Лорел Гамильтон - Dead Ice

“The fight is,” Nicky said, and reached for Domino’s belt.

“What are you doing?” She sounded outraged, but she didn’t bend him away from Nicky this time.

“He asked Nicky to help get his pants off, remember?” I said.

Nicky unbuckled the other man’s pants with the same sure, deft movements he used when he got me undressed. I wore almost the exact same kind of belt these days; it was sturdy enough to hold up to gun holsters without buckling or getting too damaged, too fast.

It was when Nicky started easing Domino’s pants down from his waist that she said, “How can you let him touch you like that?”

“It’s going to take Anita and Nicky to get my pants off with minimum pain,” Domino said.

I joined Nicky in helping to work the pants down around Domino’s hips. I got to see that he’d worn black underwear today, a Brazilian, or Rio cut, so that it was high on the sides. I knew he was wearing it for Jade. It was one of the few strong preferences she’d expressed for men to wear around her.

“He tried to kill you!” Susannah said.

“If he’d meant to kill me, he would have,” Domino said. He made a face as we got his pants down to midhip, and he tried to raise himself up to help us. He started coughing again, and a fresh gout of blood came up very bright red in the morning light.

“If that’s your lung, then we need to get you to a hospital, or you could die.”

When Domino could speak without coughing blood he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “I’ll heal, and Nicky knows it.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” she said.

“You seem nice, but no, you don’t understand.”

“Then explain it to me, because this makes no sense.”

Domino looked at her, and it was as if she hadn’t really seen the yellow and red fire color of his eyes, and maybe she hadn’t in the dark. She stared at his eyes and whispered, “Oh, my God, your eyes.”

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” I said.

She just stared into the fire of his eyes, like a mouse hypnotized by a snake.

Domino said, “You think I’m nice, because Nicky is less nice, but I was raised to be muscle for an old-school mobster; that is not a nice business. It is not gentle, or kind, and for me to stand as a guard beside the boss, neither was I. Nicky is a better bad guy than I am, but that doesn’t make me a good guy, or not the kind of good guy you think I am.”

“I don’t understand any of this.”

He turned and looked at me. “I think Susannah needs to go somewhere else.”

I nodded. “Eddie, can you take Susannah to the truck? Domino would like a little privacy for his clothes coming off.”

Domino looked at me. He knew, and I knew, that he didn’t give a damn if she saw him naked. He just didn’t want someone who was this much of an outsider making him feel like a freak, or maybe just continuously pointing out how very alien we all were from the “ordinary” folks.

Eddie came and helped his daughter stand up, which meant Domino had to support all his weight, using one hand and leaning to the side. He couldn’t hide the fact that it hurt, and that he’d rather have it hurt that much than take the comfort of a pretty woman said just how much her attitude had bothered him. It’s one thing to know you’re a freak; it’s another to have people’s attitudes drive it home with an axe.

Zerbrowski said, “You need any help, just yell,” and then he went to join the others, who had taken my request for privacy to undress Domino very seriously. The three of us were alone in the filtered sunlight playing through the trees.

We eased Domino’s pants down his ass; the black undies stayed put. They were stretched a little tight across the front, but not as tight as they could get.

“Susannah is cute,” he said.

“I guess she is,” I said.

“You want to save the underwear?” Nicky asked.

“Yeah.”

I reached back to one side of his body, Nicky echoed me, and we eased the underwear down, baring his ass, but that wasn’t the tricky bit. Tricky was easing it off the front of him with him partially erect. Normally, it wouldn’t have bothered me that much, but we had just broken up; it seemed weird to be undressing him after having THE fight, like it was a breach of some breakup law somewhere. A last chance at sex I understood, but just undressing him seemed odd.

“Could I date her?” He asked it about the time the underwear spilled off him and he was just there, embarrassingly prominent, but still beautiful. There was no one in my bed who didn’t make me pause for at least a second and go, Pretty . Of course, Domino wasn’t in my bed anymore, so . . . fuck it, I went back to helping Nicky get him out of his clothes.

“Sure, though I think your last speech to her may have queered the deal.”

“Would it bother you if I dated her?”

“You mean because she’s almost a friend, or because you’re with another woman, besides me and Jade?”

“The last part,” he said, as we eased his pants down his legs. He was taking more weight on one of his arms than the other. I didn’t think his hands were hurt; it was more that one side of his ribs hurt more than the other.

I thought about it and then said the truth. “No, it wouldn’t bother me.”

“Thanks, that’s what I needed to know.”

“Remember, Domino, it doesn’t bother her when Jean-Claude is with Envy, either,” Nicky said.

I frowned at him. “You’re not helping.”

“It’s just that your being okay with your men being with other women, or other men, doesn’t prove you don’t care.”

I looked at him and let him feel that I wasn’t happy with him. I was rid of one person in my bed; I did not want to make this fight up. I wanted to be done with someone, and the moment I thought it, I said, “Shit.”

“See?” Nicky said.

“Fuck you,” I said.

“Later,” he said.

“Arrogant.”

He smiled. “I didn’t say tonight, I said later. A few days from now is still later.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t try. I could be taught.

“I feel like I just missed a whole conversation,” Domino said.

“Nicky reminded me that I’m a little overwhelmed personally right now, and feeling pressured by all the tigers and your prophecy.”

“Sorry,” he said.

“You don’t have to apologize for that, Domino. I’m not sure anyone owes me an apology for it, but when we broke up I felt relieved.”

He looked sad, even through the pain. It made me touch his bare thigh and say, “I thought, one tiger down, a few more to go. That’s not a good enough reason to dump someone.”

“So are we broken up, or not? I’m confused.”

“You aren’t the only one who’s confused,” I said.

Nicky started unlacing one of Domino’s boots, and I did the other. He was right; we couldn’t finish taking off his pants with the boots still on him. Shoes were always the sticking point when you stripped in real life; the trick was to take the shoes off early in the process if you’re wearing real pants. Most professional strippers wear pants meant to rip away with Velcro and be put back together for next time. In movies, it’s all distraction and stopping the scene a dozen times to change the clothes, so that some scenes it’s like five different outfits that look like a single strip scene; it’s all illusion. In real life, take the shoes off first.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

Nicky surprised me by answering, “It means that Anita can’t be your girlfriend; there isn’t enough time or energy for anyone to be a girlfriend to this many people, but she still needs to feed the ardeur and Jean-Claude still needs to feed on blood.”