

Pretty Ugly

Find more titles at
JCPbooks.com
JCP Books LLC • PO Box 153 • Barneveld, WI 53507
©2010 Jordan Castillo Price. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-935540-15-1
Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. JCP Books e-books are for sale to adults only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by underaged readers.
Dear reader,We are witnessing the start of a huge shift in the publishing industry.
Before 2003, if I wrote a story that wasn't corporate America's idea of What Deserves to be Published, the best I could have put together was a photocopied 'zine that I distributed at whatever comic shops could be coerced into keeping a few copies on consignment.
The advent of epublishing and print-on-demand has changed that. Big time.
We're on the cusp of a meritocracy of ideas, where books sink or swim based on what readers want, rather than what corporate marketing folks think will sell.
Every time you choose to buy from a small, independent publisher or self-published author, you're shaping the availability of future books. By saying "yes" to the indies, you become a patron of the arts, and you ensure the author has a paid mortgage, food on the table, a decent internet connection...in short, you're contributing directly to that author's paycheck and making sure he or she can keep writing!
If you enjoy this book, you can make even more of a difference. Blog about it, tweet about it, post reviews, and tell your friends. The more you spread the word about the indie works you enjoy, the more support you'll funnel our way.
Thank you very much for buying an independent book. It does make a difference.
Jordan Castillo PriceOwner, JCP Books LLC
A sweltering September Tennessee afternoon had settled into a cool, hazy night. When Mimi Van der Berg appeared at the top of the grand staircase, Dominic could have sworn she was glowing.
The light in Cypress Mansion was nothing at all like the light in Hoboken by which Dominic had learned to shoot. Here in Nashville, the days were tinted gently blue, unless it was raining, in which case the light took on a subtle, cool, diffuse quality. Twilight gave a delicious carnation cast to white skin, and a striking amber highlight to black. And evening---which should have been the same as anywhere else in the civilized world, lit as it was by ambient incandescent bulbs and his cherished Nikon SP900 speedlight---held a magical radiance he had never seen anywhere but Nashville.
He stood in the foyer shoulder to shoulder with everybody who was anybody in the Cypress Estate Preservation Society. On one side, he brushed elbows with a tall historian in a tuxedo, and on the other, a twenty-something kid in a string tie and a spray tan.
Dominic braced his elbow against his chest and captured a shot of Mimi just as she drew breath to welcome her exclusive guests. He might not be able to capture the exact quality of the light, but he'd damn well try.
Mimi was a vision in orange, crowned by a severe silver wig. Most women her age---mid-eighties if she was a day---would have chosen a traditional black dress, or maybe a muted earth tone, if black made them feel as if they were celebrating their husbands' funerals prematurely. Not Mimi. Orange was a difficult color to wear, but standing there, framed by the meticulously restored banisters, Mimi beamed down at the throng as slender and graceful as a daylily.
Dominic couldn't think of any other person who'd attempt a wig like that, aside from Lady Gaga. But Mimi Van der Berg worked it as if she'd been born with it.
"Welcome, one and all, to the grand re-opening of Cypress Mansion." Her accent was southern, and incredibly genteel. There was a hint of throatiness to her voice, not from cigarettes, but possibly bourbon. "We at Cypress Mansion are opening our doors for the first time since February, when the restoration of the dish pantry and the family dining room began."
If Dominic had retained an assistant, he would have positioned that lucky soul to Mimi's side with a gold reflector to smooth out some of the less flattering shadows. But since most people had a hard time acting natural with a crew of assistants and interns around them, Dominic usually worked alone. It just meant he needed to look more closely for the opportune shots.
"While last spring's unprecedented rains delayed some of the restoration, thankfully Cypress itself escaped the flooding with minimal damage."
Toward the foot of the stairs, a hand popped up out of the crowd as if someone was gauche enough to interrupt Mimi's speech with a question. Light from the overhead chandelier glinted off shiny black plastic: a cameraphone.
Mimi gestured toward the door without breaking stride. "It would have been such a shame if harm had come to this mansion. Cypress is a rare and wonderful example of the Italianate style, which was very popular in the North at a certain dark time in our history, but is quite uncommon in Tennessee." Just as Dominic, who was a Yankee through and through, was wondering if he should look dutifully ashamed of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign even though his predecessors had been scattered throughout Europe at the time, an extremely tall and disturbingly broad man in a tuxedo and an earpiece pushed past him, and escorted the woman who'd attempted the Hail Mary shot with the cameraphone toward the exit.
"I am truly delighted to present the fruits of the labors started by the Society in 1973 with a viewing of the latest renovation, made possible by all of you. Won't you please join me for a glass of wine in the family dining room?" Dominic took another shot of Mimi descending the staircase like American royalty. As she reached the bottom, and the crowd shifted to give her plenty of room, she added, "If you'd like a photographic memento of the evening, call the Society's secretary Monday morning and have him put you in contact with Dominic Mann who, of course, you all know. Mr. Mann is tonight's official photographer."
She beamed in Dominic's general direction, and he captured a shot of her with the chandelier in soft focus behind her. "Mr. Mann's latest photographs of the upstairs library appeared in Harper's Bazaar, so his work should certainly be adequate for all of your needs."
Mimi swept her imperious gaze over the crowd, daring someone else to attempt an unauthorized snapshot. No one dared. Satisfied, as always, with weight of her own authority, she turned and led the way to the new restoration.
Dominic passed through the main hall, the downstairs library, the map room and the women's parlor, all of which he'd photographed for the Cypress' website when he first moved to Nashville. He didn't remember the rooms themselves so much as his images of them. If a piece of bric-a-brac that appeared in one of his photos had been moved to a new position, he noticed. And yet, overall, the place felt unfamiliar, museum-like, and not particularly welcoming.
He'd never been beyond the women's parlor. Along the walls of the narrow hallway, prior inhabitants of the Cypress stared down at him, stiff and pale-eyed, from tintype prints. In the exterior shots, the building looked much like it did today---minus the group of townhomes and bungalows that had sprouted up around the building in the 1920's, when Lydia Van der Berg had sold much of the grounds to pay off her late husband's gambling debts. He passed beneath Lydia's silvery stare, and emerged into the newly renovated family dining room.
The addition of the word "family" to the dining room had conjured up images of relatives relaxing together, passing plates of scones and offering to top off that mint tea. That wasn't the case. This "family" dining room seated twenty, and was filled with enough faux-Italian scrolling metalwork to shock the Pope.
Dominic braced his elbow and poised his camera, but instead of shooting right away, he looked. At times like those, the camera was more of a prop for him, a way to let the people around him know not to disturb him, because he was looking.
The other members of the Cypress Society streamed around him, their numbers doubled as they reflected in the gilt-framed floor-to-ceiling mirror on the opposite wall. Dominic spotted himself in the center of the reflection as the only person who was still, and turned to scan the rest of the room before he picked his mirror image out of the crowd in any great detail. He'd lived with himself long enough to know exactly what he'd see. Immaculately tailored suit. Passably fit, for a guy in his forties. And plug ugly.
Dominic turned away from the mirror. There was a buffet against the west wall brimming with wine. Beside it, Carlton Jeffrey from Jeffrey Imports & Exports stood, scanning the crowd, most likely anticipating who would call him Monday for a case of the Pinot they sampled at tonight's event. His gaze lit briefly on Dominic, then hurried on without lingering. Such was the way of one-night stands that never had enough momentum to develop into anything more.
Dominic allowed his attention to slide past Carlton---no hard feelings, pal---and on to the second buffet on the north wall. The top groaned under a spread of flowers and fresh fruits, and among that precisely coordinated swath of color and shape, on gleaming silver pedestals, the star of the show: chocolates.
He snapped a few shots of the crowd filling the room, then turned away from Carlton, and away from the mirror (wondering how the family dining room had become an obstacle course of avoidances) and made his way against the tide of cocktail dresses and suits to the chocolate buffet.
The spread couldn't possibly have been laid out by an amateur. Dominic knew all the top food stylists in town. He tried to place the work. Ashford? No, not formal enough. The Robinson Sisters...if it was them, it was the most graceful arrangement he'd seen them do yet.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Mimi drifted up beside Dominic and looked upon the buffet with such pride, he wondered briefly if she'd arranged it herself. That wasn't Mimi's style, though. Mimi didn't do things herself; she hired skilled artisans to do them for her. "That young man is a genius. When Blanche Montague sold her shop, I braced myself for some terrible chain store to open in its place. But Sweets to the Sweet blends in with those lovely old Victorian storefronts just like it's been there for three generations."
Dominic framed a shot of the candy, and clicked. Immediately he spotted another. And another. It seemed as if he simply couldn't find a way to aim his camera that didn't result in a dynamic, engaging composition.
"Pretty as it may be, we're celebrating the restoration tonight," Mimi reminded him, "not the catering." Dominic lowered his camera. He felt slightly dazed.
A young couple approached the buffet and helped themselves to a piece of candy. They did it furtively, as if they felt guilty for touching it, but simply couldn't help themselves. "It's so good," the girl whispered to her beau as they sank back into the crowd with their guilty pleasures.
"And where is your date for this evening?" Mimi inquired. "I specifically invited you to bring someone."
"Nah." Dominic's Jersey accent contrasted with Mimi's soft southern cadence as if it was another language entirely. "I just wanted to focus. It's too distracting to have someone tag along to a shoot."
"I see." It was perfectly clear that she did. "Forgive my candor, Dominic, but there's no reason at all that a man of your quality should need to remain single."
"Quality." Dominic laughed out the word before he could stop himself. "Is that the southern equivalent of a great personality?"
Mimi didn't deign to answer. "You never know. Maybe you'll find something in common with a member of the Society. We have our fair share of 'bachelors,' you know."
Dominic knew. He'd entertained one or two of them, though none had ever seemed interested in a repeat performance.
"Don't sell yourself short," Mimi said. "You have plenty of important connections. A younger man might be very appreciative if you help him launch his career."
The very thought of it made Dominic cringe inside. "How about you cut me a break, Miss Mimi? What can I say---I'm an incurable romantic."
Mimi was not deterred. With a subtle gesture of her chin, she indicated a young man nervously sipping his wine in the corner. "I could introduce you to him. Actor." She cut her eyes to another nubile gentleman admiring a painting. "Or him. Artist."
