Pandora Wild Child

by Sunniva Dee

  Pandora and Dominic:

  My sincerest apologies.

  Leon

  Neither of us has returned to Smother, but on Dominic’s and my monthly anniversaries, we hit Shisa Gardens. The staff treats us like celebrities, complete with alcohol-free champagne and exclusive nine-course dinners not on the menu.

  I’m toweling off when my phone rings. My father’s ringtone has been upgraded from the crickets Dominic playfully assigned to the sound of a man clearing his throat loudly. I roll my eyes when Dominic pokes his head in to hand me the damn thing. I’m ready for a regular ringtone now, even if we’re talking about my dad.

  “Hi, Pandora,” my father says. “How are you?”

  I inhale before I answer. It hasn’t been easy for the two of them to accept this new daughter they have, the one demonstrating willpower and backbone, who makes her choices whether her parents agree or not. My father almost put the Deepsilver apartment up for sale several times in the wake of our phone fights, but Dominic was always there to support me, help me stick to my guns.

  I removed the FERPA agreement that allowed them automatic insight into my academics with the college. Now they can’t get updates from anyone besides me.

  “I’m in heaven,” I reply to Dad’s question, catching him off guard.

  “I… we got your package,” he manages, his tone gruff. “Your mother and I appreciate that you sent us that even if you didn’t have to.”

  I feel my lip tremble with emotion and look up at Dominic. His eyes are on me from the doorway, hands gripping the doorframe above his head. His gaze softens, a small smile growing on his lips. “They got it?” he asks, and I nod.

  “Those are good grades,” my father says, adjusting his voice through a harrumph. He’s right, which is why I framed the midterm printout before I sent it along with my plans for the future.

  “Your letter, though, Pandora. You’re moving?” He makes it sound like a question, and to me this is Dad’s blessing—not of my decision, but of my being in charge of my life. Maybe we won’t end up yelling at each other today.

  I told them everything I wanted to say in the letter, still I expected this conversation. “Yes. I’m leaving Deepsilver with Dominic, and we’re taking over his grandmother’s house, where he grew up, after his graduation.”

  “Pandora, this is not a smart decision. You’re too young to commit to someone, not to mention—”

  “How old were you and Mom when you moved in together?” I’m being rhetorical. I know the answer.

  “Twenty, but we had plans, we were married, and knew that we loved each other.”

  “Dad, exactly! We may not be hitched yet, times are different now, but we—”

  “What’s she saying?” Mom’s voice is concerned behind him.

  “Hold on. We’re calling back from the main line.”

  I groan and hang up. Dominic reaches for me. Pulls me into him and hums his offer against my throat. “Are they going parental on you? I’d be happy to talk with your father, babe. Tell him my honest intentions.”

  I snort. “Yeah, that’ll help. The man’s got super powers—I’m pretty sure he can commit murder over the phone.”

  I jump when my cell blares again with the first notes of Beethoven’s No. 5, the Destiny Symphony. Da-da-da-daaah. Da-da-da-daah.

  “Fuck, Dominic? Have you hacked every contact in here?”

  My baby bursts out laughing. “Pick up,” he urges. “Breakfast’s almost done. I smell the eggs.”

  “Dora?” my mother asks as if I’m the one calling. I swallow back the “don’t ever use that stupid nickname on me again” since I better pick my fights today.

  “Yeah, hey.”

  “I’m here too,” Dad chimes in, probably from the bedroom line. “Where were we? Ah, right: Pandora has decided to interrupt her studies to become a housewife on an island.”

  My mother gasps. How does she pull off such genuine shock when she’s probably holding my letter while we speak? Dad twisting the truth doesn’t surprise me. Since he can’t affect my decision, I just roll my eyes skyward at him.

  “‘Housewife in Stowden,’” I mouth to Dominic. He opens in an “Ah” and chortles quietly.

  “Our house will be a total mess, Dad. No housewifing here, because I’ll be busy as heck. They say taking the degree online is much more challenging. Deepsilver has an e-learning campus—I told you that in the letter, remember?”

  Dad grunts, displeased. He’s old-school and doesn’t believe online education renders the same knowledge as on-campus classes.

