by CD Reiss
I nodded, mouthing okay while keeping my eyes downcast. She’d been very kind not to send me home as soon as she realized I couldn’t talk, and I was grateful.
At my locker, I got out my clothes and stuffed my envelope in my pocket. I felt it then, a hard piece that was too rigid to be cash. I tore open the envelope. There was far less than I was used to, as seemed just under the circumstances, and a key card for one of the rooms in the Stock hotel.
My phone blooped right then
—room 522 be naked—
A ripple of electricity coursed between my legs. Despite the fact that he and I had so much to discuss, despite the fact that I couldn’t speak and should go see a doctor, despite everything, I wanted him immediately. I grabbed my bag and shuffled to the elevator, texting on the way.
—Honestly, why bother if I can’t scream your name?—
—You’ll scream—
—I think I’ll just go home and wash my socks—
I was getting out on the fifth floor when I realized the one thing that should get me home right away. I cursed myself. I should have put him off with an honest rescheduling, if for even an hour. But now my jokey, sarcastic texts meant I was on my way up, and my diamond navel ring was on my piano. Fuck.
I stood outside the elevator, staring at my phone. I had to just do it.
—Actually, can I...
I never finished the text. Everything I considered typing sounded like a complete fabrication. I’d already told him I didn’t have any plans. He’d already seen I wasn’t sick or otherwise indisposed. I was just going to have to put on my big girl panties and deal.
CHAPTER 19
I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was supposed to be getting undressed and waiting for him naked, but I couldn’t stand before him in all my nude, diamond-less glory. He’d see the missing jewel at some point, of course, but I’d rather it not be in the first three seconds, with him clothed and me squirming and naked.
So I paced the room, looked out the window at the disputable glories of Downtown, and waited with an anticipation that lacked sex in its tension. When the door clicked open, I wanted to run out, but Jonathan blocked the way.
He looked me up and down, in my black jeans and T-shirt, then tilted his head as if trying to figure me out. “Something’s not adding up here,” he said, dropping his keycard on the dresser. He didn’t seem angry, just stern. Even when I smiled and shrugged, with a finger in my cheek like a pure innocent, he didn’t crack. He stepped so close to me I felt his breath on my cheek. “Naked, Monica.”
I shuddered. I wanted to obey. My hands twitched for my buttons and snaps, but I held them down and looked into his eyes. There was a smile there, buried under the rigidity. I couldn’t tell if it was humor or enjoyment, but there was pleasure. If I could get him to take my clothes off so fast or messily he didn’t notice, I’d consider this a success.
“Is this the submissive thing?” he asked. “You’re proving you’re not?”
I kept my mouth closed. I couldn’t speak, so I had the perfect excuse not to answer. I just kept my face close to his, feeling the heat come off him in waves.
He brushed his hand across the top edge of my jeans. “Are you taking that belt off, or am I?”
I gave my twitching hands something to do, yanking my leather belt though the loop and snapping it off. I was about to drop it on the floor when he caught it.
“Thank you,” he said.
He slipped his fingers in my waistband, and I gasped as he unbuttoned my jeans, then pulled down the zipper. He folded back the corners of the fly.
“My intention was to get you to use your voice one way or the other. You chose the other.” He took a handful of hair at the back of my neck and threw me on the bed, face down.
I landed with a bounce. He was on me before I had a chance to inhale, straddling me, his knees pressing my thighs together as he grabbed my arms at the elbows.
“Anything that sounds like ‘no’ or ‘stop’ is effective. But you have to say it.” He pulled my elbows together behind my back.
The restriction brought a tingle between my legs, a sensation that started deep in my gut and ran to the very tip of my crotch. When he wrapped the belt around my arms just above the elbows, I gasped from the sudden rush of arousal that nearly blinded me. He pulled it tight. I couldn’t move.
“You have to use your voice. Do you understand?”
I nodded, looking back at him, half my face on the bedspread, the other half covered with a mass of hair. He gripped my jeans at the waistband and yanked them down over my ass, taking my panties with them. I thought he was going to pull them all the way off, but he only got them down to mid-thigh before he stopped to raise my ass up and back until my knees were under me.
He moved the hair from my eyes, looking deeply into them as he brushed his fingers over my vagina. “You’re wet, Monica.” He circled the outside of it, pushing the lips aside.
I felt how wet I was in the way he touched me, moving smoothly. Watching my face, he drew his hand away, and in the half second I missed it, I thought he’d take off his pants or kiss my pussy, but instead, his hand landed on my ass with a hard slap. A hah left my lungs. Then he did it again, higher up. Hard.
The sting was intense, and the rush of arousal was undeniable, like the tide coming in. My arms tensed against their binds, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I was under him completely, confined, aroused, controlled. I had no will of my own, just the enslavement of his palm on my ass as he stroked it once across, down to my snatch, then brought it back up to slap me again.
“You okay, baby?” he asked.
