Tempter (4 page)

Chapter Five

Rossiter had spent years mastering the appearance of ennui. Pretending to be bored was always cool, but he loathed the genuine article. He’d spent the last hour watching the restaurant’s service entrance, trying to ignore the reek of discarded seafood that emanated from the nearby dumpster, and his patience was stretched to the breaking point.

He tossed his unfiltered Pall Mall onto the cobblestones and crushed it out with an expert twist of his heel. His shirt was plastered to the furrow of his back and he could feel sweat oozing from his scalp and down the back of his head into his collar. He had hoped to be acclimatized to New Orleans’ subtropical torpor by now, but no such luck. During the summer months the entire city felt like it was being held in the sweaty palm of a gigantic adolescent.

Just as he was about to give up, the door opened and Ti Alice stepped out of the restaurant and into the alley. She was dressed differently than that night in Papa Beloved’s temple, but her carriage was just as proud and regal. She was wearing a conservative black pantsuit with a ruffled white polyester blouse as well as sensible, low-heeled shoes, but in profile she resembled an Egyptian princess, with hair that hung in impressively beaded cornrows that clacked and rattled as she moved. The voodoo priestess adjusted the shoulder strap on her purse and headed towards the street, oblivious to Rossiter’s presence.

“Ti Alice!”

She turned to glower at him. Rossiter hadn’t felt so White since high school. “What do you want, new boy?” she said calmly, taking him in. One corner of her mouth was tilted in a cryptic half-smile.

“I just wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me? What for?”

“For the good luck you gave me the other night.”

Ti Alice shook her head, her half-smile widening to become the real thing. “I’m not the one who gave you luck, whatever it may be. You should be thankin’ Legba or Damballah or whichever Loa it was that helped you, not me. Still, it is good to know you have been blessed as a
serviteur
.”

“If you won’t let me thank you, could I at least buy you a drink?”

Ti- Alice studied him for a second, and then nodded. “Seein’ how I’m off-duty, I guess that’s okay. Oh, and by the way, don’t call me ‘Ti Alice’ in public. Normally I don’t answer to that name outside the temple.” She pointed to the plastic nametag pinned to the lapel of her pantsuit. “If you have to call me anything, call me ‘Tee,’ short for ‘Leticia’.”

“It's a deal. Long as you call me Alex.”

“Whatever you say, new boy.”

Rossiter had known only one other woman who had sparked such intense interest within him. She was the first woman he’d ever had sex with, the only one he’d been inspired enough to commemorate in song, and she was nearly twenty years dead.

It happened on tour.
Love Hurt
was starting its climb up the charts. Crash was drawing attention from the media and various record companies—and groupies. Hell, he'd just turned sixteen and the only thing he knew about women was that Katie Grisborne would slap him silly if he even thought about putting his hand under her sweater. But that was before they played Dallas.

Her name was Pearl, and she wore Southern Comfort like other women wore perfume. She was far from beautiful, but her sexuality was so strong it was like standing in front of a blast furnace. He did not protest when she took him by the hand and lead him to the bathroom and locked the door behind them.

“I like pretty, young boys like you,” she said, her voice flensed by years of chain smoking and bourbon. Rossiter couldn’t think of anything to say. Not that it mattered to her. She knelt before him, and expertly unzipped his pants, freeing his rapidly swelling penis. “Just relax baby. Let mama take care of you,” she whispered. She proceeded to give him the first, and best, blowjob of his life, which left him feeling as if he'd been hollowed out and filled with nitroglycerine.

Then he went on stage and sang to thousands of adoring fans until his throat bled and his heart broke.

The next thing he did was call Kathy Grisborne and break up with her over the phone. Kathy cried and hinted that she might relent and let him feel her tits, but it was too late. The scales had dropped from his eyes.

The second time he saw Pearl was also the last. Crash was playing in Hollywood when she came backstage to say hello to the band and ended up in his hotel room. She explained that she had come to La-La Land in search of the things she couldn’t find in Texas. He remembered her knocking back an assortment of pills and chasing it with Southern Comfort as part of her foreplay. The sex was explosive, but when he confessed that he wanted to marry her, she laughed so hard she almost peed down her leg.

