Maslow's Needs

by Sheri Gilmore

  His long fingers smoothed over the top of his head where strands of black hair had escaped his ponytail.

  Her fingers itched to feather through the silky mass. Instead, she curled them tight into a fist to resist the temptation. “I’m not frightened of you.”

  “No?” He stepped within an inch of her. His eyes widened, and the look he gave her prevented her from moving away.

  Touch your clit.

  Jessi gasped at the sound of his voice in her mind. He’d done this earlier at the club, but how? She squared her shoulders. “No.”

  The compulsion to do what he suggested increased, as did the intensity of his gaze. Her hands and arms shook, but she kept her fingers in tight fists against her thighs. She could see the muscles along his jaw clench and unclench with his concentration.

  Touch ... your ... clit. Now!

  She jumped at that last command. Before, the words had been mere whispers, running through her thoughts in such a way that she wasn’t sure were real. But this last had resounded like a shout in her mind. She tried to fight the order, but found herself obeying what his voice had instructed.

  She shut her eyes. I will not give in.

  Her fingers unfurled on her right hand.

  I will not ‑‑ her hand inched closer to the zip of her jeans ‑‑ give in.

  A trickle of sweat beaded its way down the side of her face. She swallowed hard. I will not ... She gasped at the touch of her fingers against the throb of her clit. Her eyes snapped open. Drayden stood in front of her.

  With a quick dip of his head, his lips brushed hers, then he stepped away from her, heading toward the door. Splinters surrounded the knob where he’d kicked the door in earlier to get to her.

  “I’m not a gentle lover. I like my sex hot and rough.” He turned. “I expect my lovers to submit to all my needs ... unconditionally.”

  The smugness disappeared to be replaced with a look of resignation. “You would be smart to be afraid.” He turned the knob. “We can make you do whatever we want, whether you wish it or not.”

  Jessi watched him disappear. She slid down the wall to sit on the floor, wrapping her arms around her shaking legs.

  Chapter Six

  Drip.

  The annoying sound grew louder.

  Drip.

  She stepped around a large crate, which had been pushed against the side of the warehouse wall to make a clearing for whatever party had happened earlier. Debris, food, and liquor bottles littered the area. Out of the corner of her eye she could make out dark, furry shapes scurrying across the dusty concrete floor. She glanced to her right, then her left, in case one of the beasts decided she would make a good snack.

  She rubbed her arms against the stale, damp air. The building smelled musty, like it hadn’t been used in a while before tonight. Why was she here?

  Drip.

  Jessi squinted into the darkness, finally making out an indistinguishable shape a few feet in front of her. She swallowed around the knot in her throat, which grew larger with every step she took. She closed her eyes and ordered her feet not to move closer. She didn’t want to know what the shape on the floor was.

  “H-Hello?” Her voice echoed and crashed off the building’s metal walls. A shrouded figure skulked forward from the shadows where the rats had dispersed, but wouldn’t enter the circumference of dim light surrounding the lump in front of her.

  She glanced at the form on the floor, then back to the figure. “W-Who are you?”

  Drip.

  “What do you want?”

  The figure remained stationary, but an orb of gold and silver formed beside him, rotating in mid-air. The soft whir blended with the occasional drip from the lump on the floor. With each rotation, the orb grew larger and brighter; the drip grew louder and louder.

  Jessi covered her ears. She shut her eyes tight, occasionally peeking at the rotating orb. Inside the circle, a solitary pentacle formed. The figure raised a hand and pointed at the lump on the floor. Look.

  Jessi shook her head, terrified when she realized the thing hadn’t spoken out loud, but in her mind.

  Look!

  Jessi turned toward the blob on the floor. Of their own volition, her feet moved forward. A soft, keening whine sounded from deep within her chest. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to see ... who ... lay in front of her.

  The lump took the form of a body ‑‑ twisted and deformed in death ‑‑ chained like an animal to a metal U-bolt attached to the cement floor. Its sallow skin lay sunken around delicate bones. Dark shadows pitted beneath the corpse’s eyes and cheekbones. Slashes, deep and angry, covered the once beautiful body. A container sat positioned beneath a gash in her neck to catch the last of her life-force ‑‑ one drip at a time. Oooh!

