by CD Reiss
“Yes, Monica. We can try again. Right away. Once you’re better.”
Another groan, and she started the “Star-Spangled Banner” again.
I put my hands on the door as if that was at all soothing to the woman on the other side. The song passed, and silence followed, interrupted by a few sniffs, a few breaths, a few hummed bars of something I couldn’t identify. I sat at the door and listened. I didn’t know how else to care for her but to make that door into my love, touching the wood as if it was skin, comforting her through it, making her safe with space and matter between us. I didn’t know how much time passed before she spoke.
“Are you there?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t flush. I just… I can’t.”
“Do you want me to do it?”
A long pause followed.
Chapter 85
MONICA
This was ridiculous. Everything about it. Me on the toilet for over an hour, cramping as though it was my job. The crime-scene-worthy mess. My compassionate and gorgeous husband standing outside, asking me if I’d like him to flush the baby.
I should just do it. Then I could run into the shower, do a quick clean up of the floor and outside of the bowl, and exit looking fresh. I knew this would continue for a few days, but not like this. Not to the point of non-functionality. I felt finished. I felt as if the worst was over. I felt empty.
“Monica?”
I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t a baby. It was tissue that had formed because my body had fooled itself into thinking there was a baby, but it was a terminated mission. My uterus just hadn’t gotten the memo. So I should just flush instead of being a cliché of a woman who’d just had a miscarriage.
“I’m unlocking the door,” I said. “Just wait until I call you to come in okay?”
“All right.”
“And I’m warning you, ahead of time, it’s not pretty.”
“Consider me warned.”
The bathroom was huge, and it had a separate bath and shower. Blood dripped on the edges of the toilet from when I’d cramped so badly I’d moved away from the seat. Otherwise, the room was as pristine as Jonathan’s staff could make it.
I unlocked the door and turned on the shower. It was hot in half a second. I didn’t know how he did that, but money got rid of even the smallest inconveniences of thermodynamics. I stripped, stepped in, and clicked the door shut.
The water flowed over my face, scalding hot. I wanted it hotter. Second-degree burn hot. I wanted to sterilize myself from the baby that wasn’t a baby. I wanted to forget the feeling of something real and human dropping from me to its death.
When the water flowed over me fully, a stream of red-stain went down the drain. It was too much. I didn’t think I could stand it. I was broken and useless. What had felt real, wasn’t. And now I was expected to—
The door clicked open, and Jonathan stood in the shower entrance, fully dressed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot to call you.”
He stepped into the shower, water slapping onto his shirt, sticking it to his skin. Darkening and flattening his hair. He put his arms around me and pressed me to him. His lips brushed my shoulder, and his hands pressed against me as if he wanted as much of himself touching as much of me as possible.
“I love you,” he said.
“I—” I choked up the rest of the sentence, because I felt lost and empty, and he was still there. He was my sky. Through blood and breath, sin and sorrow, I was his sea, and wherever the horizon was and the world ended, we were there, together.
What had I done to deserve this? Repeatedly and often, I’d failed to deserve him. I’d resisted him, tried to deny him a family, then I’d failed to carry his child. I wasn’t worth him getting his clothes wet, but I needed him. I needed him so badly. To fail for him and to try again, because having been pregnant for those hours, I couldn’t see any future past giving him children.
I clawed at his back and pressed my face to his shoulder. He rocked me under the hot water, sodden and strong, even after my legs couldn’t hold me.
“Come on,” he said, shutting off the shower, “before I flood the floor.”
He carried me for the third time, his feet squishing on the marble tiles. The bath was running, and the lights were dimmed. He laid me in the tub.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what?” He leaned over the tub, his clothes still soaked, and submerged a sponge. He didn’t even roll up his sleeves; he just got them wetter.
“For letting the baby go.”
“You know I’m not going to accept that apology.”
“I feel like I failed you. And hours after getting you all excited. God, I’m such a fuckup.”
He put his fingertips to my lips. “Stop.”
But it was too late. My eyes filled up, and the skin behind my face tingled. “I can’t. I can’t stop thinking that—” I heaved a breath. “That it’s my fault. That I killed it.”
He soaped the sponge. “If that were possible, there wouldn’t be any unwanted pregnancies.”
I was Teflon, immune to logic, sense, and evidence-based reality. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was somehow at fault for this disaster. I couldn’t answer him with the straight fact that despite the pure reason of his assertion, I was poisoned. Blighted. My body wasn’t fit for a child.
He put the sponge between my thighs and cleaned off the last of the blood. His name was still there, and he rubbed until it was gone while I laid my head on the side of the tub and cried.
What shame. Lying in a tub with my legs spread, weeping while my husband scrubbed our baby from between my legs. But despite what the scene may have looked like, I wasn’t ashamed. I was open, raw, and comforted.
“Thank you,” I said. “You’re good to me.”
He put his hand flat on my abdomen. “You wrote something here too. It’s darker.” He ran his wet hand over my cheeks, wiping away old tears to make room for the new ones.
“There was a shower in between.”
“I’m going to have to work to get it off.”
“I don’t want to look.”