  “But honey, weren’t you staying in Deepsilver to keep the apartment? Are the girls giving up their studies?” Mom appeals to what I anguished over for weeks, so I’m delighted to break the news to them. This I didn’t tell them in the letter.

  “They will be fine, Mom. Destiny was just awarded a nice fellowship, so Mica and she are on the lookout for a cheap place to share in Deepsilver. Shannon is giving it a try with Christian,” I reveal, causing Mom to gasp again. “I’ll miss them like crazy, but…” I raise my eyes, meeting Dominic’s. “I can’t be apart from my boyfriend again, and he’s got a job waiting here.”

  “But a psychology major, Pandora?” Dad jumps in. “You’re ready to give up on your dream of becoming a doctor?”

  “Dad, it was never my dream. It was yours,” I say patiently. I’m not upset, because he won’t understand until I’ve told him. “And I can still become a doctor. In psychology.”

  Yes, I finally know what I want to become. Dominic hasn’t been an all-fix for me, because emotional damage doesn’t heal with a magic wand. I still get panic attacks behind a closed door, and I still hate the dark when he’s not with me. My box of high-energy light bulbs came with us to Stowden for a reason, even if I might not need it out of my suitcase.

  This semester I’m taking two psychology classes, and after my love heard me marvel over how easy these courses are, he said, “Are they easy for everyone? Or do they simply make sense to you?”

  “Dad,” I go on, finally saying what I’ve wanted to say for months. “You thought locking me up was the way to keep me safe when I was younger, but I’ve finally understood how wrong you were. People grow into fine human beings without extreme treatment, and now I am scarred—”

  He huffs, readying himself to interrupt. I continue before he can speak. “Good things came out of what you did to me, though.”

  “Pandora,” Mom pleads, surely alluding to the “what you did to me” part.

  “Thanks to you, Dad, I’m passionate about something; I want to help other people with wounds like mine. Psychological wounds.”

  Their silence speaks volumes. Neither has a ready retort. They’re searching for a reply that can make me change my mind, and it’s time to end this conversation.

  Dominic opens the door to the hallway and takes a couple of steps out. Then, he calls out, loud enough for Mom and Dad to hear. “Pandora, breakfast is ready. Sunny-Eggs and bacon!”

  I only half-cover the speaker while I yell back. “Coming, Dominic!” I speak to my parents again next, removing my hand from the receiver. “Gotta go—breakfast’s on the table. Dominic and I will visit you guys soon, okay? Together.”

  “Man,” I say to my love, dropping the phone on the bed. “So ready for breakfast.”

  “Dear, little Pandora!” exclaims Dominic’s grandmother when I enter the kitchen behind him. “I noticed your purse in the den this morning. You two must have arrived late last night?”

  Or at four p.m. “Yes, Mrs. Davide, we did.”

  “Oh!” She swats at me. “Please call me Pearl. Dominic, she is so pretty, even prettier than on your videos!”

  I send him a puzzled glance, and Dominic laughs. “Skype, Grandma. On Skype.”

  “That Skype is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?” She smiles, nodding at me while she scoops bacon onto our plates. “Sweetie, I feel like I know you already.”

  The assisted living facility she lives in is beautiful,
and so is this woman. She doesn’t miss Dominic’s subtle move when he forms a hand around my neck, massaging.

  “You got her, didn’t you?” She winks at him. “You didn’t come easily I hear, though,” she says, swinging to me.

  “Grandma, please—you’re embarrassing her.”

  She leans in over the table, whispering loudly to me. “You know, you’re the first girlfriend he’s brought home since Melissa in high school.”

  “Enough, Grandma!”

  “It’s okay, Dominic.” I smile, because really, it is. Everyone has a past, and who am I to question his after everything I made him go through? I’m the one he chose. I’m the one who’s about to visit the house the two of us will be living in.

  This is ridiculous, but Dominic insists. We’re at the front porch of his childhood home, and I hang awkwardly in his arms. He lets out a playful grunt, insinuating that I’m heavy.

  “I’m too much for you, aren’t I? Ha, you can’t handle me, little boy.”

