by Sunniva Dee
You can’t run when the entire floor is packed solid with bodies, so I use force, I piss people off, and by the time I reach the stairs, three meatheads have told me they’re going to beat my ass. “Later,” I promise them.
Jason is ten steps behind me. He’s bigger than me and has a harder time getting through. Dude’s on his in-ear, though, tattling to the boss, I’m sure.
Tiny and nimble, Shannon’s already holding the rope up for me to sneak under. I’m too tall for that. “Remember, Leon’s up there with her,” she says. I straddle the blockage and take the steps three at a time. Five fucking minutes.
Pandora’s New Year kiss will not be with that bastard.
The crowd presses in and bops around us. My barstool almost tips over twice, with Leon securing it in place after drunk patrons tumble into me. The light show has begun in the sky, preempting the big blowout starting in a few minutes, and for every explosion, people holler and whoop louder.
A slew of bartenders mill around with trays of champagne held high. Partiers wave bills at them to acquire the goodness. My eyes roam over the space, and from my post on the stool, ascending the stairs, I see…
Dominic?
He straightens at the top. On instinct, I brush Leon’s hand off my lap, climb up on the chair, and wave my arms in the air like he’s my lifeboat.
Dominic zooms in on me immediately. He squeezes through the mob, and for a second I catch Shannon’s frantic look over his shoulder.
Suddenly, Leon has me.
“Oh, no you don’t,” he clips out, lifts me off my seat, and shoves me in front of him behind the bar. Christian and a couple of bartenders I don’t know pause to watch.
“What are you doing?” I ask, not fathoming this development.
Then, I do. My thoughts go wild, race through my head. I’ve feared this since day one, and now it’s happening. Leon is losing it.
I was right. I was right!
“He wasn’t supposed to be here,” Leon shouts. “This is our night!”
“Let me go,” I shriek while his employees stare, slack-jawed. Where has the cool, controlled Leon who instills their trust gone? The music is deafening, and the explosions from the sky keep multiply, rolling into thunder. I land a smack on Leon’s face and twist to escape his hold, but Leon snatches my hand, jerking me with him.
“Leon! What the hell are you doing?”
The door to the storage room crashes open from the impact of our bodies. Over Leon’s shoulder, I glimpse Jason blocking Dominic with his looming linebacker form, and Dominic fighting to break through.
“Remember what I said? You can’t blame a guy for trying. I’ll fix this, Pandora—I’ll be right back,” Leon hisses.
I don’t have time to answer. Before I register what’s happening, Leon pushes me into the storage room and slams the door closed on me. The click as he locks it saturates my body and thuds in my head.
It’s black in here—so black. How can it be so black when there are fireworks outside? Stay cool. Stay cool. Stay cool.
All rooms have electricity—this one too, I think, and then the icy witch claws of my dread have me. They burrow steel-deep into my sanity and shake for me to pound on the door, scream, shriek, yell, and I do—I do!
“Leon, get me the fuck out of here!”
He pays no attention to me. He’s not there. He has locked me in, deserted me, and I’m going insane. Knees Jell-O soft to the ground, I shrink against the exit to freedom.
Please, let there be a light switch!
The doorknob. I find it.
When it offers no mercy, I just cradle it in my hand. Its unrelenting coolness is the only thing my body can fathom.
I sob.
“Pandora!”
Shannon’s on the other side like she always is—or maybe not—I don’t know because my brain has iced over.
My brain.
“Christian!” she roars at her boyfriend. “Don’t be a fucking pussy! Can’t you see how crazy your boss is? Open the damn door!”
She pounds back to me, communicating, trying to keep me from breaking into tiny, irreparable pieces while the fireworks thunder into a crescendo outside. “Do you have light, Pan?”
“No,” I cry. “No, no, no. No light!”
“Find the switch. This is not your walk-in closet—this switch works.”
“It’s on the left side of the door,” her boyfriend yells next, “right by the jamb.” My hand trembles, and even if I understand, I can’t follow—
Christian breaks the door open, letting life back in and flooding me with oxygen. They heave me off the floor—I breathe, breathe the deepest I have ever breathed.