“Don’t.” He picked up a scrubby thing, tossed it, chose something softer, and put soap on it. He was all business. I looked at the ceiling as he scrubbed.
“Do you want to hear the last stupid thing that went through my head?” I said.
“If you’re willing to hear my stupid thing after.”
“I thought, ‘This happened because I wrote it backward.’”
“That is stupid.”
“What was your stupid thing?” I asked.
“That next time we should tattoo Jonathan’s baby, and it’ll stick.”
I laughed through my tears. That was Jonathan, a poet in love and a realist in life, thinking superstitious nonsense, just like me.
“Are you cold?” I asked when he put the scrubber down. “Your clothes are soaked.”
“I feel trapped in a bag.”
“You do look a little vacuum-packed.”
He laughed, and I laughed with him. He stood and peeled off his clothes, getting down to the pure magnificence of him. I didn’t know if I could ever be away from him again. I needed him.
“They’re going to restart the track in a week,” I said, holding out my arms.
“I think you’ll be okay by then.”
“Come with me.”
He stepped into the tub without answering.
“Jonathan,” I said as he leaned his back on me, and I wrapped my legs around his waist.
“I heard you.”
“Please. Don’t leave me alone. Don’t make me choose. I can’t do it anymore.”
He leaned his head back and kissed my cheek. “I own you, and I take care of my property. Every minute of the day.”
“Say that means you’ll travel with me.”
“It means wherever you go, I’ll be by your side. I’m going to take such good care of you, you’re going to get sick of me. You�
��re going to tell me to stay home, and I won’t.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, laying my cheek on his shoulder. We stayed there until the water got cold.
Chapter 86
MONICA
EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER
* * *
“Today?” Laurelin cried as she zipped my dress. “You agreed to do a show today?”
“Tonight, actually.” I held up the strapless top with my forearm.
“You’re supposed to get swept off your feet to a foreign land.” Her face was red with irritation and her fists were tense. She was quite the romantic, our nurse.
“I am. After the show. Two songs in my wedding gown. Darren and I will blow the roof off the place, then I’ll go on my honeymoon.” I kissed her cheek, and when she tried to push me away, I kissed her harder.
“Come on,” she said. “Let me get this on you.”
Laurelin struggled to get the zipper up, cursing. Her pale blue gown hung on her like a sack, as if its lack of efficiency made her body repel it. She, Yvonne, and three of Jonathan’s sisters were my bridesmaids, and they tittered around the waiting room, drinking tea and fussing with their makeup.
My hair was braided, of course, and twisted into a bun. Leanne had fashioned a veil of twisted tulle and beadwork, knotted it into the plait, and let it fall to the floor. I wasn’t into finery, but the dress was gorgeous. Rock star gorgeous. Underneath it, I had a custom-made lace garter set with enough hardware and straps to suspend me from the Eiffel tower. I couldn’t wait for Jonathan to see it.
I hadn’t let him have me in two weeks, which hadn’t been easy for either of us. But I wanted to be wild with desire on our wedding night, and I wanted to torture him as much as he tortured me.
During the weeks after my miscarriage, I couldn’t. I had been bleeding drop by drop, and I felt so raw and hurt, I couldn’t let him near me. I hated my own skin. Then, one day, as we were getting on the Gulfstream to New York, the rawness left, and I wanted nothing more than his body inside me. He was gentle at first, but once he realized I was all right, he went back to the rough bastard I always knew.
He’d barely left my side since. Where I went, he went, and if he had to travel, I followed him. We brought Laurelin if we had to, and she brought the baby and her husband and kid sometimes.
Jonathan with a baby was magic. He opened up. His sense of humor turned to silly faces and funny noises. And yet, I couldn’t give him one. There was nothing. Not even a threat or a tickle. Just us. We started talking about adoption, because he only had so long and I wanted joy for him before his heart gave out.
“Any word from Mr. Gevers?” Laurelin asked, as if reading my mind.
Andre Gevers was a Dutch man, and the first recipient of an artificial heart made by what we privately called the Swiss Project. Jonathan had funded the research, and though he still promised nothing as far as allowing an artificial heart to be used on him, if it worked, I knew he wouldn’t say no to a life.
“Stable. The fake heart seems really happy in there.” I held my hand up with my fingers crossed so tight, I nearly pulled a tendon.
“Two weeks doesn’t mean it won’t be rejected,” Laurelin said. “I’m not trying to be negative, but medical research… there are a lot of failures before something sticks.”
“It’s going to work. He’s going to be an old man.”
“Gevers or Jonathan?”
“Yes.”
“My brother was born an old man,” Margie said, appearing next to me in the mirror, wearing a feminine-cut tuxedo. She was the best woman. We’d been at a loss for men, so she, Sheila, and Fiona were groomsfolk, along with Eddie and Darren. “Your dress isn’t as puff pastry as I feared.”
“You look perfectly marriageable yourself.” I said.
“That’s what I’m told.” She handed me the loose bouquet of flowers. “You ready?”
“Thank you, Margie. For everything. I’ve always felt taken care of with you around.”
“My pleasure. Now go.”