  “No? Hold on, I’ll show you how to, hmm, handle brats like you.” He tries to retrieve the key from his pocket—under my butt—which isn’t an easy task.

  “I’ll help,” I say, but really I just cop a feel through the thin fabric inside his pocket.

  “Ah, shit, don’t!” Apparently, it’s hard to wriggle away when you’re using both arms to support a human cannonball. Not my problem, because the balls I cup are of the lighter variety.

  Somehow he manages to unlock the door, and we burst in, steering off from a vintage coat stand last minute. Dominic dumps me on a couch, and I squeal as he buries his face in my chest. He growls against me and raises my shirt, digging his fingers into my flesh and tickling me senseless.

  “Mm, did you know you’re delicious? I think we need to christen our home now,” he mumbles, his mouth sucking wet kisses up my stomach, lifting my top enough to find my breasts with his hands. “Shit,” he husks, his voice heated now.

  “Did you shut the door?” I pant.

  He shakes his head, the tip of his nose digging into my belly button. “Doesn’t matter.”

  I can’t help laughing. “Right, let’s start out with a free show for the neighbors.”

  “Uh-huh,” he murmurs, not paying attention to what I’m saying.

  “Dominic, should I not inspect this home you speak of before the christening begins?”

  “Babe,” he moans like I’m dumping the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Fuck first? Guided tour of new home second?”

  “Shut up,” I giggle. “‘Fuck?’”

  “Oh yeah, I’ll fuck you hard.”

  “Like you mean it?”

  Dominic rumbles a laugh into my stomach. He stills against me. Then, he lifts his head enough to level his gaze on my face. The green of his irises seems to shimmer in the light from the window.

  “Yes,” he says, “as hard as I love you.”

  The man I’ve loved for years is going ballistic. Books, glasses, and candles ricochet off the walls and crash to the floor. The low growl contained in his throat unleashes as he hurls his stereo at the window, making the glass panes shatter on impact.

  “She fucking left me for him!”

  He spins and locks on me. When Leon stares at you, he consumes you. He traps you in a small, flustered vacuum where he’s all that matters. “Leon… you’ll be okay,” I begin, but my voice trembles.

  I can’t wrap my mind around this meltdown. Nothing ruffles him, nothing surprises him; in all my years at the club, I’ve never seen fissures in the marble of my boss’ beautiful façade.

  Chaos is the antithesis of his life—of his apartment, his staff, his job—heck, of him! With the exception of his girlfriends, everything he touches remains orderly, and yet he’s losing it so completely right now.

  This state he’s in… It doesn’t rock my need to be there for him. I—

  Am always close.

  He’s my love. My unreciprocated love, because I am just Arriane, his left hand, the favorite bartender. Not one of the dolls he breaks.

  “Arriane, she never stopped dragging him into our thing, insisting that she loved him.” Leon’s chest lifts and sinks with his turmoil. “I never work to keep someone, and yet I did with her. Fuck, I did everything I could, while all he needed to do was barge into Smother. He fucking stole her from under my nose!” Angry tears glitter, drifting over his surreally blue irises.

  Does he not hear himself?

  Every day I was here to witness their “relationship.” Since Pandora couldn’t escape Leon’s territory—the club and his upstairs apartment—she disappeared inside herself. He tried to coax her out, but he never fully succeeded.

  “Why…?” I hesitate, unsure of how he’ll react if I ask. Still, I need to vocalize my thoughts. His gaze snaps to my mouth, watching me continue.

  “Why did you insist when she always talked about Dominic?”

  “Arriane! Didn’t you catch how perfect she is for me? Hell—I’m perfect for her.”

  Leon’s parade of girlfriends is long. One after the other, they arrive and get booted. Like crack, he gets women addicted to him before he breaks their hearts with his rapidly cooling interest. The last one, though? Pandora?

  She turned the tables on him.

  Leon is not boyfriend material. Leon is heartbreak ready to detonate in one stunning package. And yet I can’t stand that he’s hurting. I wish he handled this better.

  I—

  Long to erase his pain.

  “How long did she live with you, Leon? A week? She wasn’t perfect for you if she’s in love with someone else.” I keep talking. Knowing I should stop. “Don’t worry. The right girl will come around.”

