Scented Lust

by Jacqueline Turner Banks

  “Yes, I will,” he told her while getting as far away from her as possible.

  Jordan was moving and jerking with each step, jump, and shot the kids took. Artest figured by the time he put the car in gear again she would be exhausted. Watching her was more fascinating than watching the actual game. He no longer questioned his attraction—he knew exactly why he was so smitten.

  She was alive.

  Even while she was out with her friend and using words that claimed no interest in a relationship, every pore in her body was proclaiming life.

  He remembered the way she looked at him when he approached their table. Her eyes sparkled like those of a child watching a magic show. She made multiple assessments about who he could be, and yet she waited to evaluate him based on what he showed her.

  She caught him smiling at her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “What, what?”

  “Why are you looking at me like that? The action is out there.”

  “No, the important action is in here. You make me understand why those old decrepit millionaires can be intelligent enough to amass a fortune and still foolish enough to want to believe that some sweet young thing has fallen in love with them. Looking at you makes me want to believe.”

  “Believe what? What are you talking about, Artest?”

  “Believe everything. Even the stuff I know is not true.”

  “I never know if you’re making fun of me or not.”

  He took her hand and rubbed the back of it against his cheek. “I’m never making fun of you.”

  “You’re a super rich man with more education than a person can get in one lifetime, but you find me interesting. How can I not interpret that as a joke?”

  “Your students are never able to teach you anything?”

  She smiled at him, and another level of lights lit her eyes. “Wow, you’re right. They teach me something every day.”

  “If you really want to learn something, spend time with a toddler.”

  She laughed. “I know. One who is about three and a half and able to express herself well. They see a whole different, wonderful world.”

  The kids reached the end of their game. The boy won, apparently, but it hadn’t been easy. He did a little victory dance before he stole a kiss from the girl’s sweaty cheek.

  “That’s what I like about this new generation. Even at my age, a boy wouldn’t have played me that hard,” she said as they watched them walk away.

  “And you would have wanted him too?”

  “Yes, a woman wants to be taken seriously.”

  With the kids no longer visible, there was a silence in the car that needed to be addressed.

  “So, are we going shopping?” he asked.

  “Do you enjoy shopping?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Guess what? Contrary to popular assumption, all women aren’t shoppers. I don’t like it either.”

  “A woman who doesn’t like to shop. I knew there was something I liked about you.”

  “I’ll tell you what, I don’t want to be stubborn about this, but I take care of my financial needs—that’s what that whole college thing was about!”

  “I’ve heard it before, and I got it,” he interrupted. Her discomfort was incredibly cute, but something was causing the hair on his arms to stand up, and he couldn’t figure out what. He felt like it was time to leave.

  “But I’m not stupid. I need clothes and toiletries. I don’t know that I believe I’m in the kind of danger you think, but I’m willing to err on the side of caution and spend your money.”

  He was able to hold back the laugh, but she caught him smiling.

  “Don’t laugh at me, Artest. I know I’ve got hang=ups. Growing up, not being ghetto meant taking care of my own needs until the day that I shared a hyphenated name with somebody. It’s the way I was raised.”

  “I understand, and if it was any different, then you wouldn’t be who I believe you are.”

  He leaned over and gave her a hug. He was turning the key in the ignition when they both heard the scream. Intuitively, he knew immediately what had had his arm hair standing on end.

  “Keep the doors locked until I return and give you the word ‘shopping.’ If anybody else comes near the car, run over him!”

  He let her see him moving at his fastest. He had to—they couldn’t afford to waste a second.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  She couldn’t believe the scream they’d heard had anything to do with them. In the seconds after he left running, she reviewed what had happened up to that point. Surely there’s something there to explain whatever I’m missing, she told herself.

  She’d known there was something Artest wasn’t telling her as they left Tyler’s home. She’d overheard Artest and Tyler talking. She hadn’t tried to make out what they were saying until she’d actually heard Artest say, “absolutely not.” Jordan hadn’t heard what was said before that, but she was interested in what could have made him so adamant.

  “I won’t put her in danger!” he said next.

  “Nobody is asking that of you,.” Tyler said. Then he put his hand on Artest’s shoulder and said, “We’ll talk about it later.”

  The two men looked at each other in what looked like the beginning of a stare-down, and then they both smiled. Then she heard Artest mumbling something as he walked away from a laughing Tyler. That was when she knew they weren’t just friends; they loved each other. Just as Jahia and Artest had implied, they were family.

  Artest borrowed one of Tyler’s cars—that was how he said it: “Let’s get out of here, I borrowed one of Tyler’s cars.”

