by CD Reiss
thirty-one
JONATHAN
“That’s Steinbeck country,” I said, watching the waitresses work the floor.
“Yeah,” said the blonde in the blue dress. Her friends were ten feet away. “They made us read all that in school. I’m more of a Heinlein, Ellison girl myself. You?”
She was lovely. The perfect vision of womanhood in a simple, short blue dress and heels. Not slutty. Fair hair twisted up. Warm smile through pink lips. Fingertips at the wine glass she sipped from. She was smart, and we were both sober, which was also nice.
“Modernists, I guess. Pynchon, that kinda thing. Ever read Mason & Dixon? It’s hilarious.”
“None of that stuff in the Salinas library,” she smiled. “Sheriff Traulich would burn it himself.”
I normally wouldn’t talk to a woman at my own bar, and I’d promised myself I wouldn’t sleep around. But that morning, I’d run over a silver heart Harry Winston keychain as I pulled out. Since it felt insignificant, like an out-of-place stone, I opened the gate and continued. I almost hit the white Jaguar parked across the driveway on the street.
The return of my gift had hurt, even though it shouldn’t have. I should have expected it. Of course Monica wouldn’t accept it after what happened. She was still honorable. I’d managed to leave that intact. I looked in the glove compartment for the navel ring and didn’t find it. I was sure it would turn up on my desk.
But it didn’t, and that confused me. I’d gone up to the bar to verbally pistol-whip Freddie about hiring a sixteen-year-old to carry drinks, and to think about not thinking about Monica. The first got done, the second was interrupted by the blonde in the blue dress.
“...and they all play country music,” she said.
I’d missed something, and I didn’t care. I’d never actually needed to care before, but that had changed. The woman in a blue dress was a nice person, by all accounts, but I had no interest in sleeping with her.
I couldn’t hear my phone over the music, but I felt it buzz in my pocket. My first thought was the memory of Monica’s song, but I’d blocked her. There would be no more songs. It was Eddie.
—Cancel Thursday night. I have to go to the Collectors thing. You going?—
“Hang on a second,” I said. “Let me take this.” The woman in the blue dress nodded. She wasn’t boring or easy. She was fine, but she wasn’t a goddess.
—Nope—
—Ok. Monica said you weren’t going. Just checking.—
I dialed his number and walked to the hall with my finger pressing my free ear closed. “What does Monica have to do with it?”
“Carnival is sending her with me. Why? You don’t trust me?”
“No, I don’t. You’re a lousy driver.”
“She’s driving herself. See, I knew you’d flip out.”
“I’m not flipping out.”
“You are flipping out,” he said. I got into the elevator. “It’s business. I’m not touching her, okay? Harry would have my ass, and God only knows you’d bean me in my sleep or something.”
“I apologized.”
“Whatever. I knew I had to explicitly say something, and that’s what I’m doing. Don’t flip out.”
“Okay, Ed,” I said as I walked into the hotel lobby. Michelle, the rooms manager, tried to stop me with something I was sure I didn’t care about. I waved her off and headed for the exit. It was pouring rain, and I had no umbrella.
I was flipping out.
thirty-two
MONICA
Darren waved from the Frontage bar. It was crowded. I did some meet and greet before I made my way to him and Adam.
“Thank you,” I said when he handed me the keys to my Honda. When Jonathan had said he’d replaced the starter, he obviously meant “with a new car” because the Honda had still been missing a piece.
“Came to three-twenty-five,” he said.
“I’ll have it for you tomorrow.”
“Damn right you will. Because you owe him.” He indicated Adam, who put his arm around my waist.
“I’m taking it out in kisses.” He planted his mouth on my cheek, and I squealed. He held me harder and I laughed louder, playfully punching his shoulder and forgetting Jonathan for half a second. Adam was a good guy. I owed him and Darren for towing my Honda from the Stock parking lot to a repair shop, paying for the work, and driving it to me. Kisses and a few hundred bucks were the least I could do.
