Chapter 7
I don't know to this day how I ended up in my own bed that night. But when I woke up it was two the next afternoon and I was desperately ill.
I staggered to the bathroom and dropped to my knees in front of the toilet, hurling the contents of my stomach forth into the blue water. Whatever I had been drinking was a killer on the way out, tearing up out of my throat like it was crushed glass and not Vodka. I stopped throwing up only after my stomach was completely empty, and even then I continued to dry heave on and off for twenty minutes. When finally my body stopped raging against me, I curled up in a ball on the tile and fell back to sleep.
"Isabel?" My mother's voice. She was shaking me awake, her hands on my shoulders. "Isabel, are you ill?" I moaned and hid my face from the assault of the overhead light.
"Yeah, mom," I said. "I'm fuckin' ill. Leave me alone."
"What did you say to me?"
"I'm sorry," I mumbled, and the anger on her face softened to pity.
"Leon is here," she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
"What? Oh, God. I can't let him see me like this. Send him away. Tell him I'll meet him at his place in an hour."
"All right," my mother said. "I will. You want me to get some fresh towels and bath beads? You look awful. And God forbid your father should smell you the way you smell now."
"How do I smell now?"
"Like a barroom floor."
I moaned and struggled to sit. My head was absolutely thundering, and I had to lunge for the toilet twice more before I made it into the tub. The bath beads smelled like lilac, sweet and strong, and the clean purity of the smell brought back a little of my pre-last-night self. Jackson Gauthier's girlfriend. Little sweater sets and pleated skirts. Prep school uniforms, black Mary Janes. Innocent pecks on the lips and one five-second blowjob. And now Jackson was going to be a father.
I don't know where it came from. Just snuck up on me. But the tears started and I couldn't stop. I sobbed wholeheartedly, naked in a lukewarm lilac bath in Mexico, a hundred thousand miles from Jackson and the girl I used to be.
Letty answered the door with a cold glare, but when she recognized me she smiled, revealing crooked but blindingly white teeth.
"Hey, Izzie," she said. "We're cookin' out on the beach. Come on." I followed Letty, about as hungry as I was the day after Thanksgiving. Leon was shooting the shit with Vince and Dom. They sat in a row of muscle and sweat in lounge chairs, elbow to elbow, with giant margaritas. Mia stood at the grill, and they all seemed to ignore her. All seemed to be forgiven, or better, between Dominic and Letty, because as soon as she got me a drink, she climbed on him and straddled his hips. He was talking to Leon, but she took his face in her hands and turned it, taking his mouth in hers mid-word, and he didn't protest, as if seized instantly by the dark power of her. He responded with more than she gave him, dropping the margarita in the sand and pushing those beautiful hands up inside her tank, letting them rest on the small of her back as he sucked on her face.
I sighed shakily and went to Leon's side. He looked up at me with those cool, sea-colored eyes and smiled. He'd gotten some sun that day. Maybe he'd been in that lounge chair since he'd woken. Maybe he'd come out to see the sun rise and had never gone to sleep.
"How are you?" he asked, almost shyly, and I smiled, nodding. I wanted to kiss him, but he made no move to do so, so I stood awkwardly in the sand next to him, in my ankle-length pale blue sundress. Vince was talking about the various types of race exhaust and which was the best for the price, and Leon turned and laughed as Vince mentioned someone named Hector, who had the loudest, most expensive exhaust system in the circuit and the slowest car in California.
Letty forced a moan out of Dom in the chair next to us, deep and low, and the sound shook me to the core. It also galvanized Leon somehow. He reached to me and took my hand in his, bringing it to his lips and biting along one of my fingers gently to my wrist, all the while never taking his eyes off Vince. I felt that all-too-familiar-lately heat begin to flood my body, and I took a gulp of the icy drink, trying to soothe it before it got out of hand, nip it in the bud. But he pulled me toward him, gripping my arm around the elbow, and I sat in his lap.
"You sick?" he asked, and I nodded.
"Very," I said, and he laughed a little.
"Ever been drunk before?"
