Tokio Derby

“Make yourself comfortable,” Claude says to me when I open the door to the apartment. It looked exactly how I left it: blanket on the couch from where I passed out, CDs and music sheets lying on the floor like a storm blew in here, oboe lying in the eye of the storm.

“Shouldn’t I be the one saying that to you?” I snap, pushing the blanket to a corner on the couch. Dominic goes to the fridge, takes out some juice, and drinks some straight from the carton.
Dats hawt.

“So,” he slides over to me, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “I would just like to congratulate you on your total defeat of the other team.” He kissed my cheek. “I kept my eyes on you the whole time.”

Not even going to ruin the moment by bringing up the fact that I saw him ogling some girl wearing a belt as a skirt, I wrap my arms around him. “Is that all the congrats I’m going to get?” I cooed, inching my face closer to his.

“You think I would just come over to say a few words?” he says, pouting and crossing his arms over his chest. “I thought you knew me better than that.”

“We’ve only gone on five dates together!” I exclaim between giggles, not including the date or date-like thing we’re on now.

“But this has got to be the second time I’ve been over here!”

“True,” I got up and went over to the radio turning on an indie station. “Do you want to listen to this?” I asked, and he shook his head in reply. “I don’t really like indie music,” he said, “it kind of gives me a headache.”

He walked over to us and turned on a hip-hop station. He started to bob his head to the music. “Aww,” he added, looking over at my crinkled face. “You look so cute. Like a five year old. Besides,” he pulled me arm gently leading me to my bedroom. “We won’t really be listening to the music anyway.”

I sat down on the bed next to him, snuggling up to him and basking in his scent of Axe and a faint whiff of cigarette smoke. I slowly started to kiss him, pulling back from him ever so slowly as if I was afraid to touch his lips. He saw that as a challenge, his mouth deciding to fully plant itself on mine. His kiss was totally of hunger, his tongue searching around my own as his hand slowly started to rake itself up my shirt.

Holy crap, I thought. This dude is totally feeling up my lady bits. Dominic’s hands started to go way lower than my torso.

To places where no man had gone before.

“S-stop,” I stuttered, trying to push him away. He didn’t get what I was trying to do so I pushed him a little harder, almost knocking him off the bed.

“What’s wrong?”he asked, staring at me with his shirt off. I don’t even remember taking his shirt off.

“You’re just going,” I tried thinking of a word that would sound like don’t-touch-me-there, “ too fast for me. I kind of want to rake it slow. “

“Okay,” he said, defeated. We put our clothes back on quickly, me trying to make small talk with him. After that we sprawled out on the couch, both of us taking different sides of it while Dominic watched the show he turned on. I was looking at the window, trying not to make eye contact with him.

“Hello?” Dominic said into his phone and not to me. “Yeah this is me……,” he looked over to me. “I have to take this,” he whispered to me, his hand over the receiver. “It’s my mom.”

I nodded in reply, watching him closely as he walked to my room and shut the door. I couldn’t help but eavesdrop on the conversation; he was talking really loud so it probably didn’t even count as eavesdropping. “Yeah baby,” I thought I heard him say, “I’ll be over there soon.”

He probably didn’t say that, I thought to myself as he sat down on the couch again. I’m just daydreaming. Still, it couldn’t hurt to ask.

“Dominic,” I asked quietly, “who were you talking to?”

Dominic stretched, his arms taking up most of the space on the couch.”I should probably get going,” he said, completely avoiding the question. “Claude’s probably pissed that I’m not there yet.”

“Alright,” I said, curling up in a ball on the couch. He gave me a quick kiss and left. That weird feeling came back again, like an endless void that I was falling through. Why won’t Dominic tell me about the conversation? Was he seriously cheating on me? I remembered what Davon had said about Dominic, that he cheated on girls all the time. But he wouldn’t cheat on me.

Would he?