The Dom Project (18 page)

Robin’s group wasn’t hard to spot. Their silhouettes stood out against the drifts of white sand, frozen as if throwing spears toward the sky. A cluster of gorgeous women and men, athletic, powerful, perfectly framed by the beach and boardwalk. His heartbeat quickened.

At the far left of the group stood Robin, the subtle curves of her slight body highlighted by the tight lilac fabric of her tank top and pants. Watching her body shift from position to position was mesmerizing. It wasn’t sexual appreciation so much as aesthetic, he realized once he’d drawn closer, and even then, the pose wasn’t compositionally unique or striking. But it was
her
. It was the many times he’d seen her move with similar fierce focus, aware of the world but somehow set apart from it.

Or maybe it was sexual. Her ass looked pretty sweet in those pants.

God, he was confused. The group was lowering to their mats for their final stretches and that weird pretend-you’re-dead pose. Should he kiss Robin hello when she was finished? In front of them? One of the other women worked at the Saylor library though. He should probably still kiss Robin. Maybe the presence of a coworker was all the more reason to kiss Robin. He
wanted
to kiss Robin.

He sat down on a low concrete wall and scuffed patterns in the sand with his boots as he waited. The salt smell of the ocean helped to clear his thoughts and center him in the moment. He’d let it happen. If she seemed open to it, if she fell into his arms... But what if she wasn’t so drastic about it? Wouldn’t a peck on the lips or even the cheek be more natural for a greeting like this? How did a girl signal that? And if he didn’t kiss her? What then? Pat her on the shoulder?

He wouldn’t have thought twice about physical contact a month ago.

We’re still us
.

The group was rising and rolling up their mats. John stood too and walked over.

“John!” Robin said, dabbing at the side of her neck with a towel, and when he saw how her face lit up, the issue of whether or not to kiss her vanished from his mind. He strode up to her, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her in for a firm kiss on the mouth.

He was absolutely, totally, 100 percent awake after that, and in love with the bright morning. “Hey, sweetheart. Want to go for a walk?”

“I usually get a smoothie after yoga. But let’s do that after. You look great, by the way. You’re usually sort of, um, staggering when I see you this early.”

“Cute. Thanks. If
you
had any vices—um, ones I didn’t already share—I’d rub your nose in one of them now.”

“Vices.
Ssh
.” But the smile behind her warning forefinger was playful. She turned and called out “See you next week, guys. And see you on Monday, Laini. Bye!”

He took Robin’s mat under one arm and laced the fingers of his free hand in her own. They set off walking toward the shops of the boardwalk, the ocean sighing at their back and an uncomplicated happiness buoying him up. “So you have a smoothie after yoga. I’m going to remember that. Maybe I’ll bring you one next time.”

“Oh my God,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I can’t believe this. You and me... Next time. Holding hands, kissing?”

“Yeah, uh, hope that’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. It’s
great
. Maybe it’ll feel okay after we do it longer.” There was something hopeful in her voice, and a wariness too, that called to him to reassure her.

“We’re kind of in uncharted waters now, but we’ll figure it out. Me, I think of it as risks versus rewards. And being with you is definitely a reward worth taking a few risks for.” As soon as he said it, he winced. Just a
few
risks? He sounded like a cold-blooded bastard.

Robin scoffed. “Well, I mean, not
that
many risks. So we’re sleeping together. You’re not my boyfriend or anything, right?”

Holding her hand turned awkward just then.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “You’re so many things to me, I’m not sure how to draw a circle around it all and give it a name.”

“So don’t.” She stopped up short, swung their hands, then let him go. “Look, I know you didn’t get into this looking for commitment. I know you’re not even a commitment kind of
guy
. You have other relationships. Other sex partners. Other obligations. I’m not going to ask you for anything more than you can give me. You don’t have to play boyfriend for me, okay?”

God, and he thought
he
sounded cold-blooded. Robin had it down to an art form. She was even smiling, still.

