Scented Lust

by Jacqueline Turner Banks

  “And that would be the Bible and the cr. . . did you say my world?”

  He put the beer can on the naked cocktail table and looked at the front door. She started to say something about using a coaster, but he put his index finger up to his lips to indicate that she should shush.

  “They’re out there,” he whispered.

  She didn’t hear anything but the loud ticking of her kitchen clock. Jordan looked at the door and sat very still, hoping she would hear something, anything. When she looked back at where he should have been, he wasn’t there.

  “They’re going around the back,” he whispered. As close as he sounded, she figured he was standing behind the sofa.

  “How do you. . .?” She didn’t finish because she figured she must have blinked or something. She was still sitting on the sofa alone, but he was across the room in the kitchen, standing next to the back door doing that same thing with his palm.

  She jumped. Shock and confusion were stronger than the urge to scream. There was movement in her peripheral vision. It was him, moving his palm, still flat against the door but touching different spots.

  It took her fifteen seconds to stand up and walk to the kitchen—she knew because she counted. There was no way he got there the same way. Leaning against the stove, she decided to watch him carefully. Blinking was no longer an option.

  She studied him until her eyes watered and he seemed to move at the same speed as anybody else. It was a good thing she was observing him so intently. If she hadn’t been watching, she might not have seen the head—actually, face—that came through her closed back door.

  She screamed. Actually she screamed and crouched. At the moment she wouldn’t have been able to say why she crouched, but later she imagined it had something to do with growing up in the inner city. The man probably saw her, because she was straight ahead of him, but not Artest, who was standing on the other side of the cross. Artest pulled a knife out of . . . actually she didn’t know where the knife came from, but it was there in his hand when a bony leg in gray slacks started coming through the door.

  “Get out of here now!” he screamed at her.

  She looked at him in time to see him plunge the knife into the leg. When she stopped running, she was in the bathroom. It took her a moment to catch up with her thoughts. It was like one of those moments when a person gets up, goes to the refrigerator and opens it and then has to stand there to remember why. Jordan looked around the bathroom—and then she remembered. There it was on the back of the toilet. She picked it up and ran back to the kitchen.

  Artest was shocked to see her returning. He started to say something but noticed what she had in her hands.

  “Great, put it right here, under the cross!”

  There was blood on her door, verification that she hadn’t imagined that leg or the knife. She placed the gold-colored Buddha under the cross, touching the door.

  He hugged her—totally unexpected, but appreciated. “That’s big enough,” he said in her ear, “they can’t come in around that, I don’t care how thin he is.”

  That scent of lavender, which she hadn’t stopped smelling since leaving his place, seemed to be coming from him. Considering that neither of them had had time to shower, she wondered how she smelled.

  Since the next time she looked at him he was out of her arms and getting another beer, she didn’t have to think about it.

  “You think on your feet. I like that,” he said once they were seated again. “So how did you, a good Christian girl, come to have a Buddha?”

  It unnerved her that he used the exact words of her earlier thought. He took a sip like they might have been at a casual company barbecue, and that bothered her too. Of all the odd things that had happened since they met, that was his question? She knew it probably shouldn’t have, but it made her a little angry. She thought about not answering him and making him answer some of her questions first, but then she made the mistake of looking at him. He smiled at her in a way that made her feel like the only other person on the planet. “It’s a candle burner. I like scented candles.”

  “How did you know it would work?”

  “I remembered you said religious icon, not Christian icon.”

  He nodded and smiled again. He looked like he might have been remembering everything, rehearsing it mentally, so he could tell somebody else. It reminded her of something a proud parent or teacher might do. He didn’t just smile with his mouth. His whole face looked tickled, right on through the top layer of his skin, like if she said one more word about it he would laugh aloud.

  “That’s the last question I’m going to answer until you tell me who’s chasing you and why. And while you’re at it, tell me how we got here, and where is my car?”

  His expression instantly became somber. He took a sip of the beer. “I’ll answer the easiest question first, okay?”

  She nodded.

  “You car is probably in my driveway where you left it after you followed me home last night.”

  She pictured the half-circled street in front of the mini mansion that he so casually referred to as a driveway.

  “You surprised me last night when you said you would follow me. I thought for sure you were planning to give me the slip.”

  Clearly he doesn’t have any mirrors in that big ass house.

  He grinned. “I knew it was an . . . unusual night for you. Even if your friend hadn’t clued me in.”

  She didn’t know if she should thank him or apologize for an amateurish performance.

  Shock briefly registered on his face. Thinking that he had heard something at the door, she waited for him to jump up again. He gave her a look she could only describe as sheepish, and then he took another sip.

