Domino (The Domino Trilogy) (2 page)

I really had to hand it to Hannah. She had a great natural sense of style, and always managed to make me over from my usual frump self into a glamour girl with just a few minor adjustments. I
took one last quick glance in the windowpane and was satisfied with my reflection. Chic enough to blend in at an urban gallery opening, yet comfortable enough to make a quick getaway if I started getting too much “press interference,” as I liked to call it.

Though I’d only done a few
professional press gigs thus far (mostly I worked for the student newspaper on campus, which didn’t have nearly the same prestige), I’d learned early on that once people found out you were a journalist, they were all over you. It got annoying sometimes. It was best to be incognito, though I’d discovered it was pretty hard to pull off when you were walking around toting a press kit, reporter’s pad and handheld digital recorder.

I entered the gallery and showed my press kit and pass to the attendant at the door, a thirtyish woman with dyed red hair in a geometric cut and matching lipstick. She was wearing a strange-looking dress that
looked like it was made from a nylon fishing net. It showed her black bra and panties underneath, along with a plethora of tattoos. “Welcome to the Flaming River Gallery,” she said, nodding at my press pass. “I hope you’ll enjoy the show tonight, Miss---“

“Delaney. Nancy Delaney. I’ll be covering the opening for
Art News Now
.”

Dyed Red Hair smacked her lips. I noticed she was chewing bright green gum and had a tongue ring. “
Art News Now
, huh? I thought Hannah Greeley was covering this for them.”

“She got called away on another assignment
at the last minute,” I said. “Is the artist here? We’d like to get a quote from him if possible.”

Dyed Red Hair cocked her head, chewed her gum harder. “He’ll be here later,” she said, narrowing her eyes at me. “But he doesn’t like reporters. He likes
art critics even less, so good luck getting him to talk to you.” With that, she turned away from me and focused her attention on a group of young hipsters who’d just walked in the door.

So much for going incognito
, I thought. I had to give the woman credit though. She was probably a former critic herself, either that or just very press-savvy. I shrugged it off and started a first pass around the gallery.

The exhibit wasn’t at all what I expected given the glossy sample photos in the press kit.  While I recognized larger versions of the two advance photo copies in a far corner, they were hardly the focus of the exhibit.
Instead the gallery was dominated by nudes rendered in all sorts of different media----photography, painting, pencil and charcoal sketches, even two video installations that appeared to depict out-of-focus video recordings of the photography sessions. In addition to the nudity theme---the images depicted men and women of all ages, shapes, colors, and body types---there was another theme.

Bondage.

Most of the nudes were tied up in some way. Some of them were innocent-seeming, perhaps using only thin thread or yarn to bind a model’s wrists. Others were bolder, using things like neckties, scarves, or thick strips of heavy fabric like velvet or satin. There were accompanying items installed on pedestals beside the photographs---a piece of yarn, a spool of thread, a single rubber band. It was all very minimalist and odd. I’d never been impressed by so-called conceptual artists that placed ordinary objects in a gallery and called it art, but I had to admit that the arrangement held a certain sensual appeal. It made me think hard about how the models in the photographs must have felt when their wrists were tied, the sensation of thread against skin, the process of tying a slipknot, the restricted movement of bound wrists and ankles. I felt something beginning to stir deep in my groin, and the strange, unfamiliar sensation made me uncomfortable. And yet, I didn’t want it to stop.

In between the photographs were paintings of various types----oils, acrylics, watercolors, a few pastels---that offered differing interpretations of the photographs. Where the photos were stark, black-and-white, and simple, the painted versions were bright, colorful, even impressionistic. Some of them had exaggerated proportions that emphasized the simple bondage elements
, drawing them out into thick, wide lines that dwarfed the wearers into strange alien beings.

I wouldn’t have called it porn, exactly. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to call i
t art, either. It was certainly unusual, even strange. And more bondage than I’d ever seen in one place at one time.