  Jordan had no expectations. She knew they were in a house that was in a part of the city known as the Fab 40s. The homes in that part of town could run into the millions. Sacramento was a well-integrated city, but Jordan doubted if many of their neighbors were as dark as her new friends. She wondered, what did Tyler and Jahia’s neighbors think they did for a living?

  She wasn’t prepared to see Artest opening the door to a brand new Jaguar.

  “One of Tyler’s cars?” she asked when he was seated and belted.

  “He’s into cars. They rent a garage to house all but two of them. I wasn’t trying to be glib, really.”

  “Whatever,” she said as she sucked in the wonderful new car smell.

  When she was in college, there was a girl on her floor, her hall mate actually, who came from a rich family. Jordan had never been around black people who didn’t have to think about “how much?” It probably took her at least six months to finally realize rich-roommate-girl wasn’t showing off or putting on when she said things like, “I left my book at the other house,” or “we’re spending the holidays on the island.” Over time, after overhearing her on the phone with her family and old friends, Jordan came to realize her hall mate worked at not saying those kinds of things around the rest of them.

  Similarly, she knew Artest wasn’t putting on—she was just giving him a hard time because she could.

  If there was one thing Jordan knew at thirty-two that she didn’t know at twenty-two, it was that a girl doesn’t do herself a favor to make life too easy for a guy. The woman who did Mama May’s hair used to say, give them (men) conflict and they rise to the occasion; make life too easy and they rise to go look for conflict. The test came when she got to high school and saw that the bitchiest girls had the nicest boyfriends.

  Jordan thought it was ridiculous to advocate stress. From what she could see that was the problem with relationships. She used to say “too much game playing.” But having her fiancé cheat on her while she was working like crazy to make his life easier made a believer out of Jordan Greene.

  She loved the solid, firm way the car rode. The first few minutes in it, she thought she could have spent the day just riding around the city—and it sure didn’t hurt to have Artest a glance away. Artest had the radio on a jazz station with the volume turned on to a level just barely loud enough to hear. The
luxurious feel of the ride, his love scent and the clean smell of the car mixed with the music, which seemed to be originating in her soul, made the whole experience feel surreal.

  Then he made the mistake of telling her he was taking her shopping. How do I tell him that now that I’m an adult, I consider it a necessary evil? She believed it was probably a reaction to not having parents and no personal money growing up. The foster parents got money that was supposed to be spent on clothes for her, but that rarely happened. At the time when she was starting to care about fashion the most and starting to look like a person men might want to buy for, she ended up with Mama May.

  Mama May had very old-fashioned ideas about taking gifts from men. She said whores were paid for their time. Jordan loved her dearly, but she was a typical old woman—everything she believed she repeated ad-nauseam.

  Jordan wasn’t being arbitrarily difficult when she made Artest talk her into shopping, but he did talk her into it. She promised herself she would be gracious, even if he had lousy taste in women’s clothes. At that point, she looked at what he was wearing, right down to his shoes. Bad taste—–not a chance.

  That brought them to the school’s parking lot, to talk and where they ended up watching the two kids playing. Jordan was a fan of basketball anywhere she could find it. She got carried away, as she often did during a brisk game. She expected Artest to tease her, but he didn’t. He’s giving me that look again. The look pleased her at first, but then she worried that if that kind of passion could last in an average man, there was no way a man with his kind of history could stay interested. She felt a wave of sadness flow through her body. This can’t last.

  “What’s wrong?” he had asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “We don’t have to shop. I’m open to whatever you might want to do today.”

  Today? He was right. I need to stop thinking about later and deal with today. Apparently today was all he had in mind.

  They talked some more, and he gave her a hug. It should have cheered her up a little, but she found herself wondering how many lifetimes it took for a man to know the exact right thing to do with a woman. He had it down pat, much better than any guy she’d ever observed.

  “I’ve had a funny feeling since we left the temple,.” he said during a lull.

  She was focused on the one-on-one game, and it took her a moment to translate what he meant by “the temple.”

  She patted him on the thigh. “I know, honey, it’s called horniness.” She was trying to be funny, so she said it with a straight face and then went back to watching the game.

  She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he stared at her. His expression was priceless. She couldn’t tell if he was more embarrassed, incredulous, or just upset because she was dismissing him like a horn-dog teenager. She saw him take a deep breath.

  “I do find you attractive, Jordan, but I am able to function beyond my libido. Even in your presence.” There was just the slightest hint of sarcasm in his tone.