  “Molly.” Jessi whispered into the now icy air as recognition flashed through her, her breath emitting into a swirl of smoke. “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry.”

  She lowered to her knees beside her cousin. With trembling fingers she reached out and stroked the dead girl’s hair, which lay mottled with dried blood, then searched for her hand. The feel of her skin, cold like gelatinous rubber, sent chills down Jessi’s spine. She closed her eyes and would have let the hand drop, but all at once chains rattled and strong fingers gripped hers.

  Jessi’s eyes snapped open to stare into eyes, glazed over with the white film of death, centimeters from her face. A scream formed, but wouldn’t release from her throat. Her horror forced her heart to skip a beat, then resume its wild tattoo.

  As if in slow motion, the girl on the floor opened her mouth. Her breath was stale with the coppery odor of blood. Her hand reached up to caress Jessi’s cheek.

  Jessi turned her head and gagged against the smell and the sight of the deep puncture wounds in her cousin’s chest. “Oh, God, please. Get me out of this!”

  The corpse retained her grip on Jessi’s hand and grasped her chin with the fingers of her other hand to turn Jessi’s face.

  Jessi watched the girl’s mouth move to form unspoken words, which resonated in muffled tones through Jessi’s mind. Fiiiind ... myyyy ... kiiiiillller.

  “W-Who did this to you?”

  The corpse’s head crunched and turned around on its body to face the shrouded figure, who stepped out into the light.

  Jessi pushed with her feet and tried to remove her hand from the girl’s grasp, but the grip tightened. She glanced at the shrouded figure, not sure she could stomach anymore gruesome exploits.

  The figure reached two hands up to remove its cowl, revealing an unknown face. Blue eyes burned fever-bright with madness, and a hideous snarl revealed a row of fangs, top and bottom ‑‑ the face of a killer vampire.

  Jessi screamed.

  Molly’s answering scream turned to laughter. Her grasp on Jessi released. Jessi scooted across the dusty, dirty floor to the wall. Molly’s head twisted. A pale finger pointed in Jessi’s direction.

  In a blur of motion, the vampire crouched in front of Jessi, his face close to hers. He nuzzled her cheek, then lower, against her neck. A taloned finger traced the front of her blouse to her breast.

  Jessi shut her eyes tight and turned her head away from the vicious teeth, nipping her skin. A cold, wet tongue slid over the top of her breast ‑‑

  “No!” She jerked and kicked to gain her freedom.

  * * * * *

  Jessi woke with a start. Her heart pounded like a drum. It was just a dream.

  “Hell, it was a fucking nightmare.”

  The room lay in darkness. The only light she could discern came from down the hallway. She left the kitchen utility light above the stove on every night in case she had to go to the bathroom. She listened for any sound out of the ordinary, but everything seemed normal. She released a deep sigh, but gave up hope of forgetting her nightmare. The scenes had been too real, too vivid. She shifted onto her hip.

  “Ahh.” Her entire body throbbed with pain. The memory of her cat fight and her fall rushed to greet her, followed
by her escapade with Drayden. “Jeezy Pete, Jessi, could you royally fuck up any worse?”

  Trying to keep from jarring her bruised joints any further, she scooted to the edge of the mattress and eased one leg at a time over the side. Standing took another five minutes. The bruise on her back had her hunched over, while the cuts on her hands and chin stung and pinched against the gauze that covered them. Taking small steps, she hobbled across the room and out into the hall on the way to the bathroom.

  Her reflection in the bathroom mirror had her taking a second look. “Night of the Living Dead. Ugh.”

  Her hair lay in tangled strands around a pale face, with several reddened scratches on her chin and neck. She reached for her brush, then dropped it when her fingers tried to wrap around the handle. Pain lanced up her arm, and she grabbed her elbow. The cuts and bites throbbed. Her muscles had stiffened while asleep.

