The Dom Project (19 page)

When his eyes landed on Robin, he flashed her a lecherous grin, and she was sure he was about to saunter up and hit on her—she could only
imagine
the kind of pickup line a creep could use on a woman in a porn store—but then his gaze shifted to John standing beside her and his smile turned into a snarl.

“Oppa, why are you hiding?” A breathy high voice called from the other side of the store.

“Let’s go, yobo!” Jim Sun yelled—oh, it was
definitely
Jim—and made a run for the door.

“Oh
hell
no.” John burst out from where he’d been standing just behind Robin’s left shoulder and stormed across the store after his brother, tackling him before he reached the front door. “You’re not going anywhere, you little punk shit.”

“Get the fuck off me!”

“Should I call the police or the consulate?” The girl in the corner had her phone out and looked determined, but terrified. And she was
young
, with a pretty, moon-shaped face and long black hair with blunt bangs that were the slightest bit too long, which meant she kept shaking them out of her eyes. Robin, frozen up to now, had a lightbulb moment. She walked up to the girl, making sure to leave her hands by her side. No accusation, no attack. “That’s Jim’s brother, John,” Robin said soothingly. “I’m sure he’s told you about John. They’re just, um, roughhousing.”

“But he’s—” the girl tried to edge past Robin. Robin shifted neatly to block her way. “He’s dragging Tiger outside!
Jim?
I don’t know...” She wore a lot of makeup. Some of it was beginning to smear beneath her eyes as tears welled.

“My name’s Robin. I’m John’s—”
oh God what do I say
“—friend. I’ve known Jim since he was in high school. Tiger’s a new one, but he’s always had a very active imagination, let’s say. What’s your name? Are you from around here?”

“Sarah. Sarah Chu. I came here from Lubbock. I thought he was from Korea. That he was a pop star there. I—I’m so confused.” She was young, but she wasn’t stupid, and she seemed ready to hear the truth and wasn’t defensive in the slightest. Maybe she’d already had suspicions of her own that she hadn’t been ready or willing to examine too closely before now. Hearing Jim curse out his brother in a decidedly non-Korean accent might have been the tipping point.

“Let’s sit down.” There was a bench by a curtained-off area that Robin sincerely hoped wasn’t some kind of jack-off space. She led Sarah there. “We’ll let the brothers catch up while we have some girl talk, all right?”

“Okay,” Sarah whispered as she tried not to sniffle.

* * *

John met up with Robin and Sarah at the coffee shop two blocks away. He slid down next to Robin, wanting to put an arm around her but deciding against it.

“I feel like such an idiot,” Sarah said mournfully. She looked even younger now that her eye makeup was all wiped away.

“If he did more than just lie to you,” John said, still hyped up from pinning down and lecturing his brother, “you could press charges. Hell, I’d drive you to the station.”

Robin spread her hands and made calming motions. “Slow down. Don’t freak her out.”

“What about your parents?” he asked. “Should we—”

Both Robin and Sarah shook their heads in unison. “I don’t live with them anymore and I’m never going back to Texas,” Sarah said. “They’re very religious. Pentecostalists. I couldn’t handle the crazy rules and the exorcisms every week, so the second I turned eighteen I came to Los Angeles to stay with my aunt they all told me was going to hell because she’s a Methodist.” She took a deep breath. “So I’m not very...of the world. Yet. I’m working on it.”

“Well, you just got a crash course—Jim’s a walking Sleazebags 101 textbook,” John said.

“I think you should ask your aunt to change the locks,” Robin put in, flashing John a chastising look. Maybe now wasn’t the time for him to vent about his grocery list of issues with his brother. “But as far as I know, he’s not violent. He
will
steal anything that isn’t nailed down, though. And don’t kick yourself, all right?”

“Lots of girls your age do stupid-ass things for K-pop,” John said. He could tell from the expression on Robin’s face that maybe his comment wasn’t helpful. Damn, for a while there he’d thought about going into business as a teen whisperer.

“
Anyway
.” Robin reached into her purse, pulling out one of her business cards. “That’s my email and my phone numbers. If you need to talk or you really do want to go to the police for any reason, you can get ahold of me using any of these.”

