“Come out of the shadows and show yourselves,” the woman ordered. “Hold your hands up, where I can see them.”
Miranda and Eli obeyed.
The woman trained the shotgun on them. “What do you want?”
“Two men attacked us,” Miranda answered, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “We ran away, and when we saw your open gate, we hid in here.”
Eli added, “We called the police. They should be here any minute.”
“Don’t count on it,” the woman said. “Who are you?”
Miranda introduced herself and Eli. “We’re just tourists on vacation. I’m from Massachusetts and he’s from California.”
“Can we put our hands down?” Eli asked. “We’re not armed or dangerous.”
The woman considered it a moment, then nodded, but kept her weapon ready.
Miranda’s fear shifted to indignation. “Your sign says this is the Garden of Eden.
Shouldn’t it be a peaceful haven? We’re seeking sanctuary, not more violence.”
“Come over here.” The woman motioned with the shotgun, indicating the door to the brick building. “Go inside.”
They crossed the courtyard warily and entered the building, followed by the woman brandishing the shotgun. It looks like some kind of laboratory, Miranda thought, glancing around the large, brightly lit room. An intoxicating, floral scent filled the space.
It smelled like the trees outside, only stronger. A stainless steel table held several glass beakers partly filled with simmering water, perched on metal stands above primitive burners. A wad of muslin was stuffed into the neck of each beaker. Bent tubes ran from the beakers into copper vats. Along one wall stood shelves laden with brown bottles.
“What are you making?” Miranda asked.
“Perfume.”
In the light, she appeared to be only in her early twenties, with porcelain-like skin and delicate features. Her long blond curls were tied back with a blue ribbon that matched her eyes. Miranda almost laughed at the odd juxtaposition. An angel with a shotgun.
The woman reached into one of the vats and withdrew a test tube. She studied it, then returned it to the vat and moved on to the next. When she’d finished checking all the vats, she looked at Miranda.
“Do you like the scent?”
“It’s exquisite. What is it?”
“Jasmine. Made with flowers from the trees in the courtyard.” She pointed to one of the beakers. “The cloth contains loose petals. Steam passes through the cloth, down the delivery tube, and into the test tube. Ice water in the copper vessel chills the steam and condenses it to extract the essential oil.”
The woman moved to another table on which several brown glass bottles, three cobalt-blue bottles, and a fifth of vodka were arrayed. A measuring cup and funnel sat nearby.
“If I put my gun down, will you promise to behave yourselves?” she asked. “I have work to do.”
“We never had any intention of misbehaving,” Eli assured her.
She laid the weapon on the table, close enough to grab if the need arose. “I’ve been robbed a dozen times since Katrina. The police never do a damned thing about it.”
“What should I call you?” Miranda asked, trying to establish a connection. She remembered reading that it was harder for someone to kill you if they felt a personal link with you.
“Nadine.”
“Well, Nadine, I’d like to know more about making perfume.”
Nadine sat on a wooden stool and picked up the vodka bottle. “I’d offer you a drink, but I need this for the perfume.”
She poured two ounces of alcohol in the measuring cup, uncapped a brown bottle, and stuck a funnel in its mouth. Then she trickled the vodka into the funnel. Moving the funnel to the next bottle, she repeated the procedure. When she’d transferred all the alcohol to the brown bottles, she opened one of the blue bottles.
Miranda leaned her elbows on the table and watched, curiosity replacing her apprehension. “What’s that?”
“Jasmine oil.”
Nadine pinched the eyedropper cap and counted out twenty-five drops into one of the brown bottles. She added twenty-five drops to the next bottle, and the next, until she’d infused each one. When she’d finished, she opened a second blue bottle.
“This is essential oil of ginger,” she explained as she dripped a tiny bit of liquid into each of the brown bottles. “Its crispness complements the sweet jasmine.”
She unscrewed the cap of the third blue bottle and squeezed a few drops into each brown bottle.
“What are you adding now?” Miranda asked.
“My secret ingredient.” Nadine smiled. “Most of my concoctions contain a blend of at least three oils. When you first dab one on, you notice the perfume’s top note. Just as it starts to fade, the middle note kicks in. After that’s run its course, what remains is the base note. Making perfume is all about creating a perfect balance of scents. It’s a very delicate process.”
“May I try some?” Miranda asked.
“Oh no. It has to age a while, to allow the scents to ripen.” Nadine capped the brown bottles and shook each one to blend the ingredients. “You need patience—you can’t rush the process.”
“Sounds like winemaking,” Eli said.
“I guess it is.” She glanced from him to Miranda, as if assessing them and their relationship. “Over time, the ingredients mingle and bring out the best in each other. It’s like what happens in a good partnership—the scents marry.”
After sticking labels on the bottles, Nadine collected them on a tray and carried them over to arrange on the shelves. “Perfume makers consider some scents masculine and some feminine. Sharp, spicy scents—like the ginger I used—are masculine. Sweet florals—like jasmine—are feminine. To produce a harmonious blend, you need both.”
Like love, Miranda mused.
A loud knock interrupted them. Nadine picked up the shotgun and went to the door. She put her eye to the peephole, then unlocked the door and opened it. A jowly, middle-aged policeman with café-au-lait skin and a sprinkling of rusty freckles across his 137
broad nose ambled into the lab. His leisurely gait and air of disinterest implied he was simply putting in his time until retirement.