  Not wanting to experience the pain of trying to grip her toothbrush, she squirted a dab of toothpaste on her finger and swished the minty gel around her mouth with a gulp of cold water, then spit the remains in the sink. Running hot water, she dabbed her fingers and scrubbed her eyes. Feeling a little more human, she made her way to the kitchen, not bothering with lights. Living alone had some rewards. She didn’t have to trip over anyone else’s mess when she came home or got up in the middle of the night.

  The refrigerator hummed in the still night air. She pulled the door open and stared at a box of leftover pizza from three days before. “Yuk.”

  She stared for several more seconds, then lifted out a piece and grabbed a can of diet soda. Popping the top on the soda can, she headed for the living room, which lay in darker recessed shadows.

  The phone rang; the pizza hit the floor.

  “Damn!” Jessi rose on her tiptoes to keep the soda from spewing onto her bare feet. Shaking the carbonated drink from her fingers, she set the can on the counter and grabbed the phone.

  “Yeah, what?”

  A pause ensued that was followed by her new lieutenant’s voice. “Do you usually answer the phone with such a pleasant attitude?”

  Jessi bent over and picked the pizza off the floor. She turned to the dim light of the stove range and held her supper up for inspection. Pulling one piece of lint off her pepperoni, she took a bite. Between chews, she answered. “Yes, sir, I do when it’s ‑‑” She looked at the clock on the oven and stifled a groan. “‑‑ two-thirty in the morning.”

  “You got anything for me, detective?” His slight humor had vanished, but that didn’t faze Jessi.

  “No, sir.”

  “Just what the hell have you been doing with that vampire hunter all week?”

  “Konstantinos is not a vampire hunter, sir. He’s an author on the occult view of vampires.” She took another bite of pizza. “Real vampires.”

  “And?”

  She cradled the phone with her shoulder and grabbed the soda. Taking a swig, she washed the pizza down her throat. “Well, we’ve visited most of the clubs where the vampire scene hang out, but haven’t found any new leads on the suspect.”

  “What about Drayden Maslow?”

  Her heart thudded to a stop. “W-What about him?” Surely the lieutenant didn’t know that she and Dray‑‑

  “Is he still a suspect?”

  “No, sir, I don’t think he had anything to do with the girl’s murder.” She bit her lip, but continued. “He does know something, though.”

  “Well, stick to him like glue. You hear? I want this case wrapped up in the next couple of weeks. It looks bad on the entire goth community.” He sighed, and Jessi wondered if he was thinking of his daughter. “For the most part, they mind their own business and keep a low profile.”

  “Yes, sir.” The phone went dead. She hung up the receiver. “Like glue.”

  Jessi turned toward the sink, and a sharp pain radiated from her butt into her hip and back. With a gasp, she reached back and massaged her right buttock with her fist. Feeling the knot ease up, she arched her back to stretch and ... burped.

  “Excuse you.”

  “Holy shit!”

  Jessi jumped at least a foot off the ground at the sound of the male voice coming from the shadows of the living room. “D-Drayden?”

  Silence. “No. Were you expecting him?”

  Konstantinos.

  “You said you were going out.”

  “I did. Now I’m back.” His tall form emerged from the dark, with his face illuminated by the glow of the stove light. Shadows lay, deep and eerie, beneath his eyes and cheekbones. He looked downright ... spooky.

  Jessi swallowed hard and tried to force her heart to quiet. The fact he’d been sitting there watching her all this time ...

  “Uh, you didn’t see ‑‑?” She pointed toward the pizza and the phone.

  “Everything.”

  “Everything?”

  He put his arm around her shoulders and guided her over to the sofa. “From you eating pizza off the floor to you scratching your ass.”

  “I did not scratch my ass.”

  “That’s what it looked like from where I was sitting.” His deep voice held a heavy note of humor.

  Great! Now she had two goths laughing at her. She shrugged his arm off and sat down. “I didn’t hear you knock.” She frowned. “How’d you get in?”

  He sat in the chair next to the sofa. “I did knock, but you didn’t answer, so I tried the handle. Your door has been damaged.”