“Thank you,” Sarah said. “You were really nice about this.” She sat up and gave Robin a quick, awkward hug—more of a double pat on the shoulders—before she left.

“Mystery of the invisible girlfriend solved,” he remarked. “Are you up for some more shopping, Agent Scully?”

“Jim’s gone? I don’t know if I’ll be able to buy sex toys with him breathing over my shoulder.”

“Yeah, he’s gone. I scared him off. In fact, I’m expecting a call from my mother berating me any minute now.” He sighed. “In case we needed another boner killer. Shit, I’d better turn my phone off.”

She laughed so hard that she pounded the aluminum mesh table, sending the cups shaking and clattering. Her high peals of laughter were infectious, and soon John felt as if his face was about to split from grinning and snorting along with her.

We’re still us
.

And God, was he grateful.

She quieted down and settled back, although her shoulders still quivered, the hollow by her collarbone, with its tender skin, subtly changing form as she moved. “I think I can get into the mood again,” she said, sounding about three-quarters serious. “Just keep your phone off and watch my back, okay?”

“
Mmm
. I like the sound of that.”

Chapter Eleven

Staring into her grandmother’s antique mirror, which stood in one corner of her bedroom, looking at herself within that frame, felt a little like traveling through time. She couldn’t help but think of Irina Mareau looking at her naked, unadorned body in the soft early evening light. Had she stared at herself in the mirror like this, practicing poses for her photographer lover? Reached out and touched her reflection, fingertip to fingertip?

She combed her hair between her fingers; she’d let it air-dry so it was downy-soft and full of gentle waves. Every part of her was perfect tonight. She’d spoiled herself on a body waxing and a mani-pedi, and she was freshly showered and made up with dramatic eyeliner and a dab of perfume. All that was left was to clothe herself in the carefully selected ensemble laid out lovingly on her bed.

John would be coming to pick her up in—oh,
damn
. Time to hit the fast forward button on the autoerotic inner monologue. She wriggled into her ivory-colored stockings and fastened the matching rose-and-ivory garter belt. The matching panties would have to come later. First, the jeweled plug from John’s fantasy.

It still shocked her every time she slipped it into her body, especially since this time she was too impatient to bother warming it in her hands. She let out a slow breath and tried not to clench too tightly around it. The time traveler in her mirror was smiling slightly, a blush showing on her cheeks. Not ashamed though. Exhilarated. She winked, and Robin went happily to fetch her panties.

The next step was more intimidating.

A small jewelry box made of old-fashioned red velvet still rested on the bed, waiting. She opened it, revealing the glint of chrome and crystal. John’s second gift for her. Nipple clamps, the next best thing to having her nipples pierced. These, she did hold in her hand until they warmed, which might have had more to do with a need to stall than concern for the temperature.

Finally, with a near-surgical level of focus, she placed the first one on her right nipple and released the magnetic clamp.

Her intake of breath was sharp and surprising.
Wow
. It didn’t hurt, not really, but the weight certainly made itself known. The feeling evened out and became more neutral when she put on the left one. Perhaps she’d forget she was wearing them, after a while. Or perhaps not, if John had anything to say about it.

She smiled, thinking back to the shop.
The ones with the white crystals on the tips.
Those are the ones I want
. And John had held them up, as if imagining her adorned with them, cocked his head slightly, licked his lips and nodded. She loved his hybrid style of casual and formal, crudeness and courtliness, like a man who was born too high or too low but still made himself at home wherever he went.

But she wasn’t in love with him. They had a bond and love was a part of it, sure—

Her phone rang. She slipped on the pale pink Kate Spade pumps she’d chosen—they were understated and a little old-fashioned, and just the thing for tonight—and picked it up.

“I’m outside,” John said.

“Give me five minutes. I’ll be right down.”

