Collection: A Submission Series Story Collection

by Reiss, CD

  “I had a meeting,” I groaned. I’d groaned it a hundred times already, but he hadn’t wanted any excuses or reasons why the meeting was more important than a lunch with him. I’d explain when he asked for an explanation. No sooner.

  “You’re a slave to this phone,” he said from behind me. He was in a suit and tie. He’d made no move to undress. Not a stitch. He was completely unpredictable when he didn’t want to get off or when “getting off” meant “dominating the fuck out of Monica.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  He was standing out of reach, I could tell from the distance of his voice, but he might as well have been sucking me dry. And he knew it.

  “This meeting.” He stepped forward, his dress shoes tiptapping on the hardwood. “I hope it was productive.”

  “It was.”

  He didn’t touch me as he came around me and leaned on the window. He held my phone up to my face. “Don’t move your hands. Put the code in.”

  I looked up at him. The blue sky of Los Angeles stretched behind him with buttons of clouds sewn into the afternoon. He’d started cutting his copper hair shorter and letting his ginger beard grow in for a week before trimming it. He was slim and taut in his custom suit, a creature built for the vicious hunt. The cruel fuck. The tender caress in the night.

  My thighs shuddered when I looked in his eyes and saw the power seated in his brutality and compassion.

  “The code, Monica.”

  This was the brutal side.

  I pressed the code into the glass with my nose, and the phone clicked open. I looked at him as he fiddled with it.

  “We had a lunch scheduled,” he said.

  “I know, sir.”

  “Would you like to explain why you cancelled?”

  “My new agent—”

  “Maura Conrad, yes, I know her.”

  “She got me a gig.”

  “That’s her job. So?”

  “Singing the national anthem on opening day.”

  He looked up from the phone. “Really?”

  “Dodger Stadium.”

  He smiled, stern demeanor gone. “Of course. If you sang in Anaheim, I’d welt you.”

  He tapped the glass, and the phone vibrated in his hand. I stiffened. He tsked.

  “It’s not a call, goddess.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He got behind me and stroked my back, pressing my lower spine down and forcing my ass up. Then he put the flat glass of the vibrating phone against my skin.

  “You’re forgiven, of course,” he said. “So consider this a reward, not a punishment.”

  He moved the phone across my ass and between my legs.

  “Quiet now,” he said, pressing it against my clit. “They can’t see you, but if you scream, they’ll look up here.”

  I didn’t know how he got the phone to vibrate without a call, and constantly, for the two minutes it took for me to come silently, rising up on my toes and exposing my throat the Los Angeles sky.

  Chapter 2

  MONICA

  Mrs. Yuan paused. Or to be more accurate, she didn’t say anything. Shiny black chopsticks held a straw nest and a little blue bird held to the knot on top of her head, and the fact that she wasn’t saying anything made me feel as though I didn’t belong anywhere in her presence. Debbie had said Mrs. Yuan was the best voice coach in Los Angeles, and everyone from my new agent to the execs at the record label agreed. She was the Queen of the Vocal Cords.

  I cleared my throat. Breathed. The huge warehouse windows had been closed against the street noise so she could hear me sing, and now I wanted to open them and jump to my death.

  The girl at the piano didn’t speak either. She just stared at her fingertips on the keys, silken black hair hanging to her forearms as if she couldn’t bear what had just happened.

  “What was that?” Mrs. Yuan asked, stepping forward in her red silk wrap, mandarin collar stiff against her throat.

  “The ‘Star-Spangled Banner,’” I said, trying to not stare at the bird.

  “I thought that song couldn’t get any uglier. Congratulations. You’re a rare person to prove me wrong.”

  My skin stayed the same size. My body didn’t change on the outside. But inside, I shrank into a shriveled line of brittle glass. Normally, I didn’t care what anyone thought—I was too busy working my ass off. No one ever had anything bad to say about my skill anyway. Not since high school had anyone really pointed at the cracks in my technique and jabbed them.