Time to gather his footing, regain his inexplicably wounded pride. “But
you’ll
play for
me
,” he said, and brushed the line of her jaw with the back of his hand. The balance between them shifted smoothly and rapidly, like a wave, as her eyes widened and her lips parted, lovely and yearning. The balance would go back again later, he knew, rocking them over and over.

“Yes. I will.”

“Damn right you will, if you don’t want Andy trying to fit into your pretty red heels.”

Ah, and there went her heartless little smile.

They walked the rest of the way side by side, without holding hands.

* * *

“Photograph Five: Negative in fine condition. Full-body shot of Irina Mareau. Backdrop is quilted headboard of light-colored satin draped with chains of highly reflective mother-of-pearl discs, indicating extensive care as to theme more indicative of high fashion styling than pornography of the era. Mareau is naked except for ropes of pearls tied tightly around her waist and mostly obscuring her genital region and the left breast. Mareau is smiling in a variant of her iconic expression known from her extant two photographs. The right breast has a large areola and the nipple appears to be erect.”

Robin’s boss coughed violently at that paragraph, and the appraiser paused his reading.

“I have terrible allergies this time of year,” Robin lied.

“Ah. Yes. Allergies,” her boss said weakly. Betty Chatham, Saylor University Library’s Director of External Affairs, had blue rinse in her hair, steel in her spine and would undoubtedly rather be collecting fin de siècle poet correspondences than porn. But she was still here in Robin’s office.

“Should I continue?” the appraiser asked, unembarrassed. He picked at a corner of his mouth and made a humming noise.

Robin had hired him before—he was a strange, secretive man whose appraisals were well worth the high rate he charged. She hoped that secretive streak of his would provide an extra layer of security, even though these people as a whole had a pretty strict code of honor already. No telling, no bragging, not anywhere that could lead a rival to come swooping in, especially.

“No, that will be quite enough,” Betty said. “Ms. Lessing provided me with a reference list as to the—ahem—
academic
value of the collection. Further details will not be required.” Robin could almost hear the refrain of
theirs not to reason why
,
theirs but to do or die
swelling in the background.

“So we can move forward with the budget analysis?” Robin asked.

Betty was already creaking upward from her chair and clutching at her purse, as if the library acquisitions budget came directly from her retirement account. “Yes, yes.” She might have said,
goddamn Media Studies
under her breath as she walked out the door, but maybe it was just another cough.

“Thanks so much,” she told the appraiser, who was also rising to leave. “I’ll have my assistant Janine send you the payment.”

“Tell her to hurry it up,” he said. “Last time I was waiting two months.”

“We’ll do our best, but I’m sure you’re aware that all acquiring institutions have a lot of steps in the approval process that private buyers—”

He growled and rushed out the door.

Well, that was weird. But then, any job where the words
the right breast has a large areola
were used in polite conversation among nonmedical professionals—and in front of an elderly woman, no less—had to be a weird one. A joy no weirdness could suppress bubbled up inside her. Oh, she should call John and tell him—

She paused with her hand on the phone. Should she, really? He’d seemed kind of annoyed with her on Saturday. Cagey. They’d had a good morning eventually, and later that night, the kind of sex that made her want to pronounce the word
amazing
with about ten syllables.

She spent so much time trying to read him though—the effort was beginning to add up. She never knew how much happiness she should allow herself to show, when they were together in the daytime. Even now, over the phone.

She sighed, and calculated...only one text on Sunday to John, one text back: parity achieved. A call today would be all right.

So she called.

* * *

By the time John put down the phone, his face was getting sore from smiling so widely. Robin was going to get the collection. God, she deserved this. Everything was going right for her.

Kari-definitely-with-a-K had edged up next to his desk. “Is that your girlfriend?”

Jesus.
John bit back a rejoinder about social skills and just made a noncommittal growling noise. Kari, obviously confused, hung her head and drifted away.

It was no use hanging around feeling guilty about her hurt feelings, so he went out to set up a web conference to a university in the Philippines and rescued an Anthropology department slideshow on the way back.