There was a gauzy wrap dress draped over the footboard of her bed. Not laid out as carefully as the other items in her ensemble, it wasn’t a part of the ritual, just a practicality to carry her from point A to point B. She threw it around her body, tied it in a neat bow, gave her lips one more sweep of lipstick and then—

She stopped. Looked impulsively at her jewelry box, which was still half torn apart from her earlier search for earrings. The long rope of freshwater pearls and crystals that she’d inherited from her mother, and her mother before her, long enough that her mother had worn it as a belt in the eighties, half hung out of the jewelry box, shining dimly. She had a sudden vision of herself as Irina Mareau, bound by pearls, remembered the way the white pearls in the old photograph had seemed to glow from the inside.

Was it wrong to wear a family heirloom to something like this?

John
.

John was downstairs waiting for her. Sitting in his car, or waiting on the sidewalk for her, ready to open her door like they were on a proper date? What would he be wearing, she wondered? Dressed to the nines, definitely, but she wasn’t sure what that
meant
, for John. Was he anywhere near as nervous as she was? After their last “performance” he probably had reason to, but Robin wasn’t nervous. John’s focus wouldn’t be divided tonight. Andy wouldn’t be there; it wasn’t his scene apparently. John would be extra vigilant guarding her feelings now.

Somehow, the thought of him wavering in his easy confidence even slightly lent the whole night a strange romanticism, eager and tentative and wonderful as the night before a wedding.

Well, maybe not that far, but regardless: he’d planned all of this for her. For Robin.

She picked up the pearl strand, looping it around her neck twice before letting it fall down the neckline of her dress, where it nestled into the bare space between her breasts. The cold crystal drops slid against her skin as she headed for the door, drawing the willing, living heat from her body.

The magic of ritual made the air come alive around her. She’d taken his gifts and given them meaning.

I’m ready for more
.

She locked her door, took the elevator to the lobby and walked out to the curb where John waited for her in a black Honda Civic del Sol that had seen better days and was really too small for him. She wondered if he’d get out and open the door for her.

He didn’t get out. He only beckoned her in and popped the passenger side door. That was comforting in its own way, bringing back the many times he’d driven her when she was new to the city and terrified of the highways and hills. She’d slide in beside him, he’d turn up the music and gun the engine and always,
always
take her to where she needed to go.

“You look amazing,” he said. “Too bad there won’t be any pictures tonight.”

“You think so?” She hugged herself and flashed him a crooked smile. “This dress is a little thin to be going braless
and
wearing this kind of hardware.”

“Trust me. At this party? They’re gonna love you. It.” He coughed, and pulled the car away from the curb.

The house was in Los Feliz, north of Hollywood Boulevard, in an older neighborhood whose crumbling narrow streets were overgrown with stately oaks and palms. Spanish colonial houses with red tiled roofs peeked out between the lush vegetation.

“It feels a bit decadent, a bit noir,” Robin remarked, as John eased the car down into a shadowy driveway.
A
bit Casablanca
, she didn’t add.

“We can leave anytime. Now. Later. We’ll follow tradition and drive higher up into the hills, so we can park and look out at the lights and make out in the backseat.” John didn’t seem nervous at all.

“Thanks for offering a backup. But I’m sure I’ll have a good time. And if I’m not comfortable, I can always sit back and...and watch, right?”

“Right.” The house at the bottom of the driveway had a red tiled roof too, and glossy jasmine all along the front. “And I’ll sit back with you. We’ll have canapés. They always have canapés. I always thought that was a funny word—it basically means crackers with random shit sprinkled on top, doesn’t it?”

John wasn’t just
not
nervous, he was serene. She drew strength and confidence from him without feeling that she was lacking in the first place. And God, he looked fantastic tonight in black leather pants and a charcoal gray tank top, the monochrome only making his tattoo more vivid by contrast. If she was his ornament, he was hers.

“Yes,” she said, smiling.

He’d parked the car, but made no move to open the door. “Here’s your mask.”

It was a simple, vaguely catlike thing, made from soft leather and fabric and covering only the top part of her face. Once she settled the straps around the back of her head and combed her hair out with her fingers, it rested comfortably against her skin.

“Do you want to use another name tonight?” he asked.

Irina
.

No. It was too close to her safe word, and besides, she wanted to be herself—the hidden, secret part of herself she’d only showed to John, now reaffirmed in the presence of others.