by CD Reiss
“Shit.” I looked at my house as I might find an answer there, but it was just a dark wooden box with a crumbling foundation. I still hadn’t gotten the papers signed to fix it, but if the permits had been opened, my mother had gotten the notice in the mail. So she knew something was going down. The notice must have been the result of my failure to send her a check two months running.
I had to call her.
I didn’t want to call her.
I stared at my phone. The number was right there. I’d missed rent twice before, once when Kevin and I broke up, and once when Gabby had tried to commit suicide. Both times, I’d sent two months' rent in an envelope with a thank you note. So when Gabby died and I was short, I just figured I’d make it up. I could have, except I was in Vancouver December first and forgot. Then I stopped working when Jonathan collapsed. Honestly, even if I’d had the cash, I was too preoccupied to manage any practical aspect of my life.
That’s what I got for living in her house. Really, how long could I mooch off someone I wasn’t speaking to anyway? How old was I? I hit her number while I unlocked my front door. It was easier to do difficult things if I multitasked through them.
My house was exactly the same every time I went into it to shower or grab something. Nothing moved. The blanket on the couch was rumpled in the shape of an opening rose. The curtains draped over the back of the chair like perfectly-trimmed bangs. The dishes in the rack were filed and waiting for archiving in the cabinets.
The phone stopped ringing, and there was a click. Mom’s voice still had the slight Brazilian accent that had been carefully chipped away but never smoothed off. My heart skipped a beat, an adrenaline rush in preparation for the confrontation. It was her voice mail.
“Hi, Mom. I got a notice the bank is auctioning off the house? Should we talk about it?”
God, that was stupid. I hung up. Should’ve paid the fucking rent. Should’ve called her to let her know I was in a pinch. Should’ve had Darren move in. One more stupid shit thing in a long line of other stupid shit things. I folded the notice and wedged it into the corner of my notebook. Fuck the Christmas lights.
two
MONICA
I was nearly out of gas. I had five dollars in my pocket, one maxed out credit card, and a checking account dangerously close to scraped clean. I could get to work and make some cash, but without that eighth of a tank, I’d be taking the bus to the hospital and paying the fare with change found between couch cushions.
I didn’t dare tell Jonathan things had gotten that bad. I went to him every night with sunshine in my voice and rainbows in my pocket. When I wasn’t at Sequoia, I let the panic come. Slamming my locker closed, I painted on a customer service smile for no one in particular.
“Monica?” Andrea came up behind me, her hair dyed blue. It was always a new color with her, and I seemed to have missed that change. The color was already fading back to green.
“Hey, how are you? Love the color.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“It’s my shift.”
She rolled her eyes and twisted her mouth. “Uhm, we’re kinda in the habit of swapping you out. So I’m working.”
“No,” I heard the squeak in my voice, “I need the cash.” God, I hated sounding like that. I hated whining about money. She shrugged and walked out to the floor. I went to Debbie’s office.
“Come in,” she said after I knocked. She was alone, behind her desk and shuffling through God-only-knows. She looked up as if she was pleased to see me. She stood and put her arms out for a hug. “Monica. How are you?”
“I’m fine. I came to work, but Andrea says she’s got my shift?”
“You’ve missed five shifts. And you were out the week before. I need to run the floor.”
“I need my shift.”
She put her hand under my chin. “You’re in no condition to work. You lost weight. You have circles. A little lipstick?”
“Please.”
“What’s happening? Sit. Tell me.”
I lowered myself into the leather chair. Debbie sat on the arm of the one next to it. The nightly mist that descended on Los Angeles dotted the window. It was the wettest year in history. The bar would be slow and tips scarce. Just tourists who had nowhere else to go and regulars who came out of habit. The Hollywood hitters would be in clubs downtown or Silver Lake venues.
