Burn (Songs of Submission #5)(3)

“The song isn’t available,” was all I could say.

He smiled with his perfect teeth and twinkling eyes. “You’ll figure it out. When you do, I’m pretty sure we can sign you.” He slipped the menus from the side of the table and handed me one. “You should try the yellowtail. It comes with artichokes that will knock your socks off.”

He opened his menu and pretended to look at it, but I knew he was wondering what I looked like on my knees, bound and gagged, legs spread, cunt wet and waiting for him. I pushed the image from my mind and just ordered the yellowtail.

As if feeling my discomfort, Eddie changed the subject. We talked about my plans for my musical future. I made up a bunch of stuff. Making plans was impossible when I had to take every opportunity that presented itself. Except this one. I had to turn this boat around. I had to go from Bondage Girl to something else, but I didn’t know what, and I didn’t know how. He seemed damned determined to stay on uptrending sexual fetishes as my brand. The more I engaged him on it, the more he’d expect me to say yes and the more I’d convince myself I was nothing more than a bound, spread-eagled f**ktoy in his mind.

I didn’t want him to know I’d broken it off with Jonathan. I was unprotected without him—sexually available and emotionally vulnerable. Before Eddie had a chance to offer coffee, I used my job as an excuse to get the hell out of there.

I went through my shift at the Stock confused, panicked, and anxious. I put on my smile, made witty repartee when necessary, and delivered drinks as if I had twinkles in my toes, but I felt the rock in my chest go from still and heavy to vibrating. Not in a good way. In a painful way. The hum was the sound of regret. I had a chance at a career move, and I was going to lose it because it was the wrong one. Because I wasn’t the audience’s f**ktoy any more than I was Jonathan’s. I’d walked away from him to protect my non-existent career, and it had careened out of control.

At the end of my shift, I flipped through my tickets, closed out my money, and handed the open tables to Mandy.

“Real bitch on five,” I said. “Watch the salt in her cucumber cosmos. She has a ‘condition,’ and her untimely death is going to become your fault. Henrietta Sevion is by the pool. She’s on the phone, so just bring her wine and smile. Renaldo Rodriguez is on the corner with a f**king entourage of blondes. I have no advice.”

Mandy cracked her gum one last time and gently spit it into a napkin. “You’re grumpy.”

Robert, who seemed to hear everything no matter who he was serving at the bar, said, “Needs a drink.” He nodded to me. “Want something before you go?”

“No, thanks.” His offer was tempting, but it was nine o’clock, and I still had work to do. “Where’s Debbie?”

“Office.” Robert flipped a bottle as a prelude to wiping it down. “Can you tell her to hurry on the schedule? I have an audition this week.”

“Nope. She hates when we nag about it, so I’m not going to do it for you. I’m asking her for time off, and then I’m going home.”

Mandy poured the mixers for the drinks on her tray. “Oh yeah? Going somewhere for Thanksgiving?”

“Vancouver the week after.”

“Ah that thing you’re doing with both your ex-boyfriends? Which you don’t think is weird?”

“It’s not weird unless you make it weird. The piece, you should see it. It’s going to make me famous.” I wagged my finger at her. The piece had to make me famous. I could be Art Girl instead of Bondage Girl. I could do abstraction. The Vancouver piece gave me a gem of hope in the seven acres of shit I’d slogged through with Eddie. Mandy rolled her eyes and went to serve Renaldo Rodriguez and his blonde entourage.

I’d just gotten a passport. It had just come in the mail, Kevin and Darren had to go to the B.C. Mod without me to take meetings and do the setup. Letting my passport expire was a stupid oversight on my part, and I promised I wouldn’t let it happen again. I would be fully present for every step from then on.

I went into the guts of the hotel to the liquor room, where Debbie’s unobtrusive little office sat. When I got to her door, I heard two voices: hers and one male, talking seriously. I knocked. Usually Sam was in there with her, as if she owned the hotel and he worked for her, not the other way around.

“Come in,” called Debbie.

I opened the door and saw Debbie first, leaning on the window ledge. Then I had the wind knocked out of me.

Jonathan sat in her leather chair in his work clothes. Blue suit, striped shirt, red cufflinks. He looked at me like the first time, when I felt as if he was drinking me through the straw of his gaze. But back then, though I’d been celibate, I had something for his eyes to drink: a piqued sexuality and availability in my heart that I didn’t realize existed until he’d awakened it. When I saw him in Debbie’s office, I felt emotionally dehydrated and sexually bloodless.

“I’ll come back later,” I said and spun on my heel before I heard the answer.

He caught me in the liquor room, by a stack of boxes piled eight feet high. “Monica.” His voice was so gentle I couldn’t ignore it. I turned. “Hey. How are you?”

“I’m fine.” My voice sounded out of tune and ill-played. He looked perfect, well rested and fed, as though my absence had had no effect on him at all.