All my sky-blue girls waited at the exit, and I followed them through the stone hallway and into the courtyard. The security detail followed us, as visually conspicuous as they were silent. I didn’t know if I’d ever get used to being famous. It had been a year since my EP hit, and seven months since the full album. I was already having daily wrestling matches with my belief that I was a freak and a fraud, and Darren and Jonathan had to pull me away from them.
In the middle of the chaos and changing expectations, there was Jonathan, always at my side in public and always my master and king in private. We’d planned a wedding between plane rides, concerts, family functions, the management of a handful of hotels, and enough lovemaking to make my whole life a honeymoon.
Jonathan’s divorce made him ineligible for a wedding in a Catholic church. Fortunately, Episcopalians were less strident, and St. Timothy’s was more than happy to do the honors. The church was a huge stone edifice crusted with stained glass and surrounded by old trees in the center of Los Angeles. I got to the narthex, where my mother waited in a dress she tried to look modest in. It didn’t work. She was too beautiful, and she carried it like a cross. She kissed me on the cheek and held me. I was overcome by the seriousness of it all. Yes, I’d been married for two years, and yes, this was all a big redo for the sake of his family and tradition, but those stones and brass fixtures had seen generations of brides. And the pews, from what I could see, were full of people.
“So much for an intimate event,” I mumbled.
“Oh, please, Monya,” my mother said, “you had no chance of that.”
She took my hand, and we were hustled to the back of the line.
St. Timothy’s had a huge organ, and at the first note, a hush fell over the congregation. I waited at the end of the line with my mother as the bridesmaids and groomsfolk walked down the aisle. David and Bonnie were right in front of me with the rings and a basket of rose petals.
“You ready, Mom?” I asked as Margie and Laurelin went.
“I hoped I wouldn’t have to give you away. I hoped I’d meet someone to replace your father.”
“No one could replace dad.”
The music changed, and I took my mother down the aisle so she could give me away. I was so excited I wanted to run, but my mother took it slow. Too slow.
“Come on, Ma.”
“You only do this once,” she whispered.
I felt like a kid held back from the tree on Christmas morning. I knew what Jonathan looked like. I knew what his tux looked like, how it fit, how the white tie blended with the white shirt and how the line of the sharply cut black jacket made a perfect triangle from his throat to his waist, like an arrowhead to… well, I admit I was thinking of my wedding night.
Cameras had been confiscated. I couldn’t look at all the people watching me. But I felt their eyes on me. Felt their good wishes.
Once I got halfway down the aisle, I could see Jonathan, because he’d stepped toward the center to see me. Margie tried to pull him back, but it was a wasted effort. Jonathan did what he wanted, when he wanted, and how he wanted, and he apparently wanted to watch me rush down the aisle.
Could my heart continue to melt every time I saw him? Would the day come when he had no effect on me? When I took his presence for granted? I couldn’t imagine that. He was so straight, so perfect, carrying the formal suit as if it was the most natural thing he could put on his back. The man I’d met had returned, slowly but surely. His sudden visions of his heart rejecting him were gone, and my dreams and fear had collapsed under the weight of our intimacy. He was stronger, fitter, more dominant than ever, and he was my perfect life mate.
“Hey,” I said when I reached the altar, and he took my hand. “How are you doing? You look nice.”
“Nice? I’m surrounded by cross-dressers, and they all look better in a tux than I do.”
I put my fingers over my mouth to stifle a laugh.
As the congregation sat behind us, Jonathan leane
d over and whispered in my ear. “I own you. I’m going to take a belt to you just because I can.”
“Jonathan, we’re in church.” I shut out the white noise of the church, the ministrations of the bellicose bishop in his sixties, and the rustlings of the choir.
“This is just a building,” Jonathan said so low I could barely hear him. “Worship is later. I’m going to tie your legs over your head with that pretty veil, and I’m going to beat and fuck you so hard the words, ‘Oh, God,’ are going to summon the heavenly host.”
His words went right between my legs. We stood at the altar as people talked about us, as a service was said in our honor.
I didn’t know if there was a mic somewhere that could pick us up, so I turned and spoke directly in his ear, my breath to him, my vocal chords disengaged. A butterfly couldn’t hear me. “I’m singing later. Be gentle with my throat.”
His hand twitched. I was expected to know he was aware of all my needs, including my need to sit at a meeting, walk in front of people, or sing. He knew when to be gentle and when to score my skin because he was inside every part of my life, and any lack of trust warranted a delicious spanking.
“Good thing you don’t sing with your ass,” he whispered back.
I spit out a nervous laugh that every mic caught, and Jonathan’s smile broke into a chuckle. The bishop looked at us, and the congregation stared. I waved and curtsied.
The bishop looked motioned us front and center.
David held out the red pillow with our rings. They’d been designed as tight coils, like key rings, to remind us of our first wedding rings and the circumstances they’d been given under. But they were gold, and they fit right, which would be a nice change. Jonathan and I positioned ourselves across from each other, and he took the smaller ring.
The bishop cleared his throat. “Mister Drazen, repeat after me. I, Jonathan Drazen—”
“I, Jonathan Drazen,”
