by CD Reiss
Jonathan picked up his hand and flicked his fingers to Sheila. The international sign for shoo. She started to object, but Margie grabbed her arm.
“Come on. The kids need you,” Margie said.
“Onna has them.”
Margie pulled her out, but Eileen, Jonathan’s mother, strode in. “Ma,” Margie said, “you were just here.”
But Eileen ignored her. “Jon, how are you feeling?”
“Tired.”
“Should we go?” She put her hand on my arm as if I was going out with her.
“Yes. I mean, let me talk to Monica for a minute.”
She smiled the biggest, fakest thing I’d ever seen in my life. “Of course.”
“Oh, ma?”
“Yes?”
He pointed at me. “Spot for Christmas Eve. Okay? Don’t forget.”
“Of course.” Eileen looked at me. “You’re free?”
“You bet.” I put on my customer service smile. Once she was out, I sat next to him. I didn’t say anything, but somehow he intuited what I was thinking.
“That’s just how she is.”
He looked as pale as death, and his body was flat under the sheets as if he could have just sunk into them. His face looked slack, inactive. His eyes were unfocused, and the lids didn’t want to stay open. That wasn’t Jonathan. He was some other, powerless man who didn’t yank my head back by my hair as he pounded me from behind. Someone who didn’t fuck me in such a slow, controlled way I felt every inch of my orgasm. He wasn’t the man whose name I’d cried into the night; the man to whom I entrusted control, to whose dominance I submitted. He was another man entirely, and I loved him.
I took his hand. “You look like shit.”
“You look like an angel.” His voice crunched like gravel under a tire.
“I should tie your elbows behind your back with a belt and spank you until you scream. To get your voice back. Works every time.”
A smile curled the side of his mouth. He croaked so low I had to put my ear to his mouth to hear him. “A week. I’m going to do unspeakable things to your body.”
“Really?” I kept my face to his and my voice low. “Like what?”
I realized I’d asked too much of him when he licked his lips, paused, and said, “Secret.” He’d love to tell me, I knew that, but between having his chest cracked open and the tube down his throat, it probably hurt to speak.
“I know already,” I said. He raised an eyebrow. “I can read your mind.”
“Not this. It’s filthy.”
I reached over until my body bridged his and touched his ear with my lips. “The great and powerful Madame Monica will predict the future with utmost certainty. Are you ready to hear your destiny, young man?” I was so close to him that when I looked into his eyes, I could see the blue flecks.
“What’s this gonna cost me?”
“Everything.”
“Worth it.”
*
We’re in your house. The living room. I’m naked from the waist up, and you’re in jeans and a polo shirt. You’re looking at me like you want to eat me alive, but you don’t. Yet. You’re waiting. You’re thinking. You’re constructing the next minutes of my life like a movie director blocks a scene.
You tell me to take off my pants, and I do. You watch. You like my body. The way my breasts hang when I bend over to release my feet. My ass when I bend at the waist.
When I step out of my jeans, you step toward me in your bare feet. I look nervous. You tell me to stop my hands from twitching, and when I cast my eyes down and say ‘yes, sir,’ you feel power surge in you. Everything’s under control. Everything’s going to be all right, unless it’s not. What you have planned can go terribly wrong. The worry bothers you.
You ask me my safe word, and I tell you to shut up and fuck me.
‘Oh, goddess,’ you say. Then you take the hair at the back of my neck and pull until I’m looking at the ceiling. My lips part, and I sigh.
‘Say it. Or you can put those jeans back on and go home.’
I mouth ‘tangerine’ but don’t use my voice.
You look down at me and you say, ‘Say it.’
I whisper it so softly you can barely hear it. You spin me around and shove me into the kitchen. I start to turn back, but you bend me over the butcher block. You’re sharp and violent, and when you see me cringe, your dick gets hard. You want to see me scream. You need it.
You.
Need.
It.
Your dick is out, a throbbing piece of meat aimed between my legs. There’s wetness emanating from me. It would slide in so easily. You’d be sucked into my cunt so fast, and you’d forget everything.
