The Opposite of Love (15 page)

They made their way through the side rooms, the cubicles, even stopping in the dungeon, but it was a slower night than before and there wasn’t much to see aside from a few people making out. When they got to the orgy room with the three queen beds, a couple was already on display. The man was about Melanie’s age, with a thin build and very little body hair, but the woman looked to be in her twenties. The two were side by side on the bed, making out and warming each other up; he kissed her breasts while she stroked his penis, which was already erect.

The woman sat up on the bed and straddled the man, grabbing his erection and easing herself down on it. Her dark hair was beautiful against her pale skin, and her full breasts were so firm and high you could almost guess her age.

As she eased her weight onto him, there was a hush in the room. Melanie looked around at the figures standing in the shadows and snuggled into the couches lining the walls. There were probably thirty people watching, and there was a reverence to the scene. As the woman raised and lowered herself on the man’s erection, her audience was motionless, silent, afraid to break the spell. The woman’s pleasure was contagious, and when she tilted her head back, arching and grinding as she quickened her rhythm, Melanie could feel her own insides tighten deliciously.

When the woman slowed and bent to rest against the man’s chest, he wrapped his arms around her and rolled her onto her back.

Round two
, Melanie thought.

“I want you.” James said. She closed her eyes and hummed her assent.

“I forgot the condoms,” he whispered, so as not to disturb the couples watching the show. “Will you be ok here? I’ll be right back. They sell them downstairs.”

She watched as the man inserted himself and the woman wrapped her legs around his thighs.

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

James squeezed her behind and left her with a smile on her face. The sexiness was creeping in, and with any luck, the confidence would follow.

Melanie could see a dim band of light at the bottom of the blindfold, but that was all. She could feel the wall against her cheek and her palms. James was behind her with his hands on her hips whispering into her ear.

“Can you see?”

“No.”

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“A little scared. A little turned on too.”

“That’s my girl.”

James sucked on her ear, her neck. Then he turned her toward him and pulled the straps of her dress down, kissed her shoulders, her cleavage. He tugged the dress down to the floor and she held his shoulders as she stepped out of it. She felt the leather of his gloves on her back and held her breath as he undid her bra and slid it off. She pulled him toward her to cover herself and he kissed her for a moment, then pulled away again. He hooked his thumbs into the sides of her panties, and slid those off too.

She could hear people but she couldn’t see anything. She heard the shuffling of feet, whispering, but no one was speaking loud enough for her to discern the words. There was an aura of reverence, like what she’d seen in the orgy room. And now all eyes were on her.

She was naked. And blind. And wet.

James turned her around and ran his gloved hands up and down her back, over her backside, between her legs. He removed his hand and she heard him moan with approval.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

He parted the strings of beads that surrounded the bed and bent her over so that her hands were on the bed and her feet on the floor. He pressed his chest against her back, kissed her cheek and neck, slid his gloved hands over her nipples. His erection was pressed against her backside.

“I want you to focus,” he whispered into her ear. “Pay attention to your senses, to the sensations. I’m not going to speak, neither are you. Ok?”

“Ok.”

“Good girl.”

“I want you inside me. Now.”

He swatted her butt and she moaned, wiggling her behind. “Be patient,” he said.

And then his gloved hands on her back were gone. His erection pressing through his slacks against her rear end was gone. His breath on her neck was gone. And she felt even more naked than she was, as if he had peeled away her skin. Anyone on any side of her had an unobstructed view. Each eye on her was a needle she couldn’t see, pricking her skin and making her shiver. She couldn’t guess how many there were, but it felt like thousands. As though she was in the center of the Roman Coliseum itself, a hushed crowd looking on in anticipation. She was the center of lustful attention, and she liked it.

James left Melanie
watching the couple in the orgy room and went back downstairs to where the club sold novelties. There was a guy at the counter buying condoms, and as James walked through the store, another guy came in and stood behind him in line. James assumed a friendly tone, clasped his hands behind his back and approached them.

“Hey, either of you guys wanna get laid?”

They both eyed him warily. The one at the counter paying said, “I don’t swing that way, man,” and turned away.

