Bentley Little - Dominion

She felt like going out and raping Dion right now.

She sat down on the toilet, feeling a little lightheaded.

She shouldn't have touched that wine. It was making her behave strangely, making her think weird thoughts.

She stood, took out a new pad, affixed it to her panties. Before pulling them up, she breathed deeply, inhaling the musky fragrance. She touched her breast, remembering how Dion's hands had felt through the thin T-shirt cotton. For a moment there, when she had made him stop, it had seemed as though he had almost wanted to hit her, to force her to comply to his wishes.

And for a moment, a brief moment, she had wanted him to do just that.

Dion pressed down on the gas pedal as he drove away from the winery.

There was a burning in his crotch as he sped down the darkened rural road toward home, a painful aching that demanded to be released. He was hard, extraordinarily so, but there was no pleasure in it. Rather, the feeling was one of extreme discomfort. His penis seemed supremely sensitive, and each turn of the steering wheel caused his erection to chafe against his underwear. It hurt, but at the same time it made him stiffer.

The pressure on his penis increased as he pushed farther down on the gas pedal, hurrying, speeding up, desperately anxious to get home.

He thought of Penelope, thought of the way her panties had felt against his fingers, the cool silk and smooth skin soft to his touch.

His erection throbbed.

He couldn't take it anymore. He swerved off the side of The road, shoved the gear shift into Park, and fairly threw himself out of the car, leaving the engine running. He lurched into the bushes as he frantically unbuckled his belt, ripped open the button fly of his Levi's, and grasped his engorged organ. He held it hard and began pumping, his hand sliding quickly up and down the shaft.

He came almost immediately, a shower of thick, milky white semen falling on dirt and dead leaves.

He kept stroking his penis until it hurt, but he could not come again.

His erection, however, remained as hard as ever.

Oh, God, he thought. There really was something wrong with him. He needed some kind of help. Medical or psychological or both or ... He bent over and threw up into the bushes, his throat and stomach working in sickening tandem, clenching and unclenching until there was nothing left to disgorge.

He wiped his mouth and walked slowly back to the car, buttoning his pants, buckling his belt. He had not cried, had not felt like crying in ... he didn't know how long. Years, probably. But now he got into the car, locked the doors, made sure the windows were closed, and leaned his head against the steering wheel.

He sobbed like a baby.

"Miss. Daneam?"

Penelope turned around. Her eyes quickly scanned the crowded school hallway looking for the owner of the voice before locking on Mr.

Holbrook, standing in the open doorway of the teachers' lounge. He beckoned her over. She gave Vella a quick look of apology, then walked over to where the mythology teacher stood.

"Penelope," he said.

"Yes?"

"Penelope." He stretched the word out, rolled it on his tongue. "A good name. A classical name."

"Yes, I know. Penelope was Odysseus' wife." She looked impatiently back toward Vella.

"You wouldn't happen to know the origin of your last name, would you?"

She shook her head. "I'm afraid my family was never big on geneology."

"Were your ancestors Greek by any chance?"

She shrugged. "Why?"

"Oh, nothing. Just curious. The real reason I called you over is because I was wondering if you were related to the Daneams of Daneam Vineyards?"

She nodded. "It's my family's business."

"I had some of your wine the other night. Remarkable stuff. Very interesting indeed. I was wondering if perhaps you could arrange a tour of the winery for me."

"We don't give tours." She frowned. "And how did you get a bottle of our wine? It's not sold around here."

"A friend of mine, a lady friend, let me try it."

"How did she get it?"

"I believe she bought it at the liquor store."

"Here? In Napa?"

He nodded. "I think so."

"That's strange. I'll have to ask my mother about that."

Mr. Holbrook smiled. "Do you think you could ask about a tour at the same time?"

"I'm sorry. We don't give tours."

"Just thought I'd ask."

Penelope looked at him. "This isn't going to affect my grade, is it?"

He chuckled. "No," he said. "You have the same C-minus you've always had."

"What?"

"Just joking." He laughed. "Don't worry. You and Dion both have easy A's."

"Well, bye, then." She backed away from the door.

"See you in class."

Penelope walked back across the now not so crowded hallway. Weird, she thought. Just plain weird. What was that all about? Did he want to meet one of her mothers? That was the only thing she could think of. Why else would he be acting like that? She tried to imagine Mr. Holbrook with Mother Margeaux or with Mother Janine but could not do so without laughing.

"What is it?" Vella asked, stepping up to her.

"He wanted to take a tour of the winery."

"Why?"

Penelope shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe he wanted to meet my mom."

She and Vella both laughed as they headed toward fourth period.

Mel Scott drove home after work instead of going straight to the hospital. It was stupid, he knew, and completely illogical, but he wanted to change before he went to see Barbara. She would not care what he wore, she would not even know, but dressing up for her made him feel as though everything was back the way it was supposed to be, as though Barbara was still alive.

Not that she was dead. She was comatose, had been so for the past nine months, but she was still alive, and the doctor said there was a slim chance she could come out of it one of these times.

Although the possibility of that occurring grew slighter every day.

She had been hit on a Friday afternoon while walking home from work, a drunk driver ignoring a stop sign and not seeing her as she crossed a corner. He'd plowed into her from behind, and she had bounced over the hood before cracking her head on the asphalt, the blood staining one of the white crosswalk lines so badly that it had to be painted over.

She was lucky she hadn't died.

Ironically, after the trial, after the man had been sentenced to fifteen years without the possibility of parole, Mel had turned to drink himself, and though he made sure he never drove drunk, he had often been intoxicated while visiting his wife in the hospital.

He wondered if she knew that.

Lately, he had switched from whisky to wine, and while this should have been an improvement, should have sharply reduced his intake of alcohol, for some reason he'd also begun drinking more. A lot more. He now found himself drinking wine not only after work and after dinner, but during dinner, for lunch, and, even more recently, for breakfast. He just couldn't seem to get enough of the stuff.

- This morning he'd even poured a dash of it into his pancake batter.

He had thought about that all day. Part of his mind rationalized this latest act, told himself that it was no different than the cooking sherry Julia Child seemed to pour over everything, but another part of him warned that this was not ordinary behavior. This was obsessive behavior, addictive behavior.

But he felt no compunction to stop.

Amazingly enough, none of this had affected his performance at work, although even if it had, he was pretty well insulated from possible repercussions. He had less than a year to go until retirement, and the review and dismissal process would take at least that long--if it even got off the ground, which was a long shot for someone with his seniority and his well-publicized problems.