‘Say it, or you go home.’ You feel me quiver under you. You think you might just have me put my jeans on and leave. That would be the right punishment for making you uneasy. You slap my ass, and I yelp as if I didn’t expect it. Your hand stings, and you’re poised to do it again when I speak up.
‘Tangerine.’
The word is barely out of my mouth, and you’re fucking me, pressing my cheek to the butcher block. Thrust after thrust...you know you’re pushing the countertop against the sensitive part of my hip. I’m yours to hurt, and you know it. The things on the counter rattle as you fuck me. Salt and pepper grinders. A canister of utensils. Fancy bottles of condiments. You pull my ass cheeks apart with your free hand so you can go deeper, gripping hard enough to bruise, watching how your fingers indent my skin. My feet come off the floor, you’re pounding me so hard. I gasp and grunt.
You take a bottle of olive oil and smack it against the edge of the counter, breaking the neck. I’m startled, but you push my head down hard. The glass is everywhere. Oil splashes on the floor. You run your hand down my back as you fuck me. Slowly, you pour oil on my back. You rub it all over me then pour more until a river of oil falls into the crack of my ass. You feel it on your cock. You pull out then slide in again. Hard. Once. Twice. Olive oil coats us. You slap my butt again and again. I cry out in pleasure, your name on my lips.
Then without breaking your rhythm, you jam your cock in my ass.
I scream.
You’re halfway in, and you feel two things at once. You’re incredibly aroused…aroused enough to lose control. But there’s also the worry that in losing control, you’ll hurt me. You ask me how I am.
I say through my teeth, ‘Is that all you got, Drazen?’ My face is red. My fingers are clutching the edge of the butcher block.
You put down the bottle and take my jaw, turning it until I’m facing you. You bend until you’re so close you can smell green tea on my breath. Then you push the rest of the way into me, the skin of your dick sliding against the olive oil, stretching me without friction as a barrier.
I grunt. You know it hurts, you see it in my eyes. But you don’t stop. You whisper words of encouragement, pulling out, then slamming into me. We’re mouth to mouth as I whimper and you fuck my ass. Sliding in and out with the olive oil. Balls deep. I’m tight. You’re getting squeezed. I’m getting ripped apart.
But my whimpering is turning into gasps and moans. I’m looking at you now with something besides agony. You go faster, pounding. Pushing deeper with every stroke. You pull me up until we’re both standing. You slide your hand across my breasts and down my stomach. There’s oil everywhere. Your fingers go between my legs and find my clit right away. It’s hard to the touch. When you circle it, you slow your thrusts. You slip over it, reaching for my hole. Then you drag four fingers over my clit. You do this over and over, until I beg.
‘Let me come. Please.’
You want me to come while you’re in my ass. You want me to want it after it hurts me. That’s the victory, to have us both love my pain.
I’m whispering ‘please’ like a chant. Your fingers move in the same circles. You have me at the edge. You own me. ‘Please, please, please, please.’
You say, ‘Come.”
I thrust my hips into you, burying you in me. There’s a m
oment of nothing, then you feel my orgasm on your dick, pulsing around you. Gripping you. Milking your cock until the fullness in you is too much to bear, and you have to let it go. You slam into me and come. You lose control, forgetting your hand is gripping my cunt. You bite my shoulder, and I scream for the second time. You lose yourself. You forget everything.
*
eight
JONATHAN
I felt her.
We spoke. I wanted to possess her, but I couldn’t find the strength to move my arms. I smelled her canned peaches scent and heard the warm caramel of her voice. I answered her in short sentences, because I felt as if I’d gulped a handful of driveway and forgot how to swallow.
She tapped my arm as she described what I would do to her. Even in my state, I got hard because it was an epic fuck coming from her sweet mouth. I didn’t even know if she noticed, but with that tapping finger, she was keeping a rhythm as she told the story. I strained to listen as unconsciousness tried to invade again. I heard her words, but what I felt when she talked about me hurting her was the connection created when her pain turns to pleasure, and she is under me, a piece of the world I control completely.
“You’re good at this,” I said. “I’m taking mental notes.”
“When did the doctor say you could enslave me again?”