“No, not me,” said James with a polite laugh. “My girlfriend. She’s upstairs. She’s horny and she’s hot.”

“So why don’t you do her?” the one at the counter asked. He was about two inches shorter than James and his skepticism was going to be a roadblock James didn’t have time for. But he could use it.

He turned to the taller of the two men, who happened to be about James’ own height. “It’s her fantasy to be fucked by a stranger and never see his face. Interested?”

The shorter guy spoke first, “I’m in.”

“No offense, but mind if I ask what you’re packing? She likes a certain size.”

“Seven,” he said.

James turned to the taller of the two, who still hadn’t spoken a word.

“Eight,” he said.

James shrugged at the first guy. “Sorry, man. The bigger the better.”

The shorter man took his condoms and profaned his way back upstairs.

James floated around the store, picking up what he needed. He went back to the guy he’d chosen and said, “All you have to do is wear a condom and gloves and not say a word. Can you do that?”

“No problem.”

“Can you fuck and come without making any sound?”

“I lived in the dorms in college.”

James nodded. “Good enough.”

He’d hatched the plan on the way to the club; realizing Melanie might really go through with it gave him a raging hard-on, but doing it himself did not appeal at all. A less-than-stellar performance on a prior trip to the Green Door left him with a persistent reluctance to come in front of an audience. He had been in the orgy room merrily banging a brunette doggie-style while she was going down on her blond friend. Having long tried to get his flavor of the month to bring a friend to the club, he was having a jackpot moment. It was a particularly busy night and dozens of people were watching on the couches, lining the walls, milling around, coming and going—there was more traffic than rush hour on the I-15. He was aware of all the spectators, but his attention was glued to the great handfuls of ass he held as he thrust away, the petite blond on her back caressing her giant store-bought breasts, and the head of her friend buried between her legs. It was quite a sight and he was trying to take in each detail and to burn it into his memory. But when he came, the orgasm was so intense his entire left leg cramped up, from his calf to his butt cheek. He screamed in a manner that could only be called shrill, then collapsed heavily onto the girl he was banging who proceeded to yell obscenities at him. He then rolled off her onto the bed and lay in agony until the cramp passed while the two girls got dressed and left the room. Lying there staring at the ceiling, he was aware of the snickers and murmurs in the room, but was mildly grateful that there were other people performing on another bed as a distraction—surely that was more interesting than his cramped, motionless misery. He closed his eyes and tried to project himself to his own bed just on the power of the burning humiliation. Alas, he finally had to get up and get dressed in front of these people, limping, his penis sad and flaccid, the condom hanging slackly. Not his proudest moment, and not one he wanted to repeat.

He grabbed condoms from the jar and paid for them along with the rest of his paraphernalia. He knew if he didn’t pull this off there would be hell to pay, the depths of which he hadn’t had the inclination to consider fully. He didn’t know what Melanie might do, and it occurred to him that this poor bastard he’d picked could get hurt if she freaked out on him. Then again, even if this guy knew the risk, James imagined he’d be willing to take that chance. And if it went off without a hitch—if she never suspected that it wasn’t James having sex with her—this, he knew, would be immensely gratifying for him.

James told the guy to wait in the fountain room while he went to get Melanie. Once there, he put the blindfold on her and started teasing and undressing her, but he didn’t see the guy until he stepped out of the shadows, cock at attention, wrapped and ready to go. Once he had Melanie bent over the bed, he stepped back, waited a few moments, then waved the guy forward.

The guy started caressing her behind with his gloved hands and James got in his eye line and motioned for him to just fuck her, pantomiming grabbing a woman by the hips and thrusting. The guy obliged and Melanie cried out when he thrust himself in to the hilt. As he rode her, she mewed and moaned, and at one point, she reached her arm back to touch him.

James lunged forward but before he could do anything, the guy had grabbed her elbow and guided her arm back down, thrusting harder so that she needed both hands to hold herself up. It was only about five minutes before she came, squeezing her legs together and throwing her head back, then collapsing onto her stomach on the bed. From what James could tell, the guy came too, although he didn’t make a big show of it.