I nodded, admitting to myself that I felt more than okay. I felt safe. He kept at it. Stroke, slap, caress, slap. I lost myself in the sting and heat on my ass, submitted completely to what was happening, what I allowed to happen. The seconds between his palm slapping me and the stinging whacks themselves were hot with anticipation, and he timed them so they came when I didn’t expect, thrusting me forward. My breathing got harsh and guttural as he moved down my thighs, one side, then the other. I knew he was going to hit the center. I knew the next slap was going to cut right into my pussy, and as if he knew I knew, he held it back an extra second, then whacked the backs of my thighs and my soaking clit.
I grunted.
“Monica, was that you?” He was breathless himself.
I couldn’t make the noise again until he slapped my cunt twice, hard and fast, and the sting, then the rush of pleasure pulled one long vowel sound from my throat.
“There it is. That beautiful voice.”
I felt the pressure on the mattress as he took off his pants. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but those seconds of anticipation were rewarded when I felt his cock against the raw skin of my ass. He pushed it down along the slick wetness of my crack, and it slipped in as if meant to be there.
“Jonathan,” was the only word I had as I felt him glide so slowly into me. He felt better than he ever had, smoother, silken almost, and I groaned, using the vocal cords that never could or would have damaged my life.
He dug his fingers into my waist and pushed himself deep, hard. A grunt left his lips. He took me, owned me, used me, and I was going to come right there with my back to him.
“No,” I said. “Not like this.”
He stopped and laid himself along the length of my back. “How do you want it?”
“Be sweet,” I whispered.
“I need to hear your voice.”
“Make love to me,” I said, more embarrassed to ask for that than to beg for a hard fuck. But after the spanking, I needed his arms around me, his face in my neck, his breath in my ear.
He undid the belt that held my arms in one motion and turned me around. When I was on my back and my ankles were in the air, he pulled my jeans off the rest of the way. His dick never left me. Once I saw his face, I knew something had just happened between us. The rigidity in his eyes was gone, replaced by a mask of longing, and the openness to
reveal it. He kissed me as I wrapped my legs around him. We moved together, and the urgency in my snatch turned into a fire. He put his hands on my cheeks.
“Look at me.”
I took him in, all of him. We slid against each other, his cock rubbing my sensitive, reddened lips while he pressed my clit against his belly.
“Oh.” I had not another syllable.
“Look at me when you come.” He rocked back and forth, drawing his dick out just enough so my sore pussy felt the pain and pleasure of him thrusting back in.
I took his hair in my hands, bringing his face to mine, as I spread my legs as far as they’d go. My pussy became a bag of marbles dropped on the floor, as it opened and the feeling spread all over me, across the floor, and into the corners. Ice-cold and white-hot at the same time, to my toes in undulating waves, I pressed myself against him and screamed as the marbles reversed themselves and landed everywhere his dick touched me. Nowhere else. I couldn’t feel another thing, hear another thing, not even my own cries as I came, my cunt clenching him over and over.
I was looking right at him, but I couldn’t see a thing past my own pleasure or hear him over my own screams.
When I finally opened my eyes, his face had drooped, and his eyes closed, and he said, “Ah, no,” as he jerked into me like a reflex.
I felt close to him, tuned together, breathing in sync. He would tell me what happened when he was sixteen. He’d tell me about Westonwood Acres, and I promised myself I wouldn’t care. We were bound.
“I’m sorry, Monica.” He pulled out of me, and from the way it felt and the slew of liquid that followed, I knew we had a problem.
“You weren’t wearing a condom?”
“I was going to put one on, but when you asked me to flip you, I thought I had another minute. But you came and then—”
“Jesus Christ.”
“We’ll handle it, whatever happens.”
“This is not about you keeping me and a baby in a nice lifestyle, Jonathan.” I felt shrieky. That moment between us had been so short before it was broken, and I already felt withdrawal pangs. “How many women have you been with?”
He straightened his arms, separating himself further. “I’m always careful.”
“How is that supposed to help me sleep at night?”
“Monica…”
I pushed him off me and rushed into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. Alone. Finally. I could think about what the fuck I was doing. Crazy. It was all crazy. I turned on the shower and leaned against the door, sliding down to the floor.
I was involved with a womanizing slut who got over his wife fifteen minutes ago, who just spanked me because he thought I was ball-gag submissive, and who had spent time in a mental institution. Was I fucking nuts? Kevin was more stable.
I stripped off my T-shirt and bra and stepped into the shower. I’d worried about that diamond. I didn’t even give a shit anymore. That thing was going back in the box and getting sent back to his doorstep. I couldn’t return it personally. I couldn’t let my knees get weak for that controlling, irresponsible, manipulative motherfucker.
A vision of him came to me, at the club the second time, when I was so worried about Jessica. I saw him straight and tall in his suit and tie, ginger hair finger-brushed back, and that slip of a smile when he spotted me, because the smile I felt in my heart when I saw him was ten times the size of the one on my face.
I turned up the heat on the water, cleaning between my legs as if that was going to do a damn thing. But I had to get him out. The scent of him, the taste, every cell of his had to be gone. Of course, the problem was that I wasn’t involved with him. I wasn’t dating him. I wasn’t casually fucking him.