Dominic couldn't think of any way to tell Mimi, who was twice his age, and who undoubtedly counseled her female friends it was perfectly acceptable to marry for money rather than love, that her matchmaking left him embarrassed rather than intrigued. Some guys in his position wouldn't think twice about being served some fresh meat. They figured a little hookup was their due after a few decades of building their careers. Not Dominic. Looking into a set of sparkling young eyes and realizing the attraction was not about him, but the idea that he was a coveted rung on the ladder to fame and fortune, made him feel like a pathetic old troll. "C'mon. When you say Cyrus, those kids think you mean Miley, not Billy Ray."
Mimi swept the room with her regal gaze, and stopped cold. "That one. Trying to break into music. Johnny Palomino---he'd be perfect for you." A broad-shouldered brunet in a vintage western-cut suitcoat stood with two guys in tuxedos, smiling modestly. The coat was a real showstopper, black with a piebald yoke framed in red piping, and the aspiring musician wearing it carried off his flashy finery like it was his birthright.
One of the tuxes bookending him owned a radio station; the other, a dark, broad, goateed man whose waistline was putting a strain on his cummerbund, Dominic didn't recognize. "Palomino's handsome," Mimi said, "but look at the corners of his eyes. He's got to be at least thirty---a little long in the tooth for a breakout act. I'm sure he'd be appallingly grateful to have some head shots taken by the illustrious Dominic Mann."
Dominic opened his mouth to dismiss Mimi's suggestion out of hand---but he couldn't. Johnny Palomino had stolen his breath away. Dominic had grown up among plumbers and hockey and meatball hoagies. Cowboys were the stuff of fantasy; they might as well have been superheroes or Martians.
Sexy Martians.
"You see? There's someone out there for everybody."
Mimi began to raise her arm to summon the would-be singer over, but Dominic stopped her. "Wait. Not yet. Just lemme see if...."
"He already knows who you are, darling. Everyone here does."
"I know, I know. I was just hoping it'd feel a little more natural if I tried to strike up a conversation myself."
"Do have one of the waiters flag me down if you change your mind." Mimi primped her lustrous silver wig. "I've always thought 'natural' was highly overrated."
The need to maneuver around the dining room table resulted in some interesting traffic flow, but at least it made Dominic's meandering approach seem less obvious. He took a few shots on his way to the spot he'd last seen Johnny Palomino standing, photos that would not only be snatched up by the Tennessean's Style section, but would also give him a good excuse to work his way around the room.
The big guy in the tux was gone by the time Dominic approached, but Stanley Beloit of WOPR had practically backed the musician through the wainscoting. Stan held a fresh glass of wine, and a waiter was just leaving the scene with two empties. Johnny Palomino was hardly a victim, since he could have picked up Stan and tossed him into the butler's pantry if he was anywhere near as cornered as he looked---but he was probably well aware that burning bridges wouldn't be very healthy for his career.
Dominic butted in just as Stan began to punctuate his sentences with overly-familiar tweaks to the arm of the singer's cowboy jacket. "How's about a nice smile for the camera?" Dominic said, and reflexively, both men turned to face him and flashed their pristine dental work. Stan never let go of the musician's sleeve, but Dominic was undeterred. "How ya doin', Stan, nice to see ya."
He shook Stan Beloit's hand, which gave Johnny Palomino an opportunity to reclaim his arm. An opportunity he took, Dominic noticed. He turned from Stan to shake the singer's hand.
"Johnny Palomino."
"Dominic Mann." Dominic tested the handshake---and not just Palomino's handshake, but his eye contact, his stance, the set of his shoulders and whether he leaned in, or away. He didn't drop the handshake, even when Dominic held it long enough to turn it into a question. Better still, he leaned in.
"That's a nice-looking jacket you got on. Vintage, right? Come over here by the window and let me grab a couple of shots."
Johnny nodded a polite leave-taking to Stan Beloit as Dominic hustled him away. Stan narrowed his eyes at Dominic, but left it at that. The night was young, and there was plenty more time for the old hunter to snap up his prey later.
Dominic guided Johnny to the east wall, which was a bit less crowded than the rest of the room, seeing as how it was opposite the wine. "Stand over there by those red curtains. There you go." Palomino hitched a thumb into his pocket and dropped his closest shoulder as natural as a print model. Hell, maybe he'd actually been a print model, but figured singing would take him farther than modeling.
Mimi might have looked at Johnny's eyes and seen "over-29" etched in the corners. Dominic saw character.
"Whaddaya say we step outside and take a few pictures in the garden? They got that lit up real nice; shoots like a dream."
Johnny Palomino dropped his gaze and smiled to himself, that unassuming look again that even from across the room was positively magnetic, and Dominic felt his pulse start pounding. He slipped an arm through the crook of Johnny's elbow and began leading him toward the hallway. The crowd made way for Dominic, or maybe for the 3-pound Nikon around his neck with the whopping 20mm wide-angle lens.
The air outside was no warmer or cooler than the air inside the old mansion, but it smelled like real, vital things like grass and smog and hot asphalt rather than the stifling dryness of plaster and gilt. The outdoor can lights shone up the façade of the Cypress, throwing the trellises and the climbing flowers that clung to them in high relief. "Stand over there," Dominic said, "Between those two lights."
Johnny framed himself between the fixtures. It wasn't quite a pose---and Dominic was glad, because he hated it when models posed too much---but Johnny sure did know how to stand so that he looked good. He tilted his head so that his eyes weren't lost in shadow.
Bluish outdoor lighting, a trellis of flowers, and that wild spotted coat. A flash would kill the effect, but without a tripod, it was probable that even with his fast glass, Dominic wouldn't capture anything more than noisy grain. He cranked the aperture, took a few deep breaths, braced his elbow to his chest and then double-braced it by grabbing his forearm, exhaled, and shot.
Johnny pivoted and glanced over his shoulder, again, not like he was posing, but like something had happened to grab his attention. Dominic captured a shot, took a few steps closer, and snapped another.
"There even any film in that thing?" Johnny asked. His voice had a soft southern twang to it. He leaned back against the trellis and crossed his arms. Right there---that would be the perfect album cover.
Dominic captured it. "'Course not. It's digital." Johnny smiled at him and he caught the moment when those perfect, white teeth glinted in the darkness. He noticed Johnny was being just as careful as he was to be very, very still. And so he crept forward another few steps.
"So you make a tripod with your body. I've never seen anyone do that before."
"It's a wedding photographer trick. I shot a lot of weddings." When I was your age, Dominic nearly added. But the urges that had started gnawing at him, more hungrily every time Johnny struck a pose-that-wasn't-a-pose, suggested to Dominic it was better off to leave certain things unsaid.
He machine-gunned another dozen shots, then let camera drop to his chest. "Okay. We got it." He didn't step back---he just sized up his model and waited.
Johnny Palomino leaned toward him. Dominic leaned, too. When he sensed no resistance, he closed the deal.
Johnny's mouth tasted like Pinot. He hadn't shaved, part of the whole "cowboy" image, most likely. The stubble rasped against Dominic's chin. Johnny took hold of Dominic by the lapel---no, by the camera strap---and dragged him forward so their legs brushed. Johnny's thighs were stair-climber hard. Dominic ran his fingers up the front of Johnny's red-piped jacket. His chest was hard, too.
Something about his kissing didn't quite match up to his physique. With a build like that, Dominic would have expected Johnny to really nail him with some tongue---show him who was boss. And later, maybe bring out the lasso and the bullwhip.
It wasn't so much that Johnny was timid, more like he was... polite.
When it came down to it, Dominic supposed, Johnny was still the wanna-be, and Dominic was the star.
But who knows? Maybe he'd bring a lasso along if I told him we could use it in a studio shot.
Dominic eased back and picked out the glitter of the can lights reflected off Johnny's eyes. "Look, normally I'd ask you to ditch this thing and come back to my studio, but I should probably stick around 'til at least midnight since Mimi's counting on me."
"And my manager's probably wondering where I went."
"But if you want to hitch a ride with me after that...."
"Oh." Johnny seemed genuinely surprised. "I...I'd like to, but...sorry. I can't. I've already got plans."
Dominic took a few steps back and adjusted the weight of the Nikon so it wasn't chafing its usual spot across the back of his neck. "Okay, no problem."
"But what about tomorrow?" Johnny said in a rush. "Are y'all comin' to the tea reception? We could get together then."
Dominic did have an invite to the tea---a smaller, more intimate gathering than the wine gala. He'd been on the fence about showing up, but if cowboy Johnny was going to be there, waiting on him... "Sure. That sounds swell." And hopefully, Johnny wouldn't develop cold feet once he got a load of Dominic by the cruel light of day.
He fiddled with his equipment while Johnny rejoined the party, so as not to put the kibosh on whatever the kid's "plans" might have entailed, then followed him in discreetly a few minutes later.
The crowd inside was more wine-lubricated now, and Dominic picked out a few more dynamic shots. He'd always had a soft spot for women in red lipstick laughing. The third round of wine was usually where the most red-lipped smiles made their appearance.
Zoom in. A ruby pair of lips filled the frame. Motion, a hand. Dominic expected the rim of a wine glass to edge into the shot, but instead, it was a single, lustrous, perfect piece of chocolate. He took the shot just as the woman bit in, but he hadn't been prepared for it, and he'd probably moved and blurred it. He braced his elbow and tried to find her again, but she'd turned away, and the moment was gone.
Some people considered chocolate to be a magical food group, but Dominic had never been plagued by an insistent sweet tooth. He'd always considered his indifference to sweets to be a lucky thing. However poorly he'd fared in the looks lottery, at least he had no trouble keeping his weight down. Even so, although Dominic could take chocolate or leave it, he could tell the new caterer was some really big deal.
A majority of the crowd had now shifted from the wine buffet to the chocolates, and Dominic was struck by the body language of the partygoers. It wasn't as if they were actually enjoying the candy. They looked more like they were worshipping it, with equal parts of lust, awe, and even a bit of fear. It was the sort of posture he'd seen around a mirror full of coke lines, back when he was fresh out of Parson's, and people did that sort of thing in semi-polite company.
He framed a shot of the crowd that featured a swath of newly-restored Italianate metalwork, but he didn't take it. There was a decadent edge to the crowd that wouldn't translate well into Cypress promotional materials. Something even a bit sinister. Sexual, too.
Eh, why not?
Dominic fired off a dozen shots. That was the beauty of digital. It took a lot longer to blow through memory cards than good old Kodachrome.