James had stripped naked while the show was going on, and as soon as the guy withdrew, he lay down on the bed next to Melanie and caressed her back. The guy grabbed his clothes and left the room and James slid the blindfold off of Melanie.

“How did you like that, darling?” he asked.

“I came hard,” she whispered.

She lay on her stomach with her arms bent and pressed tight against the sides of her chest, hiding her breasts. He could see that the shyness was returning now that the moment had passed. “You can get dressed,” he said. “But we’re not done.”

They both put their clothes on and left the spectators to find another scene. He led her downstairs to the cubicles with the two-way mirrors, but this time he left them so that they could only see out and no one could see in. He again undressed her.

When he took off his pants his cock was at full attention.

“You’re still so hard,” she said.

“You have no idea what a turn-on you are.”

He put a condom on and was inside her before she could say another word. He took her hard, first from behind, then missionary, whispering into her ear, “My sweet slut. You loved being watched, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

And he was coming, his face buried in her hair, thrusting one, two, three times.

We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict.

—Jim Morrison

Chapter Nine

On a rare rainy day in the Vegas valley, James drove the unmarked SUV as his partner texted on his cell phone nonstop, presumably to his wife and thirty-seven children. They were headed for a neighborhood near Boulder Highway and Lamb to re-interview a witness to a fatal shooting that had happened the week before at a Rebel gas station. They turned down side streets where the single-story houses bore the outdated architecture of the forties and the sadness of neglect, and every fourth or fifth plot was occupied by a double-wide trailer. Chain-link fences protected weeds parched into straw by the sun, and the rain pushed rivers of flotsam down the gutters. They pulled up in front of a sickly yellow house with sheets as drapes, a screen door propped against the front of the house, and a bicycle in the yard, upended and balancing on its seat and handlebars, rain-rusted, its solo wheel motionless.

“This is it,” said James nodding toward the house. Twenty-four fifteen.”

“What makes you think this guy knows anything?”

“Well, when we interviewed him at the scene, he said he didn’t see the shooter’s face, but he said something that made me wonder.”

“What?”

“That he seemed crazy. Truly batshit. Seems like you’d have to look someone in the eye to make that kind of assumption.”

Lopez shrugged. “He could have just been acting crazy. Yelling and waving the gun around or something.”

James made no move to get out of the car. He looked at Lopez, still texting on his phone. Something was starting to bother him about this guy. The week before, they’d had an argument that threw him a little bit. He and Lopez had been having lunch at a new place, a burger shop downtown, and Lopez had received the wrong order. He was almost halfway through his burger when he realized that they’d used Jack instead of Swiss cheese and left off the sautéed onions. Lopez waved the waitress over and asked for a new burger.

“You’ve already eaten half of it,” she said.

“So? It’s not what I ordered.”

The waitress had looked at James for his take on the situation and he’d felt compelled to intervene.

“It’s fine,” he said. “Lopez, you can just eat that one can’t you?”

Lopez glared at James and leaned his forearms on the table. “No,
partner
, I can’t. Tell you what,
you
eat it. This nice lady here is going to get me a new burger, aren’t you, sweetie?”

The waitress took Lopez’ plate and scampered away without another word. She returned five minutes later with another burger and a fresh order of fries, sliding it silently onto the table. James had been eating his food in silence, occasionally glancing across the table at Lopez who was still fuming; sweat had broken out on his brow. James waited until Lopez had taken a few bites of his new burger and it appeared to be to his satisfaction.

“You ok, man?” James asked.

“You’re my partner, right? Aren’t you supposed to have my back?”

“Over a hamburger?”

“At all times,” said Lopez, and took a ferocious bite of his burger. He chewed methodically, and before swallowing completely, said, “You can’t send that kind of message to people, that you’re not on my side. It makes us look bad.”

“I doubt anyone would interpret it that way.”

“Look, Perolo, I’ve got your back, one hundred and ten. If you don’t have mine, we need to talk about it.”

James sat back against the booth and stared at his partner, dumbfounded by his accusation. “Nothing to talk about,” he said. “I’ve got your back.”