“Look, baby, what we did was good. No argument there. But good fucking was all it was, dig? You’re a pretty boy; you’ve got it in you to be one hell of a musician, if you don’t fuck yourself up big time. I’m mighty flattered that you feel that way about me. Honest. If you were a little older, I might even be tempted to take you up on it. But there’s no way in hell I’m gonna marry a rocker.”

When the tour was over and it was time for him return to school, he told his parents to fuck off. He had a hit song and a recording contract. What the hell did they know? He had himself declared an emancipated minor and moved to the East Village, which at the time was a virtual sea of tattooed and pierced flesh wrapped in black leather. The plan was for the band to go into Electric Lady Land Studios in early 1994 and cut an album, but then the unexpected happened.

Jim Shakespeare, Crash’s keyboardist and his best friend since third grade, overdosed the night before they were supposed to go into the studio. After Jim’s funeral, he was too depressed and stressed out to focus on finding a replacement and going back into the studio. So he hopped a flight to Seattle to go visit Kurt Cobain. The two had been exchanging letters ever since meeting backstage at the Irving Plaza in New York City. However, as he walked through the terminal at SeaTac, Rossiter found himself greeted by newspaper headlines announcing the singer’s suicide.

Depressed to the point of surrender, he returned to his parents and school. But when the news came over the grapevine a month later that Pearl had overdosed in a Hollywood hotel, it proved to be the final straw. He dropped out of school and took the remaining members of Crash with him into the recording studio.
Crash and Burn
hit the stores four months later.

No one ever realized that the two big hits off the album,
“Last to Say Good-bye”
and
“Sour Milk Sweetheart”,
were elegies to the dead. That was okay. No one living could truly appreciate the songs, anyway.

“You sure got quiet all of a sudden.” Tee said, studying him from behind her highball glass “Cat got your tongue?”

“I was just thinking about how much you remind me of someone I used to know.”

She arched an eyebrow. “He or she?”

“A woman. But she's been gone a long time now.”

“I’m not worried.” She smiled, revealing strong, even teeth the color of fresh ivory. “Now, what’s all this about you gettin’ good luck?”

“I’d been trying to land a gig at the Gris-Gris Club since I came to town, but it was always a no-go.”

“Sounds like you got yourself crossed,”

“Crossed?”

“You know--bad vibes; negative energy.”

“Perhaps that’s it, then,” he agreed, not bothering to elaborate that his booking problems dated back to 2002, when he laid open a heckler's skull with a beer bottle. “Anyway, right after I got home from the
Kanzo
, I get this call from the club’s booking agent. I’m playing there the first Saturday in June.”

Tee hummed the opening bars of the
Twilight Zone
, wiggling her long, carefully manicured fingers like an old-fashioned hypnotist. “De power of de Loa is upon ya! Big Juju!” She suddenly burst into laughter. “Don’t look so shocked, new boy! I'm not blasphemin’! I’m happy you landed your gig, but I don’t want you thinkin’ all you have to do to get things goin’ your way is to dick around with some chickens. That’s not how
voudou
works. If it was that easy, I’d be livin’ in a big mansion on St. Charles with a Cadillac for every day of the year.”

“That’s a rather unorthodox attitude for a priestess to have, isn’t it?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I’m not into
voudou
to rip off dumb suckers lookin’ for an easy out. There are plenty of those types around. I think you know that already. I’m into it because, well, it works for
me.
And it’s a family tradition. See, my grandma was a mambo, as her mama before her. My mama, she didn’t want that, so she ran off up North when she was fifteen. She came back when she was eighteen to have me, then she left again. She returned every now and again to visit, mostly ‘round Christmas. She was a junkie and lookin’ pretty awful the last couple times I saw her. She died when I was twelve, sellin’ herself to some crazy bastard so she could score enough junk to forget how horrible her life was. Shit, I figure havin’ somethin’ workin’ for you, even somethin’ you don’t really understand, is better than having nothin’ at all. My mama taught me that, if she taught me nothin’ else.

