Habiba & Bataar

Music Festival

Humans smelled different. Interesting. They sweat different, the scent was often tangy and heavy. Sometimes it smelled like whatever odorous thing they last consumed. Garlic butter on an Everything Bagel. The acrid remnants of cigarette smoke. The fine waft of sickly sweetness from a sugar-junkie. Bataar inhaled deeply of their smell and closed his eyes. There, in the blackness behind his eyelids, he could see physical representations of their smell, in wispy shapes around him.

They call is synesthesia when your senses mix with other senses. But for wolves, it was just how they sensed things. Smells have shape, color, and taste. It was almost beautiful, to be engulfed in this human space. Like wading through art, having it touch his skin, like rolling in the dirt and rubbing leaves all over your body. He blended right in.

She didn't though. Somehow, the smells didn't touch her. When Bataar opened his eyes, the loud music boomed again, the sound of people scrambled him. He'd met her only once before, but he would recognize her anywhere. He expected her to be standing right in front of him but she was not. For a moment, he was confused and his confusion produced a growl. Unsuppressed, it startled a petite girl standing in front of him with her giant boyfriend.

The boyfriend squared up the way tough guys do to show that they weren't afraid. Shoulders big, chest out, and staring down to protect. It was an admirable trait, the need to protect others. Bataar knew it well. He protected others too.

A smile made the boyfriend question the situation. Then Bataar squared up too. He cracked his neck, licked his pierced lip, and opened his arms wide so that the other man, the bigger man, would have the first shot. One on one was a far easier fight and Bataar loved fighting.

"There you are!" She said loud and bright. Her arms went around him and shamelessly, her mouth found his ear from behind to suckle and nip. "Let's get closer to the front!"

Habiba barely gave the small girl and the massive boyfriend a second look. She took Bataar's calloused hand and squeezed through the other couple. They touched so many people on their way up to a clearing but no one seemed to mind when they saw that it was her.

She was a pretty girl, but not the standard pretty. Not the type of girl you'd see on the countless vandalized billboards in the city, vying for your attention. She had short hair, cropped close, with just the hint of curl. Big eyes, thick dark eyebrows, and a pillowy mouth that she painted a startling purple. A poisonous purple. When she turned back to check on him, he saw the sheen of green glitter high on her brown cheeks and at the corners of her expressive eyes. He saw her wolf in there too, trying to get him to play, inviting him to touch her.

Bataar found that he couldn't resist that invitation. The moment then were free from the tight horde of people, and no bodies around them touched, Bataar put his hands on her bare midriff to pull her close to him. They faced the stage and his lips were easily placed right behind her ear. His own ear still tingled with warmth from where she'd touched him and now he had the opportunity to return the favor.

"Do you like Windfall?" Bataar asked, his lips moving along the shell of her ear. Habiba shivered and he committed the sensation of her reaction to memory.

"No," she replied. "Concerts are too loud for me. But I thought I smelled you so I came searching," she continued. Honest and straightforward.

"I thought I'd rubbed up against enough people to blend in," he said.

"I have a good sense of smell," Habiba answered and pressed her back against him.

"Well, now you've found me, what are you going to do with me?" Bataar asked, his voice thick and low.

"I thought we could play another game," she said as she pulled out of his arms to turn around and face him.

"What's with you and games?" Bataar asked.

"Close your eyes," Habiba commanded and he complied without thought. He could feel her leaning closer and closer so he pursed his lips a little, reaching out into the space between them to close the gap. Every cell in his body howled with the sort of exhilaration you only get from running down hill in the middle of the night, fully shifted, with the pack at your side. This was how she made him feel.

Habiba didn't kiss him. She toyed with him. Just millimeters away, he inhaled the scent of her. Her skin carried the tropical smell of coconut oil. Her hair was jojoba. Her fingers smelled like grass. Her lips were strawberry lipgloss over the waxy smooth purple pigment. Every part of her must smell so different and he yearned to press his nose against her skin and catalogue it all.

"Count for me, Bataar. Then look for me."

"To what number?" He rasped low and unsteady.

"Sixty seconds," she said, already backing away.

And just like that, she was gone. Bataar inhaled deeply and found only the trace of her on his clothes where her backside leaned against him. But other than that, he found no potent source in the crowd.

He opened his eyes, feeling almost panicked, at having lost an entire person in just one minute. Someone nearby was drenched in sweat and cologne and it was irritating his senses. Bataar realized then that Habiba had done this on purpose. She'd taken him to a place where strong scents overlapped one another and hid her in a blanket of human and food smells.

Which meant she was within a certain range from him. Far enough away to be masked, close enough to keep an eye on him.

Bataar turned around, taking in all the faces around him. He inhaled again, his nose in the air, catching a whisper of coconut. He began to chase it but the lights changed and a guitar riff vibrated the air. The people around him pressed close, and the first devastating pitch of screams tore at his eardrum.

He was quickly losing the scent of coconut. Then he picked it up again behind him. As he pushed his way through the crowd, he smelled her to his right again. People were starting to get angry at his recklessness. It was beginning to get hard to maneuver politely between tightly pressed bodies. How could it be so easy for her? She seemed to be running around and around in a circle. She was closer, but out of sight, and it was starting to drive him crazy. How was she so good at these sorts of games?

An hour, he was stuck standing where her scent was strongest, for an hour. He couldn't leave because he wanted the chance to see her again. But he was losing faith in the spot he chose to wait for her. She might not choose to come back and gloat over her victory. He was depending on her to gloat, almost wishing for it.

A hand touched his shoulder and Bataar whipped around, excited to see her. But no one was there. Her dark brows furrowed and he growled low in his throat.

"Well, that's a sexy sound," Habiba said from above. Bataar looked up so fast, he might as well be a Pez dispenser.

Sitting up on a camera platform attached to a steel arm, was Habiba. She'd been circling, getting shots of the crowd from just ten feet off the ground on a roving camera. She gestured for him to come up and helped pull him up when he made a leap. Then she made space for him to sit as she adjusted the camera.

"My nephew's sick so my uncle needed to take care of him. I get to play camerawoman tonight," she explained. Then she gave Bataar a grin and nudged his shoulder.

"I thought you might give up," she said.

"Not a chance..." Bataar replied. Then he leaned in to kiss her just as the stage blazed with sparklers and the crowd of thousands screamed with jubilation. It was exactly how he felt inside when she returned that kiss.