  I didn’t know what to say. I could have been defensive, but I didn’t feel defensive. I felt pretty sure that not only was she right, but I’d known she was right all along.

  She glided over to the piano and opened a little box that had been sitting on the music rack. “I can hear your talent. Not your craft, unfortunately. I’m not quite sure I can teach you to sing in two weeks.”

  “I don’t need to learn to sing per se.”

  “Singing isn’t the problem. You barely know how to breathe.”

  “I just need help with the one song.” Actually, I didn’t need help with shit. I needed to leave and just coast on what I had for the rest of my life.

  “You’re breathing too late and too shallow. And you’re yelling. You’re so sharp you’re going to draw blood.”

  I swallowed. She was right. I was too sharp, and I always worked around timing breaths. I’d been proud of finding a method to get around doing it right. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so pleased with myself.

  “Have you ever used a tuning fork?” She held the box open in front of me. Tucked inside the velvet lining sat a silver two-pronged fork with a little ball at the bottom of the handle.

  “To tune my viola. But if you can’t help me by opening day, I can just go.” I reached for my bag.

  “You paid for this session. You might as well stay.”

  She stood with her hands caressing the box, posture perfect, unrefusable. If Debbie found out I hadn’t made it through one hour, I’d be embarrassed. I could make excuses about scheduling for every other session, but I was here now. I put my bag down, and Mrs. Yuan nodded ever so slightly. I felt as if I’d lost a chance to save myself.

  “You used the fork for the viola. And your voice? You tuned with what?”

  “A sharp. On the piano.” I indicated the flawless black grand Steinway in the center of the room as if I had to tell her what a piano was.

  “You tune your instrument to something impure, and what you get is an impure tune. They say in data analysis, garbage in, garbage out.”

  “The pianos were always in tune,” I said defensively. “I was always careful.”

  She tapped the fork against a corner of the piano that was dented and bare of gloss. “This is A four forty.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re so busy talking, I could be at middle C and you wouldn’t even hear it.”

  I shut my trap. If this was how it was going to go, I’d just endure it. “Yes, ma’am,” I said without a lick of snot in my tone.

  “Sherri,” Mrs. Yuan said.

  The girl at the piano looked up.

  “Give me an A please.”

  Sherri hit the key. Mrs. Yuan tapped the fork and put the stem to my ear.

  When it quieted, she said, “Do you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “The oscillations between the fork’s tone and the piano’s.”

  Maybe? Maybe something? They’d been the same note, but maybe…

  “Can I hear it again?”

  They did it again, and I listened. I knew what unmatched tones sounded like, but this was so slight, I didn’t think it really existed.

  “I think so?”

  She tapped the fork again, and Sherri played the note again.

  “I think I—”

  “There is no question of it,” she said, stopping the vibration with her hand. “Give me A in B octave.” She tapped the fork and put the handle by my ear.

  I sang a long note, matching the tone. I
listened for the oscillations and heard none. The fork’s note drifted to nothing, leaving me singing the note. I sounded perfect. Exactly the same.

  “Make it stop,” Mrs. Yuan said, throwing up her hands. “There are tire skids on the street that got closer to a pure note than you. And your breath. If you sang the whole song in A, you might not be so offensive. But the song goes from C to G to a series of flats…if your first note isn’t perfect and you’re panting like a Great Dane, you’re a fool in front of how many?”

  Was I supposed to answer? How many seats did Dodger Stadium have? I knew this by heart, but I’d emptied myself so thoroughly to survive our conversation that I’d forgotten to think.

  She waited, placing the fork in the box.

  “Fifty thousand something?” I sounded as incompetent as I felt.

  “Something? Fifty-five thousand six hundred ninety-four. Accuracy. Accuracy and precision. This is what you need.” She snapped the box closed. “There will be no charge for this session. If you want to commit to getting yourself in shape for this performance, come back tomorrow.”

