by CD Reiss
“Sit still. Let me get some ice.” I stepped to the freezer where Gabby and I had kept compresses for fingers and arms that ached after hours of practice.
“Why don’t you just take me to bed?” he said as I put compresses on his neck and arm.
“Not a bad idea. Get up.”
We walked to the bedroom, and I propped him up on pillows, happy that I’d changed the sheets. His arm was getting stiffer, and by the time I’d set up the compresses, he could barely move it at all.
“Guess who’s not driving tonight,” I said, holding out my hand. “Give me your keys so I can put your car in the driveway. There’s alternate side parking tomorrow.”
“I can afford a ticket.”
“But if the car blocking the sweeper in the morning is my guest’s, Roger across the street puts all the garbage in my front yard. He did it with Darren, like, a hundred times.”
He reached into his right pocket and pulled out his key. “You need to move to a better neighborhood.”
“I know what you’re thinking”—I swiped the key—“and forget it. I’m not a kept woman.”
“We’ll see about that.”
I pocketed the key and went to my bathroom. Stepping onto the toilet, I reached the top of the vanity where I kept bottles of pills hidden from Gabby: painkillers I’d been prescribed for an extracted tooth, muscle relaxants for painful menstruation, and Xanax a friend had given me for a short bout of insomnia. I took them to Jonathan, who was dicking with his phone with his good hand.
“I have painkillers.”
“Why? You in pain without me?”
“Let me get you some water.”
“Monica”—he looked me with dead seriousness—“no painkillers.”
I put the bottle of Oxycontin on the dresser. “How about some Tylenol and a muscle relaxant?”
“Deal.”
I took the bottles to the kitchen, and as I poured a glass of water, I considered what I had in front of me, what I wanted to do, and what was keeping me from doing it. As I poured the pills in my hand, I reconsidered then went back to the bedroom. “All right. This is the Tylenol. This is the muscle relaxant. Go.”
He popped them in his mouth and swallowed, then drank the water. “You’re a good nurse.”
I put my knee on the bed and swung myself to a straddling position. “I’m not done nursing you.” I undid his pants.
“Oh, really? What nursing school is this?”
I pulled out his dick. It was half hard already, and when I kissed it, it stood at full attention. “I have no clever answer.” I licked the length of his shaft with the flat of my tongue.
“Hell is freezing over,” he groaned, putting his right hand on my head and running his fingers in my hair. I opened my mouth and let him put pressure on the back of my head, slowly pushing his cock into my mouth, past my tongue, and down my throat. He kept the pressure, and I breathed calmly through my nose, my eyes locked on his. When he eased up, I drew my head back, sucking him on the way out. He sighed, and a look of pure, relaxed pleasure overcame his face. A line of saliva connected my mouth to his cock. I licked my lips.
“You never let me use my hands,” I said.
He blinked, as if thinking about all the times his dick was in my mouth, counting off instances and places. “Total oversight on my part.”
“You like control.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Let me have you,” I said. “Give yourself to me.”
“Submission’s not fun for me.”
Hands behind my back, I took him again, all the way down, tasting sharp sweat and a drop of salt as I sucked him on the way out. “Let me please you, sir. Let me give you my best.”
“When you put it that way...”
I placed one hand at the base of his cock, and with the other, I cupped his sack. I took him completely, trying to keep submission on my mind and in my attitude as I controlled what he felt. The pace was mine. The intensity was mine. When he put his hands on me, it was with affection, not control, and when he came, filling my throat and closing his eyes, I maintained that attitude of gratitude and abdication, licking him clean.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“How is your arm?” It hung at his side, unused during the whole episode.
“Feels stiff but okay.” His eyelids drooped as he watched me. He stroked my hair and cheek, and I kissed his fingers.
I kneeled and pulled him gently from the waist. “If you scoot down, I’ll rearrange the compresses.”
He did. I put a pillow under his head, elevated the sore arm, put him under the blankets, and drew them up. I shut the light and curled up next to him. Seconds later, his breathing slowed, and I slipped away.
twenty-one
—I went home—
The content of Jessica’s text didn’t surprise me. The fact that she’d bothered to send it did. She was desperate for contact.
Jonathan’s car was parked right out front. I’d never actually driven a Jaguar, but as soon as I turned the key, I understood the difference between it and my Civic. It was smooth everywhere. The seams didn’t rattle. No crumbs were in the corners, as if one simply ate more neatly, or not at all, in such a car. It went from park to drive as if by the power of thought, and the dashboard lights didn’t glare or ask me to read them. They existed to be understood in a hueless grey and whispered information urgently. Half full. Forty thousand RPM. Seventy-five miles per hour.
What heaven, driving a black Jaguar on PCH at midnight.
I enjoyed the ride so much, I hadn’t even thought to turn on the radio, and when a classical station came on, I woke up to the complications of being in Jonathan’s car. She had an order of protection. If his car pulled up to Jessica’s place, alarms would be raised. Possibly by Jessica, the police, Santon’s team—wherever they may be. Whatever the case, once she saw the car, I couldn’t pretend we had broken up and I was looking for vengeance. I was going in as the loyal girlfriend, and my leverage would decrease. I passed her house. Lights out. Car in driveway. It was midnight on a Monday, after all. I spun around the corner, wound up all turned around because the streets weren’t on a grid, came back to the beach side of the street, over shot the house by two blocks, and parked. I needed all my options, and that meant walking in as if I’d taken a cab.