“They’re trying to stabilize him so they can do a valve transplant and open up his arteries,” I said. She looked at me blankly, as if she was waiting to understand. “He damaged his heart when he was sixteen—” I stopped abruptly. I knew Debbie and Jonathan had been close, but I couldn’t be sure he’d told her about the fistful of drugs he’d taken. He hadn’t known he was broken until the stress of the past weeks broke him.
“Here,” Debbie said, handing me a tissue. “Go ahead.”
“They have to replace parts of his heart.” I felt strongly that I didn’t know what I was talking about because I didn’t. “He hasn’t been stable enough for the surgery.” I pressed the tissue to my eyes. It came back with blobs of mascara. I really couldn’t work the floor. “I go in every night and talk to him, but I need to work tonight.”
“No, you need to go in to him.”
“I need the money. I’m sorry. I know it seems gross.”
“He can’t give you money?” She seemed shocked, as if he wouldn’t, which wasn’t the case. Asking for money would sully the sunshine and rainbows.
“I don’t want him to worry.”
“What about his family?”
“Outside of Margie, they tolerate my existence. Which is fine. But I’m not asking.”
“He hasn’t given you something you can sell?”
The title for the Jag, which was my only transportation, had been in the glove compartment when Lil drove it to me. The platinum lariat that symbolized our bond twisted around itself on my dresser, binding sea and sky. The diamond navel bar was where he’d put it when he committed to me. “No. I have nothing to sell.”
Debbie got up and walked behind her desk. Bending at the waist, she opened a drawer and pulled out her wallet. “I don’t usually do this.”
“Don’t. I’ll manage.”
She took a pile of bills out and folded them once, coming around the desk. “We can cover your shifts another couple of days before we have to put you on personal leave. That’s unpaid.” She picked up my hand and slapped the bills into it. “Figure it out.”
I squeezed the money. I couldn’t refuse it. Taking it meant I could see Jonathan. “You’re very nice to me.”
“Jonathan helped a friend of mine through a rough time. You make him happy. So helping you is helping him. Now go. I have work to do.”
three
MONICA
One hundred fifty-seven dollars in smallish bills. God bless Debbie. I loved her. I put gas in the car. Then I bought a container of cubed cantaloupe at Ralph’s for dinner. I parked three blocks away so I wouldn’t have to pay for the lot and walked. Night was falling, and it was getting cold. I was bundled in a scarf and light coat, having forgotten a hat in my rush to get to work.
Sequoia was huge. Half the babies in L.A. were born there, and everyone else managed to die there. The charge nurse in the cardiac unit knew me by sight and nodded at me and my cantaloupe.
“Hi,” I said when I walked into Jonathan’s room of bland pinks, beiges, hard edges, and the smell of sickness and alcohol. I’d gotten him a little light-up Christmas tree for the table by the bed, and every night, he made sure it was on.
“I thought you were working tonight.” Jonathan was sitting up, reading by a single lamp. I’d seen him in that bed every night for the past week and a half, and he’d gotten better and better. I couldn’t believe they wouldn’t let him just walk out.
“It’s raining. Debbie didn’t need me.” I sat on the edge of his bed and took his hand while trying not to disturb the IV in it. Machines beeped and hummed. A stylus scratched on paper, tracing th
e lines of his heartbeat. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I want to punch someone. You?”
I smiled. “The contracts are signed. Margie was a hero. Seriously, I couldn’t have done it without her. I’m finalized to record tomorrow. I’m singing ‘Collared’ with full production value.”
He took the cantaloupe container from me. “They’re getting the L.A. Phil in?”
“I know you’re joking,” I said, compulsively starting to help him open the container. But in the past couple of days, he hadn’t needed me, so I pulled back my hands. “But yeah. Fifteen pieces. String-heavy. Like, real. Next week, we’re doing ‘Craven.’ I laid down some scratch on a few others, and they’re going to pick two more for an EP.”
He plucked out a piece of melon and held it up. I leaned forward and opened my mouth. He brushed the juice on my bottom lip before letting it touch my tongue. “Orchestras cost a lot of money,” he said. “They must believe in you.”