  “Jordan, I really enjoyed our time together.”

  He was looking at his feet when he said it, but she assumed they weren’t named Jordan too. He wasn’t wearing sneakers. It was odd how embarrassed he appeared. Until that moment, she wouldn’t have described anything about him as shy.

  “Why aren’t you freaking out? Most women would have by now.”

  “Last night, I told you a little about my life. I’m used to strange things happening, but I have to admit, this has been the strangest twelve hours I’ve ever experienced.”

  “Things must be more interesting at Sac State than I would have thought.”

  It pleased her that he remembered where she taught. “Now that we’ve got the easy one out of the way, will you tell me how a head, or maybe I should say a face, was able to stick itself through my door?”

  “Remember I told you about the stage and backstage stuff?”

  “Ah—yeah, I’m not likely to forget that!”

  “Okay, that’s really all there is to it. He was able to do that because he was within fifty feet of me. We. . . these people aren’t limited to time and space like humans.”

  “Okay, who is he?”

  “His name won’t mean anything to you. I’ll tell you what he is, but I don’t expect you to believe me.”

  “I’m not sure I believe anything that’s happened since about nine o’clock last night, but try me.”

  “He’s a Bloodsucker.”

  “A Bloodsucker?”

  He nodded, again with that shy look in his beautiful dark eyes.

  “Meaning he sucks blood?” she asked.

  “There’s several more names for them, but that’s it in English—all meaning he lives on blood that he sucks from his victims.”

  “Are you trying to say he’s a vampire?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Well that clears it up, Artest!”

  He shifted uncomfortably and leaned forward, fixing his stare on her in a way that embarrassed her for kidding around. “Jordan, true vampires don’t exist. The myths about them grew out of real stories about Bloodsuckers or Sangsue, as we sometimes call them. Most of what you’ve heard is just part of the fable. They can survive in the sunlight, but they do better in the dark because of their unique vision.
They do bite necks, but that’s where the vein is; there are big veins in other parts of the body, and I’ve seen victims attacked from other parts. There are hybrids now, but the original ones were not human.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “They come from a planet in another galaxy that no human could reach within a normal lifetime with technology that exists today.”

  “And you know all this because?” She was pretty sure he was pulling her leg, but she was willing to play along until they got to the truth.

  “I know all this because I share a heritage and maybe a bloodline with them.”

  A chill ran down her spine. Jordan had survived for thirty odd years in environments that were more hostile than nurturing because she had good instincts—instincts that recognized the truth when she heard it. Those instincts were telling her that even if everything else he’d said was false, he did in fact share a bloodline with the beings they were talking about. “Are you saying you’re from another planet?”

  “No, I was born here, but at least one of my ancestors came from that planet.”

  He paused like he expected her to question him, but what could be said about such a thing? She figured if he talked long enough he would either convince her he was crazy or convince her he was telling the truth, but at the current point, she could see the vote going either way. Do I want to know which, she asked herself?

  “Are you familiar with the Dogon culture?” he asked.

  She did a quick brain scan. She knew it was a word she’d heard before, but what she remembered just didn’t seem to make any sense when connected with the man next to her. “Aren’t they in Africa?” she asked. She taught history, but it was American history.

  He looked at her, surprised, with a smile that almost reached his mouth. “Yes, they live in Mali on the river Niger. Most Americans have never heard of us.”

  “What about them?” she asked.

  “I’m Dogon.”

  She looked deliberately at the beautiful man sipping her beer. He was dark, but only in the Caucasian world. There was nothing about him that was black African. If she had to pen his heritage down, she would guess some kind of unique Mediterranean blend. “You’re trying to convince me you’re black African?”

  “No, I’m not trying to convince you of anything, but I can’t explain anything about my life without telling you where I came from.” Something happened in his dark eyes that would have caused a light bulb to illuminate over his head had he been a cartoon character. “I don’t remember a lot about my childhood, but I was born in Mali. I’m losing the image of my parents. I have no memory of my grandparents—it was too long ago. I remember bits and pieces of conversations, but I can’t put faces on the speakers anymore.”

  “How is that possible? I’m probably older than you, and I can remember things that happened before kindergarten!”

  He laughed.

  “What’s funny?”

  “You’re not older than me, Jordan. I don’t know my actual age, I don’t have any documentation, but I first came to this country soon after Jamestown was established, and I was an old man then.”