The modernist house sat on an incline with twisting stairs to the top and desert flowers on the way up. I slipped up the concrete steps quickly and inconspicuously, hoping the crickets and ocean waves covered my footfall. The door was huge, heavy, and red with a knob in the center. The front of the house had small plate windows since they faced the street. The back would be made of glass from floor to twelve-foot ceiling, since it faced the ocean.
I stood on my toes and peeked. Lights were on farther back in the house, and I saw the blue flicker of a TV. The bell was the light-up kind. I put my finger over it and held my breath.
Then I pressed it.
Ring and run! Ring and run!
When I was a kid in the EP, as we called it, we’d ring bells and run away, hiding behind parked cars or a hedge, just for the joy of watching as someone came to the door. No game was more infantile, yet I was tempted to play it.
Ring and run! Ring and run!
She wasn’t coming. I had enough time to run away and get back in the car. Take PCH to the 10 to the 110 and get off at Stadium Way. Take a leisurely drive through Solano Canyon in Jonathan’s car. Pull the sleek machine into the drive. Crawl back into bed with the love of my life and make him breakfast in the morning like I oughta. Explain I was moving the car and had to take it for a spin. He’d love to hear that. Delight him. That was my job.
Ring and run! Ring and run!
A light flicked somewhere in the house, sending wide bands of dim light across the concrete path. I had a meeting tomorrow with the president of Carnival Records, and my voice would be hoarse and I’d have bags under my eyes. I had to go home and rest. Go immediately. I had a career. I’d work
ed hard. Jonathan could take care of himself. He was a big boy. Sing. I wanted to sing.
The front light flicked on, and the big knob flicked and twisted. I stepped back. One step.
Run!
The door swung open as I stepped down. She was dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt. She looked as if she’d just walked out of a soap ad. How did Jonathan ever fuck her? Did she sweat? Did she groan? Did a tear of post-orgasmic joy ever drop down her cheek?
“Hello, Monica,” she said. “Finally.”
“Hello, Jessica.”
“Won’t you come in?” She stepped out of the way, and I walked into her house.
twenty-two
The ugliest lamp in the world illuminated the room in warm light. It was gold with a parchment shade and a neck shaped like seven tennis balls stacked on top of one another. Everything else was impeccable. Somehow, though, a mark of impermanence stained the décor. Nothing looked settled or important. The corners were visible. The surfaces were without tchotchke or photo. The art was original but marginal. I had been right about the back wall. The windows stretched corner to corner, exposing a lit up pool and a view that was pure blackness at night, but in the day would be clear to the horizon, where sky met sea.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” Jessica asked.
“More of a tea person.”
Jessica made a mmm sound, as if my choice of hot beverage spoke volumes about my worth as a human being. Of course, that was my imagination. Her face betrayed nothing. “I’ll have some made. Decaf? It’s late.”
She’ll have some made? Did the staff not get time off? Did they work in shifts? Well, if that was my new life, if those were the entitlements one was to expect, then I was going to be as considerate as possible.
“Caffeinated is fine. Doesn’t bother me. And green, if you have it.”
“Would you like to sit outside?” She indicated the back.
“Sure.”
She opened the sliding door to a patio and flipped a switch. Heating torches went up, lights went on. I nodded and walked out. I sat on a chair, listening to the ocean I knew was there but couldn’t see. I had trouble imagining having access to such a patio every night and being at anything but complete peace. Or was that what she feared? That losing the money to maintain the patio, the house, the studio meant she couldn’t be at peace? I imagined the level of anxiety I’d face if the things that kept me sane were taken away. My voice. My ears. Even my piano, with its broken pedal, was a rock I held tight when I felt anxious. Jonathan removing that much of her income had thrown her off a cliff, made her panic. Cornered her. Poorly thought out for a man who controlled everything at all times.
Even with the torches, it was chilly. I realized then, too late, that I didn’t have my scarf. The crew neck on my tee was relatively tight, but my bruises were visible with even the most minor inspection.
It was darker at the chair across from me. But Jessica was coming. She’d see me move to a darker corner.
I reminded myself to always remember the rules about Jessica, especially rule number one. Fuck her. It wasn’t about her. It was about protecting Jonathan from her little rat eyes.
I moved to the dark corner.
“So,” Jessica said as she closed the door, cradling a manila envelope.
I looked at her linen slacks and button-down white shirt again. Maybe she’d just gotten back from somewhere, or maybe she and Jonathan were partners in their sleep habits, hanging out until all hours and waking up after what most people would consider a nap. Maybe they used to stay up all night giggling and sharing stories, all dressed to the nines, not a hair out of place.
I had to shake myself out of my thoughts. “I’m sorry to come so late, but it seemed like everything was conspiring against us meeting.”
“‘Everything’ being Jonathan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ask him?”
