Breathe (Songs of Submission #10)(10)

She strode into the room, making the seven steps in the time it took me to put the tuning fork back in the box. I snapped it closed when she held out her hand.

“You got worse. I didn’t think it was possible. What did you do to your throat?”

Jonathan’s dick had been down it, but I didn’t say that. “Sorry.”

She took the box. I grabbed my sheet music and walked out. I noticed the molding on the door was red on the white wall, which didn’t matter one bit. Just a simple observation I hadn’t made last time. Why hadn’t I noticed?

Because the last time I walked out, I’d been looking at the floor. This time, I was looking up, and by the time my hand touched the doorknob, I knew why.

I turned before opening the door. She was halfway back to the white inner door.

“Wait,” I said brazenly.

She didn’t have to wait, of course, and if she didn’t respect me at all, she wouldn’t have.

But she did. She stopped and turned to me.

“I dreamed my whole life of singing Dodger Stadium,” I said. “I grew up in Echo Park, and I could hear everything. Sometimes I dreamed I’d be a seventh inning act, God Bless America and all, and sometimes it was a whole concert, when I was feeling really ambitious. But this? I heard someone sing the national anthem eighty days a year, and they were always bad. Always. Even when they were good, between the sound system and the octave changes, the national anthem always sounds bad in a stadium. It’s a capella, and it’s like I’m naked. Everything’s against the performer. And I can’t bear the thought of not being the best. Which is why I had such a hard time yesterday.”

She folded her hands in front of her, still holding the black box, tilted her head, and said nothing for too long. “Everyone is bad, then?”

“Whitney Houston,” I said. “She was great. But she used weird phrasing.”

“You are not Whitney Houston.”

“No, I’m not.”

More silence. It hung at the perfect key for a new start.

“Can I come back?” I said. “I have two weeks. It’s not enough time to find perfection, but maybe I can get closer?”

She stepped forward. “You have nothing to do for two weeks but tone your voice. Nothing. You will think in scales. You will be silent unless you are singing. You will repeat repeat repeat. At home and with me to the point where your voice is tired, but not over that line.”

“Yes.”

“For two weeks, I own you. Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

“Now.” She straightened herself when I thought she couldn’t get any straighter. “I have twenty-one minutes to spare. Would you like to start?”

In my gratitude and relief, I had no other answer but, “Yes.”

ten.

MONICA

I bounced into the house. Jonathan was in his running gear, finishing up a puke-colored protein shake. I kissed his cheek and rinsed out the blender pitcher.

“What took you so long?” he asked.

“She gave me homework, and we set up a schedule for the week.”

“So there’s hope for you?”

“Apparently not, but she’s martyring herself for my sake.”

He pressed himself to me, pinning my hands behind me. “I’ll make you sing.”

“We need to talk about this for a minute.”

He let me go, and I turned to him. He pressed himself against me.

“Okay,” he said, picking up my shirt. Jesus, he had such a one-track mind. I tried to pull it down, but he shooed my hands away and yanked my bra up over my breasts. “Talk.”

“I have to protect my throat for the next two weeks.”

“Wear a scarf.”

He bent down and kissed my breasts, licking the nipples until they were hard. I dug my fingers in his hair. God, he knew how to use his mouth.

“The inside,” I said. “Warm tea with honey. Soothing food.” He took a good, hard suck, and my back arched toward him. “Not dick.” I groaned it, because I wanted the dick. I wanted it a lot.

He knelt in front of me and unbuttoned my pants. “Two weeks, no oral. You’ll make it up to me.”

“I can’t scream either.”

“Happy to gag you if you want.” He wiggled down my pants.

“And crying. I can’t have too much gunk in my throat.”

He stopped trying to wedge me out of my clothes and looked up at me. “Anything else?”

“I see her when she has time. She owns me, she said.”

“She what?”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

He stood, putting his finger in my face as if about to make a point. Stopped. Raised it again. Pressed his lips into a line. Looked away.

“You’re not threatened by a voice coach, are you?”

That did it. Whatever indecision had been interrupting the flow of his thoughts was driven away by my pure snottiness.

“Bend over the sink. I’ll show you who owns what around here.”

eleven.

JONATHAN

I didn’t know if she said someone else owned her to annoy me or to prepare me for the coming weeks, because once I’d had her over the counter, she kissed me, cleaned herself off, and started.