  They were simple words, spoken in the same soft, seductive voice he’d used in his conversation before, but the truth of it burned like ice in her veins. Jamestown was part of American history—she knew exactly how long ago it was established. As strange as everything had been since meeting him, nothing scared her like that statement. As she mentally repeated it, she felt as if the two drinks she’d had the night before were going to rise up and spill out. Liquid burned in her throat as she held it down.

  Chapter Three

  It wasn’t often that he would admit, even to himself, that he was lonely, but he had been on Friday night. When he felt like that, every pain from every fight caused his body to ache with renewed freshness. There was a time, in the 1980s, when he used a little cocaine, and it, like the opium he used occasionally while living in England in the 1830s, could take away the hurt. He never got the high those around him spoke of so fondly, but both drugs could even out his pain. He often thought he could have become quite hooked on both or either drug if they hadn’t caused him to lose his timing on the day or days that followed. A man like Artest lived or died by his timing.

  On Friday morning he’d woken thinking, I need a woman. In all his years, an orgasm or two had come to be his drug of choice. The right set of circumstances could satisfy him for at least as long as she was in his bed. The right woman could stop the pain for days.

  He was just about to give up when she came in.

  Artest knew when he choose a bar near the university there was a good chance he wouldn’t meet the right kind of women. College girls were adventurous and open, both traits he found exciting. They didn’t ask too many questions about his apparent wealth and seeming lack of employment. Since they were still young and attractive, they didn’t get hung up on the way he looked. Artest had never been comfortable with too much attention about his physical appearance. But he knew college girls could be immature and silly too. When they were insipid young airheads, he found even their voices too tedious.

  He remembered that it had been so much easier in the 1920s and late 1960s. Flappers and hippies were always the best lovers, and they could usually hold an informed conversation too.

  He’d always been attracted to women with darker skin—they reminded him of home. But African-American women tended to be suspicious of the tall, handsome warrior. He figured it was because they didn’t know their own beauty, and they questioned why a man with his outer appearance would find them attractive. He could feel their inner sadness, and it didn’t work for his libido. They couldn’t just relax and enjoy the moment, and his work wouldn’t allow him to take it too seriously. The same wasn’t true anywhere else, not even in Canada, but the vibe ran consistently through black women in the States.

  But she was happy. He felt it as soon as she entered the room. Artest knew her happiness wasn’t shallow, based on her physical appearance—although she was very appealing. There was something in the way she moved that told him she was proud of some recent accomplishment. She was proud of herself.

  He wasn’t the only guy who noticed her and her friend. In a room full of horny twenty- something year old students, the two women stood out. He imagined the other guys saw them as attractive and mature—meaning experienced. But it was that very thing that stopped the college guys from approaching them right away. As the boys tried to drink up the nerve, Artest approached the table and made his announcement.

  “I’m sorry, ladies,” he said. “I’m only going to be able to join you for one drink.” He pulled a seat up to the table, and the waiter stepped up immediately, just as he’d been instructed.

  “You know what I’m drinking,” he told the waiter. “Give the ladies whatever they want for as long as they want, and make sure they get a taxi home after I leave.” He put a platinum credit card in his hand.

  Jordan and her friend exchanged knowing looks, but neither asked him to leave. Male physical attractiveness had its advantage too. Leeana ordered another drink—Jordan passed.

  Before he’d joined them, she’d been reaching out—he’d felt it. It was not normally a feeling that got a response from him, but her reaching didn’t feel needy—it felt welcoming. Artest wasn’t an empath, not a reliable one anyway. It was probably safer to say he had strong empathic tendencies. In a fight, those tendencies could be trusted to anticipate an opponent’s moves. But in just about every other encounter, he wasn’t so sure. Humans were the hardest to read, and females more than males.

  No, Jordan’s pull wasn’t routed in need. To Artest, it felt more like she’d made a conscious decision to try to trust. Before he reached them, he could almost feel her pulling with one hand, but when he was with them he could feel her pushing away with the other hand.

  Both of the women seem to think he was there to meet Leeana. The first fifteen or so minutes were sticky to say the least. Leeana seemed to be an interesting
enough woman, and he found her physically acceptable, but the petite, pale redhead wasn’t even close to being his type. The challenge hadn’t changed since the first time he approached two female friends centuries ago—how to make the one he was interested in aware without insulting her friend. Woman have no idea how difficult they make it for men when they travel in packs.

  Leeana would ask him a question, he would answer, and then he would ask Jordan a similar question. They went around like that for six rounds before Artest finally said to Leeana, “I just thought of a friend who would be perfect for you.”

  She gave Jordan a look that he couldn’t interpret. Jordan announced she was going to the restroom. He expected them both to leave. Women often went in there together, but they didn’t.