“So your real name’s Leticia. Where did ‘Ti Alice’ come from?”

“It’s an inside joke, really. There’s this Haitian trickster god called Ti Malice. Anyway, he’s kind of the original model for the Br’er Rabbit stories the slaves used to tell. That’s where I got the idea. All the mambos and
houngans
have names like that. Sometimes they’re born with ‘em, most times they take ‘em on. It’s kind of like a stage name, but one with historical significance. I don’t mind sayin’ I’m proud of what I know about my people’s past and their heritage,” she said, signaling the barmaid for another round. “Shit, the way I see it, you can’t know where you’re headed until you know where you’ve been.”

They went to her place. She lived in one side of a double shotgun-house near Canal and Broad. It wasn’t a bad neighborhood, but it wasn’t a particularly good one, either. Although it was close to midnight, there were still children, some dressed in Pampers, running up and down the sidewalks. A couple of African-American men were seated on the stoop across the way, gripping paper bags full of cheap wine as they watched Tee unlock her front door. Rossiter could feel their eyes on his back the whole time. From somewhere down the street came the rumbling thunder of hip-hop.

The inside of the house was dark and smelled pleasantly of spice. Rossiter spotted a small altar similar to the one at Papa Beloved's temple behind the front door, its candles guttering in pools of scented wax.

Tee’s bed was a double mattress set atop plastic milk crates, covered by a chenille bedspread the color of lime sherbet. A Day-Glo poster of a kneeling black couple embracing, their combined Afros eclipsing a psychedelic sun, hung above the headboard. Tee turned to face him, and he moved toward her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her forward so her hips touched his. He could feel her dancer’s muscles, strong and supple, underneath her skin.

Rossiter's lips slid against the grease of her lipstick as she ensnared his tongue with her own. He had been nursing an erection since the bar, but he was now so rigid it felt like a piece of metal in his pants. Unwilling to break the kiss, he tugged blindly at the buttons on her blouse until she shooed his hands away and unfastened it herself. After a few moments of ham-handed fumbling, the bra’s catch relented and her breasts sprang free, their weight comfortable in his hands.

They were on the bed now, Rossiter tugging at his skull-shaped belt buckle. As he struggled to free his hard-on from his jeans, Tee removed her own pants. Rossiter paused in his disrobing long enough to admire her long, shapely legs and the French-cut cotton panties she wore.

“Let me help you with that, new boy.” she purred, unzipping his fly

Rossiter's dick leapt free like a randy jack-in-the-box, its tip already glistening with pre-cum. He hoped he wouldn’t shoot his wad after five or six thrusts. Tee did not seem like the kind of woman who would appreciate being left behind. He reached between her legs and slid his fingers between the folds of her labia, pleased to find her already wet.

Before he could jockey himself into the missionary position, Tee pressed her hands against his shoulders, rolling him onto his back. She straddled his hips,
her cornrows obscuring her face as she checked to make sure she was in position. He sucked in a deep breath of air between clenched teeth as she lowered herself onto his rigid member.

“Just lay back, baby,” she murmured. “Let mama take care of you.”

For a moment it wasn't Tee’s beautiful, African princess face that hovered over him, but that of the dead groupie. Rossiter gritted his teeth and fought the urge to orgasm. His hands clamped her swaying breasts, kneading them with his fingers. Her nipples were as hard as corn kernels. The ceramic beads in her braided hair made a gentle clacking sound as she rocked atop him. Her eyes were closed and he could hear her muttering things under her breath as her tempo increased. His hands slid down her rib cage and around her back, cupping the cheeks of her ass. He could feel the muscles in her buttocks clench and relax. He was awed and excited by the perfection of the woman on top of him, and when she cried out, digging her nails into his naked shoulders, he erupted inside her. After decades of banging groupies all over the world, it was the first time he’d experienced simultaneous orgasm.

