She was as nervous
as a lizard sunning itself on the side of the freeway. It felt so good, but getting
squashed was just one swerve away. His lips were firecrackers. His eyes knew a
thousand ways for you to die.
“You wanna
get out of here?” he said.
“You
betcha.”
Outside, the night
was thick and redolent. Palm trees whispered, “You ain’t seen nothin
yet.”
His car was a
rough beast. It growled, but its belly was full of Taco Bell wrappers.
He put his hand on
her breast. She’d been here before. She knew where it was going.
“Drive,”
she said.
The mean car
whipped through backroads curves, ate asphalt like it was fudge. His left hand
drove the beast. His right hand drove her crazy.
They came to the
lake to end all lakes: Ripples in moonlight. Voices of ardent insects. A breeze
like the kiss your mother gives you before you ride the orphan train.
“Kiss
me,” she said.
Hot hands in
moonlight. She was open and willing.
She rode the man
with the deadly eyes without fear. Her super power was desire, and its faith
was stronger than any danger. Her orgasm was the crack of a whip, a sudden
storm over moonlight lake.
“I need you
to do a job for me,” she said.
“I thought I
just did.”
“Such a joker.”
The man with the fatal
eyes laughed, head thrown back to show a bull’s neck. Lightning cracked her body again, and she
glowed like the moon all the way back to town.
Harvey was the
kind of guy who needed to be dead. Too quick with a slap and a shove; too
stingy with the love stuff. She’d married him on a two-year bender. The next
two years were nothing but a long comedown. She’d bottomed out the night she
took a ride with the man with the blossoming lips and the killing eyes.
Harvey took her by
the shoulders and sat her down on the bed.
“You
stink,” he said.
She knew she did.
The other man’s fatal odor coated her skin like the candy covering a melted
M&M. She was still oozing like chocolate.
“I’ll take a
shower.”
“Maybe I
don’t care.”
“Maybe you
don’t.”
He took her the
way he always did, letting her know she was like the bed or the table, just
another thing of his. No lightning cracks here. Her skin ached for moonlight.
Jasmine fell
through a gentle summer rain the night Harvey died. A shadow at the window, a
midnight walk, New Orleans gleaming across the lake like a pile of discarded
7-Up cans. Outside, she saw the silhouettes through the window shade, one
thrusting and thrusting, the other struggling, stumbling, falling. Good-bye,
Harvey.
Hello, burning
kiss. He met her outside, in the shadows under the magnolias. She handed over
the three thousand bucks, feeling like that kiss should have been worth a
discount.
She pressed
against him, body glowing in the aftermath of no more Harvey. Her hands felt
the hard wad of the cash, the hard wad of his dick.
He held her
wrists.
“Easy.”
“I don’t want
it easy.”
She squirmed
against him. He pulled her hands behind her back. It made her crazier. Mouth
open, panting, she lunged for his tongue, and he let her have it again. A kiss
deeper than the grave, hot as hell.
She fell back, breathless, letting her body
arch back against his pinioning hands. “I want you,” she gasped.
“I want it. Please.”
He looked down at
her with those death eyes.
“I don’t mix
business with pleasure,” he said.
“What about
the other night?”
“That was
business, too.”
“You motherfucker.”
One steely hand
still capturing her wrists, he put his other on her breast. She moaned, but it
wasn’t really a caress. It was a warning. And her thrumming body took it.
She went still,
soaked and shivering as she was. When he saw she was quiet, he let her go.
“Don’t try to
find me,” said the man with the killing eyes.
She wouldn’t. But
the tropical night opened for her like a ripe fruit. She knew she’d find
something out there.
