Revolt

15. Two Ghosts

Whenever they kissed, she felt like she was drowning in a current charged ocean such that the voltage was low that it, teased and sizzled through her, inducing a spellbinding effect that made her woozy and lightheaded—restraining and incapacitating her cognition. And so she knew better than to let the kiss linger for long, or to relinquish the controls to Lekan. Despite being fogged with pleasure, she sensed his hand lowering on her back, slow and stealthily like a snake and she acted quick. Ending the kiss, she gripped his hand and lowered it to his sides, before inhaling hard—her head now on his chest.

“I think that’s enough for now,” She said, before going around him, and tugging him with her hand that was already clasped in his. When they arrived back at the island, she dissolved his hold on his hand—so he could pull out a seat, across her working station on the counter. It was somewhat soothing, him being over at her house, in his laidback, slipshod element  and not the usual, compact one affiliated with outdoor meets. He donned a simple attire of a black button-down—with its sleeves rolled up to his elbows—black jeans and Chelsea boots. He was also wearing a brown, sleek leather watch, in contrast to his usual choice of metal ones.

“I have something for you,” Lekan said in that rich, sonorous voice of his—before dipping his right hand into his back pocket, and producing a small, cylinder container that was the shape and size of an average body spray. It was white, and was scrawled with a commotion of graffiti in varying colors. He dropped it on the island, and flicked it to slide over to her side—with his middle finger.

After she picked the bottle to inspect it, he explained. “It’s a pepper spray. You know that thing pretty women, in movies and cartoons, carry around, when they miraculously know they’re going to be sexually harassed and spray in the face of their assailants? That’s it. I know deep down, you’re still wondering if having me over is a good idea, and whether or not I’d take advantage of you. So, you can just slide that into your back pocket, and know that you have a weapon against me if I attack you.”

Anjola couldn’t help her smile, as her gaze inspected the bottle thoroughly to discern, if it was of authentic value. It was quite the thoughtful gesture on his part. Although juvenile, it emphasized the fact that he could empathize with her paranoia and anxiety a bit, to the extent that he’d go out of his way to do something to impale it. Even if the gesture could easily be discarded as comic relief, and not a legitimate panacea.

“Sure, let’s act like the entire pepper spray thing doesn’t work on the element of surprise, and you can’t easily knock the thing from my hands, if you were actually up to something sinister.” She rolled her eyes, but tucked in the spray into her back pocket anyway. Even though she was at home, she was decked out in a long sleeved Star Trek T-shirt, and boot cut blue jeans. The setting called for her to wear something indoors—y, but such outfits were usually revealing and not fully functional in hiding one’s heavy artillery.

She trusted Lekan, but that didn’t impede her from taking precautions and refusing to tempt him. “If you truly wanted to help, you’d have brought a proximity bomb. You know, the type that distance triggers. So before you get to me…poof.” She demonstrated with a dramatic severing of her entwined fingers. “Your brains would be all over the place. Don’t worry about what the world would think about you in passing. I’d put in a good word for you, and say you died trying to save me from a grenade throw. I won’t even move on with my life instantly, so it would legit seem like I’m mourning this big loss in my life.”

Lekan’s laughter was contagious, and his shoulders buckled, with the veins on his face—bulging fully. After he had quieted down, he placed a closed fist over his mouth and coughed gently. “Who knew you could be so diabolical, huh? You’re not the Anjola, I used to know. The cutthroat world of business has indeed corrupted you. Are you even working for Sigma at all? Or you were secretly recruited by its rival company, to infiltrate their administration? Spy on them, ascend in their ranks and after you’ve gained their trust and they expect you to watch their back, you betray them?”