When he returned Kari still looked confused, and she was sitting at a corner computer away from the other student assistants. He sat down beside her, purposefully ignoring the way her entire body language completely changed, looked her in the eyes and smiled. “Hey. I heard you talking about that film project earlier,” he said. “If you want, I can help out. I do work on indie films all the time, but I’m in between projects for the next few weeks. I could get you started with some camera setup. Just let me know when you’re thinking about shooting, okay?”

“S-sure,” she stuttered, her eyes lighting up with a dangerous hope.

“But about the girlfriend thing...” He took a deep breath and leaned away from her, tapping his fingers against the chair. “If you ever get a time machine, hop back ten years and look me up. You’re just the kind of hot geek girl I would’ve fallen for.” He made his smile turn a little crooked, hoping to disarm her with humor. “I mean, if the time machine keeps you the same age, that is. If it turned you into an eight-year-old that would be all kinds of fucked up and totally ruin the point I was trying to make. But you do get the point?”

“I guess so,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her. She still seemed confused. But she was young, not stupid. A few years from now, she’d look back on this and admire his lack of creepiness. And he’d probably
still
be refusing the advances of overearnest freshmen. Unless he and Robin...

“Email me when you have a shoot schedule,” he said, interrupting his own line of thought. Planning a project with a nice, completely nonsexually attractive colleague. That was just what he needed.

But as soon as he left Kari’s corner for another round of tech-monkeying through the academic jungle, he couldn’t drive out thoughts of an entirely different project.

* * *

“So how do we handle the money?” Robin asked. She felt awkward bringing it up, but better a little awkwardness now than an embarrassing wallet-shuffle in front of a rack of dildos.

John stopped walking and put his arm around her shoulder. She leaned in closer, into his warmth. Even though it had gotten harder for them to talk, the language of touch always came through.

There was a cool breeze this evening, blowing in from the Pacific and sweeping the smog clouds away. A beautiful evening for a movie and a dinner date. Or a movie and a dinner and an expedition to a sex shop.

“I was thinking I could buy you something, and you could buy me something,” he said. “Of course, I already have the serious gear.”

“So I should get you something frivolous,” she mused. “A Hello Kitty cock sack? I wonder if they have those.”

“No thanks. But doesn’t she have a friend—the black penguin dude? He looks kind of domly. You could get me one with him.”

“Not if you ever want me to sleep with you again. ‘Domly’ or not, I don’t know if I can take a man seriously when he has a penguin on his junk.”

“And yet Hello Kitty is okay.”

She flashed him a coy look through her eyelashes, tucking her hands behind her back as she twisted on her heels. “I may or may not have had a very nice session with a dominatrix who had a Hello Kitty tattoo on her hip.”

He raised an eyebrow and grinned. She hadn’t told him everything about how she got started in the first place; it was too much fun teasing him with bits and pieces. “Did you pay for it?” he asked.

“No.” She walked onward to where lewd mannequins beckoned behind glass. Hand on the door, she tossed him another piece of the puzzle. “I bartered for it.”

“
What
?”

“Well, we were having a casual conversation at a social event, and she had some art prints and rare books she wanted evaluated...”

At the front counter, there were greetings exchanged and talk of a discount. John must be a frequent flyer.
Well
,
look at the place
,
Robin
, she chided herself as she scanned walls lined with leather and steel,
Of course he is.

“Do you want to start with the clothes, or the toys, or the porn?” John asked.

“Oh my goodness.” She blinked and shook her head. “Wait a second, did I just say, ‘oh my goodness’?”

“You did. It was ridiculously cute.”

Don’t blush
. She tapped her heels and looked everywhere but at John, which drew her gaze to the top of a spiky orange haircut sticking out from behind a waist-high stand—was it a dwarf? She shouldn’t stare, if so.

But then the spiky-haired man straightened from his crouch behind the stand, and he was a few inches taller than Robin anyway. He looked like a version of John as drawn by a manga artist, as scrawny as he was, and what with the peroxide-streaked hair, buggy yellow sunglasses, and neon tank top with baggy cargo pants combo that he was wearing.