Chapter Six

It wasn’t until he watched her sleep that he realized how young she was. Her self-confident manner during the initiation ritual had made her seem much older than she was. As he sat on the corner of the bed and smoked an unfiltered Pall Mall, Rossiter estimated Tee’s age at twenty-five. Funny how someone a decade his junior could make him feel like a stumble-butt teenager.

She muttered something in her sleep and rolled onto her side. Rossiter envied her ability to fall asleep so quickly. His insomnia was growing worse with each passing year. Although he had not slept in over forty-eight hours, his brain still refused to wind down long enough for as much as a catnap.

Bored and unable to sleep, he wandered into the front room. The altar’s candles had burned to their bases, until their flames were swallowed in pools of liquid wax. He studied a three-tiered bookshelf made of two-by-fours and cinder blocks, browsing its contents in hopes of finding something to read while on the toilet.

The bottom shelf contained stacks of dog-eared copies of
Ebony
,
Bronze Thrills
and
Fate
, plus a handful of paperback historical romance novels with cracked spines. The middle shelf boasted a wide selection of metaphysical reading materials, most of which Rossiter recognized from the occult section at Barnes & Noble’s. The top shelf, however, held only three books, all of them hardbound: a Catholic Bible, something called
A History of Black Culture In The Americas &
Africa: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow,
and a leather-bound volume with an unmarked spine.

Curious, Rossiter removed the unmarked book from its place on the shelf, dislodging a cloud of dust. The title of the book—
Aegrisomnia--
was stamped in faded gold foil on its cover. He flipped it open to the frontis page and saw, to his surprise, that the printing date was listed as 1789.

There was a brief foreword written in archaic English type, with the‘s’s that looked like ‘f’s, explaining the history of the original text on which the book was based. The title meant “Fever Dream”, and its author, an engraver known as Palinurus, produced the original plates during the Thirteenth Century while suffering from a brain fever, apparently dying within hours of finishing the last plate.

Interested by what he’s read so far, Rossiter sat down on the sofa and began thumbing through the rest of the book. The actual text seemed to be in Latin, but what caught his attention were the numerous engravings of elaborate mandalas, some of which seemed to change their pattern every time he looked at them.

He used to have a poet-friend named Jim who loved dropping acid while looking at weird shit like that. Rossiter couldn’t resist smiling as he remembered how enthusiastically his friend had been about the mind-expanding power of psychedelics. Back in 1996 Jim had taken a sabbatical in Paris. He sent Rossiter a letter, describing the treasures of the Louvre and the macabre wonders of the Pere Lachaise Cemetery as seen through his ‘third eye’, as he called it. Jim made Paris sound so wild and fantastic, Rossiter decided to join him and see for himself. Hell, he deserved it; his new album was almost finished, after two years of being hassled by his label.

Rossiter wired Jim that he was on his way and jumped the next jet to Paris, hoping the telegram would get there before he did. At first he was relieved to see Jim waiting for him at Orly. Then he got a good look at him. He had not seen his friend for nearly two months, and he was shocked by the changes the drummer had undergone. Where once Jim appeared boyish and energetic, now he was wasted and bloated. It was clear that Jim had given up psychedelics in favor of harder drugs.

The reunion turned uneasy within a day. Rossiter was eager to see the sights the fabled City of Lights had to offer, but the only thing Jim was interested in was shooting up in his rented pension. Rossiter returned home after a couple of days, disgusted and depressed by his friend’s dissolution. Jim sent a few more letters after that, but he did not read them; instead, he stuffed them in his desk drawer unopened. When the news came of the inevitable overdose, Rossiter found himself consumed by grief and guilt. He took out the unopened letters and read them. Most were stoned rambles about the duplicity of women, with the occasional stanza of bad poetry thrown in for good measure. One letter was actually a grocery list stuffed inside the envelope by mistake.