“As soon as I was up to it.”
“I predict day after tomorrow.”
“You’re selling me short.”
“I’ll be at your service tomorrow if you want. But you’re in here for five days, and you need to be alone tonight.”
I grumbled deep in my throat. She was right, of course. The drugs hadn’t even worn off. I had no idea how I would feel about sex once the pain kicked in. All I knew was I wanted to be inside her. “Go sleep in your bed tonight, then.”
“If I’m up at three a.m., I’ll think of you.” She stood straight and got her bag. “Actually, if I’m awake any time, I’ll think of you.” She leaned down to kiss me, and I touched her lips.
nine
MONICA
On my way out, a song hit me. I ran into the cafeteria to write it down. I texted Lil and asked her to meet me out front in fifteen minutes, and I got myself tea.
I’d been in that fucking hospital forever. What had looked sparkling clean the first day looked dingy, dirty, and worthless on day four. I spotted the black scratches on the pink cafeteria tabletops instantly and the little dust bombs sticking to the legs of the chairs. I hated the tea. It was too hot, the Styrofoam made the liquid acerbic, and Jonathan was sick. I hated the greasy eggs and potatoes. I hated the stink of vinegar that seemed to be on everything. I hated being kicked out of Jonathan’s room because too many people were in it.
But on the day of the surgery, the cafeteria sparkled again. The Christmas lights were the most cheerful shades, the tinsel and garland was festive and joyous, and the fake tree in the corner, with toys for sick kids under it, made my heart swell with pride for human generosity.
My god, what do you get a man like Jonathan for Christmas?
I got into the chair I always sat in, and I took out my little notebook and clicky pencil. Everything about the hospital had sucked, but I was writing. A lot. I didn’t even know if half of them were songs or opera or part of something so much bigger, but I couldn’t stop the verses or the tapping of my foot as I laid them down. In the days I’d been at the hospital, waiting for the hours I could see Jonathan, my tea usually went cold before I gulped it down.
I moved the Notice of Public Auction to the front of my notebook so it wouldn’t be in my way, and I wrote. Another Styrofoam cup appeared at my side when I was still neck deep in a song about an imaginary ass-fuck that was disguised as a poem about something else entirely. I looked up at a six foot four man who had hit his sixties in a movie-star kind of way.
He smiled at me. “We meet again.”
“I’m sorry?”
He held out his hand, and I knew that even though I didn’t know him, I did. “My daughter told me my son’s girlfriend was often down here. I thought it might be you.”
J. Declan. Shit. Jonathan wouldn’t like me being with him. And just when I was getting used to that hateful table. I shook his hand briefly then stood. “Yeah. I was just going.”
He sat down. “Looks like you were in the middle of something. Can you just ignore me? There are no other seats.”
I looked around. Every other table was full. I was a single person taking up a four-seater. In the middle of writing, I hadn’t even noticed. “I’ll make room for the rest of the family.”
He laughed to himself. A silent chuckle. No more than a breath.
“What?” I asked.
“If my boy is the sun, I’m Pluto. Smallest. Farthest. Still in orbit, however. Have you seen him?”
“Yes.”
“How does he seem?”
“The same.”
“And his mood?”
“Hard to tell through the wisecracks.”
He nodded, looking around the cafeteria. Kids screamed. Mothers yelled. A mop slapped against the edge of a yellow bucket. To our right, a man wept while a much younger woman comforted him. I glanced at Declan. He looked far away, and I felt sorry for him.
“You should talk to him,” I said. I hadn’t seen the outside world in too many hours, and Lil would be outside in a red zone in four minutes.
“I should,” he said in a way that implied that he would if it were an option. I wanted to say more, but I remembered what Jonathan had told me and what Margie had said about his shitty hobbies. I excused myself to go home to try to manage my life.
ten
MONICA
It was night by the time the Bentley made its way slowly down my hill. I’d called Debbie to let her know Jonathan was okay, and I told her if any shifts opened up, I’d fill in. Then I left a message with Darren, who had offered me the moon and stars, the food in his kitchen, the gas in his car, and the surface area of his shoulder should I need it. But unless I asked for something specific or called during an unpredictable sliver of time, he was unavailable. I had no idea what he was doing. When I did catch him long enough to ask after him, his “fines” and “greats” seemed sincere. So I left him alone.