"Not like that," I said, and he kissed my throat just beneath my ear. I leaned into the kiss, and realized then how tired I still was. I rested my head on his shoulder and he moved my hair away from my face and kissed the corner of my mouth softly. I wished now that I had sat facing the other direction. Dom and Letty were putting on quite the show, and it was making me uncomfortable. No one else even seemed to notice, and I tried to remain indifferent, but I was too undersexed to be unaffected. The way he was touching her was making me hot. His hands were too perfect, and the silver of his watch just glowed off of him. I could see now that he was not black, at least not completely. His skin was golden brown, like melted caramel, and his muscled arms were every bit as impressive now, busting out of a white V-necked tee shirt, as they had been the night before, totally bare. And Leon…The way he'd been touching me last night seemed chaste and innocent compared to the way Dom's hands ravaged Letty's body, and the way hers did his, as well.
"Dom," Mia said. "Dom. Come on." He looked up at her with a bored smirk. "Food's ready." He snarled playfully and bit Letty's throat before lifting her under the arms and setting her on her feet in the sand.
"Hungry?" Leon asked, and I shook my head emphatically. He laughed. "Come sit with us, then?"
"Sure," I said, standing and heading to the weathered-smooth wooden picnic table. I sat next to Leon, feeling suddenly very out of place. They were like a family, these people, closer than blood. They jostled each other, smacked each other around, hugged and kissed and teased each other. I was the new girl, and yet my presence was obviously not in anyway awkward for them. I sat between Leon and Letty as Mia piled chicken on a plate and put it down in front of everyone, and as Vince dove for the food, Dom slapped his hand, then pointed a big index finger in his face.
"Ha," he said. "Your turn."
"I'm not prayin'," Vince said.
"Come on, V, you know the rules," Mia said, and he scowled, folded his hands, and bowed his head. The rest of us followed suit, minus the scowl.
"Thanks for the food. Say hi to Jess. Amen."
Jesse. They were quiet a moment, looking at Vince, shocked, almost. The mood was subdued and somber as we ate then, until Letty, with a devilish smile, made Dom gasp and jump with a strategically placed bare foot under the table. I blushed as everyone else laughed, and she nudged me, smiling.
"La virgen," she said, slowly, grinning, and at first I didn't understand what she'd said. La veer hen? What? But I got the humiliating gist in the ensuing conversation.
"No way," Dom said, his face snapping up from his plate. He blinked and looked at Leon, brows furrowed, confused. "I thought just last night you…"
"No," Leon said, his mouth full, and looked at me. "No, we were just messing around. Letty's…Letty's radar is right on." A big cocky smile spread across Vince's face.
"Wow," Dom said, taken aback, sincere. And then I got it. I flushed fiery red and hid my face with my hands.
"Oh, my God," I said.
"Oh, it's all right," Letty said, tousling my hair, and Dom cracked up.
"Well, this is swell," he said. "V, when's the last time we had a virgin at the table?"
"Eighth grade, I think," Vince said, "And it was Mia."
"Please." Mia rolled her eyes. And they all laughed. My face was so hot.
"Oh, just let me die now," I said, unable to keep the broad, mortified grin off my face, staring at the table before me with my fists on my forehead. Vince laughed out loud and pointed at me.
"Shut up," Letty said, almost protectively. "A virgin is a holy thing." She crossed herself solemnly and kissed her hand. Vince and Dom and Leon were in hysterics now.
"Yeah," Dom said, his face contorted with laughter. "It's holy all right. That's why UUUUUyou held out so long." Letty gasped, her jaw dropping.
"Oh, you asshole!" she exclaimed, grabbing a roll and chucking it at him. "I never once heard you complain about me giving it up." Everyone laughed, including me. I started and I couldn't stop, until I could hardly breathe, my cheeks still burning, and I covered them with my hands. When I could draw air, I shook my head.
"I cannot believe you guys," I said, shaking my head and staring down. Leon roped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in close, kissing my forehead, his words only to me as the others continued to talk shit.
"It's all right," he murmured in my ear. "They like you, or they wouldn't bother."
"How old are you?" Dom asked, suddenly sobering, and I couldn't bring myself to meet his gaze. I felt ashamed of being a virgin, under his intense black stare, felt immature and childish in a way completely foreign to the comfortable nonchalance, even tentative awe, with which my virginity had been acknowledged by Leon.
"I'll be eighteen soon," I said, and Dom nodded. When I looked at him, I saw that he was licking his bottom lip and that the tease was gone from his face. There was something new there, something sincere. But I'd never seen it before in any man, and I'd never seen a man like him anywhere. Again, that whipping, reeling oblivion as my eyes and my attentions were locked solely on his face. A mocking comment from Vince finally reached into the depths of my (our?) reverie and woke me:
"You savin' it for marriage, or what?" he asked. "Because Leon's not the family type, but I'm about ready to settle down…" Mia slugged him in the arm, only half playing. They all laughed, including Dom, but the joy never quite reached his eyes. My own gaze was drawn to them again, to the deep, smoking, pupil-less black, and I studied them for a moment, confused. Confused at what I was feeling. Confused at the quiet, determined intensity that had replaced his playful grin.