A wisp-thin socialite bit a piece of candy in two, then tucked the other half into the mouth of the middle-aged woman at her side. A friend, or a stranger? Dominic took the shot, then lowered the camera and tried to figure out what was off-kilter. It was subtle, but if he looked, really looked, he saw it. The bubbles of personal space most people carried with them were non-existent around the buffet. Men brushed up against women, women against men, men against men and women against women, old and young and everything in between. All of them were so hypnotized by the chocolate that they hardly noticed they were touching---or maybe a good old-fashioned orgy was getting ready to break out, right there on the floor of the newly-restored family dining room.
That'd sure give the Style section something to write about.
Dominic's thigh butted up against something hard and unyielding, and he realized he'd drifted all the way up to the buffet as he shot without even realizing he'd done so. He lowered his camera, disoriented, and found the caterer, dressed in black and red chef wear, standing profoundly still amidst the chocolate bacchanal.
He said, "You must be the official photographer...Mr. Mann." His voice was low and smooth. It sounded like the silky, dark pieces of chocolate looked. "That's quite a lens."
Dominic glanced down at the camera as if to reassure himself it was still there. The caterer wasn't exactly Dominic's type, too androgynous, too pallid and thin---but his eyes were riveting. He smiled. That was fantastic, too, although something in his body language suggested he wasn't exactly flirting. The ambiguity of his attitude was intriguing. "I'm Chance. You've seen my shop?"
"No, I ah...I've heard of it."
"Well. Don't believe everything you hear. Most people are filthy little liars." He smiled again, as if he'd made a joke. Or maybe he'd been dead serious, but felt it was polite to pretend he wasn't.
"Only good things," Dominic said.
"All the more reason to take them with a grain of salt."
Chance pulled a platter out from a tiered cart at his side and began replacing the candies that had been decimated by the sudden greed of the crowd. His hands moved with unerring accuracy, grasping each piece by the fluted paper cup and placing it just so among the foliage and fruit. Every chocolate landed in just the right spot. He never repositioned a thing. He worked quickly, too, and before Dominic realized it, the platter was empty, and Chance tucked it into the vacant slot on the cart.
"You'd make a real good hand model."
"I'll bet you say that to all the boys. I can only imagine what the casting couch entails."
Dominic laughed, and Chance's smile deepened at the appreciation of his joke, if it even was a joke. Dominic thought it was funny, anyhow. "I'm serious. You're not tall enough for runway, and you don't have the right look for doing print in Nashville. But you've got good bones, good skin and nails, too. And you hold your hands nice and still."
"That's very kind of you to say." Sarcastic? Dominic couldn't tell. Chance brought out a second platter and began to repopulate another plundered section of the buffet as they spoke. "I don't think I'm really the type to go for modeling. Successful entertainers thrive on attention; I can take it or leave it. Being on the other side of the camera seems far more interesting. What is it they always say---photographs are the mirrors of the soul?"
"I think the expression is eyes."
"Is it? Ah. You're right. Mirrors tend to get me all turned around."
Dominic hefted the camera in a "May I?" gesture, and Chance gave him a small shrug in return. Dominic took a few shots of his long-fingered hands moving through the fruit and flowers, and then he tilted the frame up to Chance's face. Chance looked up just as the shutter clicked, then looked back at what he was doing, clearly unimpressed.
Daunting. If Dominic's clout was meaningless, then what did he have to fall back on---his scintillating conversation? That'd be the day.
He turned away from the buffet and scanned the room, not for shots this time, but for another look at Johnny Palomino. It was really none of his business who Johnny had agreed to meet for a private after-party...but he couldn't stop himself from feeling curious.
In his peripheral vision, he saw Chance look up and follow his gaze. "I take it you couldn't lure the Boston Buccaroo into a more private photo session."
"Boston? If that kid's from Boston, I'm Elvis' love child."
"You're sure he's not from Boston? Judging by what? His accent?" Chance lifted the final piece of candy from the platter, held it up between them so they could both judge its chocolaty perfection, and said, "Col cioccolato tutti i guai sono dolci." Italian? Dominic couldn't say, with only his grandmother's pidgin-English to compare it with. Maybe it was Latin. He shifted his focus from the candy to Chance's eyes. "Not everyone defines themselves by the way they speak," Chance said in a subtly Tennessee-tinged cadence. "Just like some of us aren't defined by what we do, or how much money we've squandered, or what we look like."
"Easy for you to say." It came out louder and more agitated than Dominic had intended. The members of the Cypress Preservation Society on either side of him began to ease away and pad the distance between them. Chance, however, leaned in closer. The corner of his mouth curled up. Dominic gestured at his patrician features. "You look like...well, like that."
"And that's all that matters?"
"I didn't say---"
"Think about some of the most iconic photos in history. Are they of pretty people? Or the migrant dustbowl mother with her scrappy daughters hiding their faces in her neck? Or the Vietnamese children trying to outrun napalm?"
Dominic tried to think of a single important photo of a beautiful person, but the unbidden image of the children's screaming faces blotted out everything else.
Chance placed the final chocolate on the buffet, and then a hand with a cocktail ring set with an emerald the size of a lens cap snaked around Dominic and plucked the candy from its spot before the fluted paper cup had made full contact with the table. Mimi Van der Berg bit off a corner of the chocolate, took a sip of merlot, then repeated, all the while looking Dominic and Chance boldly up and down. Once she was finished savoring her chocolate, or maybe her wine, she asked Dominic, "Are you harassing my favorite chocolatier?"
"I don't think he's capable of being harassed."
Chance, in the midst of handing out red paper napkins to a pair of tittering young debutantes, smiled to himself.
"Well you certainly don't look like you're having any fun. It's as if a black cloud has settled over this end of the room."
"We were talking photography," Dominic explained. Mimi looked to Chance, who neither confirmed nor denied it. In fact, the way he simply went about his business, Dominic might have just ceased to exist.
"Less talking, more doing," Mimi said, but she was flush enough with merlot that the threat was plainly halfhearted. She even snagged another chocolate from the buffet before she strode carefully away on her wine buzz and high heels.
"Not everyone's got the calling to be a photojournalist," Dominic said defensively.
"It's obvious you care for what you do; I wasn't besmirching your career choice." Chance planted his hands on his hips and surveyed his buffet. It was full again, for the moment. Once he was satisfied with what he saw, he raised his eyes and nailed Dominic with a look. "I'm merely wondering about your core values."
Dominic laughed, for a moment. The laughter quickly died when he realized the caterer was serious. "You're saying I'm shallow?"
Chance's eyebrows rose. "Why else would you be so smitten with John Horowitz?" The smile crept back into his expression. "Or, should I say, Johnny Palomino?"
"Then sue me. I happen to like cowboys." Even as he said it, Dominic blanched at the notion that not only was his "cowboy" a Jewish kid from Boston, but that he'd damn well figured as much all along. He turned away from the buffet, hoping to end the conversation before it tanked even further.
"So, that's it?"
Dominic flinched as Chance's voice cut through the hubbub of the crowd. He turned back around. Chance's shadow of a smirk was firmly in place.
"You come here and take pictures of my exquisite hands, and then you leave without sampling even one tiny piece?"
Dominic released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He wasn't sure how much more of a beating his Johnny Palomino fantasy could take. Candy was a much safer subject. "Well, I...."
"You don't like chocolate? Yes, now and then I do meet someone who claims that's the case." He drew a smaller tray from the catering cart and presented it with a quiet flourish. "Try one of these, then---they're from my special stock, the ones that sell for five dollars each at my shop, if you can even find them before they sell out. The pieces with the tiny pink dots are topped with peppercorns. The oval pieces are infused with cedarwood. They're all so painfully artistic, you can hardly even call them food."
They didn't look like food, either. They looked like props, too perfect to be eaten. The thought of biting into something too precious to be consumed felt decadent in a way that very few things did anymore. Dominic's hand hovered over the tray. Neither peppercorns nor cedarwood sounded very appealing, so he opted for a third piece instead, a diamond-shaped chocolate, so dark it was nearly black, with a purplish texture on top that glinted subtly when the light hit it just so. It was too small to bite, so he placed it in his mouth whole.
And he wondered if it was even chocolate. He kept his expression as neutral as he could, but even so, he suspected his surprise was apparent. It tasted like he'd just put a pellet of soil into his mouth.
"The thing about chocolate," Chance said, "is that its melting point is just below the temperature of the human body."
That would explain the way it was spreading over Dominic's tongue.
"Now that it's started to melt, exhale through your nose, gradually, in stages, so you'll be able to pick up all the undertones."
What Dominic really wanted to do was either spit the thing out, or swallow it whole to get it over with as quickly as possible---but he could hardly do either of those things with Chance looking right at him. He exhaled. It smelled like dirt, too.
"And now, before it's melted completely, bite into it so you can experience the snap."
Dominic did so, promising himself that it would all be over soon, and then he could wash it all down with a nice glass of cabernet. The chocolate didn't snap---it crunched. Whatever was on top scoured against his teeth. Gritty. And then that, too, began to dissolve, adding a saline, mineral flavor to the dirt.
"Himalayan salt."
Dominic swallowed convulsively, unable to keep the chocolate on his tongue any longer. He glanced around to see if there was wine, water, anything at all to clear the taste from his palate.
"Wait for it..." Chance murmured.
"When you said it didn't taste like food, you weren't---" Dominic swallowed again. When he'd opened his mouth to speak, the air that played over his tongue had released a string of flavors: bitter, moist, dark, musky, rich, salt...and finally, delicately, sweet.
Chocolate.
He sat with it, very still, mouth slightly open, while the flavor mellowed on his tongue. All around him, he was vaguely aware that other guests who'd been listening in to Chance's instructions were now in varying stages of holding chocolates on their tongues, exhaling through their noses, biting into them, and then exclaiming to their friends. But the jolting experience he'd just had was so transcendent that he could tune the partygoers out as easily as he might close down his aperture.
Chance was watching Dominic with that eerie stillness of his. "Looks aren't everything. Don't you think it's about time to go deeper and find someone you can really connect with?"
Dominic wanted to object, but his mind had just been well and truly blown. Where he would have normally protested, he found all he could do was stare.
"If you looked for something more than a slick attitude and a pretty face, you might be surprised at what you'd find."
"That's not fair," Dominic blurted out. Chance raised an eyebrow. "I don't only date showbiz types." He searched the crowd, and picked out Carlton Jeffrey pouring Mimi another glass of merlot. Carlton looked passable in his jazzy notched-lapel tux jacket, but he wouldn't be appearing on the cover of any magazine except Wine Spectator. "Looks aren't everything."