“What time are you going in tomorrow, miss?” asked Lil as she opened the back door for me.
“I’m hoping for an afternoon shift,” I said. “Can I call you?”
She stepped aside as I got out. “I expect you to. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but it’s my job to drive. I don’t want to hear about you taking the bus again.” She slammed the door.
“I’m a poor girl. It’s not a big deal to take the bus.”
“To me it is. No more.” She wagged her finger once and walked around to her side. When she opened her door, she waved, dismissing me.
I fingered the extra bus token in my pocket, went through my gate, and ascended my porch steps. There was no notice on the door, which reminded me I hadn’t heard from Mom. I checked my phone. Nope. Nothing.
“Hey, Monica,” Dr. Thorensen called over the fence.
“Hi.”
“You all right?” He blooped his car. The lights flashed.
“Sure.”
“Because you’re standing on your porch staring at your phone. Is your boyfriend all right? Did the surgery go okay?”
“Yeah.”
He didn’t move. He just looked at me under my shitty porch light, which would be auctioned off with the rest of my house. Except my stuff. The bank couldn’t auction what was mine. I’d take the light bulbs, the furniture, the fixtures, and anything that could be unscrewed, unbolted, or pulled off.
“Dad’s tangerine tree,” I said out loud. I didn’t mean to do that.
“Excuse me?” Dr. Thorensen asked.
“Nothing. Just thinking out loud.” I snapped my keys out of their little pocket.
“Have you eaten?”
I hadn’t expected an actual question, so I answered honestly. “No.”
<
br /> “I have some pad thai from last night. It reheats like a solid brick, and I don’t want to suffer alone.”
I wanted to slip in during the dead after hours and fall asleep next to Jonathan again, but if there was one night I should let him rest, that was probably it. A twisting disappointment pinched my chest when I realized I wouldn’t go see him. I’d have to sleep alone in my stupid shit bed. But though I could be lonely and depressed and worried, I didn’t have to be hungry. “How are you reheating it?”
“I put the cardboard box in the microwave. It ain’t open heart surgery.”
“You have to heat it covered with a little water.” I put my keys back in my bag, glad to be of use to someone. “A glass container is best. Let me show you.”
eleven
MONICA
“Magic” was too mild a word for City of Dis as Dr. Brad Thorensen played it. Extreme might be better. Intense. Powerful.
The idea was the player was in hell. Not just a block character of pixels. Not some person the player made up from die rolls and categories, but...you.
Meaning, the player created a character based on himself. Plenty of people created characters whole cloth, but the point was to create their own personal self and send it through hell. The player struggled to exit each circle, but he knew the next one would be worse, the stakes would be higher, and his missions would be harder. That being the case, when he stopped, he found his sin. His flaw. He discovered what would send him into the inferno.
Dr. Thorensen taught me how to use the controllers then went to reheat the pad thai as I instructed. The game started with a fifteen-minute questionnaire. Except it should have been a two-hour questionnaire. It should have required thought and rumination. The basics—gender, age, education, family structure—came slowly. Then deeply personal questions had to be answered so quickly I didn’t have a second to think twice. Multiple choice. Choose the closest answer. Rapid fire.
—do you cook your own dinner how long does it take you to eat it how long do you chat with friends after dinner do you have a mirror in your room do you wear makeup every day is your nose big are you fat do you have enough money how much does a pound of feathers weigh where was your car made price of the most expensive bag you ever bought if you found a wallet what would you do someone hits your car on the freeway what do you do how often do you shop do you reconcile your checkbook does your thumb hurt right now how many cups of coffee or tea do you drink a day how many moving violations have you gotten what color is the red hat when was your last felony arrest did your parents spank you are you worthless what is your political affiliation do you believe in legal abortion are you on birth control how many sexual partners have you had this month how much is too much are you hungry right now do you own a firearm are people generally bad or generally good what time do you eat dinner what time do you go to bed do you dream—