Strange he should think about the dead poet at that moment. It had been years since he had last thought about him. Rossiter shook his head, dispelling the vivid memories the weird designs had triggered in his mind. He was reminded of the visual puzzles in the back of the old
Children’s Hi-Light
magazines. Maybe if he sat there long enough, staring at the lines and squiggles that comprised the design, he would finally see the monkeys hiding in the trees and the Indians crouching in the bushes. But, instead, the longer he looked at the designs, the heavier his eyelids became...

He was somewhere that wasn’t anywhere; he could feel himself hovering just beyond his physical body. It was disconcerting but not unpleasant, kind of like the effect he got from huffing nitrous gas. He didn’t feel warm and he didn’t feel cold. He didn’t feel anything. He was in a place that was neither dark nor light.

While there was no time in this place between places, there was certainly space. As his vision adjusted, he glimpsed traceries of light and movement all around him, like tiny, fluorescent tropical fish darting about a vast aquarium. As he focused his attention on the flickering lights, they began to take on form and substance, and he recognized them as the elaborate
vévés
that decorated the interior of Papa Beloved’s temple. He recalled a photograph he’d seen of Picasso drawing he outline of a minotaur with a penlight and empty air. The sudden realization that something might be creating the
vévés
unnerved him. He wondered if he was visible to whatever it was that drew the
vévés
, and if it might resent his intrusion.

There was a ripple in the nothing. Then another. Although he could not see or hear anything, he knew something was approaching. The
vévés
suddenly burned as bright as suns, their outlines suffused with color, like the throat sacs of lizards challenging a newcomer.

His soul froze as if pinned to the spot, like a rabbit facing an oncoming automobile. He wanted to scream, but he did not have lungs. As the
vévés
burned like neon snakes, he turned inward, not wanting to see whatever it that was coming for him. Then--just as suddenly as it had arrived--the thing gone. Although he had not seen whatever it was the
vévés
scared away, he had the distinct impression that it had smiled at him.

“That was sure one wild-ass dream,” Tee said when he related his experience to her.

“You think that’s all it was? A dream?”

“The Loa communicate through dreams all the time. Maybe you just happened to get a closer look than most folks.”

“But I didn’t
see
anything.”

Tee sighed and rolled onto her side, propping herself up on one elbow. “I swear, folks expect the spirit world to be like those damn movies they rent on Netflix! Of
course
you didn’t see nothin’! Why do you think they call them
Les Invisibles?
Besides, you don’t
need
to see ‘em to
know
they’re there. The Loa live through you, whether you like it or not. You’re their conduit to the material world: they are the Divine Horsemen, and you are the horse.”

“You’re saying that I was possessed while I was asleep?”

“Maybe. Or maybe it was a
Guede
, instead of a Loa. Or maybe it was just something you ate.” Tee snuggled closer, grinding her hips against him. Rossiter felt himself grow hard and all thoughts of
vévés
and the spirit world abruptly vanished from his mind.

At least for the next twenty minutes.

Tempter was excited.

His agitation could not be divined by any physical means, for such things do not exist in the place between places. Although he possessed a corporeal body, it had been years—perhaps decades—since he last inhabited it. It was not that he disliked the physical realm: far from it. He had been forced into limbo as a means to preserve his energies. Still, even here he was a prisoner, as the cursed
vévé
were quick to remind him.

His warders were deceptively quiet right now, their configuration almost transparent. But Tempter knew better than to think they were gone. The moment he should try to leave, they would flare to life once more, burning him with their heatless light. He had allowed his eagerness to overwhelm his caution earlier and had paid the price.

Still, he could be excused his enthusiasm. He had been waiting for someone to find the book. He hoped he had not frightened away his prey. It was very important that it come back. Tempter
was uncertain as to whether his prey was male or female, but its hunger was all too visible. And that was all he needed to know, really.

He had been waiting a long time. There was no hurry. He could afford to be patient. Once his prey returned, he would shape his bait to mirror its need. And then he would reel the prey in close enough to grab it.

The
vévé
made excellent guards. His nemesis had been correct about that. They were good at keeping him inside. But when it came to keeping others
out,
that was another story…