Dominic steeled himself for the glib repartee, but it never landed. He turned back to take the insult like a man, and found Chance was looking, really looking, at Carlton. The silence extended far past the state of comfort, and finally, when Dominic began to edge away from the buffet, Chance narrowed his eyes and said, "Interesting."
When Chance drew a tiny red napkin from its stack and handed it over, Dominic sensed he was finally being dismissed, and took it without hesitation. Their fingers brushed. Chance's model-perfect hands were as cold as a February night in Hoboken. A chill so profound raced up Dominic's arm, he thought he might have been having a coronary. Dominic shuddered, but Chance didn't seem to notice. He turned away, drew another tray from the candy cart, and went back to work. "Do take care, Mr. Mann," he said casually. "I hope you find what you're looking for."
The Cypress wine gala was a rapidly fading memory from the night before as Dominic stared into his bathroom mirror and considered his options.
One: he'd snapped. Mental illness didn't run in his family, unless you counted his cousin Louie who liked to collect empty beer bottles, who'd actually amassed so many he needed to rent a storage unit to house his collection. But there was always the chance that Dominic would turn out to be the first completely delusional member of the Mann clan.
Two: that piece of "chocolate" he'd eaten at the party had been spiked with something a hell of a lot more potent than Himalayan salt.
Three: well...there really was no third option. Either Dominic was crazy, or he was on drugs. Unless he really had been experiencing a coronary, a fatal one, and whoever was in charge of his afterlife possessed a totally fucked-up sense of humor. He supposed that was just as likely a scenario as the other two.
The same face had been staring back at Dominic from medicine cabinets, chrome toasters, hubcaps, and photographs ever since he could remember. Especially photographs. He recalled full well the way his mother's face fell when he brought home his kindergarten class photos, and she looked like she would have liked nothing better than to sneak them right back out with that week's trash collection.
The face in the mirror this morning was most definitely not that face. This face was...handsome.
Dominic leaned in so close, his forehead bumped the mirror. He pulled down his cheek and peered into the slick, pink pocket that cradled the lower curve of his eyeball. It sure looked real, all right. He ran his fingertips over his whiskers. Felt real, too. He tilted his head back and traced the edges of his stubble. Not only did it look and feel real, but it looked and felt the same way it always looked and felt when he shaved. The exact same way.
If anything, Dominic knew faces. He took a few steps back to get a good, unbiased look at himself, and convince himself that his place was behind the camera, definitely not in front of it. His eyes were the same hazel. His eyebrows were still thick and dark. Even his nose still had a little bend to it. But for some reason, his eyes were trying to convince his brain that together, it all looked good. Not just good---great.
The sound of bells floated in through the window---Church of the Nazarene calling its faithful to 10 o'clock mass---and the Cypress Mansion tea popped into Dominic's head. It started at 11:30, early enough for churchgoers to arrive straight from mass, but late enough to allow anyone who'd had too much wine the night before to sleep off at least some of their fuzzy-headedness.
He had time to figure out what was going on with him. Not a lot. But some.
Though he hadn't shot angsty self-portraits since he was a desperate and lonely sophomore at Parson's, Dominic was sure he could find a picture of his own face on his computer that would remind him what he really looked like. A lighting test. A group shot at a restaurant. Something.
He powered on his desktop and began poring through the collections. There wasn't a single shot of himself---not that he'd actually remembered taking any, just that it seemed that out of thousands and thousands of shots, there might be at least one he'd done with the autotimer. He scrolled, and scrolled, and scrolled. Nothing. He sat back in his chair, rubbed his eyes, then glanced at the tiny clock in the corner of the screen. If he was still interested in showing up at that tea, he needed to leave in half an hour, and he hadn't even shaved.
Although he was still hallucinating that he was now one of the pretty people, Dominic managed to shave without hurting himself. His face felt familiar, from the rise of his Adam's apple to the curve of his jaw, to the concavity under his lower lip he always took extra care to scrape, so as not to end up with an inadvertent soul patch. Guys like him just couldn't get away with it---ugly guys.
Or could he?
Ridiculous. He splashed away traces of shaving cream and blotted his face dry. Whatever it was he thought he saw in the mirror, he'd be a fool to let it get to him. He was a double-bagger, always had been. And he wasn't about to let a trick of the lighting dupe him into thinking otherwise. He dressed as usual, styled his hair as usual, and dabbed on the merest hint of Acqua di Gio, as usual. And he did his best to banish from his mind the ludicrous notion that he, Dominic Mann, had woken up gorgeous.
• • •
It took longer to get to Cypress Estate than usual---a lot longer. As Dominic idled behind the 5k charity walkathon that intersected Franklin Pike and cut him off from his destination, he struggled with the urge to flip down his visor and see if he was still good-looking. Then he mentally razzed himself for even entertaining the notion to begin with. Of course he wasn't. Never had been. Although, maybe a little peek wouldn't hur---
Damn. That was one handsome devil staring back at him from the visor mirror.
The car behind him leaned on its horn. There was a gap in the walkathon, and a traffic cop was herding the line forward. Dominic flipped the visor up and drove, profoundly disturbed that he'd been as smitten with his own reflection as Narcissus.
Dominic tried to remember how that story went, and although the specifics escaped him, he was pretty sure the guy hadn't lived happily ever after.
Since he'd been held up by the walkathon, every parking space near the Cypress was already taken by the time he arrived. He finally found a spot two blocks away and skirting the edge of a fire hydrant curb, and then he walk-jogged to the mansion with his camera bag pulling on his shoulder all the way there. A volunteer staffer in a Preservation Society polo shirt directed him to the backyard veranda, where clusters of genteel folks in their Sunday finery were just breaking up their conversations so they could be seated.
Mimi was a vision in lavender, with a sleek sheath dress, gloves, and a broad-brimmed hat atop a severe silver wig. "And there's Dominic Mann," she said. "Fetchingly disheveled and fashionably late. Come take your seat, darling. We almost started without you."
Dominic located his place card at a table in which three moneyed widows were seated. Odd. Mimi didn't seat people at random. He usually found himself among reporters, patrons of the arts, and if Mimi'd been in a generous mood while she put together her seating chart, other "bachelors."
Speaking of which...he scanned the crowd to see if Johnny Palomino was anywhere to be seen, and found the musician several tables away. His seat was facing the opposite direction, but he'd turned to watch as Dominic pulled out his chair. He caught Dominic's eye, and smiled. A very big smile. Dominic supposed he smiled back. Hard to say. He was so stunned he felt numb.
Conversation at Dominic's table was light. It centered on whose granddaughter was going to Vanderbilt and whose to Duke, up and coming fall design trends and colors, and the next fundraiser over at the humane society. Safe topics. Things he could talk about without allocating much thought to them---and that lack of depth turned out to be a good thing. Because every time he bent over the silver tea tray to serve another cucumber sandwich to one of his companions, he saw that bizarre, handsome face looking back at him from the polished surface. Even weirder, every time he looked up, he spotted Johnny Palomino making bedroom eyes at him from across the veranda.
Normally, he would have stopped and eaten something substantial before he showed up at a party where the refreshments were meant to be pretty rather than filling, but he'd barely made it on time as it was.
Too busy chimping his own reflection.
Now, he was paying for it. The sunlight peeking through the latticework column of the veranda played across the back of Dominic's neck, and he shifted in his seat, doing his best not to squirm. The heat, the anxiety, and the lack of real food hit him at the same time; he felt lightheaded. Best not to make a scene in front of the ladies. He excused himself from the table before sweat began to prickle at his upper lip, and he made his way toward the mansion.
Back in 1953, Mimi Van der Berg's grandfather Archie knocked a wall out of his study so he could expand it with a walk-in humidor. By all accounts, the humidor was a bad idea from its inception. One of the laborers was caught stealing silverware. Another eloped with Mimi's aunt Rose. Adding insult to injury, the construction itself was poorly executed. Within a year, moisture damage that crept into the study made that part of the mansion nearly unusable. The shoddy craftsmanship turned out to be a blessing in disguise some fifty years later when the addition was razed without qualms, and replaced with a handicap-accessible entrance and a bank of public restrooms.
Dominic burst into one of said restrooms, grasped the sturdy handrail mounted in the tasteful but utilitarian tile, and tried hard to catch his breath. His heavy Nikon dangled, casting a swaying shadow on the bathroom floor. He hoped that if he blacked out, he'd tip backwards so that the camera could land on him, and not the other way around.
Maybe, he decided, the fatality theory he'd cooked up back at his apartment wasn't too far off the mark. What if, at the wine reception, the twinge he'd felt in his arm had been a hell of a lot more than a weird torque of his funny bone?
He turned on one of the taps, in hopes that a little cool water across the insides of his wrists might set the world right. It was a high order for something as simple as water, but it was the only solution Dominic could come up with. Dimly, over the spray of the water and the thudding of his own pulse in his ears, Dominic became aware of footsteps out in the hallway. Someone must have seen how unsteady he was and called a paramedic. Or, if not, someone who needed to take a whiz would find him collapsed on the bathroom floor.
The door sighed open on its sturdy pneumatic hinge, and the bathroom mirrors filled with a half-dozen reflected reflections of a sharp-jawed man in dressy jeans and a white western shirt piped in black.
Or maybe Dominic would find himself alone again with Johnny Palomino.
Dominic grabbed a brown paper hand towel from the dispenser, touched it to the water stream and blotted his face. "I had to get out of the sun," he said, as if that would explain everything. "I'm too hot."
It made perfect sense to Johnny. "I'll say." He strode up to Dominic, grabbed him by the hips, and ground the flies of their pants together with as little hesitation as he would have offered a handshake. "I thought maybe you were puttin' me on last night about coming to this tea-thing."
Putting him on? The Texas drawl had evaporated from Johnny's voice, and left him sounding less like a ranch hand and more like a Red Sox fan.
Dominic tried to back away and get his bearings, but his shoulder blades were pressed into the tile wall and there was nowhere for him to go. Johnny pressed his thumbs hard into Dominic's pelvic curve, and rubbed up against his groin again. There was a distinct bulge now in the front of Johnny's jeans.
"What'sa matter?" he said. "You pissed off I went home with Stan Beloit? Don't worry about it."
"No, I---"
"That was just business. You know how it is. Besides, I hardly even felt it."Johnny ground their crotches together so hard, Dominic was surprised he didn't wear a hole in the material. His bulging package caught Dominic's just so, and Dominic felt his body start to respond. Johnny felt it, too. He smiled---perfect dental work---and leaned in so he could whisper against Dominic's overheated neck. "But with you---I know I'm gonna feel it. 'Cos when you fuck me, I want you to pound my ass right through the mattress. Got it?"