What was that? What was he thinking?
Why was he looking at me…that way?
Chapter 8
The moment of tension passed and the easy camaraderie resumed, but I couldn't shake the look in Dominic's eyes. What had that meant?
I didn't drink, but the rest of them did, so when they decided they wanted to go for a drive, to pile all on top of each other, I was cajoled into getting behind the wheel. Mia watched from the kitchen window as I reversed, jarring the carload of drunks with my pathetic attempts at driving stick.
It was Letty's car, but after I got out of the driveway and started lurching down the street, Dom hollered for me to stop, kicked her out of the front seat, into the back with leon and Vince, and he climbed into the front instead.
"Izzie, brakes. Stop." I did, grinning over at him. "Listen. I've got about eighty large sunk into this car already and Letty's not half done with it yet. You can't drive worth a shit, you know that?" I couldn't help but laugh.
" My car's stick," I said. "This thing is just fussy."
"It's fussy?" He snorted a short laugh through his nose. "What do you drive?"
"A Jetta," I said, and the smile froze cold on his face. He cleared his throat before speaking.
"Well, this is a Viper," he said. "Concentrate, all right? Pay attention to what the car's saying to you."
"Dom's getting all speerchal," Vince drawled, slowly in a hushed, mysterious tone, and Leon and Letty cracked up. "He always gets softy about cars when he's drunk."
"I am not drunk," Dom said, and Letty reached up and rubbed his prickly head gently, calming and silencing him before he could get riled.
"Izzie," Leon said. "Just ease up on the clutch once, with no gas. It's a touchy car. You gotta get to know where she kicks in. Then you'll be fine." I took a deep breath and did as he said, and when I felt the gentle little nudge against my back of the beautiful machine taking over, I let my foot arc up, and the car rolled smoothly forward.
"Good," Dom said, nodding. "Now accelerate a little. Don't look at me, look at the road. Okay, lay off the gas a minute and ease into second." I wasn't really listening to his words. His tone, low and rough and gentle, alive, almost…Insistent and coaxing, and I moved within his voice. It spread over my awareness like a thick salve and I acted without thinking, without hearing, just knowing what he wanted me to do. I shifted easily and the pickup of the car sent a cool, salty breeze over my face and through my hair.
There were no people on the streets. I got to know the beast of a car quickly, tamed her with a lenient palm, and was loving the throaty rumble of the engine, the nuances of vibration in the black leather beneath my body. I had forgotten the rowdy, inebriated bunch accompanying me, ignored them completely. I felt my eyelids get heavy, but was no longer tired…only sedated, careening placidly through a tranquil void of empty highway, as all traces of tourism disappeared into the night behind us.
"Take a left here," Dom said, and again…the insouciant telepathy, not ingesting his words and yet somehow comprehending. I turned. Felt his eyes on me. I came out of my empty preoccupation just long enough to care about Leon. Looked in the rearview mirror. He was sleeping, his head lolling on Letty's shoulder. I smiled softly, then stole a glance at Dom. "Left again," he said, and I obeyed.
"Where are we?" Letty asked. Her words were thick-tongued and slow.
"Gotta see a man about a payment," he said.
"What?" she asked. "Dom, you always say-"
"I know what I always say," he said. "But this is different. It's all right. Right here, Izzie. Yeah. Right here." I eased the car to a stop and watched with a halcyon detachment as he mussed up Letty's hair and ambulated tipsily toward a shitty little clapboard house that appeared to be sinking into the ground.
"What does he always say?" I asked, meeting Letty's pissed glare in the rearview.
"Don't do business when you're drunk," she said, then pulled her eyes off mine and stared out into the large dingy window of the shack.
I followed her gaze and we watched together as Dom and a short little cholo with black hair slicked back appeared in the window, in front of an old wooden table with four mismatched boards as legs. They were talking, and Dom had his wallet open. The cholo shook his head, and Dom didn't look happy. He rubbed his hand over his head distractedly, scratched behind his ear, then brought his hand down in front of him to gesture at something we couldn't see, something beyond the table, behind the cholo. But the other guy was not havin' it. He shook his head again, and Dom sighed, put his wallet in his back pocket.