I took the cantaloupe gently and closed my lips around it, catching his fingers and sucking them on the way out. “We’ll see.”
“Is this what you brought for dinner?”
“I ate stuff at home,” I lied. If he knew my fridge was empty and I didn’t want to spend Debbie’s money getting takeout, he’d worry. Or he’d lose his shit all over the hospital room. He’d already had a Code Blue over his mother trying to shut me out.
“You’re supposed to have dinner with me.” He wasn’t mad or scolding. During the day when his family visited, I hung around in the shadows. That was the deal. I didn’t have to be front and center with his sisters and mother, but I came to him at night, alone.
“What did the doctors say? Will you be out for Christmas?” I changed the subject away from dinner, which would lead to talk of my financial distress. “I have no idea what to get you, by the way.” He paused, picking through the fruit, eyes cast down. “Well?”
“Not yet.” He held up some cantaloupe. I took it, but I sensed he was hiding something. I chewed slowly. As if sensing my recalcitrance, he said, “I’m strong enough, but the arrhythmia’s still there.”
“It was gone yesterday!”
He shrugged. “Eat. I want that body ready for me when I get the hell out of here.”
That was Jonathan. Focused on getting the hell out of what he perceived as a prison.
“This body’s always ready for you.” I parted my lips for his fingers.
He pulled the fruit back an inch, and I followed. He let it touch my tongue, then pulled it back. We played cat and mouse with the melon until he popped it in his mouth, grabbed me by the back of the head, and kissed me. Our tongues tasted of cold fruit. I kissed him as if I’d almost lost him. I pushed into him as if he was a delicate creature living only by the grace of God and modern medicine. His tongue wove around mine as if he was as healthy as ever. As if an elevated heart rate wouldn’t kill him or, at the very least, send nurses running in with paddles and carts of beige machines. He could deny what was happening all he wanted. He was getting stronger, but if his doctors were to be believed, every day without that surgery brought him closer to another heart failure.
“Goddess,” he whispered, “I have to have you.”
“No fucking way.” We’d tried two nights previous, and the word “disaster” would be used if we were underplaying the results. I’d gotten an earful from Nurse Irene and had cried for hours from the stress and the scolding.
He pushed his finger under my waistband. “Undo these.”
“No.”
“Open your jeans and pull them down.” He spoke as if I hadn’t just refused him, and the command sent waves of lust through me. “I swear to God I won’t get my heart rate up.”
“I’m scared.”
“I’m not. Come on. Trust me.” His face was inches from mine, his hand on my cheek and stroking my lower lip. Every night, I curled up next to him and slept for a few hours before I was asked to get in my chair. Every night I wanted him, and every night I worried. He’d gone from distraught, to annoyed, to depressed, to this. He felt as though he’d lost control, and he was using me to feel as though he had it back for a minute. I just didn’t know if I could trust him to take care of himself.
I unbuttoned my pants. He sighed and put the container on the table. His eyes stayed locked on mine as I straightened my hips, put a knee on the bed, and pulled down my pants.
“Straddle me.”
I was restricted by the waistband, but I got a leg out and wiggled around the instruments and tubes to get myself on either side of him. I made no move to shift the sheets away or touch him. I only did what I was told. “The door’s ajar.”
“The curtain’s closed,” he whispered, feeling my ass. “You’re wearing this cotton shit again.” His left hand, the one without the IV, stroked my lower back and found its way under my panties.
“It feels silly to waste the good stuff when you won’t see it.”
“You miss the point.” He pulled me forward. “Put your hands behind me.” I placed them on the wall behind him. With his left hand, he reached between my legs, caressing me through the fabric of my underpants. “The idea is that during the day, I’m present where no one can see. You dress for the world, but under that, you dress for me. I own your softest places, and what touches them is mine.”
“How can I think about that when you’re sick?”
“I need you to. Knowing I own you even from here is the only thing that gets me through the day. Can you do something for me tomorrow?”
“Anything.”