If it weren't for the Nikon, Dominic suspected the scenario Johnny had in mind would spin out right there and then---but the massive DSLR was like a brick between them. A familiar and reassuring brick, Dominick realized...and then Johnny had the audacity to grab it.
"How'd those pictures we took last night come out?" He twisted the camera so the display faced him, and the lens cap prodded Dominic in the sternum. "I'll bet they're smokin'."
"I didn't get a chance to look."
An expression flickered over Johnny's face too fast for Dominic to follow without his finger on the shutter, and then those sultry bedroom eyes were back. "No prob'. You behind the camera, me in front of it, I'm sure they're good."
Dominic didn't know how to answer that. It had never occurred to him that they wouldn't be. "Listen." Dominic didn't want to seem ungrateful for the cheap thrill from the handsome cowboy, but he couldn't seem to keep his head in the game. "You maybe wanna meet up later on, go to---"
"I thought you'd never ask. Butch---my pain-in-the-ass manager---has me booked in meetings and socials practically back to back this weekend. I'm supposed to be talking to some recording engineers after this, but I could catch up with you around seven."
"Seven. Sure. We could grab a bite."
Johnny's free hand dropped to Dominic's crotch, cupped it, and squeezed. "Here's the only thing I want to grab. I could give a rat's ass about dinner."
He flicked the camera on, and Dominic automatically thumbed off the lens cap. Johnny held it away from the two of them and snapped something that couldn't have been anything more than a blur.
"Make sure you call me. Not like last night, where you disappeared the second I told you I couldn't hook up."
"That's not what happened." Dominic didn't say it with much force, though, as he realized that he was no longer completely clear on what exactly had happened the night before.
Johnny squeezed the shutter as he dragged his teeth down the front of Dominic's shirt, over his chest and, crouching, his belly, in a promise of things to come.
He dropped to his knees and looked up at Dominic with sly eyes to make sure there was no mistake he was promising to make Dominic very happy indeed, then let go of the camera. It bounced against Dominic's chest. With his hands now free, Johnny pulled a card from his jeans pocket and tucked it into Dominic's waistband. "Call me. I mean it."
He stood, still smiling, and ambled out of the restroom. The door sighed shut behind him, and Dominic was alone.
Deep breath in, let it out....
Dominic slumped against the wall and stared at his Nikon's viewscreen. The shot on it was blurry---but not too blurry to tell it was Johnny Palomino biting one of the buttons on the front of Dominic's shirt like he was about to clip it off with his teeth and spit it out over his shoulder. Spooked, he hit the menu button and trashed the picture.
A few more deep breaths were in order. Dominic breathed, and did his best to clear his mind. Eventually the mental noise subsided, and he could focus on the reality around him. The tile wall. The air-freshener smell. The hiss of the running water. The moist feel of the air as it clung to his now-clammy skin.
Even though it would shatter his newfound calm, Dominic turned toward the mirror to seek out another glance at his own reflection with the hope that maybe now, after all that had happened, he could finally make sense of it. But the faucet was cranked on hot, and steam covered the mirror. Dominic looked, more or less, like himself again, but only because he was now mostly a silhouette.
He shut the tap off. Ghosts of fingerprints and smudges rose through the mirror's steam coat, where the public's idle hands had drawn words into prior generations of steam, and somehow the fastidious cleaning crew's washrags had passed them by.
"It's not the heat," Dominic's Hoboken relatives would remark every August, "it's the humidity." He now saw the wisdom in that statement, as the air in the Cypress public restroom suddenly felt wet enough to drown him. He adjusted the bulge in the front of his pants, plucked a dry paper towel from the dispenser, and gave his face a final swab before he headed back out to the veranda.
Even through the paper, it felt exactly like his own face.
The hallway was dimmer and cooler than the bathroom, and less likely to stew Dominic in his own juices. He blotted his forehead again, then checked to be sure none of the teenaged gift shop volunteers would conclude he was having a stroke and call the paramedics. The gift shop area was deserted, as was the small foyer around the handicap entrance. Dominic was alone.
He thought so, anyway, until he saw a flutter of movement in his peripheral vision, and heard a snap. There was motion inside the newly-restored family dining room.
Dominic crept up to the doorway, and watched as a red tablecloth flared with a loud crack, then settled around a slim figure in black: Chance, who handled it like a matador. His chef's uniform was gone, but nonetheless he was all in black---black T-shirt, black alligator skin cowboy boots, black jeans.
He took his time folding the tablecloth, though he seemed more like he was being obstinate than careful, and finally, when he'd smoothed a dozen invisible wrinkles from the fabric, he turned to Dominic and said, "Well, what did you need?"
Dominic opened his mouth and almost answered nothing, but then he realized that would be answering the question he'd expected, What do you want, rather than the one he'd actually been asked. He closed his mouth again and considered. This pause seemed to please Chance, who finally turned toward him and actually graced him with more than just the dregs of his attention.
"I need to know what's going on."
Chance crossed his arms over his chest, cocked his hip and leaned against the buffet while he considered Dominic's words. "Do you really? What do you suppose will happen if you don't?"
"Well, I..." Dominic tried to imagine a catastrophic scenario that would result from him never understanding why, suddenly, he'd gone to bed a frog and woken up a handsome prince.
Would it really be so bad, not knowing how, not knowing why? Maybe not.
But the idea that someday the prince would turn back into a frog...that would eat at him, for sure.
"Tell me this," Dominic said. "Do I look the same to you I did last night, or not?"
Chance tilted his head and considered. "Different suit...."
"You know what I mean."
"I'm surprised you even noticed," Chance said, "given that beauty holds so little importance for you."
"What are you talking about?"
"Last night. You told me looks weren't everything---and it struck me as truthful, at least as far as anyone can tell the truth these days. So what is it? Does a person's physical appearance matter...or not?"
Dominic could think of dozens of reasons to reaffirm what he'd said at the wine reception, and just as many to contradict it. "It's not that easy."
"Undeniably so." Chance turned and began dropping trays onto a cart with crashes that reverberated through the room like cymbals. "And I assure you, there's nothing more tedious than an easy life."
Dominic felt an invisible wall slam down between them, and he sensed he'd been dismissed again. When he exited the Cypress into the oppressive early-afternoon heat, it was almost a relief.
The second half of the tea was more bearable than the first, since Dominic was able to retire from the peculiar approving gazes of the older ladies at his table and to circulate among the crowd, shooting photos in the dappled sunlight. There was an artlessness to the natural lighting that he enjoyed. It allowed him to concentrate on the composition of the shots, and the expressions on the subjects' faces.
Unfortunately, since he was going from table to table to ensure he got some shots of everybody, he couldn't avoid ending up face to face with Johnny Palomino. Johnny dropped a shoulder and leaned toward one of his tea companions to say something witty, and the woman laughed. It was a perfect shot---or it would have been, if Dominic hadn't been too distracted to take it. His finger lagged on the shutter, and caught the poor woman at the moment where her smile turned into a strange twist of her mouth. Johnny, of course, still looked good. He was very still; he'd seen the camera coming.
The guy across from Johnny stood and smoothed the front of his shirt. He was a tall, raw-boned man around fifty, with black hair touched at the temples with gray. He was dressed in black western wear, with a short black goatee---the living, breathing embodiment of the Renegade Sam Cobra action figure a 10-year-old Dominic had taken through its paces so many times, the joints had worn out.
"How d'you do, Mr. Mann. I'm Butch Arlen, Johnny's manager." His voice was deep, his accent was pure South Texas, and when he shook Dominic's hand his grip was like granite---and he held on for an extra beat. Did he know what they'd just been up to in the restroom? Was it written across Johnny's face...and did Dominic need to worry about getting his ass kicked? Dominic considered how fast he'd need to run to outstrip the aptly-named Butch. Pretty fast, judging by those long legs. Just as Dominic was angling for his escape, Butch added, "I'm a big fan of your work."
As Dominic stammered his thanks, Mimi cut in and saved the day. "There you are, darling. Such a social butterfly. Be a dear and get a shot of me with Mr. Wipperfurth. His angina is giving him a hard time, and he has to go home to his central air."
Dominic excused himself and offered his arm to Mimi. The lawn had been more of a slimy, wet sponge after the Cumberland flooded, but once the waters receded, the sun baked the soil beneath the turfgrass to its usual state of hardness in just a few weeks. Even so, Mimi needed to tiptoe in her stiletto heels to avoid aerating the lawn, and she seemed happy enough to lean on him. As she did so, she said in his ear, "You do realize there's a business card sticking out of your waistband, don't you?"
Dominic palmed the card and slipped it into his pocket. Hopefully anyone who noticed how red he was would attribute his color to the heat.
Mimi patted his arm as they walked. "I've never regretted aging---after all, what's the alternative? And as a woman, one finds there are certain perks associated with every passing decade one survives. But still..." she slowed and gazed up at Dominic for a moment, then smiled and led the way to the Wipperfurth table. "Sometimes when I'm with you, I do miss being a young, ravishing creature with the world wrapped around my little finger."
Dominic laughed nervously. He himself felt neither young nor ravishing, but arguing about the finer points of Mimi's proclamation would only drag out the conversation and make whatever was going on that much more confusing.
He shot the photos quickly---Mr. Wipperfurth's complexion was a peculiar shade of aubergine---and wondered if he had a filter that would compensate for the flush. It felt good to work. If Dominic stayed behind the camera, there was no need to try to make sense out of what was going on with his own face, and to try to determine why the people who knew him were treating him differently now...as if there could be any doubt.
He moved through the crowd even as the tea came to an end and the wilted philanthropists began to filter back toward their air-conditioned sedans, hoping to capture one final candid shot in the challenging lighting conditions.
The human eye was more adept at making sense of what it saw than any camera. The eye was connected to the brain, and so it could compensate for things like color cast, contrast and backlighting. While the camera was, in Dominic's opinion, a miracle of modern invention---it took a lot more finessing to capture things the human eye saw with no effort at all.
He waited a moment until Mrs. Boyer-Brown stepped out of the sun-shade pattern that lay across her face like vitiligo, then shot a few frames that would hopefully be more flattering, though he did so with only a tiny fragment of his attention.