I was falling in love with him.
And when I realized that, I felt the warmth of peace because I knew what I was contending with, and my choice was clear. Stay with him, love him, and deal with the consequences, or end it with the commitment to make sure it stayed ended.
When I got out of the shower, I hadn’t made a decision.
Jonathan was gone.
CHAPTER 20
I sat in the Echo Park Family Clinic, checking my phone. I tapped at the letters, considering a message to him, but with nothing to say about what I wanted from him, how could I show him the disrespect of a message? And with no word from him, maybe he was going to make my decision for me.
Darren texted:
—Are we cleaning Gabby’s room?—
Lately, he and I only discussed practical matters. I thought that would be okay for a while. Eventually, we’d have to discuss what had happened.
—Can we do later in the week?—
—k—
—BTW I got my voice back—
—good—
—I want to use one of Gs comps. I’ll credit her as author so the estate gets the royalties—
There was a long pause after that, then:
—You’re a good and honest person with an incredible right hook—
“Monica Faulkner,” called the Hispanic woman behind the desk. She wore pink scrubs and slippers. I stepped forward as she took a triplicate paper from a sleeve. “Okay, you had a dose of postinor for emergency contraception and a depo-provera shot. Sign here. Did the doctor give you a date to return for another shot?”
“Yeah.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t know if this guy is worth it.”
“They never are, mija. Not one of them.”
CHAPTER 21
We wove words under popsicle trees,
The ceiling open to the sky,
And you want to own me
With your fatal grace and charmed words.
All I own is a handful of stars
Tethered to a bag of marbles that turns
Will you call me whore?
Destroy me,
Make me lick the floor,
Twist me in knots,
Turn me into an animal?
Will I be a vessel for you?
Slice open our lying box
Through a low doorway for our
Shoulds and oughts.
Choose the things I don’t need,
No careless moments, no mystery.
And you need nothing.
My backward bend doesn’t feed.
Will I ever own you?
Tie you?
Can I ever collar you?
Hurt you,
Hold you, and own you?
Will you ever be a vessel for me?
“That,” said Jerry from behind the glass, “is exactly what I’m talking about. That is a song.
“Thanks,” I said into the mic as I took off my headphones. I’d laid down the piano track first to get the tempo down, then I’d sung over it as I listened. “I’d like to do that second chorus again.”
“It’s that or you lay in the theremin. We’re short on time”
My little electromagnetic box sat in the corner. The second chorus was going to have to stay the way it was. I needed to lay in a track with an instrument played without touching it, or the whole song wouldn’t work. The lyrics were the culmination of all my fears, but there had to be a portion of the music that was comforting and sweet. Anything less would have been unfair.
Jerry didn’t know that I hadn’t actually composed an accompaniment for the theremin. I told myself I hadn’t had time, but the fact was, I didn’t know what I wanted out of the thing. The sounds it made were the opposite of Gabby’s percussive composition, and the two things together made no sense at all.
As I stood in front of it, listening to my voice and the piano together in my headphones, I reached for the instrument. My hand crossed the electromagnetic field and made a note. I moved the other hand between the metal poles, stroking the music, not touching a thing, the vibrations caused by the lack of physicality. The hand dance became a sensual thing, as if I touched an imaginary man who had come too close to me when I felt vulnerable, who had touched me when I hurt, and who had made the mist
ake of caring about me when I asked him to. For those sins and the mistake of letting his skin touch mine in a dangerous way, I’d shut him out.
“Can I start over?” I asked Jerry, who was flipping dials in the control room.
“Yep.”
Then I played the thing with all my anger and sorrow, flicking my fingers into the air to create notes of apology in measures of longing and grief.
CHAPTER 22
I got back from the studio feeling as though I’d just played to a stadium crowd. Jerry was going to remix the whole thing and review it with me in the next few days. Until then, I was high. I had to shower and change before meeting Kevin and Darren about the Vancouver piece.
A Fiat was parked in front of my house. I recognized it as the one that had been parked in Jonathan’s driveway the second night we were together. On my porch stood his assistant in all her blond sullenness.
“Hi,” I said. “I don’t think we’ve met?”
“Kristin.” She didn’t shake my hand or smile, just handed me an envelope. “I’m supposed to wait until you read it.”
I tore it open. Inside was a sheet from Trend Laboratories. In the top right corner, Jonathan had scribbled, Sleep well.
Under the header were the words TEST RESULTS. Smaller words lined up beneath that. Many were no more than jumbles of consonants, each with two checkboxes. Positive and negative. Negative boxed were checked all down the line. I did a purposeful check for HIV, and when I saw the Negative box checked, I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Do you want to come in?” I asked.
“I’m late.”
“Can I give you something to pass back to him?”
“Sure.” Though the word itself implied that giving Jonathan a note would be her pleasure, and though her tone was completely professional, her posture and stony face told another story. She was probably a Harvard MBA passing notes between her boss and his mistress.
I unlocked the house. “This won’t take a second.”
