It was not long before Domino's drinking spiralled out of control. It was not before he began to seduce and drink and fuck his way around El Marrow. Women, each night, were what he told himself he sought. Men, and an aching head, were what he found upon awaking more and more often.
So each morning, he blamed it upon alcohol. He never realised that drink does not change you, merely amplify who you really are, and force you to stop being who you pretend to be. In alcohol, then, Domino found truth.
And in alcohol, he lost it. For drunkenness is a wonderful lie to hide behind, and served a fine pretence for Mr. Hurley, who was now high enough up the ladder for a fall to hurt. He knew, somewhere, that he was wrong, that every time he denied himself the luxury of truth and instead provided alcohol, he died a little bit more. Hector had admired him for his living man's soul. But slowly, it was decaying.
Hector did not care if he lost a friend. But he cared if he lost a resource, and Domino was invaluable. Hector had valued him for his living man's attitude, which was ultimately the root of his talents. As this disintegrated, Domino became more and more like every other lost soul wandering around El Marrow: broken, terrified, and self-hating.
Where once there was an excelling, ambitious, amazing, arrogant employee whose skills and confidence Hector almost envied, now there was a shell of a man whose sales methods simple didn't work anymore. Perhaps that it was that he now stank of guilt, which can kill both crooks and salesmen, or perhaps it was that his once beautiful smirk that he used to accompany with a seductive wink was now just a hollow grin.
Hector could not let the entire project fail because of one man, much less one's man desire. So one night, when Domino came up to Hector's private rooms, Hector drank too much too, and seduced Domino.
Oh, reader, I will spare you the details. It is enough, I think, to say that Domino cried for the first time in years when it was over, and that Hector, as sobriety descended and Domino left, that perhaps he had not made the most sensible decision he could have.
Persuading a man who is in denial about his very sexuality to have sex with the very one causing all the doubt; involving a man who is destroying himself in a relationship that could turn out to be even more destructive; telling a dead man who loves you that he can have an outlet for desire he will not admit he has. A good decision?
Hector never hid anything from himself; he knew that if he did, it would be inevitable that he would never know about some of his best ideas. So now, lying there with a cigarette, he asked himself why he really did it. The answer surprised him.