A plan had just occurred to him. Maybe the fact that he couldn't find any old photos of himself didn't matter. Maybe what he needed to know was what he really looked like right now. If the camera was too simple to tell the difference between a trick of the light and a skin condition, he reasoned, maybe it wouldn't fall for whatever glamour had been tricking not only his eyes, but the eyes of everyone else he knew.
He couldn't very well shoot a photo of himself out there on the veranda without coming off as a joke, but the thought of going back into the men's room for a little privacy spooked him. Ten, fifteen more minutes, he told himself, and he could go back to his car, snap on his macro lens, and get a good, objective look at that face of his.
When Dominic made one final circuit of the dissipating crowd, Johnny Palomino was facing the other direction, which was, in a way, a relief. It enabled Dominic to plant an air-kiss on Mimi, then sneak past the trellises and out to the sidewalk without another awkward encounter.
He was so eager to see, really see what was going on once and for all, that it took him a few moments to realize his car was no longer there. He stared at the spot where he could have sworn he'd left it, and then he marched up and down the block a few times. It was preferable to think he'd just forgotten where he parked---but the yellow-painted curb by the fire hydrant that he might have overlapped by a foot or so could hardly be ignored.
"Damn it." Stomping his foot didn't help any. It hardly even made him feel better---but he hadn't quite figured out his next course of action, so at least it was something to do.
"Is there a problem?"
Dominic spun and found tall, austere Butch Arlen witnessing his little snit. He straightened up and did his best to look dignified. "I think I just got towed."
Butch eyed the curb. "Probably so. Maybe you should take a picture of the spot...from an angle that makes it look bigger than it is. That way you can contest the ticket."
"I could give a rat's ass about the ticket. I just want my car back."
Butch shook his head and gave a rueful smile. "You won't get anywhere with the impound lot on a Sunday."
Dominic gave the empty parking space a few choice Hoboken hand gestures, but stopped short of stamping his foot again. He stepped around Butch and took a shot that made the parking spot look big enough to fit an extended cab pickup. It gave him some satisfaction, but not much. "I can't believe this would happen right when I needed to..." take a picture of himself? He could hardly go shooting his mouth off about that. A lightheaded wave of giddiness washed over him, and instead he said, "eat some real food."
"Cucumber sandwiches don't exactly stick to the ribs. I was about to offer you a ride home, but if you'd rather stop for something to eat...?"
Dominic was about to say no, and thanks, and never mind, I'll call a cab. He was hot, confused, and royally pissed off---and, frankly, things had been so far out of whack since the wine reception the night before, he was wondering if he'd sustained a head injury he hadn't happened to notice. But his favorite Wild West action figure incarnate had just invited him out to eat. How could he refuse?
• • •
If Butch Arlen had come into Dominic's life at any other time, Dominic would have been over the moon with delight. Judging by the looks Butch stole when he thought Dominic wasn't looking, he seemed interested in more than just a post-tea snack. His deep, easy Texas drawl was beyond charming. He'd ridden in and rescued Dominic from danger---or at the very least, the inconvenience of calling a cab. Most importantly, he had that whole Renegade Sam Cobra thing going on.
Circumstances being what they were, though, Dominic found himself dawdling in the restroom of the world's busiest barbecue joint, waiting for the guy in the stall get on with his dump, and the guy at the urinal to shake himself off and get out of there. Finally, after a long enough stretch that Dominic would have to invent an excuse that didn't make him sound like a candidate for an emergency colonoscopy, the door swung shut behind a well-dressed guy who hadn't washed his hands...and Dominic and his camera were alone.
He focused on a spot on the wall two feet away, just about the length of his arm, then turned the camera on himself. It would've been easier with a little point-and-shoot. The Nikon felt awkward in reverse, and it dragged his arm down. There was noise in the hall, dishes rattling in busboy trays, footsteps. Dominic held down the shutter and took a quick series, turning his face slowly in hopes of capturing some image he could make sense of, and then just as the door opened, he dropped his camera, the neck strap snapping taut.
Since he'd had his fill of restroom shenanigans for the day, he turned on the tap and pretended to be washing his hands so he didn't have to explain himself. It was awkward with the camera, which he would have normally put away for safe keeping rather than risk getting it wet. He clasped it to his chest with one hand and reached for the water with the other, figuring he only needed to look like he was actually doing something legitimate for maybe a second or two, and then he could crumple up a paper towel, throw it in the trashcan and get back to Butch.
The water was hot enough to brew tea.
"Sonofa---" he snatched his hand back and shook it. The large, trucker-looking guy in the greasy baseball cap heading for the stall was not impressed.
Now Dominic did actually want to run water over his hand. Cold water. He tilted the chrome lever toward the right, but the water only got hotter---hot enough to fog up the mirror.
Enough, already.
Dominic's hand was blotchy red, but he'd live. He pushed down on the tap so he could get back to the table before Butch sent in a search party....
The tap was stuck.
Of course it was. Dominic rolled his eyes. He considered leaving, but how could he? The guy in the stall had seen him in there. Another guy shuffled in and started to take a leak. Dominic shoved harder at the tap, but it wouldn't budge. He even tried opening it up farther so he could gain a little momentum before he pulled it down---but that only succeeded in making the hot water run faster.
"Okay," he said, loud, over the rush of water, since it seemed he'd have to own the situation. "This faucet's all screwed up. I'm getting the manager."
He looked over his shoulder at the pissing guy, who was too absorbed in what he was doing to acknowledge that Dominic had just spoken. Fine. Good. Dominic had done his part. He turned to head toward the door and get the manager...and found a word had appeared in the steamed-up mirror. One simple word.
Ugly.
Dominic jerked the tap and it snapped down, shutting off the flow. The oval of steam on the mirror began to shrink immediately, but that single word, ugly, hovered there just below the blurred reflection of Dominic's face. He smeared it away with his palm, and then lunged out the bathroom door and wiped his hands dry on his pants.
He fell into the seat opposite Butch, picked up his ice water, and held it against his cheek. "You all right?" Butch asked. "Maybe you're not used to the heat. Could be sunstroke."
"I've lived here four years. It's fine."
Butch eyed Dominic with the shrewdness of someone who was accustomed to spotting problems and then handling them...but he chose not to challenge Dominic's reassurance that he was "fine," even if it was obviously not the case.
The waitress hauled two heaping plates to the table. The platter groaned with pulled pork sandwiches the size of footballs. Smoky baked beans spread over the dishes, their brown sauce mingling with the creamy, white mayonnaise running from the coleslaw, and buttery roasted corn on the cob threatened to roll off the overstuffed plates. The hickory-sweet, buttery smell made Dominic's nearly empty stomach rumble, but the image of that word appearing in the steam ---that single damn word that was the bane of his existence---made him doubt he could even swallow.
"Maybe a bite to eat would settle your stomach," Butch suggested. He took a forkful of coleslaw into his mouth, and his eyelids fluttered closed in rapture. He swallowed with a sip of sweet tea, and that, too, made him smile. Dominic could hardly sit there like a lump while his companion was having a religious experience with his food, and so he bit into his sandwich. Salty, spicy, hot and sweet.
"Now that's some fine barbecue," Butch said.
The need for conversation was suspended as they ate. Butch relished every bite, while Dominic struggled to even taste it. He was out with a smoking-hot, honest-to-goodness Texan, there was a hell of a spread on the table, and for the first time in his life, Dominic didn't have to worry about someone reassuring him that he had a very nice personality. But with the word ugly haunting him, how could he enjoy himself?
Once Butch's plate was clean, he sighed with contentment, and only then looked over at Dominic's picked-at plate. "You didn't like the food?" He seemed surprised, like he'd met someone who didn't like money, or maybe sex. Or chocolate.
Dominic stared at the cooling strings of pulled pork for a long moment, and without looking up so he didn't lose his courage, blurted out, "Were you at Cypress last night?"
Butch paused, then said, "I was."
They hadn't been personally introduced at any point---Dominic would have remembered---but he himself had been pointed out to the entire gathering. "Did you see me there?"
"I did."
Dominic forced himself to meet Butch's dark eyes. "What did I look like?"
Butch blinked as if Dominic's question had caught him off guard. "Well, you had this here camera with you. Your suit was black. Your tie was red." He shrugged. "Your hair was neater."
"And that's it. That's all you remember."
Butch turned his hands palm-up. They were big hands, with long fingers, squared-off fingertips and thick knuckles. Hands that could change a tire or saddle a horse. He wore a single, wide gold band---on his forefinger, of all places---inlaid with an onyx music note set between two small diamonds.
"You remember I had a red tie on?"
Butch tipped back his sweet tea, probably, Dominic thought, because he was acting like a freak and it was the easiest way to break eye contact. Butch put the tall, sweating glass back in its ring of condensation on the tablecloth, considered his words for a few seconds, looked Dominic in the eye and said, "Seems like there's something specific you want to know." He dropped his voice very low, and his accent took on a musical lilt. "You can tell me. Whatever it is."
"Yeah. Right."
Butch looked at Dominic harder. His eyes were piercing.
"It sounds crazy," Dominic whispered. "I can't say it. Not here, not in front of all these people."
Butch nodded, dropped his magnetic gaze, and signaled for the check. "I'll take you home. You decide you want to talk about it? We'll talk. If not, I drop you off without another word."
Dominic regarded the numbered parking spot behind his apartment from the unusual perspective of the passenger seat. The silent drive from the barbecue joint had yielded up exactly zero ways for him to ask Butch whether or not he'd noticed Dominic was an ugly duckling at the wine gala, but a swan at the tea. He turned towards Butch to see if something in his face would help Dominic to find the right words...but the sight of him, framed and backlit by the truck window, the late afternoon light playing over the angular planes of his face, the type of face a real artist would want to shoot, not like those same-old, same-old models....
"You want me to stay, or go?"
Dominic had been quiet so long, his voice broke on the word. "Stay."
The walk up to the second-floor apartment seemed like it should have looked different, viewed, as it was, through Dominic's newly-attractive eyes. It didn't. It looked the same as it always had. Same popcorn-textured ceiling, same unassuming low-pile carpeting and classic woodwork, same quiet, understated utility. Just say it, he thought. Ask him whether he noticed you were ugly last night and get it over with. The worst he can think is that you're screwed in the head. Heck, you probably are.
He unlocked the door and led Butch into the open-plan living space that doubled as his personal gallery, and drew breath to speak. He lost his nerve, however, when Butch strode past him to the photographs like he'd been itching to see them all afternoon.
