Chapter 5 Jasmine
Jasmine
The sun set like a snuff film, last streaks of gold bled out by the clouds over the city.
I watched the dark take its slow, greedy bite from the skyline and let the urge pulse through me, harder with every passing shadow.
I didn’t bother with pretense or ceremony, just tossed the ruined sheets into the bin, brushed a coat of gloss onto my lips, and found the stilettos that looked like murder weapons.
The dress was black again, this time sleeker.
The air outside my building cut right through me, a shock of real cold after too long inside climate-controlled glass and artifice.
The carnival sprawled on the other side of the city, a dozen blocks of cheap lights, puke rides, and a population density higher than Hell’s lobby on tax day.
I traced a finger over the clutch, feeling the ticket stub from last night folded inside.
I could have taken a car, could have just willed myself there, but I preferred to walk.
There’s something about stalking the streets in heels that makes the power sing under your skin.
Every step was a click of the countdown, every block a little blood pressure spike.
By the time I reached the fairgrounds, I was already riding the edge, the world tuning itself to a sharper, nastier frequency.
The entrance hit like a wave. Carlisle Carnival was lit up so hard it almost erased the stars, the arch of lights blinking in migraine rhythm.
The stink of fried dough and spilled beer slammed into me first, then the layered sweetness of cotton candy and candied apples, then—just under the surface—a thin, almost invisible thread of blood and cold steel.
I breathed it in, let the flavors coil through my head, and smiled.
It was the best kind of hunting ground: noisy, dirty, everyone running from or toward something.
The crowd was already thick, the kind of chaos that’s designed to drown out conscience.
Teenage girls trailed packs of nervous boys, clinging to each other and pretending not to look.
Parents steered strollers with military precision, eyes everywhere and nowhere at once.
The carnies worked the games with practiced sneer, more predator than prize.
Underneath it all, I picked out the beats of a dozen small-time desires, each one a perfect, tiny heat signature.
I wove through the bodies, my presence parting the crowd without effort.
I didn’t have to work the charm. The dress did enough heavy lifting on its own, and the rest, well, most men had no defense for the way I looked at them.
They just opened, soft as overripe fruit, leaking little secrets with every second of contact.
I stopped at the beer tent because it’s always the richest vein.
The frat boys had started early, shirts untucked, faces red, hair greased into helmet shapes.
One was already at the stage of shouting, each syllable a dare to the gods or to anyone nearby who’d throw a punch.
I slid up to the bar, let my arm brush his, and felt the anticipation ripple through him like static.
“Buy you a drink?” he slurred, already pocketing the cost in the story he’d tell later.
“Only if you can keep up,” I purred back, tilting my head just enough for the light to catch my eyes.
The effect was immediate. His pulse went double time, the flush moved down his throat, and his friends all leaned closer, the pack instinct kicking in.
I could have drained him right there, and he would have thanked me for it. But I wanted better. I wanted more.
I let him buy the drink, some neon-blue poison in a plastic cup.
I didn’t sip because it was never about the drinking.
The moment he handed it to me, he took possession of a possibility, and I made sure he saw it.
He had a tan line at his wrist and a nervous habit of licking his bottom lip that’d be embarrassing under full sun.
In this light, it was sexy in a pathetic way.
Maybe desperation really was the universal solvent.
“So what do you do?” he asked, trying to sound casual, but his eyes were glued to my clavicle. I bet he’d rehearsed this in a mirror that morning, hoping for a different target but too polite to admit he’d settled for me.
“Consulting,” I lied, flashing a smile with a little sharpened edge. “I help companies optimize their assets. Sometimes people, sometimes things.” The innuendo sailed right by him; he was already picturing my dress in a puddle on the floor of his dorm room.
He grinned, showing a row of expensive teeth.
“That’s so wild, my uncle does mergers and acquisitions for private equity.
I was pre-business for, like, a semester?
