William Vollmann - The Royal Family

Smiling, she un-muted the television.

Celia, did you hear what I said?

She increased the volume by two iterations.

Celia, he said.

This is grotesque, she replied happily.

He drummed his fingers and muttered: Klexter, klokan, kladd, kludd, kligrapp…

What’s that? said Celia.

Oh, I don’t know. Just a kind of jingle. A friend of mine — well, actually, one of my clients — is always saying it, and now it’s stuck in my head.

He had not lied. At that moment he’d truly needed Celia. Why? Because he’d come very close to being unfaithful to her with Joy. He was guilty, so he needed her to forgive him. Whenever he looked at Joy’s sad dog eyes after that, he thought about the Wonderbar.

The next time he went to the Wonderbar, he went without Joy. That was when he met Domino.

The blonde, studying John with as much attention as she usually paid to her crack pipe, saw a suit, a perfect necktie, a haircut and well-shined shoes. Through the avarice of courtship shining more brightly than the lemon-yellow socks of the Korean barmaid at Jonell’s she began to sense something familiar, yet displaced, like the upside-down reflections of bottles on a Tenderloin bar’s mirrored ceiling, glowing transparent multicolored stalactites. She sensed his brother Henry.

Don’t get me wrong, she said in a trembling voice. I have a legitimate job. I work nine to five downtown.

John, who until then had never thought otherwise, gazed at her in a surprise which also reflected amazement at his own presence in this place. What was he doing? He had so many obligations at the office, and then Celia…

You need lime in that, he said. Loreena! Bring Domino some lime.

Why, you’re a real gentleman, said the blonde.

My oh my, Loreena muttered. Aren’t we hoity-toity around here.

Shut the fuck up! screamed Domino, and John looked on in astonishment.

It made no sense, his being here. Since he was here, he might as well stay for another twenty minutes, but how was it all explicable? The blonde attracted him; he didn’t know why. Just as a lawyer’s briefcase is almost by definition too small for all his paperwork, so John’s narrow strip of active mentality could not contain more than a few of his longings. It would be better if after today he never returned to the Wonderbar. He sat grinning and relaxed, only his fingers unconsciously fooling with each other.

Are you married? she whispered.

My wife died.

Are you in a relationship?

Yes, John said.

You’re a hetaerist, aren’t you? said Domino. That’s one word I’ll never forget. You don’t know what that means, do you, scum? It means one who thinks that women are common property.

Are you trying to impress me? People who recite words don’t impress me. Anyone can do that.

She slapped him hard on the cheek and, strangely, this stinging sensation felt delightful.

This is so strange, he muttered, entirely disoriented.

It was just some basic flatbacking as far as Domino was concerned. Within half an hour she’d lured him into a twelve-dollar trick pad on Ellis Street and had drawn him down on top of her crying: Come on , come on! — She was trying to figure out how to steal his wallet. He for his part was mesmerized by her scars and bruises like Coptic crosses, especially by the long white eye-shaped bullet scar. As he caressed the blonde’s long, stockinged body, he felt himself carried farther and farther away from everything familiar, like a little child lost at sundown. Instead of the smell of the Tenderloin, about him rose an incongruous movie theater smell of stale popcorn and breath; silhouettes, illuminated around the edges, ran into place during the previews, while a blood-red sun rose upon the big screen. It was all the blonde’s magic.

When you pay, it’s a whole different thing, she explained. The man fantasizes because he’s paying the money. He’s paying for the feeling that he’s getting power.

John gazed at her, fascinated. Perhaps there was an element of helplessness in his fascination, but it would not be too much to say that never before in his entire life had he felt so thrillingly engrossed and enmeshed, like a lost tourist, unable to speak Japanese, wandering through the swarming Shinjuku district of Tokyo. Of course work, hobbies and other licit and illicit love affairs had called forth his best harmonizing instinct; everything within a given contract, session, year or world which was supposed to match up, did, because John set out to make matters so, and the proceedings, calculations, and downright artistry which achieved that result filled him with pleasure, to be sure. But Domino was no model airplane whose thousand plastic parts he carefully and at times tediously sanded, glued and painted until she was all put together, accomplished; rather, she was something superior and exterior to himself, which seized hold of him and dragged him into a delicious blindness.

So pay me, she said, sliding her warm hand up his leg. Then you can come play inside my cage.

Domino seized him, her arms as remorseless as the huge white stripes horizontal and vertical of downtown skyscrapers in the rain when the pavement is as grey as rain. She closed her arms around him.

So you see, all of you have different experiences in this cage, Domino whispered, gaping her long thighs apart.

Oh, whatever, said John.

Are you paying attention to what I said, asshole? Because if you’re not I might just have to slap you again.

John shuddered with pleasure.

You need somebody like me, he said to her.

You’re pretty fuckin’ opinionated, said the blonde.

John Tyler is a unique animal, said John complacently. John Tyler likes to speak his mind.

Tyler? Are you Henry Tyler’s brother?

Oh, this is all I need, said John, losing his erection. Has Hank been porking you, too?

Hell, no. He porks Maj.

Who’s that?

Just some skanky little nigger bitch. All right, John, now let’s cut to the chase, because I don’t have all night. You wanna fuck me or not?

Fine, said John. But first I want to know whether Hank—

He’s the kind who goes through the garbage, gets a handwritten scrap of paper with someone’s phone number on it, calls up and say I’m a friend of so-and-so. He’s a real sleaze. We’ve already wasted enough brain cells on him. So. You gotta pay me a hundred dollars up front, she said, watching him with a menacingly greedy smile.

Silently, John removed a crisp hundred dollar bill from his wallet and gave it to her. Unable to believe in her luck, the blonde kept thinking: I’ve got to get into the sonofabitch’s pocket. I’ve got to. I’ve just go to.

Okay, John, you can get undressed, but you have to hurry up. You got a condom on you? Otherwise I’m gonna have to charge you five more dollars.

Grinning, John pulled a condom out of his wallet and slapped it down in the bed. Then he began to unbuckle his trousers.

You have to know this, Domino said steadily. If I hurt you, don’t ever hit me back.

John bit his lip and nodded.

Domino smirked for a moment. Then she slapped his face until his ears rang.

I’m the Queen, she said. Say it.

You’re the Queen.

That’s right, you dumb fuck. Say it again.

You’re the Queen.

Again.

You’re the Queen.

That’ll work. Am I the Queen?

Yeah…

That’s right. And you know something? If I don’t fuck you better than anyone else, how can I be your Queen? said Domino very reasonably. Now put me to the test.

Pulling her urine-stinking panties down around her left ankle, she rolled the condom onto John’s penis most expertly, opened her legs, and lay there looking at her watch.