"He's gonna hit 'im," Letty said, an almost singsong voice. "God dammit."
"He's not gonna hit 'im," I said. "He's perfectly calm."
"Watch," Letty said, and, as if on cue, Dom, perfectly calm, drew back his fist and punched the cholo dead in the face. The little guy disappeared from view, dropping to the floor, and Dom shook out his hand, sucking his knuckles briefly before turning and coming out of the house. He smiled a little into the face of Letty's hateful anxiety and opened the passenger side door. "Don't even fuckin' smile at me," she said.
"Calm down, Letty. It's all right."
"Gotta fuckin' start shit," she said. "Perfect."
"Come on," Dom said. "He ain' gonna do shit. He'll be calling tomorrow wanting to-"
"I don't give a shit," she said. "It's old. Why can't shit just stay quiet for a while?" Dom shook his head and looked out the window, and, with that simple gesture, the conversation was over. Letty slumped back in the seat and scowled, rubbing her cheek absentmindedly against the sweat-damp softness of Leon's hair. I felt a sudden stab of unwarranted jealousy. Six years, I reminded myself. Six years, they've been thick as thieves. I had known him for three days. I had no place making anything awkward.
We drove on in silence, Dom massaging his knuckles, and Letty and Vince and Leon were all passed out in the back. Someone was snoring. I think it was Letty.
"Look," Dom said. "Look at that road."
"What road?"
"Stop," he said. "Right there." He stared down it a moment, was silent, blinking lethargically. "Want a rush?" he asked, turning to me, in that beyond-gravelly baritone that made my palms sweat, my chest ache, my mouth dry. I couldn't speak, so I just nodded. Hell yeah. I couldn't think of anything I wanted more than a rush right then.
"All right then," he said. "Turn right onto this road here." I did, loving the purr of the ballsy engine as I slowly eased into the stifling dark of this road, staring into the blackness before me. "What do you think is down there?" he asked, and I shook my head. Shrugged. I hadn't a clue. "Let's find out." My heart skipped a beat and I nodded. "Get her goin'," he said, gently, coaxing me. I looked at him, unable to breathe. "Go! Now!" I redlined, jammed her into first, and popped the clutch. The car stood frozen as the Toyo rubber smoked and burned, screaming into the night for what seemed like an eternity, then finding traction and eating up the road with an intense eagerness matched only by my own. My hand was white-knuckle on the stick, and my entire body jolted as I felt Dom's close over it. He was switching amazingly alert eyes back and forth between me, the gauges, and the road.
"All right, now," he said, his deep voice dripping over me like melted wax, searing me, and I shoved in the clutch. He knew somehow, with an ultimate accuracy, when it was all the way in, and he slammed into second. I watched the speedometer. Fifty-five…Sixty…And the next time we shifted, there were no words. We just did, hurtling down…
"Push that red button on the wheel," Dom said, and I did, without asking, without thinking. An urgent screech of the tires and I was thrown back into my seat, the air knocked from my lungs in one stunned punch. Speed. Instant, empowering…
The night whistled past us as we blasted like jettisoned space waste into that hot, heart pounding delirium before us. I was high from hyperventilation but didn't realize it, thought it was all part of the ride. Probably buzzing from the loss of blood in my brain, too…My thighs were trembling and everything between them shook and throbbed. I was more aroused than I'd ever been in my life, and sex had nothing to do with it.
My heart was on overdrive, a staccato speed-inebriated rhythm banging in my throat, and we flew on forever, and the world consisted of nothing but me, Dom, and the sea of writhing, pulsating black that swallowed us.
"GRAVEL! SHIT! STOP!" he screamed, letting go of my hand and the stick, and I slammed on the brakes too late; we were already in it. The car careened, out of control, and I held onto the wheel for hell's hope of life to come, closed my eyes as we spun once, twice, flying, backward, into a field, and stopped hard, my face just barely averting collision with the wheel and my chest exploding with a crushing agony as my belt snapped taut and threw me into my seatback. I sat still a moment, buzzing…Dom sighed shakily and laughed with the same breath, tousling my hair.
"Jesus Christ. Dom, you crazy fuck!" Letty exclaimed, but we ignored her. Barely heard her. Dom moaned low in his throat and ran one hand over his own head, then grinned lopsidedly at me.
"You like that?"