Domino (The Domino Trilogy) (9 page)

But when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. It
had all seemed to fall into my lap too easily, and now I was stuck up a hill I couldn’t get down. I’d probably have to call Eric Burgess at the paper in the morning and tell him I wouldn’t be making the deadline, unless some sort of miracle happened and the information I needed on Rostovich just fell out of the sky or something.

Still, stranger things had happened. I decided to sleep on it. Maybe I’d wake up in the morning with a better idea of what to do.

Overall, the evening was a wash. Meeting Peter Rostovich had been, shall we say, educational---if more than a little bizarre. I’d seen and felt things that evening I’d never felt before, and not sure I ever would again. I’d been tied up---and liked it. I’d gotten aroused in public, and liked it too. My most secret spots ached. I might still technically be a virgin, but at that moment I certainly didn’t feel like one.

I wanted more.
And I wanted it now. I wanted to sacrifice my virginity as soon as possible. Not on some sacred marble altar, either---any cheap mattress or brick wall would do.  But when? And with whom? Not with Peter Rostovich, surely. How many ethical barriers would I breach if I did that? My journalism career would be over before it even started. I’d never be able to look myself in the mirror again. I’d lose all self-respect. At least, that’s what the rational part of my brain kept telling me. My limbic system had other ideas, however.

I sat down on my bed and put my head in my hands. I was sweaty, and anxious, and every nerve ending in my body was switched on. Even the feel of my down comforter and duvet against my skin was excruciating, because it just wasn’t the kind of touch my body craved. I wanted ski
n on skin, hot breath mingling with sweat, the pounding of naked bodies against one another. I wanted what I’d seen in that gallery tonight.

I looked at my wri
sts where the cable tie had been. There were very faint red marks showing just above each wristbone. I rubbed each wrist with my fingertips, tracing the lines, recalling how the hard plastic had cut into my skin, had blocked my circulation, how it had stung and even made it difficult for me to balance and walk. By all accounts I should have found the entire experience of being tied up repulsive, but I didn’t. I wanted it to happen again. And I wanted Peter Rostovich to do it to me.

I wanted him to fuck me. There, I’d
finally admitted it. I wanted to lose my virginity to a man I’d just met, a man who had tied me up within thirty seconds of meeting me, and even then without even a proper introduction. I wanted to fuck a man who had to be at least ten years older than I was if not more, a man I’d just agreed to write an exposé on for a major newspaper. An exposé I had no idea how to go about writing, and I’d already danced across some shady ethical lines in a vain attempt to get the information I needed to write it---which hadn’t even worked.

Good lord, this was really screwed up. What on earth was the matter with me? Is this really what sex did to people’s brains? Suddenly all my girlfriends’ messy romances and one-night stands made more sense.
All rational thought obviously went out the window where sex was concerned.

I decided the best course of action was to do something to take my mind off the whole proceedings. I
tossed my press bag under my desk, promising myself not to look at it or its contents until at least tomorrow morning. I switched off my phone and didn’t log into my computer to check email, the news, or anything else. Instead I popped a DVD into the player and settled back against my bedpillows to catch up on my favorite television show,
Downton Abbey.
The Season 2 boxed set had just arrived from Netflix earlier in the week and now would be the first chance I’d had in several days to watch an episode or two. I loved the British Edwardian soap opera, with its sumptuous costumes, refined dialogue and convoluted soap-opera plotlines.

And no sex. At least, none on camera. I could escape my troubled thoughts and throbbing body for a while, and stay awake long enough to face the music when Hannah got home from the symphony. Hopefully I’d be able to
speak with her for at least a few minutes before she and Ted retreated to her bedroom for yet another installment of the screaming-fuck Olympics. Thankfully her room was at the far end of our railroad-style apartment (our kitchen and sitting room were sandwiched in between), so as long as I stayed in my room with the fan blowing I wouldn’t have to hear much of the fallout.

Then again, after tonight’s turn of events, I was curious about what Hannah and Ted did together. While in the past the notion of my best friend banging that shallow rich-kid
fratboy with cheesy tribal tattoos made me an even mix of nauseous and indifferent, tonight it made me curious. What exactly went on behind those closed doors? Was it just plain old vanilla sex (as if I even knew what that was), or was it closer to what I’d watched at the gallery tonight? Or was it something different still? How many different kinds of sex could there possibly be? It wasn’t something we’d discussed much in my Human Sexuality course a few semesters back. That class had focused more on the physical mechanics and biological side of things, rather than personal foibles.

I
tried to lose myself in
Downton Abbey
, but my mind kept wandering. When I watched the characters I’d come to know so well navigate their way through the upheaval of World War I, social mores, and class conflicts, the only thing I could think of were naked bodies, leather straps, chains, and sex. After what I’d seen tonight, the genteel people with their old-fashioned morals and veiled attitudes about sex and romance no longer interested me. It made me feel uncivilized and shallow. Wasn’t I better than this? I was a virgin, got straight As and read high Victorian literature for fun. Sex just wasn’t my gig.

Besides, I’d never have lasted this long as a weekend cocktail waitress if I let the opposite sex get to me. I was forever dodging boob- and ass-grabbers on my cocktail shifts. Plus my uniform at Benny’s, the bar where I currently spent my weekend evenings, was a short, form-fitting black dress that left little to the imagination. It was great for tips, not so great when it came t
o avoiding drunken slobs out for a free grope. I coped by shutting down below the neck doing my best imitation of an Arctic glacier.

The only time I’d broken that cardinal rule
of cocktailing was my first-ever shift, at a now-defunct place called Mr. D’s, spring semester of my freshman year, and I’d ended the night with two bruised boobs and almost no tips. A veteran cocktailer named Trixie (no joke) took pity on me, showed me the right way to act, and I’d never looked back.