  She spun on her heel and glided to a door. Sherri didn’t make a sound as she got up, closed the lid over the keys, and followed.

  Chapter 3

  MONICA

  I didn’t cry when I left Mrs. Yuan’s Music School for Masochists and Fucking Morons. I got in my little Jaguar and went home without thinking about anything. All I did was pull into the driveway, go up to the bathroom, and take a shower as if I could wash the shame off me.

  I sang in that little wet glass room. The vibrations bounced off the tile and water droplets, making a mess of the sound and masking everything but the emotion.

  I was good enough for my label, my new agent, my fans, everyone but Mrs. Yuan. I didn’t know if I’d have to send her my regrets, but I wouldn’t. I just wouldn’t call, period. Having made that decision, I finished up my serenade to the shampoo bottles and toweled off.

  The phone rang. It was Jonathan.

  “Hi,” I said. “Where are you?”

  “Getting on the freeway.” He was in Van Nuys of all places, setting up an art foundation satellite site. He’d gotten the LA Phil to train underprivileged kids how to play stringed instruments, and I was supposed to be there.

  “I should have come with you,” I said, putting him on speaker.

  “I know.”

  I’d stayed home to train with Mrs. Yuan, and he hadn’t been happy about it. He thought my voice was perfect, even for the brutal ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ in front of fifty-five thousand whatever whatever people.

  “How did your lesson go?” he asked, bringing up the exact point of our contention.

  “Fine. I don’t think I’m going again. I don’t need it, really. Anyone can sing the ‘Star-Spangled Banner.’ Roseanne did it, and she didn’t have any voice coaching.”

  “You said you were struggling with it.”

  “Yeah, but I feel all right now.” I whipped the towel off my head and fluffed my hair.

  Who was I kidding? And why was I lying about it? I was standing in front of a mirror and lying to my naked body.

  “She must be really good if you got so confident in an hour.”

  I heard him shuffling papers around. He’d be in the back of the Bentley with Lil driving.

  “Yeah, well.” I opened my makeup bag. “I guess she did.”

  “We have two weeks. Francis Scott Key could write an anthem to what I can do to your body in two weeks. How about Hawaii?”

  “I don’t think I can,” I said, dragging the mascara stick over my lashes. “I don’t want to be jet-lagged in front of 55,695 people.”

  “Right. Opening day always sells out.”

  “You’ll make it, right? You’ll come?”

  “Yes. And so will you. You’re in the bathroom. I can tell from the echo.”

  “It’s a really big bathroom. And marble.” I rummaged through my makeup. I didn’t feel like putting it on, but I was “seen” more and more often, and I hated looking like a ragmop in magazines.

  “You wearing anything?”

  “Nada. But I don’t have time to—”

  “Bend over the vanity.”

  “Honey—”

  “Get your tits on the marble, Monica.”

  He couldn’t see me. I could say I did it and finish my makeup. I could do a lot of things, but he needed my trust. We never photographed each other in any kind of compromising position, because we assumed at some point we’d be hacked or the pictures would leak. So it was all trust.

  I bent over the vanity. It was cold and hard on my nipples.

  “Ass up,” he said.

  I did it, and the posture alone made me wet. The exposure and vulnerability brought on a rush of need. “Yes, sir.”

  Tell me to touch myself tell me to touch myself tell me to

  “Touch yourself.”

  I exhaled and drew my hand down between my legs.

  “You wet?”

  “Yes,” I groaned.

  “That’s my girl. Two fingers, all the way in. Leave the clit alone. We’ll get to that.”

  Perfect. His voice was perfect, his commands were perfect, he was—

  My phone buzzed. On the marble counter, it shifted a good quarter inch from the rattle of the vibration. I peeked at the screen.

  It was Mrs. Yuan.

  “Jonathan?”

  “Yes?”

  The phone buzzed again.