“It’s in the lot,” Darren said once Adam let me go before I got cooties.
“Where are you guys off to?”
“Loft party at the Family Four. You coming? Dizzy Roth wanted to talk about the B.C. Mod piece.”
That sounded like the best offer I would get. “I’ll meet you there.”
thirty-three
JONATHAN
I’d tried to let the world spin on its usual course for two days. I tried to see what would happen if I just worked, stared at the ceiling, and avoided Monica. I didn’t ask Eddie if he was really going with her, and I didn’t ask Margie about Dad’s attendance. That lasted twenty-four hours. I found myself in the pouring rain at Frontage, watching at her through the window.
She was smiling. Darren was there, but he didn’t concern me. The other guy kissed her cheek, and she laughed. I stepped out from the bus shelter, into the rain. He touched her waist, and she permitted it.
I don’t know what brought the clarity. It could have been the kiss. It could have been the touching. But the laughter put me over the edge. Seeing her with her friends, as free of me as I’d made her, without all the destruction I’d brought. Happy, while I could barely have a straight thought without her voice invading.
I had wanted to talk to her. That was it. Just tell her I didn’t want her to go to the Collector’s Board thing because my father would be there, and I simply didn’t want her near him. I was soaking wet in the middle of Santa Monica Boulevard, wondering if I should hurl myself through the window or the door, as if those were the only rational choices.
I was on my way to the door when they were on their way out. I moved fast. That was always my advantage, not strength but speed and agility. I had the guy against the wall, crushed against the umbrella he’d started to open, before he’d even seen me.
“What the—”
“Jonathan!” Her voice. It sounded very far away. I had the guy’s eyes on mine. He looked confused, and I wanted to kill him for not knowing what had upset me.
Monica. Even with the rain in her hair and in her eyes while she was snarling like a lion, I wanted her. What the fuck had I been thinking?
“God damn it. What is wrong with you?” She pushed me off the guy who had kissed her, then pushed me again. “You are fucked, you know that?”
I stepped back. She stood between him and me, hands out, ready to take me on. I couldn’t get to him without knocking her over. “Move. Just move.”
“Are you serious?”
“You’re mine. No one puts his hands on you. No one.”
The three of them stared at me for a second, then Monica jerked out her thumb. “This guy?”
“That guy.”
“Okay, besides the fact that you walked out on me—”
“Enough!”
The voice that cut the rain was near as powerful as anything I’d heard. Had a car alarm gone off from the vibrations, I would not have been surprised. It was Darren. Little pipsqueak snapped me right out of it. I went from rage to shame before he was finished with the last syllable.
“I have had it with the two of you,” Darren shouted. “I am sick and tired of the whining from you”—he pointed at Monica—“and the psychotic behavior from you.” He pointed at me. “Stop acting like a dick and throwing money at her. Stop breaking up. Just stop. The next time I hear you two broke up, I’m sending out wedding invitations.”
I was struck silent. A part of me smiled, but it wasn’t my mouth.
Darren took the hand of the guy who had kissed Monica and pulled him away. Of cours
e, the coupling had never been Monica and him but Darren and him. I opened my mouth to apologize, but Darren wasn’t facing me. Rain soaked my shirt, dripping under my collar. I’d never felt so ridiculous. Losing my temper never had good results. Monica hugged them both and came back to me. Her skirt stuck to her legs and her shoes sloshed, but she took her time.
“Do you feel like an ass?” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “How did you get here?”
“Little black Honda.”
“Can I walk you?”
“Did you bring an umbrella? Because you broke mine.”
I took my leather jacket off and held it over her head.
“Chivalry will get you nowhere,” she said.
I sensed she meant it. A drop of water fell from her nose to her lower lip, and I had to swallow the desire to kiss it away. “I need to talk to you.”
“Really?” Sarcasm dripped from her.