Jason has let go of Dominic. Stunned, he watches his employer, the way his face twists in rage, but I search past him with swimming eyes until I find my Dominic.
“No,” I whimper, voice shivering in my throat as I shove against the customers keeping us apart. Sweet Jesus—he’s on his knees, blood seeping from his mouth. People are so drunk, not budging. They stare at the spectacle on the sky. At Dominic on the floor.
I catch how he gets up in time to block Leon’s next blow with an arm, and finally Jason reacts. He wedges his wall of a body in between Leon and Dominic, and this time it’s not to support his boss. He’s facing Leon, his posture telling me that he’s trying to talk him down.
Leon curses, his flawless features almost unrecognizable in their fury. Me, I’m not interested in Leon’s response. I can’t even look at him anymore.
I meet Dominic’s gaze. One of his eyes is swelling shut, but the relief in them when he discovers me fills me with weightless happiness. It contrasts eerily with the adrenaline that still makes my legs weak. I take another step toward him.
“TEN, NINE, EIGHT,” people shout around us. From within Jason’s hold, Leon’s stare burns into me, but all of my focus remains on Dominic.
Dominic.
He pushes past a tall, wobbly girl on his way to me.
We’re so close to each other. Almost there.
I need to kiss the blood off your mouth.
“SEVEN, SIX, FIVE!” The roar I’m not a part of vibrates through my body. A new year is coming. My new life… it’s going to start out right.
Shannon embraces me, and next thing I know, Mica and Destiny are there too. “Are you okay?” they ask in different ways, but all I can think of is how now my friends are blocking me from him.
“FOUR, THREE, TWO!”
“Dominic!” I manage, pointing stupidly. As always, Destiny understands first.
“ONE!”
And then he’s there, in front of me, right next to me—into me. Dominic doesn’t speak. He just breathes against my skin as his arms go around me and tighten, folding me to him.
The crowd whoops and cheers, but I—
I am in Dominic’s arms. I stare up into his beautiful, beautiful eyes, and I can’t distinguish his features through my tears.
“Happy New Year, babe,” he whispers with his lips on my ear. His voice, the one I’ve missed like crazy, strums and plays with my eardrum. He cups my face with his hands, thumbs stroking half circles from my nose to my cheeks, rediscovering me.
“Happy New Year,” I sob out. He draws back, frowning instead of being happy like me. The green of his irises are darkening.
“Did he hurt you?” he asks, worried for me, and I—
“I’m fine now. I should be asking you that. He hit you,” I explain unnecessarily before I do what I want to do: I clean him like a cat, the swollen, broken texture of his lip coating my tongue with copper.
“Yeah, he didn’t want me here.” He smiles around the understatement of the year, smiles under my ministrations. Dominic’s hands move into my hair on both sides, weaving through it and steadying me. His lips are soft, warm in the cool air. When he coaxes my mouth open, sucks my bottom lip into his own, I pull in a quick breath.
It’s been so long. I always missed him, but with him here, real and tangible and focused on me, the sen
sation overwhelms me. I’m not used to his kisses anymore. The scent of Dominic. This taste—he’s so…
Everything.
I am drowning in the bliss of this kiss. The fear in my body ebbs into a quiver in my legs. I think of how easily I could drop to the ground, but Dominic holds me. He has me now. With him, I will not fall.
“I love you. There. Whatever.” My declaration bursts free, maybe because the new year has arrived and I am finally brave, true to myself and to Dominic. I’m straightening my life out. Starting on the long road of becoming my potential. My plans changed, and here I am, moving forward. Telling him what he means to me.
“I love you, Dominic.”
Dominic hoists me up, knees crooking around his waist. The noise from the party abates as the fireworks disperse and the patrons flow down the stairs. Someone muscles off with Leon, Lord knows who, because I? I can’t absorb anything but us.
My heart jackhammers.
I blush.
I worry about my perfect Dominic.
This fresh, new year could break my heart so easily, become a tired, shattered year, a twin to the former one. Even so, I need to know.