Eyeing Nadine’s weapon, he said, “Mind putting that down, ma’am?”
She laid it on the table and stepped back.
“Y’all called about an attack?”
“We did,” Eli said. “Two men assaulted us in Jackson Square.”
The cop studied each of them in turn. “Anybody hurt?”
Miranda shook her head. “No, we’re fine.”
“I’ll give y’all a ride to the station. You’ll have to fill out some paperwork.”
Eli took Miranda’s arm. “Okay.”
Miranda turned to Nadine. “I enjoyed learning about your perfume.”
“Here, try this.” She handed a small, dark green bottle to Miranda. “I hope you like it.”
“Thanks, I’m sure I will.” Miranda read the label: Eve’s Sin. “Oh my.”
Nadine laughed. “Go easy. That potion’s potent.”
They took a cab from the police station back to the B&B and checked out.
“I wanted to stay in New Orleans another day or two,” Miranda complained as they drove away from the city.
“It’s too dangerous,” Eli said. “The cops aren’t going to find those guys. They’re still on the loose, looking for us.”
“How can you be sure? You said yourself you couldn’t positively identify them.
Maybe they were just ordinary thieves trying to rob us.”
“Maybe. But I can’t put you at risk. In fact, it might be better for us to separate in the morning, for safety’s sake.”
“You’re abandoning me?”
“I’m not abandoning you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’ve traveled thousands of miles by myself, escaped bad guys and a flash flood.
I’m not some helpless female.” Besides, there are still about a dozen knots in that golden cord.
“You may be as fleet as a cheetah,” he admitted. “Still, I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you because of me. I’m truly sorry I got you involved in this whole mess.”
“Well, now that you’ve dragged me into it, don’t you think you should stick around to protect me?” Miranda argued. “I mean, if you’re really concerned about my safety? Now those guys know who I am, too.”
“Not necessarily. You could simply have been my date for the evening, or somebody I met in a bar. They might not suspect you know anything. Besides, it’s me they’re after. If you’re not with me, I doubt they’ll bother you.”
“What are you going to do now?”
Eli ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I have no fucking idea.”
About two hours north of the Big Easy, they stopped at a motel just off the highway.
“This looks like one of those places you rent by the hour,” Miranda said.
“It’s certainly not what you’d call posh,” he agreed. “But it’s late and we both need to get some sleep.”
She plunked her suitcase on the floor beside the TV. “I’m going to wash up.”
“Don’t shower.” He pulled her into an embrace and kissed her neck, down along her collarbone, and across the upper part of her breast. “I want to smell your scent.”
Miranda pressed against him, feeling him stiffen. His hand slid under her dress and caressed her bare buttocks. “I intend to finish what we started in the restaurant.”
“I thought you were tired,” she teased.
“Not that tired.”
“Just let me wash my face and brush my teeth.”
She pushed him away and ducked into the bathroom. After undressing and hurrying through her nighttime ablutions, she uncapped the bottle of perfume Nadine had given her. Eve’s Sin . A sensuous blend of jasmine and apple blossoms greeted her nose, laced with something spicy and provocative that she couldn’t identify. She dabbed a couple of drops between her breasts. The fragrant oil felt strangely hot on her skin.
When she emerged from the bathroom, Eli was sitting on the edge of the bed, naked, his cock pointing toward the ceiling in anticipation. He pulled her to him, pressing his lips to her belly.
“You smell delicious,” he murmured, cupping her breasts in his hands.
She eased herself onto the bed beside him, spreading her legs so he could continue his journey down along her delta to the hot spot between her thighs.
“Oh my,” Miranda moaned as he licked her hard nub.
She felt herself softening to receive him, her heartbeat pounding in her cunt. Her juice oozed onto his tongue. “Let me suck you,” she said.
He shifted into sixty-nine position and she slid his cock into her mouth, flicking her tongue around the ridge of the head while she stroked his stiff shaft with her hand. I love the way it pulses and jerks when I do this, she thought, like it has a life independent of the rest of him.
After a few minutes, however, he rolled onto his back and pulled her up to straddle him. Her pussy gloved him in wet heat. She ground her clit against his pubic bone, then eased away slowly, tightening her muscles around him as she rose, again and again, pumping his hard cock with her cunt. Bending over him, she brushed his chest lightly with her nipples. He drew her down and buried his face in her cleavage. As he inhaled her perfume, his cock seemed to swell within her, its length and girth expanding with each thrust. That’s impossible, she thought as he filled her like never before, but damn, it feels good!
Eli’s pace quickened and she followed his lead, riding him harder, faster, shoving his cock deeper and deeper into her, until she felt he might ram it all the way up to her heart. The creation of life itself requires the harmonious blending of male and female, she thought. Then her orgasm rushed through her and thinking gave way to pure sensation .
Her cries carried him over the edge, and he erupted like a geyser inside her.
Almost immediately he fell asleep, but Miranda lay awake for a long time, listening to his contented breathing and the eighteen-wheelers rolling past on the nearby highway. His body stretched alongside hers, his spent cock draped across her thigh. His hand loosely cupped her breast.
What if he leaves in the morning and I never see him again?