Authors: Alice Dee
“He’s not answering. I’ll stop by after work. If he lied to me-“ she made a fist. “Ooooh he better not have lied to me!”
“Tris, you’re pregnant. You shouldn’t be getting so worked up.”
“If Dominic lied to me, that’s big Charla.”
“What’s the significance with this girl?”
“I don’t trust her. I don’t know her, but I don’t trust her. I’m not sure I trust him either. Not around her.”
“Why?”
“I just don’t.”
“There must be a reason?”
“I’m going to leave work early today. I’ll catch him before he leaves work.”
23… Dirty Showers
Dominic got off work at two. When he was walking up the stairs Hope pulled in to her parking space. Dominic saw her but went inside. He grabbed his mail key off of the kitchen counter and went outside, stopped at the top of the stairs as Hope was walking up.
“Hi Stranger,” he said to her.
“Hi.” She looked at him for about two seconds and walked passed him. He fiddled with his key for a moment and then went after her. She was already stepping inside her apartment, taking her key out of the lock.
"That’s it, just hi?”
“Sorry?”
Dominic leaned in her doorway.
“I haven’t seen you in days and when I do, you’re trying to avoid me or something. What’s up with you?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I’m not trying to avoid you.”
“Did I say something, did I do something?”
She shook her head and looked at him like she had no clue what he was talking about.
“When can I see you again?”
“Dominic, you have a girlfriend. What happened with us, it shouldn’t happen again.” She swung the door to close it but Dominic stopped it with his foot.
“Why don’t you let me worry about that?”
“Get out of my doorway.” Hope tried to close her door again but Dominic wouldn’t move his foot.
“Get out of my doorway,” she repeated.
“So that’s it? You don’t want to talk to me? Love ‘em and leave ‘em type, huh?”
She did want to see him but he was attached and she felt she had only borrowed him for a brief time. Like someone’s lost pet, she knew she couldn’t keep him. He was cute and yummy and all that jazz but he didn’t belong to her.
“Just go, please, just go.”
Dominic was tempted to force himself inside of her apartment to try to get thru to her but she was the serious type that would probably fuck him up.
“Look at me and tell me you want me to go away.”
“I want you to go away,” she insisted while looking at his dusty work boots.
Dominic stepped inside and pressed his body against hers, put his hands on her waist.
“Then why can’t you look me in the eye when you say it? Admit it, you just used me. Am I right? Wow. I’ve never felt so…dirty.”
She moved from his grip and dissolved into laughter.
“You’re a dork.”
“I got you to laugh.” He let himself in and closed the door behind him, tiptoeing to her bed. He sat down and stared at her.
“Talk to me, girl.”
“I have enough on my plate right now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She thought about what she had just said and took it back.
“That didn’t come out right. I just don’t want any drama.”
“I won’t make trouble for you.”
“I thought maybe you regretted it. You couldn’t leave fast enough. It’s like you just wanted to be away from me.”
He nodded, thinking about how he acted that time.
“You know what it is?” he sighed and took her hand in his. “You’re not just a fuck. I realized that right away. My head is everywhere and I’m just trying to take things as they come.”
What could she say? She felt the same but could only hope he was being honest. Dominic pulled her to him.
“We’ll just take this one day at a time, okay?”
“I’m just not comfortable with this whole thing. You having a girl-“
Dominic ignored her and ran his hands up her legs, bringing up the material of her dress with them. It draped his forearms to his elbows.
“What are you doing?” She meant to sound annoyed but she wasn’t. She loved how his hands felt on her.
Dominic didn’t say anything. He moved his hands farther up to her hips and stuck his fingers through the elastic of her underwear. His fingers felt rough because he had just gotten off work and even his hair was still sandy. Hope closed her eyes and let him take over. Dominic stood up, took off his shirt and pushed himself against her. Through the thin fabric of her dress she could feel the roughness of his jeans and dick pressed against her.
“Set us a shower,” she whispered in his ear, taking his earlobe between her teeth. “I have to cancel my dance rehearsal.”
“For me?” He closed his eyes at the feel of her breath on his ear.
“Yeah, for you,” she said, like that shouldn’t even be a question. She reached for her phone and dialed the number of the dance studio. Dominic put his arms around her waist and carried her into the bathroom. He swept the plum colored shower curtain aside and turned the knobs to get the water flowing. As she spoke on the phone he swept her hair aside and started kissing her back, pulling the dress off her shoulders. But the time she was off the phone he already had her completely bare.
24… Here comes trouble
Tristan slammed her car door and crossed the street to the construction site where Dominic worked. It was a particularly warm day and the sky was clear and deep blue. Tristan’s skinny, inches long heels clanked the asphalt as she picked up the pace, noticing everyone was already leaving. She stopped out front of the site where it was bordered by bright neon orange cones and other safety barriers. She could see steel beams and concrete pillars in the background, and shut down crane and two diggers. She looked at the faces of dirty men walking about the site, recognized Shane when he took off his yellow hard hat.
“Hey!” Tristan waved her hand in the air.
“Yo Tris, what’re you doing here?”
Shane changed direction and walked up to Tristan who was still in her work clothes; a navy pencil skirt and white long sleeve button up, the first three buttons undone.
“I’m looking for Dominic. Is he still here?”
“No, he left like ten minutes ago. You shoulda just went to his house.”
“I thought I’d catch him here.”
Shane saw the disappointment and frustration on her face.
“What’s up, is everything okay?”
“Uh, yeah.” Inside she was thinking, NO. “Hey Shane, did you-were you there with Dominic Friday night?” she tugged at her earlobe.
“Where?”
“Clubbing?”
Shane tapped his hardhat with his fingers.
“Drinking, whatever.”
“Why?” he asked suspiciously.