The argument had seemed childish and blown out of proportion, but James figured Lopez was just feeling him out; they hadn’t been riding together all that long. But now, as they sat in the car waiting for the rain to ease up, he felt that doubt bubbling up again. Only rather than his loyalty, his detective skills were being brought into question.

“So you’re saying you think this is a dead end?” asked James.

Lopez looked up from his phone, first at James, then at the house. “I don’t know. Maybe. But if you want to question him again I got no problem with it. I got your back.”

There it was again. Got your back. That oath of loyalty.

“Ok, then,” said James. “Let’s go.”

The rain splashed on his bare forearms and face as he got out of the car. The temperature was plenty warm, in the eighties, but the rain was cold against his skin. When he considered how high the clouds were and how far rain traveled before it got to the ground, he wondered how something could fall so far and still be so cold. As he walked up the short path to the front of the house, Lopez following behind him, James could hear a dog barking inside the house. “Dog,” he said.

“I hear it. Fucker sounds mean too.”

James took the two steps up to the door and rang the doorbell. The dog went berserk, growling, barking and scratching at the other side of the door. He took a step back and bumped into Lopez, who was crowding the porch to stay out of the rain.

“Metro police,” yelled James. “We need to speak to Mr. Croft.”

At the sound of James’ voice, the dog found a frightening new level of volume.

“Fuckin’ hate dogs,” said Lopez.

“Yeah, I know. I don’t think—” James was cut off as the door opened six inches and the sound of the dog barking and scratching at the linoleum floor increased as it escaped through the crack, followed by the head of a German Shepard, lunging against the pull of a leash, wide-eyed with rage.

James lurched backward, pushing Lopez off the porch and into the rain. He put his hand on his gun but left it holstered. “Pull the dog back and step outside,” he yelled over the barking. He glanced up, but couldn’t see into the darkness of the house, couldn’t tell if it was Croft or someone else on the other end of the leash.

The door opened more and the leash gave a foot or two, enough for the dog to get halfway onto the porch. James stepped back off the porch and to the right. He looked to his left and saw Lopez on the other side of the path with his gun drawn, aiming at the dog.

“Don’t shoot it,” he warned. The dog was on a leash and as long as the person holding the other end kept it that way, there was no cause to shoot the dog, vicious godforsaken killer or not. Lopez took his eyes off the dog and looked at James, just for a second, and James regretted his choice of words. The look on Lopez’ face was of a mixture of hurt and disappointment covered over with a red hot wave of abject hatred, startlingly similar to the face worn by a good many of the ex-girlfriends he’d been caught cheating on in the past.

They both looked back to the porch as an enormous woman appeared holding the leash and stepped out, her hair wrapped in a towel, wearing sweats and a t-shirt with “McCain Palin 2008” stretched to distortion across her chest. The dog was intermittently hurling itself toward one and then the other of the two men and choking on the collar, then stepping back to take a breath and bark.

“Darrel ain’t here,” the woman shouted over the dog.

“Put your dog inside, ma’am,” said James.

“Soon as you leave, we’ll go back inside,” she said.

“Put the goddamn dog inside, right now!” yelled Lopez. His voice cracked a little and James glanced at him.

“It’s ok,” James said to his partner, holding a hand out to indicate that he should stand down. The woman stepped forward so that the dog was between them, James on the right side of the path and Lopez on the left.

“You don’t got no business here,” yelled the woman.

“Lady, I will shoot that dog if you don’t put it in the house right now!”

“Lopez, no,” James shouted.

The dog made a violent lunge toward the sound of James’ voice and the effort pulled the woman a step forward. James looked from the dog to Lopez and was more afraid of what he saw in Lopez’ eyes than what he saw in the dog’s. It was only a moment, only long enough for James to shake his head. Then he heard the shot.

The caller ID
flashed an unknown number staring with 702 and ending with 2000. The area code indicated the call was local, but the zeros usually meant a large real estate office or a title or mortgage company. Even though Melanie was no longer active in the buying and selling of real estate, she often got calls from colleagues who were dealing with her former clients.

