Everyone's Dirty Little Secrets (15 page)

His timing is perfect.

*****

Chuck
delights in the pursuit of the French girl.  Not his pursuit of her, but her pursuit of him - a striking change of fortune.

“Now you are hard to get?” she asks, her words tangled in the thick accent that makes French women seem so e
xotic, so sophisticated.

She is smiling at him, trying to wrap his arm in hers, trying to keep pace with him.

He grin
s back at her, imagining Dodge -
charming
,
reserved.

“What,
don’t
you want my friend to come, too?” she asks, trying her wiles.  “
She’s very pretty, I promise.
”

Her smile feels like a promise.  I
f her friend comes along,
Chuck
is not going to know what to do.  He’s
only ever
slept with an excessively drunk
girl on the couch of a fraternity, while she im
itated sex sounds she learned from watching
movies.

Imagined her first would be more like Prince Charming.

Less downright alarming.

“Where is your friend?” he asks
the French girl
,
trying to unleash some charm, pretending that’s what’s making this happen, not the drugs he’s offering.

His best chance at
getting with
her is to act like it’s not on his mind at all.

He thinks about Dodge because, well, he doesn’t want to have sex with Dodge.

It’s like mowing your lawn.

He always heard that sex lasts longer if you think about mowing your lawn.

He had a sm
all lawn that
night, the night with the freshman on the fraternity couch.

She probably didn’t even get the mower out of the garage.

Chuck
knows how pathetic he is, even why
.

But all the booze he’s been drinking, the Jagermeister and the wine,
lets him s
hake all that of
f, lets him talk to French girl.

Maybe the language barrier camouflages how weird he is.

He smiles at her again.

They see her friend walking toward them.

His smile widens.

*****

Siobhan taps her foot at the door before ringing the bell.  Something is wrong.  Jaime said there was a soiree at Dressler’s.  But there are no other cars.

An uneasy feeling, churning first in her stomach, creeps over her body.

The same body
she knows Dressler lusts after, gawks at and drools over, looks for excuses to br
ush along, bump against, falls
only short of groping whenever he gets the chance.

She can take the attention, doesn’t mind the flattery that much
.  He’s handsome, rich and c
onfident - even has some charm.  Really, though, he’s mostly just
juvenile, lacks cool, and comes off as too desperate.  The biggest turn-off of them all. 
She entertains his clumsy advances because he is big money.  Nothing more, nothing less.

But
if this is a trick to get her up here alone, she’s going to give him hell for wasting her time.

She starts to seriously fear
this is a set-up - orchestrated by Dressler, maybe even with Jaime’s help. 
A childish
pretense, like Dressler thinks that since she’s all the way out, she’l
l decide she might as well jump in the sack with
him.

Juvenile
.

She turns to leave, without ringing the bell, when the door opens.

Dressler stands in the door grinning like some goon, gnashing his teeth, a tiny kimono barely stretched around him - probably a woman’s - a samurai sword in one hand, the doorknob in the other.

*****

Not all French
girls are easy.  But one on a mission to have a stranger get her high,
in a pair of Jessica Simpson cut-offs and over-exaggerated cowboy boot
s,
willing to throw he
r friend in on the deal on sweat
-soaked sheets in the red light district of Amsterdam
,
is.  So maybe he’s surprised, maybe he’s not, when he quickly find
s himself
being taken
advantage of on a bunk bed in his hotel room -
no bigger than a closet
. 

And not totally being taken advantage of the way he wants, though at least they give him the dignity of some of that.

While Cowboy Boots knocks him on the bed and occupies him with kisses, her blonde friend unbuckles his belt and pulls his pants off without much ceremony.

Which seems exciting at first until it’s clear that she’s only done this so she can rifle through his pockets, collecting his cash and drugs, with little attempt to hide what she’s doing.  At least her friend is still keeping him distracted, straddling his chest and
pinning his arms back.  And while it might be simply to keep him from protesting, or struggling, he takes an unexpected pleasure
in being restrained and robbed. 

He’ll
pay that
price for this reward.

The French girls must find this endearing because they don’t just bolt with
his score.  They
linger to enjoy it,
spilling it across his chest to snort it
, pausing to kiss each other in the
ir native fashion, occasionally
one or the other
rewarding him with a kiss
,
or a care
ss -
enough to guarantee he does
n’t protest too much as they burn their way through his complete stash.

Chuck
knows less about cocaine than he does
about
women, and the powder these chicks are dishing is as unpure as his soul and, eve
n in his drunkenness
, he’s somewhere between unsurprised a
nd thankful he didn’t snort any
when they
start twitching
next to
him. 

And he can’t say the whole episode hasn’t
excited
more than he
imagined
the most obvious grift in the world could
.  S
o when the convuls
ions really start, and their bodies collapse and bounce with spasms on top of him
, he just lets what’s happening go ahead and happen.

One person’s unhappy ending is another’s happy one.

*****

Dodge watches Siobhan standing at the door, dragging her feet, not ringing the doorbel
l. 

He wonders when to intervene, if to intervene at all.

As hard as it will be to watch, it won’t change the reality of what’s happening.

He should just suck it up and get proof.

Evidence.

Photos.

The thought of actually taking photos - of what?  Of Dressler
making love to his wife?  Or is making
love
too elegant of a phrase even?

The
thought m
akes his stomach sick.

He can’t take it – sickness turning to anger, he
bursts from the shrubbery even as Siobhan turns away from the door, freezing him in his tracks.  But Dressler opens the door, looking like some gay samurai, spinning her back around before she notices Dodge in the shadows.

S
o s
he likes role-playing.

Bursting out in a laugh
at the sight of Dressler
, Siobhan
simply
turns to leave.  Dodge slips back into
the shrubbery, watches Dressler grab her by the wrist, pull her into his arms.

The kimono is not much between him and her.  Dodge stares in sick fascination
at her writhing in his embrace
, his
blood boiling toward
rage.

He’s not sure what he’s seeing, to be honest, if this is some lurid game, some weird coincidence or misunder
standing.  Or something surprising.  Unsettling
.  S
inister.

Dressler pulls Siobhan inside, kicking the door closed behind him, and Dodge remains frozen
for a second
, until Siobhan screams.  A crash resonates in the still air outside the window, something shatters. Siobhan screams again.  Dressler curses.

Dodge charges.

Something is wrong.  Seriously wrong.

The door isn’
t locked when he slams it open, crashing through it and right into a bloody Dressler, his little red silk robe hanging open.