“You always want to play hard to get,”
Trixie had said. “Let them think they have a chance with you only with your eyes, not your body. Right now you’re doing it backwards. They think they can touch you without having to pay for it first. That’s why you aren’t getting anywhere.” True to her word, the next night I cleared almost $300 in tips, and anyone who tried to grab my ass either didn’t get close enough to touch me, or else got a swift knee to the groin and a visit from the bouncer. Before long I was acting the same way on campus, at the mall, or anywhere else the opposite sex might have a chance to flirt with me. I didn’t want the complications of relationships or a sex life, and Trixie’s tips worked like a charm when it came to keeping the men away and me on the straight and narrow path.

There were practical benefits too----I had to keep a certain GPA to maintain my scholarship, and I needed to focus hard on building my clips portfolio if I wanted a future in the competitive world of journalism. Staying ice-cold celibate for all this time might have made me unusual among the college coed set, but it worked wonders for my long-term career and financial prospects.

As my mom frequently reminded me, “College is temporary, but education is forever. And student loans are even longer than forever, so don’t lose that scholarship of yours, dear.”

The ice-queen routine had worked for almost three years, but now it was wearing thin. Even I had limits. And tonight I’d met them
head-on.

I couldn’
t concentrate on the TV, so I switched off
Downton Abbey
in disgust. I knew I had to be plenty addlepated to not be interested in my favorite show
.
Something had to give.

For a split second I thought about masturbating. I’d never done it before. I wasn’t even sure how to go about it. It was another one of those sexual things that I understood only in theory, as described in clinical-sounding textbooks. I wished there were instructional videos
on how to do it or something. Then again, I’m sure there were, but I probably wouldn’t be able to get them from Netflix. No, that was probably the type of thing you bought at some sleazy adult bookstore on the side of the interstate. Not exactly my scene.

I was sitting there stewing in my own pent-up juices when I heard the front door open. Hannah was back. As much as I hated the idea, I had to bring her up to speed.

I went to meet her in the kitchen/front-hall combo. To my surprise, she was alone. “Hi,” I said, craning my neck to see if Ted might still be outside parking the car or something. He wasn’t. “So how was the symphony?”

Hannah shrugged off her coat and hung it on one of
the pegs by the front door, then dropped her keys in the glass dish we kept on the hall table. “It was awful. Some kind of weird atonal postmodern thing. I fell asleep.”

I blinked. If Hannah’s outing had gone badly too, maybe my evening wasn’t a total loss. “I thought you were really excited about this performance?” I asked, hoping she’d give me a few more details, like why Ted hadn’t come home with her for the first time in weeks.

“I was. But there was a last-minute change in the program. Apparently the first and second violin chairs both came down with ptomaine poisoning, along with the regular conductor and half the wind section. So they had to do some last-minute switching of the material, and do without almost a third of the orchestra. The only thing the remaining musicians could play was some John Cage monstrosity that sounded like a dying cow. Horrible.”

Without asking, I ducked into the fridge, pulled out two cold beers, and handed one to Hannah. “Looks like we both could use a drink then.”

Hannah flopped back into one of our green plastic kitchen chairs from
Ikea. “So did your evening suck too? Oh and by the way, Ted dumped me.”

I immediately enveloped Hannah in a hug. She had the absolute worst luck with guys. “Oh Hannah, I’m so sorry. What happened?”

She took a long dreg of her beer. “I don’t know. He just up and told me at the end of the performance that he didn’t think we should see each other anymore. No explanation, no nothing. And to think, I
swallowed
for him just this morning. Asshole.”

Swallowed?
I had to think about that for a minute before I understood what she meant. “Oh, wow. Asshole is right. Did you get the material you needed for your review at least?”

“Not really. I was supposed to review the Cleveland Philharmonic’s interpretation of Mahler’s 3
rd
Symphony and place special focus on their new first violin chair, which they went to great lengths and expense to pilfer from Vienna, but of course he was down with the ptomaine poisoning so I couldn’t do either one. My assignment editor is going to throw a fit.”

“There’s nothing you could
have done. Just explain what happened and write a story on the John Cage thing, whatever it was. Who’s John Cage, anyway?”

“Some overr
ated midcentury freak who wrote bad music,” she sneered. “Don’t ask.” She paused to guzzle the rest of her beer, then went to the fridge for another. I knew then that whatever had happened between her and Ted had to be very bad----Hannah only drank more than one beer in a sitting if she was extremely depressed. I had a feeling she’d call in sick to work tomorrow and spend the whole day lounging around in her grubby old flannel footie pajamas, too, the plaid ones with the old-fashioned trap door that she only trotted out when she was recovering from a breakup. “So tell me about your evening, Nancy. It had to have been better than mine.”

I didn’t even know where to begin. “It was, um, interesting.”

“How so?”

“I take it you haven’t checked the
Plain Dealer’s
online newsfeed then.”

Hannah cast me a sidelong glance. “Should I have?”

“Maybe you should just punch up your laptop and look at the front page of the Web edition.” I figured it would be faster for her just to read the article with my byline on it than try to explain tonight’s turn of events----especially since I was still trying to figure them out myself.

She set her beer on the kitchen counter and went to retrieve her laptop from her room. “All right, I’ll humor you. But this better be good.”

“It could be good or bad, depending on how you look at it,” I replied.

Hannah came back in and settled at the breakfast bar with her laptop. She powered it up, typed in the URL for the
Plain Dealer’s
news page. She read the headline for my story----prominently displayed at the top in large font----and her eyes widened. My byline was at the bottom of the column so it took her a moment or two to realize I was the one who’d written it.