"There it is...." He'd stopped in front of the last shot ever taken of Carl Perkins, the image that had rocketed Dominic to fame on the cover of Rolling Stone after Perkins' death. Butch sighed like he was enjoying a sip of sweet tea, and inspected it from inches away, tilting his head this way and that, before he took a few steps back, crossed his arms over his chest and drank the whole photograph in. "This one's my favorite."
"So you weren't shittin' me when you said you were a big fan."
"That, I was not."
The most famous photos of the rockabilly legend were from the 1950's---but Dominic had captured some elusive quality that mild autumn day in Jackson, some play of the bluish Tennessee sunlight over the hard-earned creases of Carl's face that made the photograph not only compelling, but to a fan of the genre, iconic.
"It looks different like this than it did on the magazine," Butch decided. "Deeper, like." He shook his head. "Sorry. I'm no artist. I don't know how to put words to it."
"You're doing fine." Dominic approached. They stood shoulder to shoulder and gazed at the photo together for several minutes. When Butch was done looking he turned toward Dominic, and Dominic leaned in.
Butch eased into the kiss, as if he intended to savor it. There was a certainty to his lips that Dominic didn't find in younger men, an ease that spoke of many years of putting their paces through the eternal dance of seduction. Dominic's eyes had closed, some universal reflex, he supposed, but he forced them open to take in the harsh and wonderful lines of Butch's face.
As if he felt Dominic looking at him, Butch opened his eyes too, and paused. His black eyebrows screwed up in a silent question, and Dominic sensed that if he were to find the balls to ask about what he looked like, now was the time.
But with Butch looking at him like that, brow furrowed, jaw set, his stance practically trembling with raw need?
He couldn't.
He held a hand out instead---Butch took it, the gold ring a hard, heavy pressure as his big hand enveloped Dominic's---and led the way into the bedroom.
At that point, Dominic would normally have turned the lights off. Today, he couldn't. The room was filled with late-afternoon sunlight---gentle, diffuse, and a bit hazy. Even if he pulled the curtains from their tiebacks to cover the slats of the miniblinds, light would sneak in around the edges (as light had a tendency to do, both in a film canister, or in a darkroom) and reveal him in all his vulnerable glory.
Butch began to unbutton his own shirt.
Dominic pulled the camera strap over his head and set his Nikon on the dresser. There was no mirror there. Why start the day on a sour note, he'd always figured. But suddenly he wished he hadn't been so eager to avoid himself. If he'd had a mirror, he would have known whether he was still gorgeous, or whether it was all some sunstroke-induced fantasy.
Butch stepped up behind him and pressed his mouth to the back of Dominic's neck, right over the spot the camera strap usually covered. His lips pressed to the hot, smooth-rubbed flesh, and clung to Dominic's skin even as he dragged his mouth along the trail. More kisses, and then a trace of tongue. Gooseflesh danced over Dominic's forearms.
Butch reached around and began to unbutton Dominic's shirt. His big, strong hands worked the buttons with more precision than they seemed like they should have been capable of. His body was all hot, hard planes and angles against Dominic's back. No gym-sculpting there. Dominic turned in Butch's arms to face him. No spray-tan or dental veneers, either. Just a man in his late prime with all the character of Dominic's single most famous photograph.
Beautiful.
Dominic felt himself straining against his fly without even having been touched directly, like a horny teenager hoping to get some action under the old viaduct. Damn. Everywhere Butch's hands went, arms and chest, collarbones and stomach, Dominic's body sprang to attention. Tingling trails of aliveness followed his touch.
The deliciously squirmy anticipation verged on being uncomfortable, these intense sensations that surged beneath Dominic's skin---which had fit him as easily as his old, ugly wrapper earlier, but now seemed tense enough to split open and reveal him.
He fumbled with Butch's star-shaped belt buckle and dropped to his knees. If his real face did choose to make a reappearance, at least it would look better wrapped around a hard-on. So he'd been told. On more than one occasion.
Butch groaned, a mingle of relief and anticipation. His huge hands cradled Dominic's head as he planted his feet wide. His cock had already grown thick with anticipation, and it stiffened as Dominic took the musky saltiness into his mouth.
He grabbed onto Butch's hipbones as he picked up speed. He'd need to slow down if he wanted to make it last, but this new face of his seemed like it had something to prove. He took Butch's cock deep, over and over, so it butted against the back of his throat---and he sucked hard.
Panting, Butch caught Dominic by the wrists and took a step back. His stiff red cock, bulging with veins, bobbed at Dominic's eye-level. "Lay down with me," he said. "I want to get you off, too."
Dominic almost insisted on staying put, but he had the sense that Butch was accustomed to taking care of business rather than being waited on---and Dominic was so far out of his own comfort zone, he figured he shouldn't tempt fate. He stripped down. As he stepped out of his pants, he turned away from Butch and ran his fingertips across his forehead, down his cheeks and jaw. His face felt the same. But that had been how it felt that morning too, so that didn't mean anything.
Butch sat on the edge of the mattress and pulled off his cowboy boots and socks so he could push his jeans the rest of the way off. He tugged Dominic down beside him onto the bed, both of them profoundly naked in the late-afternoon sunlight that leaked in around the blinds, and cupped Dominic's face for a kiss. Dominic felt the brush of whiskers, then lips, then tongue. Butch slid one of his big hands between Dominic's thighs and began stroking his balls, trailing more kisses down his neck.
The kisses, the seductive, uneasy tension of them, made the question bubble to the surface before Dominic could stop himself. "Didn't you notice what I actually looked like last night?"
Butch paused with his goatee tickling Dominic's sternum. "Why's it eating at you so bad? I told you---I saw you. I got a look at you when Miz Van der Berg said you were the official photographer, but other than that, I reckon we were on opposite sides of the room. We must have been. You don't remember seeing me...do you?"
"I think I woulda noticed."
Butch straightened and looked deep into Dominic's eyes. "You got something to say, then say it. Whatever it is...it's all right."
Dominic searched Butch's face. His big, dark eyes were tender, and a bit sad. Dominic gazed into them and wished he could figure out the right words---or whether he should say anything at all.
Butch's eyebrows hitched with worry. He'd been at the party, too. What if, Dominic realized, he hadn't been the only one to wake up in a new skin? What if Butch had also gone from zero to hero overnight?
Did it matter?
Dominic leaned in for another kiss, lips parted, this time with his eyes closed. Butch's mouth was eager beneath his. Sure, Dominic decided, the Renegade Sam Cobra look made for a pretty package, but that only served to grab his attention initially. What held it was the quiet self-assuredness, the way Butch was unruffled by heatstroke and impound lots and crazy photographers who asked too many vague questions.
And, of course, the fact that he genuinely admired Dominic's work was probably the headiest turn-on of them all.
Butch stroked his thumb down the cleft of Dominic's balls as he took their kiss deeper, bolder, until Dominic's worry began to swirl away on the intoxicating waves of caresses and kisses.
Butch sank down on one elbow and nudged Dominic to mirror the position, head to groin. Butch was still hard and ready, and Dominic took him down deep just as Butch did the same, all heat and wetness, generous with his mouth, and bent on pleasing Dominic.
Technique? Sure, everyone had their little tricks---especially prettyboys whose main objective was to get you off and get on with their evenings. It wasn't that Butch went deeper or had a more skillful tongue. It was the noises he made, the guttural grunts of satisfaction like he'd never wanted anything in his mouth more---not even the pulled pork and sweet tea.
His enthusiasm was contagious.
Dominic abandoned his worries---and his reserve---and gave in to the moment, sucking cock, sucking balls, sneaking his tongue as far around into the ass crack as he could reach while he ran his hands over Butch's body---hips, ribs, spine, all hard-fleshed bone and sinew. He peaked first, with his cock squelched so far down Butch's throat he felt teeth and chin pressing into his pubic bone. He groaned against Butch's spit-wet taint, then turned onto his back and encouraged Butch to fuck his face. Butch's cock hammered into his mouth, straining his aching jaw, and he lay back and relinquished control, while Butch took him, and used him---and finally, with a gasp, shot a huge, hot load on his face that oozed from the corners of his mouth and down his cheeks and jaw to settle, sticky, in the crook of his neck.
Butch rolled off. Dominic stared at the ceiling fan in a daze. The light had dimmed. It was getting on toward dusk. He worked his sore jaw a few times, and then swallowed. Butch trailed his fingers along Dominic's arm. A little thrill shot down Dominic's spine and he wondered if he might even be up for a double-header---if he could manage to catch his breath again, first. He wiped his face on the top sheet and turned himself around. Butch wrapped strong arms around him, and they lay together, sweaty and content, while the light continued to fade.
"That was incredible," Butch said, so quietly the words were almost lost in the pillow.
"You should stay," Dominic added quickly---before he could convince himself that it wasn't the sort of thing a guy like him dared to say.
Butch squeezed him tighter. "I'd like that."
So, the new face was talking for him now? Dominic couldn't see any other way to explain it. Maybe, he figured, he could get used to it, as long as it meant he could look forward to someone like Butch in his bed.
Butch nuzzled him, scraping whiskers against Dominic's jaw. No, not someone like Butch Arlen. Just him. Butch.
Once the room was more dark than light, and both Dominic and Butch succumbed to the urge to move and stretch, and shake sensation back into the limbs that had fallen asleep beneath them, Butch rolled a crick out of his neck and said, "A shower would feel good right about now. You up for one?"
A stirring deep in Dominic's balls said yes, but a bright red 7:00 popped up on the clock radio, and he remembered he was supposed to be wining and dining Johnny Palomino at that very moment. Shit. "Yeah, sure. Through the kitchen. I'll, ah...I'll be right there."
Johnny fucking Palomino. The thought of that kid grinding against him in the restroom made his burgeoning hard-on wilt like a gelatin ring in the sun. Dominic would have blown him off in a heartbeat---Johnny didn't have his number, after all---if it weren't for the fact that Butch was Johnny's manager. If he wanted to keep seeing Butch, no doubt he'd cross paths with Johnny again. Better to call and own up to the fact that he was no longer interested in a rendezvous.
The phone only rang once. "It's Johnny," he said in a sultry voice with a fake southern twang. "Talk to me."
"Hey, pal, it's Dominic. Listen---"
"Do you realize what time it is, Mr. Mann? Y'all were supposed to be in my pants ten minutes ago."
"About that...."
"Don't tell me y'all need to postpone. I've been thinkin' about you so long my balls are aching."