Tristan shrugged.
“Seems like you don’t hang out anymore.”
“We still hang out.”
“Oh,” she said casually. “I went to the Lucky Star that night cause he said he’d be there but I guess I got there too late. I haven’t seen him since.”
Shane looked at her suspiciously.
“What are you really trying to ask me?”
“What?”
“You’re not a good liar.”
Tristan shut her eyes and sighed.
“I was just wondering if there’s anything going on with him and that…” she shook her head. “that girl.”
“What girl?” he scoffed.
“Hope, his neighbor. I don’t expect you tell me if you did know something but I know he saw her, I know he was with her that night. My friend ran into them together.”
Tristan kept blabbering on but sound left Shane’s ears after her heard her say “them together”. He spaced out and came to when she said
“Come on, do you know anything? He’s getting harder and harder to reach.”
“You think that, really?”
“Well I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. But I have this feeling…it makes me uncomfortable just knowing this skank lives next door to him. And Charla saw them together and he lied to me about where he was. In fact he said he got sick and wasn’t out at all.”
Shane looked at her like he had no idea what she was talking about.
“We hung out that night but not with her. There weren’t any girls with us but Roberto’s girlfriend.”
“Maybe he just ran into her. I hope,” she mumbled to herself. “Thanks Shane. I’ll see you later.”
She turned away and quickly walked back to her car. She got to Dominic’s quick, saw his truck parked in his spot, and Hope’s black Civic in her spot. She badly wanted to go over to Hope’s car and key it or bust out all the windows, maybe slash her tires. Tristan checked her reflection in the rear view mirror and stepped out of her car. When she got to Dominic’s she was about to knock, remembering she had a key but realized she didn’t need it when she saw his front door wasn’t closed all the way.
Tristan let herself in and looked around the sunlit apartment.
“Dominic?” She closed his door behind her and looked through every room but didn’t see him anywhere. She thought maybe he was out getting his mail or talking to a neighbor. He had to be nearby. She just hoped that neighbor wasn’t Hope. Tristan was already forming ideas of how she would handle Hope dare she touch her man. Tristan went to the fridge, opened bottled water and planted herself on the couch, waiting for Dominic to walk through the door any moment. But when he didn’t, that unsettling feeling filled her up again.
Tristan went to the bathroom and as she was washing her hands, she could hear pounds and thuds from the other apartment which was Hope’s. She knew Hope’s bathroom was just on the other side of the wall. Tristan turned off the water and moved her head closer to the wall. There was silence, then another thud. She heard muffled voices too, mostly feminine sounding. Tristan pressed her ear to the wall and listened. She couldn’t hear much, just the occasional thud and then the voices, this time she was sure she head a man’s voice. When she realized what those faint rhythmic thuds could be, she made a face.
“Gross,” she said to herself, thinking they were probably having sex. “Not surprised, she is a whore.” Tristan stayed hovering over the sink anyway, trying to hear whatever she could. When she heard nothing for half a minute straight, she left the bathroom and sat down in her same spot on the couch, flicked on the TV. She wasn’t going anywhere.
25... Busted like Pamela
Dominic and Hope flopped down on her bed, Dominic still dressing her up in kisses.
“Let me take you to dinner.”
Hope held her upper half up with her elbows.
“Order in.”
“Yeah?” He kissed her top lip. “What do you want?”
“Sushi.”
“Gross.”
“Gross?”
He pushed his body off the bed and got into his dusty jeans.
“I got training tonight. You should come.”
To watch him grapple and get all sweaty? She licked her lips and smiled, studying his body.
“Okay.”
“I have to get changed but I’ll be back in a few minutes. Think about something else that won’t make me puke.” He kissed her again and squeezed her ass, just because he knew he could, grabbed his shirt and left her apartment. Hope fell back and stared at the wall thinking to herself she had no idea what she was doing. Why wasn’t she stomping out these feelings? Why wouldn’t she? She scratched the scalp underneath her soggy clumps of hair and told herself she’d worry about it later. There was always later.
Dominic walked into his apartment and saw Tristan sitting on the couch with her arms crossed and the remote control in her hand. She blinked her eyes from the TV screen to Dominic who was about to back away and, who knows, run back into Hope’s apartment? It was too late because Tristan already saw him. She saw that his hair was wet and he was wearing no shirt. She froze and so did he.
“Where were you?”
Dominic began to mouth the word “fuck”, swallowed nothing hard and tried to instantly think up an excuse and a pretty damn good one.
“Why is your shirt off, why are you wet?” Tristan uncrossed her arms and flicked off the TV. “Where were you?” she repeated.
He almost admitted it because he thought for sure he was already busted. He was about to say he went out to get his mail but he had no mail or even his mailbox key in hand. His shirt was the only thing he was holding.
“I got off work late.”
Tristan’s mouth was agape. Another lie.
“No you didn’t. I went to your work. I’ve been calling you.”
Dominic’s phone rang at that moment. Saved by the bell. He reached for it on the coffee table. It was Shane calling him to give him the heads up. Apparently he’d been trying to reach Dominic too. Dominic was panicking on the inside. He was screwed and he didn’t think he could get out of this one. Tristan saw the laces on his work boots were loose and untied. Suspecting everything, she went up to him and saw that he was clean and smelled fresh of soap.
“You bastard!” Before the suspicion was even fully formed in her head, she started socking him all over his arms and chest. He fumbled with the phone, managing to inadvertently hang up on Shane. He could have stopped her from hitting him, grabbed her arms and forced her to sit down, calm her and lie to her. He could have but he didn’t. He let her hit him. He let her call him all the names he felt he was at the moment. She was in full blown tears and distress. He stood there and took it which was the worst thing he could do. Because he wasn’t fighting back Tristan knew what she suspected was true.