She started walking, and I followed her. She kept too far away for my jacket, so I just rolled it over my arm. We walked down the block, getting ever more wet with each step.
thirty-four
MONICA
The neighborhood was residential, lined with single-family houses and the occasional apartment building. Wet, brown leaves covered every car, curb, and grassy patch. We said nothing the entire walk to my car. I was getting wet, but he was soaked. His hair was dark brown with water, and his eyelashes stuck together in points of four or five. He looked down, hands in his pockets. He must have been freezing.
I stopped by my car. “This is me. Thanks for walking me.”
“You could have kept the car I got you.” He put his hand on the wet bark of the parkway tree.
“I know. I drove it to my meeting because this one wasn’t fixed yet. So, thanks for the loaner.”
“I don’t like us when we’re formal. All please and thank you.”
“What do you want then?” I crossed my arms.
He pursed his lips and looked at my feet, then back up to my face. “I want you to be real with me.”
“You want me to be real?”
“Yeah.”
“Real. You want real?”
“Real, goddess.”
“You blocked me, you motherfucker!” I pushed his shoulders, and he stepped back into the tree trunk. “I wrote you that song, and you were so disgusted, you blocked me.” I pushed him again, but he had nowhere to go.
“I had to.”
“Oh, let’s hear about that.”
“If you kept sending me shit like that, I was going to come back to you.”
“As opposed to what? This?” I spread my arms to indicate the block, the rain, our bodies almost touching, the fight over who was allowed to kiss me.
“I knew if I saw you again, I’d want you.” He was pleading, leaning forward, hands out as if passing me a basketball pumped full of pain. “That fucking mouth. As soon as it opened, I knew I’d want to kiss you. And those wet clothes sticking to you. And the hair plastered to your face. You’re custom made for me to hurt. Do you understand?”
I understood all too well. “Hurt me.”
“Monica, that’s not what I mean.”
“Ruin me.”
“Stop.”
I stepped forward. “Destroy me, Jonathan.”
He cursed under his breath and pushed his lips to mine. His movements were fierce, his tongue invading my mouth, his arms circling me. He tasted of fennel toothpaste and whiskey, the same as the first time I’d kissed him. The memories went down the curve in my back and settled between my legs. He pushed me into the car, pressing his erection into me, and I pushed back, letting his hardness find my cleft. I groaned into his mouth.
“God,” he said, “I have to have you.”
“Take me. Own me. Use me. Pick a verb. Just, please.”
“Fuck you. I’m going to fuck you. That’s my verb.”
He pushed his hips into me hard, and I bent my neck in response. My legs wrapped around him, grinding. Water dripped from his forehead onto mine as he kissed me. The rain had gone from a heavy mist to a driving torrent. He straightened and pulled me off the car.
“Take me home,” I practically had to shout over the weather.
He pushed me against the car and kissed me in the rain one more time.
thirty-five
We fumbled up the steps with lips attached, past the porch swing where he’d tried and failed to break my heart, into the living room, where we dripped little pools of water like a reverse archipelago behind us. I took his hand and walked him into the laundry room.
The laundry room was a foul, filthy place, and I was immediately ashamed of it. When I cleaned the house, the laundry room was the last floor to get a mop-over and the last sink to get wiped clean. So nine times out of ten, I just didn’t bother. And there I was, with a guy who had a team of people clean his corners with Q-tips, dripping onto gross, 1980s-era linoleum. It was the first water that floor had seen in months.
“It’s a mess in here,” I said, turning away from the towels I had strung up to dry, weeks ago.
He put his arms behind me and unzipped my dress. I noticed his chattering jaw and the ice of his fingertips as they grazed my spine.
“What does that have to do with me fucking you?” He peeled off my dress. My bra cups were heavy, soaked, hanging off me, and he slipped the straps off my shoulders, easily releasing me. I was down to panties and shoes, and he was still freezing in wet clothes.