The rain pounded the windshield as she drove down St. Rose Boulevard headed toward Whole Foods, and she clicked the answer button on the Volvo’s steering wheel. “This is Melanie.”

“Melanie Leon?”

“This is she.”

“Ms. Leon, this is Lieutenant Lennox from Metro P.D.”

Melanie said nothing; the Lieutenant continued.

“I’ve been asked to call you by Detective James Perolo. He said you’re a friend… excuse me, his girlfriend.”

“Ok.” Melanie realized she was stopped at a green light when the car behind her honked. “Can you give me just a second?” she asked the inside of her car.

“Sure, of course.”

Melanie pulled into a gas station at the far corner of the intersection and parked next to the air and water station. She turned off the windshield wipers; she needed to concentrate.

“Ok. Go ahead.”

“I don’t mean to alarm you. There’s been a… an accident. Detective Perolo is injured, but it’s not serious. He’s in the hospital right now, the UMC on Charleston. They’re taking good care of him here. But he asked me to call you.”

“Ok.” It seemed to be the only two syllables she could muster. A million questions bombarded her brain like hail: Injured how? Not serious in what way? Are you sure? Why is he in the hospital? Could he still die? Why did he want you to call me? Am I supposed to call him? Send flowers? What am I expected to do with this? Does he want me to… to… be there?

“Ms. Leon?”

“Ok… I mean… yes. I’m here.”

“Are you ok?”

“I just don’t understand what
I’m
supposed to do.”

It explained her dilemma perfectly, but when she said it out loud, she realized her word choice may not have been ideal.

“Um, well…” the Lieutenant started, “whatever you think is appropriate. I’ll tell him you were notified. Have a good day.” He hung up.

Melanie heard the beep of the disconnect and sat in her Volvo with the engine still running, rain splattering on the windshield and running in rivulets like a constantly morphing, colorless Jackson Pollock. For a moment she wondered what had happened but quickly pushed the images out of her mind. There were lots of injuries that seemed “not serious” at first, but proved fatal later—if not from the injuries themselves, from the staph infections hospitals gave out as souvenirs. But to visualize the litany of ways he could be injured was too horrific to consider.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was supposed to
do
something, and a rising dread indicated that the ‘something’ was to go to the hospital. She put the car in drive and pulled back onto St. Rose, headed for the Whole Foods.

The grocery shopping was like trying to watch a movie and read at the same time. Gruesome images pulled her attention away from the task of checking the date on the yogurt. Apples were piled into a plastic bag without inspection. She went down the same aisle twice which resulted in the purchase of two cans of cooking spray. When she arrived home and unpacked the groceries, she saw she’d forgotten cheese and bread.

Melanie poured herself a glass of cab and sat on the couch, pulling a chenille blanket over her legs. She stared at the blank TV screen and was reminded of the baby, the accident, death. She moved to a stuffed chair facing the foyer and folded her legs under her, curled into herself with the wine glass pressed to her chest. She was nine again, and terrified.

Melanie loved him. She could tell by the fear.

The wound left
two holes in James’ right leg, but the bone was intact. The doctor operating on James only used local anesthesia, but the pain meds had him sleeping soundly in his hospital bed for several hours. He came around in fragments; James remembered the rain before he remembered the gunshot, remembered lying on his back, medics lifting him onto a gurney, looking up at the sky and at the F-15s from Nellis Airforce Base flying overhead, wondering why they were flying in the rain. He remembered the planes being louder than the dog.

He opened his eyes and then closed them again immediately, forcing himself to process the information before going back for more; to chew before he swallowed. A hospital room. He was injured. Shot. His leg. Surgery. He opened his eyes again. The TV was on and tuned to the news. A 5k charity run scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday, would continue rain or shine. So it was still Friday. He looked toward the window and saw that the sun was just going down over the western mountains out at Red Rock Canyon. That was when he saw her, sitting erect in a chair, her hands gripping the arms, watching him.

“Hey,” he said. His voice was muffled by phlegm and he cleared his throat.

“Hi,” she said. “I hope it’s ok that I’m here.”