I understood the concept of
sexual bondage. We’d covered it briefly in my Human Sexuality class my sophomore year, and I’d read a couple literary works about it, including
The Story of O.
But I’d never experienced it first-hand. Truth be told, I hadn’t really experienced anything sexually first-hand, ever. Because unless you counted me giving my high school prom date a very brief blowjob (I didn’t), I was a virgin.

I
considered myself almost asexual. I’d never wanted a boyfriend---it always seemed like too much of a bother. I was too busy studying, or building my journalism clips portfolio, or working. And I’d developed a pretty thick skin as a weekend cocktail waitress. The money was good, but the work came with its fair share of sleazy drunken fratboys and balding businessmen hitting me up and trying to grab my ass all the time. It had turned me off men in general. And I wasn’t interested in dating women, so I’d pretty much just chucked the whole sex thing altogether. Hannah teased me about it and tried to fix me up with blind dates almost every other week. I always refused.

“You need to
get laid, Nancy,” she’d say. “You don’t know what you’re missing out on.” I’d just shrug and mutter something about being too busy. Besides, as a virgin I really
didn’t
know what I was missing. And I wasn’t sure that was such a bad thing. All my girlfriends were forever going on and on about how awful their boyfriends were. They were constantly weathering breakups and the depressing aftermaths of one-night stands, while Hannah’s love life resembled a train wreck on steroids. By her own admission, she and her current boyfriend Ted’s relationship consisted solely of sex. “We don’t talk to each other, we just fuck,” she’d explained to me one night over dinner. “It’s better that way. Talking just spoils things.”

Were all sexual relationships like
that? I had yet to see anything resembling a healthy sexual relationship among my circle of friends. I wasn’t sure what a healthy sexual relationship even was, or if people actually had them. And we won’t even discuss my parents. I’d convinced myself long ago that my uptight parents had fucked only once in their entire marriage, and I---their only child---was the product of that single union. Sure, it was a ridiculous idea, but it kept me out of therapy.

But
this exhibit’s sensual art---if you could call it that---held my attention. As the exhibit progressed, so did the bondage levels. By the middle of the exhibit---the gallery was one long series of adjoining rooms arranged in a straight line---the thread, neckties and yarn had progressed to things like leather straps, ropes, and plastic cable ties---along with a few full-on money shots of models’ genitalia. Nothing in-your-face or super-crazy, like what you’d see on the pages of
Penthouse
, but plenty of exposed cocks and well-trimmed lady parts. Still, it wasn’t the money shots that troubled me as much as the plastic cable ties.

Plastic cable ties?
What did something like that really have to do with sex, anyway? It seemed like an odd choice. They evoked images of Home Depot, not the bedroom. The photos featuring them were especially strange given the sharp contrast, and it seemed the artist had made a special point to use them on the darker-skinned nudes to make them all the more prominent. There was even a pile of them set out against a black velvet cloth on a whitewashed pedestal, alongside a hand-lettered sign that said “PLEASE TAKE ONE.”

I did, fingering it absently between my finge
rtips while I studied a black-and-white silver nitrate print of a model’s well-manicured hands superimposed on what I supposed was her naked thighs, her wrists tightly bound together with a set of thin white cable ties. The plastic straps left deep indentations in her skin, made all the more prominent by the photographer’s use of harsh lighting and stark composition. From a distance the photograph was more abstract, and reminded me almost of a Georgia O’Keefe print, but up close the sheer sensuality was unmistakable.

“Put it on,” said a raspy
male voice just behind me. “Tie it tight. I can help you if you like.” Underneath the scratchy, breathy overtone the voice was a startlingly deep, with the slightest hint of an accent, but I couldn’t quite place what kind.

