheet.
The reminder of the room's decoration, although scarce, was undoubtedly mired by his taste, and despite being subtly enough for me to perceive individually, it still made the room,to my senses, feel like it contained all but the living breathing man himself.
The very mattress underneath me was deformed by the contours of his body. as I pressed my body down along the mattress I could feel he usually rested his shoulders and how deep his back pressed and where, I could sense how much taller than me he was and where he would rest his feet as they dangled over the edge, I felt where his face would press into the pillow where my ear and cheek now pressed and I felt like I could almost smell him.
It had not been the first time I had shared the room with the ghost memory of that young man, and each time it had elicited in me that same thrill that so enraptured my body and mind at the moment. Usually it was much tamer than that, but maybe my state of undress had served to highlight just how much of him I felt around me.
The covers shifted over my naked breasts and it sent an unholy yet not unwelcome shrill over me.
I thought of him often during the previous nights too. When I had come to sleep in this bed the first time, I thought of how often he slept right there, where I lay, his mind forming his own fantasies, I wondered what those fantasies were like and of whom and what they pushed him to do, right there where I slept. or, maybe, if ever he had shared that bed with another, and what they did.
My mind would sometimes stray to more 'self involved' thoughts of him. I wondered What the possibilities of him coming back unannounced for an urgent visit to his dear mother? What if in his care to not disturb her he decides to not wake her and instead wait for the morrow to delight her with his homecoming. What would happen if, tired and travel weary, he opens the door to his room and falls to his much longed-for bed, only to find a young woman soundly curled under his sheets. how embarrassingly scandalous that would be for me.
It's true, I have never actually met the young Mr. Morris. I had only known his mother since the start of the semester in September of last year and he, then, had already been gone for a year barring a brief summer visit. studying in Europe, his mother had explained, and traveling around to sight see when not attending college.
In fact, I didn't even know what the young man looked like beyond his boyish painting that Mrs. Morris kept, along with her other children and late husband, above the mantelpiece.