Please, Dominic. Say something.
He touches my chin, guiding me up the tiniest bit, enough for me to see him. His mouth finds mine again, and I drink in what he offers. Hope pulsates through me at this, at what he chooses to do after my confession. Still, in the seconds he takes to reply, my brain rambles, warning me not to believe. After all, I am me—not someone who deserves a man like Dominic.
“Babe, you have no idea how happy I am,” he whispers against my mouth.
“You are?”
“Yes, that’s what I came here to tell you.”
I don’t understand. I don’t, because I am scatterbrained, a girl with wobbly legs who’s overdosed on adrenaline. “What… what did you want to say?”
“That I’m in love with you. You, Pandora, are so hard to chase. You—ah.” He shakes his head, nuzzling my nose with his as he does. “Are you going to quit running from me? I won’t give up if you change your mind tomorrow. I’m here to stay, all right?”
To hear this from Dominic is surreal. I’m so light I could fly. I latch on to his lips again, and he groans, fine with my way of shutting him up. “You were the one leaving,” I mumble.
“Babe, I never really left.” His hands press me closer. “You cut me off, remember?”
I remember.
I need to change the subject, but what I say, I regret immediately. “Are you back to working for Gross Spa Lady tomorrow?” Hell, I can’t even fathom what I’ll do if he says “yes.”
“Geraldine?”
“I hate her.”
Dominic doesn’t laugh or comment on my blurt-out. “No. No more Elysium Spa for me. My uncle insists on paying for my last semester. Says it’s long overdue.”
“What? Uncle Dickwad? Or is this another uncle?”
An amused snort puffs from him between the smacks of our lips. “Yes, Alan. Turns out he’s not so bad.”
“Wow.”
I’m bursting with need. I still miss him even though we’re together. I want him to keep saying stuff I love to hear, keep holding me, touching me. I want to go home with my Dominic and stay in bed with him all day.
I’m sober. I’m good. I don’t want to be drunk or hung over with Dominic. When we fall asleep, I’ll be on his arm, and when we wake up, I’ll remember every touch and every whispered word. Then, in the morning, I’ll make him breakfast.
Yes.
“No crème de menthes tonight?” he asks as if he can read minds.
I shake my head, my smile big. “Nope. New Year’s resolution.”
“Good,” he sighs.
I’m writing checks. Everyone on duty last night has made their choice between a job at Smother’s sister club or a handsome severance package. The only staff I’m keeping here are Arriane and Christian, because the constant reminder of my meltdown is not something I plan to live with.
I’ve been luckier than I deserve. It’s the morning after, and I expected a subpoena, a knock on the door from the law—at least a restraining order would make sense. Pandora might not want to cause waves, but if the tables were turned, I’d sure as hell sic the police on Dominic for doing what I did to her.
The last time I lost it was two decades ago. On the fifth of May, at six in the morning, I stood at the bedroom window and watched my mother climb into her car to leave a violent marriage behind. I was seven.
When her sky-blue Buick Regal vanished from sight, taking the sun in my life with it, I howled until Father barged in and took out his frustration on me. He never could beat me into submission. What he did was beat me quiet, controlled, and controlling.
In my teenage years, once the world beyond our door had become mine, I vowed never to turn into the lowly, sadistic man my father was. Until last night, I upheld that promise to myself.
On New Year’s Eve, though, I overstepped my boundaries by robbing someone’s freedom. Sure, I enjoy restraining my girls, showing them how pain can elevate the pleasure I give them. I push, but I don’t go beyond what their bodies beg of me. My turn-on has always been female desire.
But I have learned that my armor isn’t indestructible, that I too can lose control. I don’t know what caused it, why Pandora slipping through my fingers tilted my world, but it did. Today I’m fixing what I broke.
“You called?” Arriane asks, leaning her head against the doorjamb to my office.
“Yes, can you do some shopping for me?”
She raises her eyebrows as she sinks down on a chair opposite me. “Sure, what do you need?”
“I’d like you to put together a gift. Here, grab a notepad. This might take most of your day.”