“No.” Her question had been so direct and her tone so kind, yet condescending that I started to understand why Jonathan didn’t want me near her.
An older woman in a black dress came out with a tea tray and left silently. Jessica poured tea into two white cups that were so plain, they must have cost a fortune.
“I understand why you don’t want to ask him. He can be intimidating.”
I didn’t answer. I still didn’t know if I was playing rabbit-in-the-woods or qualified-to-kink, so I just poured myself tea. “I’m sorry I was rude to you when I saw you last.”
She waved it away. “I understand. I came on too strong. I assumed you were naturally curious.”
I consciously, and with great effort, let the insult slide. I’d asked for it, considering I hadn’t asked him the details of blocking me from seeing her and I had aggressively avoided Jonathan-bashing at Frontage. “This is a very nice house. The view must be incredible in the daytime.”
“It is. You can see all the way to the horizon. It’s cooler too, with the breeze coming in.”
“Have you lived here long?”
She smiled a little, and I wondered if she could see that I was feeling her out. “Erik and I moved here after I left Jonathan. It was far away from him. That was the best thing about it.”
“And Erik? Is he still here? It’s a big house to live in alone.”
“Moved on.” Turning the line of questioning over to her life was obviously not on her agenda because she changed the subject back to me. “So, why the change of heart? You wanted nothing to do with anything I had to say.”
It was time to pick what and who I was going to be. “When he got arrested, I got… Well you used the word curious. I felt like there were things I needed to know, and you were trying to tell them to me, but I wouldn’t let you.”
“And you figured you’d get them out of me so you could go back and tell him?”
I held my breath. I’d failed somehow, because she jumped on my motivations so quickly. I must have looked like a deer in headlights and turned shades of pink, even in the dark corner. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” My voice crackled like a piece of paper being thrown in the trash.
“You’re going to tell him everything I said. And he’ll rebut me. Like my wrist, which I’m sure he denied breaking during sex. And beating me in his backyard. What did he tell you about that? Did he tell you I told everyone he wanted to rape me and hurt me? But he didn’t, of course, says he? Do you have any other source of information?”
I didn’t, but I said nothing.
“My lawyer says you found surveillance devices in your house, and he’s saying it was me. Is that what he told you? That I did it?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not the one with the sick fantasies. Why would I do that?”
How could I answer? How could I say, “So you could try to prove he was an abuser. To shame him. To get him declared incompetent.” I wouldn’t tip Jonathan’s hand. I gazed down at my palms in my lap and tried to think of some rebuttal that made sense, but I had nothing.
She took my silence as permission to continue, her words measured and careful. “Every piece of information you have comes from him. Let me tell you something. He has control fantasies. If cameras were in your house, you have no farther to look than the man next to you. If a woman says he broke her wrist because he was holding them behind her back during sex, believe her.”
“You said you were joking.”
“I shouldn’t have told you when you were working. That was the joke. It wasn’t funny, but I don’t lie. Jonathan does. You know that, right? You know he lies.”
I took a deep breath. How could I admit that without betraying him? To sit there and say I believed everything he’d ever said would earn me nothing but her laughter. I felt cornered, hateful. Jonathan was right. I shouldn’t have come.
“His father ruined my family. Did he tell you that? He killed Daddy. Broke his heart with some sneaky business deal. I didn’t know when I met Jonathan. I had been protected. Daddy never even told me he’d lost near
ly everything until I introduced them, and by then, it was too late. I loved him, and I fought for him. Just like you’re doing. His whole family ruins people.” Jessica leaned forward and put her hand over mine. “I know he didn’t tell you about Rachel either. What he did to her.”
My eyes shot to hers. My breathing picked up. “What?”
“You have bruises on your neck,” she said.
I impulsively touched the bend where shoulder and neck met, as if to hide them or make sure they were still there. “What did he do?”
“He killed her.”
He killed her. Had I known that, somewhere deep in my gut? Had I been avoiding it? Lying to myself, as I often did? Or were there more lies on top of those?
I felt trapped. Months ago, I’d been flying, my own buzz filling my ears, with a destination in mind but a path not mapped. I had a job and friends and hope. One night, I spilled a drink. I touched a man’s hand, and I let him kiss me on the hood of his car. Some time after, I don’t know when, I fell into a web of lies and deceit. The harder I struggled, the more trapped I became. But who was the spider? Was it Jonathan? Or Jessica? And how could I get out of their fucking web?
I glanced around, feeling the wetness in my eyes. God, one blink and I’d be a mess. I sniffed and took a napkin from the tray. I saw the manila envelope she’d brought out sitting on the low table. On top of it, face down, sat her phone.
“I’m scared,” I said. She squeezed my hand. “He is rough. He...” I trailed off.
“Go on.”
“He calls me names, and...” I put my hands to my neck and looked into the distance.
“Does he choke you?”
“He calls me whore. Did he say those things to you?”
“Well, no.”
I started to get up “Never mind.”
She took my hand and squeezed it, pushing me back down. “It was just different for me. For me it was bitch and slut. Humiliating women is part of his sickness.”
I looked away. I needed to keep the pain on my face. I touched my neck again and whispered, very low, “He hurts me.”