  She had held back the laughter as long as she could. Leaning into him, she laughed so hard she was afraid she would wet herself. “Artest, I’m just messing with you. I guess sitting in this school parking lot has transported me back to elementary school.”

  “Messing?” he asked, like he’d never before heard the expression.

  “What guys called fucking with each other, but I try not to curse.”

  “All right, Jordan.”

  “Tell me more about this funny feeling,” she said, feeling like a chastised child.

  “I can’t verbalize it. Just mentioning it has the hair on my arms standing up.”

  The kids had finished their game, and the boy was strutting around the court.

  “What usually happens when you feel like this?” she had asked.

  “Most of the time it’s not good.”

  On the basketball court, the boy kissed tried to kiss the girl, but she turned away and offered her cheek. The kids were holding hands when they walked away.

  Artest started the car, and then they heard a scream. She saw Artest move so fast he would have put the Road Runner to shame.

  “If anybody else comes near this car, run over him!” was the last thing she heard him say before all hell broke loose.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  When he heard the scream, he knew immediately what his instincts had been trying to tell him. They’d been followed. Knowing the appetite of the Sangsue, he knew that, if, like he and Jordan, they had watched those kids playing, it wasn’t the game that would have excited them. Athleticism, enthusiasm, and youthful energy called to them like a drug.

  Artest didn’t know exactly how the Sangsue worked, but over the years, it had become obvious that they preferred to feed on young people in their energetic prime.

  When Artest rounded the school’s main building, he got a shock. There were four of them hovering over the girl. It wasn’t often that he’d seen so many together. He hid behind a hedge lining the walkway to assess what was happening before making his presence known. The Bloodsuckers weren’t fighters, but even cowards could find strength in numbers. Artest knew he had to make his first strike count—he might not get a second one. He hoped Jordan would heed his warning and stay put.

  The kids hadn’t gotten very far from the court. They were in a walkway between the school and a group of temporary units, well hidden from the main street. The boy was prone on the ground, but knowing how the Sangsue worked, Artest doubted if he was dead. More than likely they’d knocked him out so they could concentrate on her first.

  About four feet from her friend, the girl was fighting and kicking the three who were trying to restrain her. She was stripped down to her panties, and one of them was working on ripping them off. Artest noted that the panties appeared to be the usual delicate fair—it was the girl’s struggle that prevented the creature at her feet from pulling them off. She wasn’t making it easy for any of them. He was impressed with her defensive moves, but she was failing. The biggest was trying to hold her head, but she was biting him between curses. His fangs were out, and he was damn near salivating as he sniffed and licked her neck.

  “Hurry up and get in her,” he told the one who was unzipping his pants.

  Artest didn’t know which one he should take on first—the one who wanted to drain her of her life or the one who was betting on the blood that his penis would find between her legs. He’d heard many stories about the Sangsue’s passion for virgin kills, but this was only his second time encountering it. The first time he’d been too late to save the girl.

  The third Bloodsucker was holding one of her arms and licking it every chance he got, and the fourth one was standing over the boy, but rubbing his crotch like he wanted to be between her legs.

  Artest decided the one at her throat had to be his first target. He moved a little closer. Just before he pounced, his spine tingled, and he felt pure joy. He turned and looked for him. There was a light about two feet behind him, and Artest saw his rescuer walk out of it.

  “Fox, I’ve never been happier to see you,”

  The Pale Fox held his finger to his lips, and then he touched his throat. He agreed— Artest should take the one at her throat. They circled a little so they could approach them from behind.

  As they passed the fourth Sucker standing over the boy but focused on the rape, the Pale Fox held up his right hand behind the back of the Sangsue’s head without actually touching him. Artest saw blood gush from the Sucker’s nose, mouth and ears. He stood lifeless a second or two before he fell, and it was the noise his fall made that caused his companions to look in Artest’s direction. Seconds later, the Sucker pixilated and was gone.

  Artest knew Fox—he’d staged the death for the others to see. Fox had the power to make a Sangsue disappear with just a thought.

  When Artest’s movement to the creature on her neck was still a thought, The Pale Fox was already choking the one who was trying to rape the kicking girl. He pulled the limp body aw
ay from her. Artest’s blade was out. He jabbed it into the Sucker’s neck near his left ear and pulled it across his throat to his right ear.

  When he looked up, Fox was helping the girl piece together enough clothing to cover herself. There was no sign of the remaining Sucker.

  “He ran off,” Fox told Artest before he could ask.

  With her pants and torn blouse back on, the girl had become conscious of Fox. His presence was never neutral. From her expression, he terrified her. She started shaking and crying and pulling away from him while reaching toward her still prone boyfriend.