Fucking hated it, but my dad said—” He lost the thread, shaking his head, then tried again.
“Hey, you wanna hit the Gravitron?” His hand floated up to my lower back, tentative at first, then settling with slightly more confidence.
His friends were already nudging each other with that gross, smug “you got this, bro” grin all college boys inherited with their first jockstrap.
I gave him a once-over, up and down, then flicked my gaze to the friends. “Maybe. You going to introduce me, or should I guess names?”
He looked startled, as if women usually responded with either slaps or silence, then gestured toward his pack. “Uh, yeah. This is Cooper, Travis, and—” He looked at the last one. “—Brooks?” The question mark hung in the air, like maybe the guy would chime in with a real name.
Brooks raised his plastic cup in salute, already drunk enough to have lost most of his vowels. “To the beautiful talent at the bar,” he drawled. Cooper and Travis tried not to look like they’d been waiting all night just to meet me.
The ritual was tiresome, but I played along.
Cooper was the talker; he’d die before he let a silence go unfilled.
Travis was a smirker. He’d already sized up my ass, measured it against the competition, and come up short, but was too polite to admit defeat.
Brooks was the sleeper, the quietest, always drifting a second behind everyone else.
His smile was off, like he’d already written his own obituary and found it hilarious.
“We’re all seniors,” Cooper said, puffing out his chest. “Except for Brooks, he’s a super—uh, extra-senior.” Brooks did not appear to mind. He tipped his head and bared a canine in my direction.
The music from the main tent thudded harder, closer now, and the crowd shifted, squeezing us together within the beer haze.
I let them angle me toward the Gravitron line, and for a second, the motion almost felt orchestrated.
We moved as one, a four-pointed star of stupidity and lust. A lesser succubus might have snacked on the whole cluster right there; I wanted to watch them crack under pressure, see who’d snap first, who’d run, who’d try to make a move.
Then I got bored, froze the whole fucking group, and summoned a lookalike in my place.
I moved next to the midway games, each booth a study in rigged physics and human desperation.
The ring toss was manned by a gray-haired man with a tan so deep it looked painted.
His smile was pure lemon, his eyes pure vacuum.
He watched every movement in the crowd with a hunger I recognized in myself, the way you watch for a dropped wallet or an open wound.
A man in a windbreaker played alone, his focus absolute, his hope visible in the tight set of his jaw.
The carny watched him with a condescension that bordered on erotic.
I lingered for a moment, savoring the tension of man vs.
machine, prey vs. predator, all mapped out in the flick of a wrist. When the last ring missed, I caught the man’s eye, let my sympathy reach him, let him see the understanding.
He smiled, grateful, then turned back to his empty hands, the sadness radiating off him like heat from a dying lightbulb.
I filed him away as lonely, low self-esteem, zero support system. He’d go quietly. But I wanted noise.
Past the games, the rides loomed. The ferris wheel, tilt-a-whirl, spinning machines named after natural disasters and ancient torture devices.
I skipped them, preferring ground level, and instead watched the pulse of people moving between them.
The patterns were easy to spot as families stuck to the well-lit paths, teens darted for the shadows, and older men hung back, eyes scanning for something they could afford.
The carousel was where I let myself slow down.
It stood at the center of the carnival, the lights all frosted over and the paint chipping off the horses’ backs.
The music was warped, the calliope stuck just out of tune, every note bending downward until it barely resembled a melody.
I watched the carousel turn, the animals’ faces caught between joy and agony, mouths open in a permanent scream.
The kids riding looked half-terrified, half-hypnotized, their parents taking selfies and pretending not to see the chipped teeth and splintered ears.
I touched the nearest horse as it went past, fingers sliding over the cracked lacquer, and felt a deep, familiar pang.
Monsters making monsters, round and round, never stopping, never getting off.
I almost laughed, but then the prickle hit, the sense of being watched, not by the usual lust or boredom, but by something cold and precise.