  Anger flashes over those flawless features I’ve memorized. “What do you know? Do you even date?” he spits out.

  This outburst is not him. “Yeah, just… not lately,” I mumble, stunned.

  “As in since you started working for me three years ago?” he prods.

  With no deliberation, I nod. Because when I fall, I fall hard. I don’t recover my heart easily. A few months into my job at Smother, I already knew. Sure, I’ve had a date or two. Occasionally been sucked into an advanced make-out session, but—

  “Ooh, that makes you quite the relationship expert,” he mocks in a tone he never uses, especially not with his employees. Eyes darkening, he stalks toward me on my post in front of the exit. I’m not sure of his intentions. To be on the safe side, I push at the door, double-checking.

  Thank God. Still barricaded.

  “What are you doing, Arriane?” His tone lowers into a silky drawl, promising a danger I haven’t been on the receiving end of before. His words sound intimate, the way he speaks to his girlfriends at times, and I swallow, wanting to control the fear and the heat rising in me.

  I press my back against the front door, fanning my palms protectively over the wood at my sides. He could be strong enough to barge through for all I know, and I can’t—can’t let that happen.

  I’m no match for him. My tiny body is all that keeps him from trying.

  “Move,” he clips, but I shake my head, trying not to meet his glare—the beautiful glare that’s crystalline compared to the pale tan of his skin.

  I shiver.

  “Arriane,” Christian calls from outside. “You sure about this?”

  “Yeah, keep it blocked. I can do this,” I say. My voice doesn’t sound right, though. It quivers with uncertainty, and I wrap my arms around myself for comfort.

  “Open the damn door!” Leon roars.

  “Leon, man—sorry,” Christian replies from outside. “Arriane, this is bad. I don’t think you can talk him down. We’re coming in.”

  No. What good would come of opening right now? If he makes it past them, he’ll take off on his motorcycle, and who knows where he’d end up—at Pandora’s door and getting himself arrested?

  I pull air into my lungs, inflating them. “Don’t do it, Christian!” I shout as loud as I can. The palms o
f Leon’s hands slam into the door by my temples, and a shocked yelp slips from me. He leans in, closer to my face than he has ever been, his nose almost touching mine.

  “Hmm,” he murmurs, changing his tone so swiftly I freeze with uncertainty. “You were going to talk me down? From what, a ledge?” He pulls back enough to meet my eyes, and the ice in his shifts. “From a noose, perhaps?” He chuckles darkly. “No, Arriane, don’t you worry. No chick can make me jump.”

  I don’t answer. My breathing speeds up in response to the way my heart pumps adrenaline through my veins. Leon is standing so close that his hips brush against my stomach, and he is…

  No way. With the mood he’s in, how can he be?

  But then, it’s true: he is hard. I’m certain now, because he aligns his body with mine and presses into me. The sensation of him rock-solid against my frame for the very first time is a rush!

  In my sensory overload, my irrational mind hitches on how fit he is. Slender and made of granite, he exhales, a puff of air meeting my skin. Of course, it’s his martial arts, my brain analyzes unnecessarily.

  He waits. Waits for me to reply.

  “I didn’t mean—No, never…” I begin, trying to focus on his question about me talking him down from jumping. Only I’m out of breath, and the rest of the words don’t come. A mild waft of cologne pulses from his neck, drawing my attention down from his face.

  “No?” he prompts. “So what’s your plan?” Sapphire-bright, his eyes narrow as he dissects me. I squirm under his scrutiny. He’s holding me, though, so I unintentionally apply friction between us. Leon sucks air through his teeth in a hiss that shoots fire to my stomach.

  At work, he moves among us like some pagan god; always present and with an all-knowing, cool air of mastery. Taking charge, responsibility. Reducing the stress of frantic work nights with short, precise orders. Now, he’s regaining his control, only of a more intimate type. He exudes a seductive sort of power I’ve so often watched him wield over his girls.

  “I turn you on, don’t I?” Mild surprise tinges his voice, like he wasn’t expecting this. There’s no point in enunciating the tale my brain concocts, because my body won’t lie.