“At three o’clock, when you’re in the studio, at exactly three, put your fingers on your lips and think of me.”
“Yes. I can do that.”
He brushed his thumbnail over the crotch of my panties. My clit throbbed, and I gasped.
“Remember the office?” he whispered. “On the desk?”
“How could I forget? You were cruel.”
He stroked four fingernails over the cotton he so hated. It was damp already. “I wanted you so badly.”
“You could have had me.”
“Anyone else, I would have just fucked. Not you.” He brushed one finger under my panties, stroking my opening. “You were so wet. So responsive. A quickie on a desk would have been such a waste.”
His finger ran circles around my wettest part, and his thumb touched my clit gently. When I thrust forward, he pulled it back.
“You were a bastard.” I spoke through gasps as he teased me. “You could have let me come and fucked me later.” He pushed two fingers in me. I closed my eyes and groaned.
“Look at me,” he said. I put my nose to his and tried to keep my eyes open. “I wanted you before my trip. I needed you motivated. I had to have you.”
“Have me,” I gasped as he put only the lightest pressure on his thumb while rotating his fingers in my hole.
“You were fantastic that first night. Unforgettable.” Pulling his fingers out, he slipped them up my cleft, stroking my clit slowly, barely moving. Every millimeter of movement sent a shot of sensation from my cunt to my knees and waist.
“Oh, God.”
His right hand went to the back of my head. I knew he had his IV in that hand, but I wasn’t thinking about that. I only thought about the excruciatingly unhurried motion of his fingers. “Do you want to come, Monica?”
“Please let me come. I want to.”
He grabbed my hair. “I don’t believe you.”
“Please. Jonathan, please. Don’t let me walk away like this. Let me come for you.” My begging could not have been more sincere. The pleasure and tension between my legs was so intense, so heavy, it was almost painful.
“No.” He dragged his fingers over my clit then lodged them back in me. He pulled them out, rolled around the outside, and then pushed them back in again. All the while, he kept my head still by holding a fistful of my hair.
“Please,” I whispered.
“Why should I?”
“You love me.”
“I do.” But he didn’t say anything more.
“And I love you.”
“So?”
“I miss your body. I want to come for you. Please.”
He pulled the tips of his fingers over my clit. It was just enough to take me to the next level. I couldn’t speak as the pleasure soaked my body, yet it wasn’t a full release. “When you sing tomorrow, wear something that reminds you of me.”
“Yes.” I would have promised him the World Series, but that, I meant. Under my clothes, he owned me. “Please.”
Rubbing my clit in earnest, he held my face close to his. “Who do you belong to?” I was getting what I had craved, every inch of wet skin receiving the touch it wanted like the answer to a prayer.
“You. I am yours. Oh. I’m—”
“Come, darling.”
I bit back a cry as the orgasm ripped through me like a fire hose had been turned on. My hips thrust forward and bullets of pleasure shot through my nervous system, squeezing the air from my lungs, shutting out every sense except the sensation of his fingers between my legs, his breath on my face, his eyes on mine.
He slowed but kept his hand on me, stroking me down until I felt as though I could think again. “Again, goddess. And quietly.” He pushed in me, gathering juices, and put his fingers to my clit again. The waters rose like a flash flood.
“Fuck.” I groaned, clenching and thrusting. A grunt stopped in my throat as I came for him again. My eyes closed involuntarily as I released, the fireworks between my legs taking up every sensory input.
A machine beeped. We froze. It double-beeped once, twice, then stopped. He patted my ass, and I knew what that meant. I scurried off him and pulled up my pants. I got them buttoned just as Irene Maslov, RN opened the door.
“Mister Drazen,” she said in her thick Russian accent, “you are okay?”
“We’re fine.”
“I didn’t know if I should be getting the crash cart again,” she joked, shuffling in on her clunky padded shoes. Her hands, like risen dough, pulled Jonathan to a sitting position so she could mess with his pillows. Her grey hair was cut short, and her lower lip seemed to extend a good seven inches from her face.