  “Yeah.” She took a bite of pizza, stifling a smile at his visible cringe. So, he didn’t eat off the floor ‑‑ that was good to know. “Drayden busted it earlier.”

  “Drayden?”

  She saw his body stiffen in the darkness.

  “Why did he bust your door in ... and what happened to your hands?” He sat beside her in a blink of an eye. “What did he do to you?”

  The low menace in his voice shivered over her, and for a second all she could do was sit there and stare at him. She remembered to chew. When the last bit had been swallowed, she shook her head.

  “He didn’t do anything.”

  A black brow rose and his gaze traveled to her bandages.

  “Oh, it’s nothing. A cat attacked me after you dropped me off.”

  “A cat?”

  She heard the note of disbelief in his voice. “Yes, an alley cat. I heard a noise ‑‑”

  “So, naturally, you went to investigate.”

  “Yes.”

  “Of course.” His hand came up into the air, then fell back onto his thigh. “You need a keeper.”

  “What?”

  “You are not in Podunk, Mississippi. You are in New York City, dammit.”

  “I know where the hell I am, thank you.” She couldn’t decide which rankled more, his cutting tone about her state or her inability to take care of herself.

  “Then use some common sense, Jessi.”

  “I am.” She stood up. “Get the hell out of my house.”

  He didn’t move.

  She stamped her foot. “Now.”

  His response pissed her off more. He leaned back against sofa and stretched his arms across the back.

  “Arghh! You two are the most stubborn, irritating men I’ve ever met.” She turned toward the kitchen. Took two steps and slipped in the cola she’d spilled. That made her angrier. Walking on the heel of her socked foot, she hobbled into the kitchen and grabbed a dish towel, mumbling all the way.

  “Frickin’ Yankee men.”

  “Hey, now.”

  She heard the irritated note, but ignored it. Down on her knees, she wiped the floor. Her head came up. “Frickin’ goth Yankee men.”

  That got him up. He towered above her crouched form. This time his voice wasn’t just irritated. A warning, crisp as the night air, could be heard loud and clear.

  “I don’t appreciate that.”

  She bit her lip, looked at the floor, and wiped. “Yeah, well, I don’t appreciate you saying I can’t take care of myself just because I’m from Podunk, Mis
sissippi.” She swiped the floor again, letting the towel swing wide and hit his boot.

  His hands curled into fists, but he didn’t say anything.

  “I’m from Hattiesburg.” Even to her ears, her words were low and soft. She doubted he heard her. These guys treated her like she might break. Granted, they towered over her, but she was tougher than she looked. Here, they didn’t call her little lady like the men did at home, but they still refused to acknowledge her abilities. She’d always heard how northern men were more liberal and respectful in regards to women’s rights.

  What a crock! Men were men. They liked to think they were in control.

  His long legs bent, and he squatted in front of her with his hands on either side of his knees against the floor, balancing his large frame. “I know where you’re from.”

  “Yeah?” She looked into his eyes. The humor and the anger had disappeared.

  He nodded. “I am angry, because I should have walked you to your door, or at least made sure you got in safely before I left.”

  She stiffened as she felt her irritation build, but he held up his hand.

  “Normally, I wouldn’t argue the fact that you can take care of yourself, but you need a protection spell, like I said earlier.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “Witches and vampires are real. Spells are real. Psychic possession is real.”

  She hesitated to commit to what he wanted to do. His world didn’t make sense to her. She thought of the people she’d met in the clubs this week. Surely not all of them were living in a world of delusion that consisted of witches, vampires, and demons. Neither Konstantinos nor Drayden was insane.

  A sigh slipped past her lips with the memory of Drayden, invading her thoughts, giving her orders. Then there was the nightmare with the feel of her cousin’s dead skin and the smell of her decaying breath.

  She wrapped her arms around herself, not sure she should tell Konstantinos she thought her cousin had been communicating with her. He’d have a field day with that tidbit of information.

  Konstantinos gave a chuckle. “I promise it won’t hurt.”

  Jessi wiped her hands on the thighs of her pajama pants. “Okay.”