It’s spring break, and I’m eased out of my dreams by light fingertips. They move over my naked skin in a sure, familiar way. Still sleep-confused, I remain immobile until they form around my breast, causing the tip to pebble.
“You were moaning in your sleep, babe,” my love whispers to me. I don’t open my eyes. Instead I smile at his words, because I know what my moans do to him.
“Sorry I woke you up.” I curve my palms around his head to draw him close to me. My grin widens in the dark… Dominic and I sleep in the dark.
“Ditto,” he whispers. The hairs on my skin rise over the goose bumps his fingers create. Why am I always so easy for him? I arch into his hands, and he exhales, content. “Do you know that I love you, Pandora?”
“Yes, yes. And I love you, Dominic. So much.”
His mouth finds mine as his fingertips trace down my abdomen, dipping and finding my sweetest spot, caressing me through our kiss.
“You,” I sigh to him, “have magic hands.” I climb up on him and discern the ridges of his stomach below me. My hands glide up, play with his nipples until he drags me down.
I find him under me. Long, hard, and ready. When I slide him inside of me, he laughs breathlessly below me. “Ah, babe… this?”
“Yeah?” I rock against him, the pleasure building in me. Like I often do, I sink down, embracing him, needing all of my skin to touch all of his while we make love. I snuggle into the crook of his neck, enjoying the sensation of his grip firm on my behind, driving me closer with each slow thrust. “What about ‘this?’ Did you—” I’m panting a little. “—lose your train of thought?”
“Shit, I’m— Hold still…”
I try to, but I contract around him in the involuntary pre-spasms of my own climax. Early mornings are quick for us. Dominic lets out a small grunt, a sound I’m wired to react to. If I push down on him now, he’ll come—we both will. I see no reason to resist the temptation.
“Devil woman,” he breathes as he bucks against me, shooting all of his love inside of me. “Never listening.”
I’m still splayed out on top of him with his arms around me when his grandmother starts bustling in the kitchen. Soon, the smell of coffee wafts in, and Dominic flips me to my back, pres
sing me into the mattress in a last, tight embrace.
“Mmm. I never want to get up.” His words tickle the crook of my neck, causing me to giggle.
“She’s making breakfast, isn’t she?” I ask.
“Yes, this should be a good morning.” I feel his face draw into a smile against my skin, but he’s still not moving.
“What are you waiting for? Yesterday wasn’t good—didn’t you want me to meet your real grandma? The one I met wore two different shoes and spent more time snickering at herself, or in her words—‘that silly lady’ in the mirror—than acknowledging us.”
Dominic smiles one of those beautiful smiles I’ll never tire of. “What can I say—my grandmother is a happy senile.”
The months since New Year’s Eve have been quiet. They’ve been tough, and they’ve been blissful. Dominic and I haven’t officially moved in together, but he cleaned out his walk-in closet a while ago and ripped its door off the hinges in an open invitation for when I’m ready. With each passing week, I stay longer at his place. It is where I sleep through the night. It is where I thrive. I study better around Dominic. I am so in love with this man, and I am happy. Happy.
Happy!
Spring break is the lull in our intense workload. Dominic is sprinting toward the finish line in his last classes ever, while I’m taking an overload. I’m hell-bent on passing my courses with respectable grades, and then I’ll bounce straight into an intensive summer trimester to make up for my lost semester.
As I head to the bathroom for a quick shower, I think back to the craziest happenings I’ve ever been a part of.
We never contacted the police about Leon. Dominic insisted on it, but I just wanted to start fresh, not sully my new life with my old one. In addition, what transpired between Leon and me was my fault too.
Leon soon showed that he wasn’t about to abuse my trust either. The day after the assault at Smother, a gift basket appeared at my door. From within the truffles, the cheeses, wines, and chocolates, we pulled out a V.I.P. card with a year’s worth of luxury dinners for two at the Shisa Gardens, Leon’s family’s Japanese restaurant, as well as a gift card boasting unlimited drinks at Smother for the same period of time. The message hanging off the wicker handle was brief.