"See, the thing is...." Dominic sighed. He always thought it would be easier being on this end of the brush-off. He'd been wrong. "I don't mean to be a jerk about it, but I gave it some thought, and I just don't think you're my type."
There was a long pause in which Dominic wondered if Johnny's cell had cut out, although he strongly suspected it hadn't. When he'd been in Johnny's shoes, practice had made him quick to say yeah, sure, I understand. But Johnny Palomino didn't know what to make of the word no.
Dominic attempted to spare him the discomfort of wrapping up the conversation. "So, anyways, I guess I'll see you ar---"
"Listen, you arrogant fuck."
It was Dominic's turn to sit in stunned silence.
"I guess 'cos you're some high-and-mighty hot shit New York photographer, some big star," the nasal Boston-r crept in, "that you can just toy with the heads of all the little peons scrabbling around at your feet."
"What? No, that's not---"
"I'm not what you're looking for? You're disappointed? You think I'm not good enough for you?"
"I never said that."
"Yeah, well, I get it. Take a good look in the mirror, 'pal.' The feeling's mutual."
Dominic stared at the phone for several long seconds after Johnny hung up on him. He considered calling back, apologizing---but what more was there to say? Initiating another conversation would only dig him in deeper.
He'd been honest with Johnny, he decided, and that was the important thing. But what if Johnny was pissed off enough to sabotage his relationship with Butch? What then? Dominic put his head in his hands and listened to the patter of the shower, and wondered if it hadn't just been easier being ugly, and have no one care what he did one way or the other.
Telling Butch was the logical next step---not that there was much to tell. Johnny was Butch's client, though, so Dominic would need to be careful not to badmouth him. Dominic pieced together the most neutral explanation he could come up with: that he'd stood up Johnny because he found he'd rather be with Butch. It didn't make him sound like the man of the year, but it shouldn't be the end of the world, either.
He grabbed an extra couple of clean towels from the linen closet and made his way, barefoot and naked, to the bathroom. Steam billowed out when he opened the door. Butch Arlen liked his showers hot.
He set the towels on the toilet tank and studied the lines of Butch's body through the dimpled texture of the shower door glass. When was the last time he'd showered with anyone? He couldn't remember. Couldn't remember the last time he'd been treated to a second round of the good stuff, either. Butch's silhouette soaped up its hair, then shook it out under the rushing showerhead, and Dominic felt a pang he hadn't felt in ages---hadn't let himself feel. Genuine affection.
All the more reason to come clean about Johnny. Get it out of the way so it didn't come back and bite him in the ass---because that kid had been beyond pissed-off. The crazy things he'd said. You think you're better than me? Then he'd called Dominic a hot shit photographer. And, what else? Oh, yeah, take a look in the mirror....
The mirror.
Dominic's gaze snapped to the medicine cabinet. The steam was so thick, his reflection was obscured as surely as the shower door hid Butch. He couldn't tell if he looked like a firecracker or a dud, but the warm, fuzzy feeling that the sight of Butch's outline behind the textured glass had brought on started draining away, replaced by the cold, certain dread that if Dominic wiped the steam off the mirror, he'd be stuck with his old appearance. His old love life.
He grabbed the sink with both hands and leaned in close, inches away, afraid both to wipe away the steam and reveal himself, and to climb in the shower with Butch not knowing if he still looked anything like the guy Butch thought he'd just spent the afternoon with.
Knowing was better than not knowing, but that didn't make it any easier. Dominic steeled himself, took a good, deep breath, and raised his hand to wipe away the steam.
And then it moved.
The steam moved.
It was as if a dozen invisible fingers wrote out a word all at once, each line of each letter being dragged through the steam at the same time. Whatever it was, back at the barbecue joint, that had called him out, seen him for what he was---that thing was back. In his own house. And it was going to tell Butch exactly what Dominic looked like.
Fat.
Dominic stared. Fat? It was in the same spot the word ugly had been in the restroom's mirror. He was no handwriting expert, so he couldn't say if it was the same hand---or hands---that had written it. But chances of it being anything else seemed awfully slim.
Still, he couldn't help but be puzzled. Fat. All his life, he'd been the homely guy, the backup date, the "let's be friends" fella. But...fat? Weight had never been a problem.
He mouthed the word, as it if might help him understand.
Fat.
It didn't. He looked down at himself. Same body he'd always had. Decent enough. Looked back at the mirror again. There it was, plain as his old face.
Fat?
"You gonna get in here while there's still hot water left?" Butch called over the hiss of the shower stream beating against the tile wall.
"Just a sec." Dominic looked at Butch through the shower door, and then at the sink, where he'd set a necklace and a ring---the gold ring with the music note he'd been wearing on his forefinger. Dominic picked up the heavy ring and slid it onto his ring finger. It was huge. Then he tried it on his forefinger. Still big, but it almost fit.
Maybe weight had never been a problem for Dominic. But Butch?
Dominic let his breath out slowly. It shook. He made a fist around the loose ring and held it against his chest, just over his pounding heart. Butch, with his big, dark eyes and his caring disposition...Butch, who'd actually meant it when he said he was a fan of Dominic's work---no way was Butch going to get taunted by his own personal demons here. Not on Dominic's watch.
As he raised his hand to wipe the word away, Dominic could practically see it reappearing the next time the mirror steamed up---he hoped there'd be a next time, anyway, and what if Dominic didn't catch the word's appearance in time to get rid of it?
He considered the letters. Instead of rubbing them out, he added a letter of his own. An "e."
Fate.
He took a step back and looked at it. Not bad. But even as he admired his own cleverness, the letters began to shrink in on themselves.
"Skootch over," Dominic called to Butch, "I'll soap up your back for you."
And if it sounded forced, like he was covering for his own nervousness, it wasn't terribly obvious over the sound of rushing water. He opened the shower door and a great cloud of steam rolled out, filling in the letters on the mirror, slowly, one by one...until in the space where the word fate had been written, nothing remained but a silvery haze.
Jordan Castillo Price did not play with her Renegade Sam Cobra doll vigorously enough to wear out his joints. He was, however, much preferred to Ken. He also came with better accessories, though sadly, his clothes didn't come off. Perhaps that just added to his mystique.
Visit Jordan's website at www.jordancastilloprice.com
I have an author friend from Tennessee who told me that most people seem to think everything set in Tennessee should have something to do with Graceland and the Grand Ole Opry. Evidently, my subconscious took that as a challenge.
Though I couldn't afford a scouting trip for the story, I did discover many historic Nashville houses and estates online---and I'm big into visiting historic houses, albeit closer to home. I've certainly found a number of places I can't wait to see when I do get to Nashville! Cypress Mansion isn't based on a particular mansion or plantation; it's a mash-up of Belle Meade and others---and its interior is heavily inspired by the Ruthven Mansion in Ontario.
This year I had the opportunity to attend Photoshop World, a massive photography and graphic design event, after the initial drafts of Pretty Ugly were written. I came back from all the professional photography workshops certain that I'd gotten all the photography details in the story wrong...but weirdly enough, I'd bluffed through all of them admirably and they didn't need much tweaking. I did end up editing in mention of the Nashville flood, which originally I hadn't done because I thought it would date the story. Once I read about all the residents who lost their homes or even their lives, and how the media downplayed it, I decided it wasn't right to blithely pretend the flood hadn't happened.
Since I did some photography in college, particularly my senior year when I needed to shoot a slide portfolio to get into grad school, I developed some serious camera-envy while I was picking out Dominic's camera! No doubt the mondo Nikon would be too much camera for me. I get the feeling I'd be overwhelmed by all the setting and controls on a DSLR and end up using it as a point-and-shoot.
(The Italian proverb Chance mangled was col pane tutti i guai sono dolci, which means that all troubles are sweet when there is bread. Chance is understandably more partial to chocolate than bread!)
Chance's shop hops from Tennesee to California for the next weird tale in the lineup, Sort of Stranger than Fiction.
When Michael Milner opens a dojo across the street from Ethan's bookstore, Red Bird Books, he makes ripples not only because he's a newcomer in the small desert town of Peabody, but because half his face has been horribly scarred. How? Ethan isn't sure. Michael's not exactly the chatty type, which only adds to his allure.
Michael may not be the most sociable person in Peabody, but he's quick to defuse a tense situation when Ethan finds himself cornered by Karl Hagar, fellow writing group member, and creepy author of even creepier serial killer tales. Ethan's sister Erin is convinced that Karl himself is responsible for the bodies turning up lately in the desert---after all, don't all the advice books say, "Write what you know?"
While Erin's idea seems pretty far-fetched, Ethan does have to wonder why Karl's eerie focus has landed squarely on him.
Like Dominic Mann's slippery reality of waking up beautiful, memories play tricks on the protagonist of Sleepwalker.
Daniel Weber ("Web" to his friends) was a promising young biology student on the fast track to a prestigious grad program. That was a year and a half ago. Now he's working a dead-end security job and living in his cousin's two-flat. Thanks to the mysterious George, he's got gaps in his memory too big for his pocket notebook to fill.
Jesse Ray Jones is the taxidermist who's trying to help the Faris Natural Sciences Center secure the MAHPS Grant, a funding that would keep the foundering organization afloat for a few more years. He looks like a skatepunk and talks like a science major, which pushes Web's every last hot-button.
It's lust at first sight...but hooking up proves difficult when a supervisor at the Center is found bludgeoned to death in the petroglyph alcove---and Jesse and Web are the primary suspects.
If you enjoyed the photography aspect of Pretty Ugly, here's a story that features an artist of a different type: a ceramicist who takes care to fire his homemade kiln with some very interesting wood.
It took Anthony Potosi years to recover from the accident that claimed his father's life, and doctors told him he'd never walk again. He proved them wrong. Now he's back at the landscaping business, Potosi and Sons, he shares with his two older brothers---but they seem more interested in getting Anthony to sell out his share than in celebrating his recovery.
The oil-and-water relationship between Anthony and his brothers is hardly new. Even when they were kids, Sal and Chip delighted in terrorizing their baby brother with stories like "The Hook," complete with visits to the abandoned Victorian a half mile down the two-lane.
Now Anthony towers over his brothers...but he's still the youngest. When the new owner of the Hook House calls in an order, they take a little too much satisfaction in sending him to face his old fears. And learning to open up again to trust, desire---and maybe even love---is far scarier than The Hook.
Find excerpts and free reads at jcpbooks.com
For exclusive bonus content, free serialized stories, and contests, sign up for Jordan Castillo Price's newsletter at jordancastilloprice.com