I spun around. Standing just to my left was a tall, slender man with an angular jaw and broad shoulders. He had a slight stubble of beard, along with
reddish-brown hair and arresting gray eyes that reminded me of dry ice. He wore dark blue slacks and a lighter blue oxford shirt with the collar open, no tie. The clothes were simple, but I could tell from their cut and the quality of the fabric that they were very expensive. His shoes were sleek, black, and European-looking with square toes, and he wore a silver Movado watch with multiple dials and matching silver cufflinks. Even his scent seemed luxurious---a hint of bay rum with undertones of sandalwood and jasmine.

“Here, let me,” he sa
id, taking the cable tie from my hand. And then, even before I knew what was happening, with a few swift movements the cable tie was fastened tight around both my wrists, its slick, cold surface digging hard into my skin.

My press kit and purse crashed to the floor. The room began to spin, and dark clouds crept into my field of vision. Everything went blank.

When I came to I found myself half-seated, half-lying on a nearby bench.  Dyed Red Hair was fanning me with a gallery program, and someone had put a cold cloth on my forehead. The tall, dark stranger was nowhere to be found.

But my wrists were still bound together tightly. And my press kit was missing.

I bolted upright in a panic, searching for my purse. I found it at my feet. It appeared undisturbed, but I couldn’t open it to check as long as my wrists were bound together with the cable tie. I tried pulling them apart hard enough to break it, but the plastic binding wouldn’t budge. In fact, the motion just made the binding even tighter. I winced as the hard plastic straps cut deeper into my skin, cutting off some of the circulation.

“I see Peter got hold of you,” Dyed Red Hair said with a chuckle, casting a sidelong glance at my bound wrists. “I warned you, he really doesn’t like art critics.”

“I’m a reporter,” I lied feebly, but I didn’t even believe my own fib.

I rubbed my bound wrists
against my thighs. The cable tie had wound itself around tighter still, leaving deep red marks in my skin that I wondered might even become permanent. My hands were getting a little swollen, and I was sure I’d be left with bruises, maybe worse.

Still, i
t was painful, but not in a bad way. It almost felt. . .
good
. I couldn’t get my mind around it. The stinging sensation in my wrists reminded me of how the inside of my mouth felt after eating the really spicy Indian curries that I loved----burned and a little tender, yet in a way that satiated my hunger and only made me want more.

I blinked my eyes several times, as if to clear them of an unwanted vision
, and the black clouds once again crept in. When I finally opened them, Dyed Red Hair was gone and I was sitting there alone. My hands were still tightly bound together. No surprises there; I wasn’t exactly making any friends here.

I stumble
d upright and trudged back to the front of the gallery in search of Dyed Red Hair, or perhaps some other representative of the establishment. My tightly bound wrists made walking awkward, especially as I tried to keep a hold of my strapless clutch purse under one cinched elbow. Making matters worse, the satchel I used to carry my notepad, digital recorder, and press credentials was missing along with the press kit. I could only guess where they might be. Perhaps the artist had confiscated them and intended to turn them into an exhibit of some kind? Or perhaps that exhibit was going to be
me?
There was such a thing as live art models, or so I’d been told. Though I’m sure they usually consented to the process beforehand.

So
Peter Rostovich obviously didn’t care much for the press. But I wasn’t sure how tying up art critics and absconding with their professional belongings was going to help his art career. Maybe if he were already the toast of the art world he could get away with eccentricities like that, but as far as I could tell, he was a nobody. He didn’t have a Wikipedia page, or even a personal website. (I’d checked).

I am so going to trash this show,
I seethed to myself. As far as I was concerned, Peter Rostovich’s art career would start and end on the same day.

Dyed Red Hair was nowhere to be seen, but I found a fortyish man in a gray suit standing at the door greeting guests. He wore a
hand-lettered nametag that read “Richard Darling, Flaming River Gallery.” I guessed based on the cut of his suit and quality of his shoes that he was one of the gallery’s owners, not just a staff flunky. That and he was talking to a gaggle of wine-sipping middle-aged business types about the potential investment benefits of high-quality art and photography.