Pushing him against the dryer, I unbuttoned his shirt, kissing down the center of his torso as I went. He was damp, and I warmed him with my mouth, licking his hard, tight, nipples. His arms came out of his sleeves like a molting caterpillar. I threw his shirt on top of my dress on the floor and worked on his pants while he kissed me.
“On your knees,” he said.
I got down, eye-level to his crotch, and opened his pants. The zipper didn’t work well wet, but I got it down. I hooked my fingers in the waistband and took his briefs down with the pants, arcing the elastic over his erection. He stepped out of the legs, kicking off his shoes while he did, and held up a foot. I peeled off his sock, then did the same with the other foot. He was naked. Perfect. I gazed up at him, his perfect, lean body with its cut lines and furrows making a triangle from his hips to the beauty between his legs.
I took his cock in my mouth, licking every surface as if to warm it. He put his hands in my hair and groaned.
“Let me feel you.”
He held my head still and pushed his cock all the way down my throat, balls-deep. I breathed through my nose, the aroma of his wet skin filling me. He held me still, and when I looked up at him, he was watching me. He slid out slowly. I put my tongue against him as he did.
“Have I mentioned you’re very good at this?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Stand up.”
When I did, he gathered up the clothes and put them in the dryer. He stared at the buttons and smiled.
“You have no idea how to use this, do you?” I asked.
“Not the knobs, no.”
I turned the machine on. Jonathan picked me up by the waist and put me on top of it. The dryer shook and rattled under me.
“Lean back,” he said, “and spread those knees for me.” He slid a finger under the crotch of my panties. I drew in a breath. His fingers moved from my entrance to my clit. “You’re wet.” He slid his fingers in me. They were cold.
“God, yes.”
He pushed my knees farther apart with his free hand. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want you.”
“You want me, what?”
I wanted his cock in me. I wanted to come. I wanted him to do whatever he wanted to make me scream and beg for him. I looked at him, his perfect skin mottled with goose bumps, his nipples hard with cold, hair still wet. For the first time, I noticed the blue tinge around his lips. “I want you to dry off. You look hypothermic.”
I snapped a towel off the line and put it over hi
s head, leaning forward to dry his hair. He let me, drawing me closer as I caressed his head more slowly and gently as he got drier. I hopped off the dryer and ran the towel all over him, chest to back to glorious butt to muscular legs and the tops of his perfect feet. Wrapping the towel around his shoulders, I kissed him.
“I feel better already,” he said.
“You need something warm to drink. I have tea.”
“You? Tea?”
“You can pick a flavor. Come on.”
He picked me up as if he was carrying me over a threshold, brought me to the kitchen, naked but for my underpants, and deposited me on the counter. I leaned to the shelf and got my teapot, then leaned the other way and filled it. I gave it to him, and he put it on the stove.
“The tea’s on the shelf above,” I said. “I have some assortment thingie in the back.”
“Assortment thingie. Let me see.” He found the box and brought it back, but he didn’t open it. I put my legs around his hips, drawing him to me. He stroked my eyebrow with his thumb. “I’m sorry. I was cruel last night. I said terrible things.”
“Yes, you did.”
“And I blocked you. I knew it would hurt you, and I did it anyway. What you sent made me question my actions. I wasn’t ready to question them. I thought I’d done the right thing, protecting you from me. I’m still not convinced otherwise.”
“Does that mean you’re going to leave me again? Because Darren’s going to shit if you do.”
“Fuck Darren.”
“Don’t leave me to protect me, Jonathan. I’m a grown woman, and I’m perfectly capable of ruining my life without your help.”
“Yes, Mistress.” A smile stretched across his face as he chose a black tea and held out the box for me.
“Not kidding.” I snapped out a chamomile. “I mean it. I had to hold my shit together for a meeting the next day, and it was the hardest thing I ever did.”
“But you did it.”
“Yeah, but—”
“I’m proud of you.” He put his hand on my cheek, and we kissed until the teapot whistled. He shrugged his towel tighter and poured the steaming water into two cups, dropping in the teabags.