  “I have a call.” I was surprised by how excited I was. I wasn’t going to see her again, but I couldn’t ignore her. I wanted her to want me. “I have to take it.”

  He paused, and the phone buzzed. Shit. I was going to lose her call. I got up from my position and stared at the phone as if that would get Jonathan to acknowledge it faster.

  “Jon—”

  “You’ll be naked and on your knees when I get back. You understand?”

  “Yes, okay.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He hung up, and I answered the call just in time.

  “Mrs. Yuan?”

  “Mrs. Faulkner? It’s Sherri.”

  “Oh, hi.”

  Why was I disappointed? Obviously, I’d expected Mrs. Yuan to call and tell me she was wrong. I had talent. I had promise. I could find a pure note, and she still wanted to work with me despite the fact that I didn’t actually need her.

  “You left your sheet music here,” Sherri said.

  “The ‘Star-Spangled Banner’? Keep it.”

  “It has a phone number on it?”

  Damn. That was the number for Gary, the pregame coordinator. I could have gotten it again from Maura, and looked like a complete incompetent, but I was drawn to a question I needed answered.

  I inhaled, pressed my lips together, then let the question out anyway. “Is she like that with everyone?”

  “Like what?”

  Like what?

  What was I asking? Was she always so honest? Was she always so accurate? Or was the better question, was Monica always such a fucking baby?

  “I’ll come by tomorrow.”

  “I’ll leave it on the piano.”

  She hung up. I’d been fine until then. I’d taken the whole episode with Mrs. Yuan in stride. Shit. She had a bird in her hair. She probably couldn’t teach me.

  But when Sherri hung up, it just cracked me. By being so businesslike, so factual, so careless, she had forced me to stop seeing myself how others saw me and start looking at what was really there.

  And I was not happy.

  Chapter 4

  MONICA

  “Take your clothes off,” he said, standing in the middle of the bedroom in his suit.

  He’d just gotten back and had a bottle of Perrier and two glasses sent up. I’d spent the intervening forty-five minutes trying to find my way around the “Star-Spangled Banner.”

  I’d discovered just how much I needed help.

  “Okay,” I said, yanking at my long dress,
“but—”

  He took a step forward and grabbed the back of my hair before I’d hit the vowel.

  “Not a word,” he growled in my ear. “I know your schedule better than you do.”

  Fluid rushed between my legs. It was almost painful, the speed of my body’s reaction to the way he showed me that he didn’t care on one hand, and made me feel safe in his respect of my work in the other. He wouldn’t jeopardize anything important to me to fuck me. But he would fuck me.

  “Yes,” I said, intentionally leaving off a word.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He knew what it did to me to verbally submit. My God, we hadn’t even started and I was losing myself in it.

  He let go of my hair and stepped back. “Again. Take your clothes off.”

  He sat on the couch and watched as I stripped down quickly and efficiently. No seduction. No sway of the hips. Just me obeying him. That was the way it went down.

  As I pulled off my socks, he tapped his finger on the arm of the couch, and I admired the angle of his jaw against the long perfection of his neck.

  “Leave the underpants on.” He said it as if he was bored, but he had a tidy erection under his suit pants. I wanted to put it in my mouth.

  I stood there, perfectly still, watching him. He took his time opening the Perrier, placing the cap on the table. Pouring it. Letting the carbonation settle. Pouring more. Putting the bottle down. Picking up the glass. Sipping. The ice clicked.

  “On the bed,” he said, almost as an afterthought. “On your knees. Hands on the footboard. That ass better be up, or you won’t be able to sit down at dinner tonight.”

  I got on the bed. He watched me. Everywhere his eyes landed felt exposed, vulnerable, alive. My nipples stood on end and he hadn’t even touched me, and from that raw place, everything spilled out. I sniffed. Swallowed. Tried to hold my shit together, but I knew if I clammed up, he’d see it. In the quarter note’s time it took me to try to clamp down on the tears and fail, my eyes filled and my lips made that horrible weeping grimace.