Coda (Songs of Submission #9)

Coda (Songs of Submission #9)
C.D. Reiss



chapter 1.

JONATHAN

I brushed my thumb against her nipple, bending it, then I leaned down to suck it. She wove her fingers through my hair. I tasted the shower water on her, the tinge of soap. Steam still fogged the room.

“Jonathan,” she whispered, “I’ll miss the plane.”

“No, you won’t.”

I drew my tongue down her belly, flat and tight, stopping at the navel bar she still wore for me, then traveled down between her legs. I bent one of her knees and put it over my shoulder, giving my mouth access to her.

“I haven’t packed yet,” she said, but I knew I had her.

I opened her lips with my thumbs and licked her clit slowly, tip to taint and back again, tasting the fresh, clean skin and clear, rushing fluids.

“Pack fast,” I said. She’d be gone for a week. I wanted her before she left.

“I have to pack the Theremin, and it’s oh, God.” She moaned when I sucked her, hitching her other leg over my shoulder. “Delicate. Jesus, what is with you lately?”

I stood and wiped my mouth with my hand. She sat spread-eagled on the bathroom vanity, wet and ready. She was mine, and I loved her.

“What’s with me lately?” I was in my underwear, which I didn’t bother taking off as I pulled out my dick. “Maybe I’m bored.”

“You could work again.”

“I could.” I slid in nice and easy.

As I f*cked her on the vanity, I had a feeling that something wasn’t quite right. Something was missing. She was wet. I was hard. Her tits bounced when I thrust, and there was enough nudity between us to get my dick inside her.

But her arms. I didn’t know where they would go next. She moved in unexpected ways. I put my arms around her, holding her together, and I leaned in close to kiss her, dragging my stubble over her cheek and the sensitive part of her neck.

She whispered, “Ouch.”

I felt powerful. I’d been f*cking her for months with this borrowed thing in my chest, but when she said ouch, I wanted to more than f*ck her. I wanted to tear her apart. I lost my shit at the thought of it, coming in her the way I had been since the hospital, without control or intent, just because I was ready.

Monica came a second after I started, and we gripped each other, quivering. The steam had barely cleared from the mirrors when I kissed her shoulder and realized I had a problem in my arms.

***

I stretched out in the sun, with my scarred chest to the sky, and felt that thing beating. The July heat baked me, muggy and sticky. I was sharing sweat with a stranger’s tissue and grateful to be alive, yet I was in a state of constant bewilderment, thinking, How the f*ck was I pulled from death for this?

And who was I? I’d eaten and enjoyed blowtorch-spicy food, but suddenly I found it intolerable. I felt a new pull to run that I knew, intuitively, came from the same place. I jogged in the morning, and if Monica was away, I jogged at night. I loved it. I loved the burn in my throat and the fully energized exhaustion when I’d pushed myself too hard and too long. But I’d never wanted to run before. The desire wasn’t mine; it belonged to the heart, which had grown in someone else. Was I still wholly me? I pondered it too often and for too long.

“Hey,” Monica said, stepping into my sunlight. She wore a pale blue dress and clunky bracelets. “I’m going.”

I patted a place for her to sit next to me.

“I can’t,” she said. “Lil’s waiting.”

I flipped my sunglasses up so I could look her in the eye, and with that gaze, I let her know I was entitled to a minute of her time. “Goddess.”

“I’ll call you when I land.” She bent to kiss me, and when her lips hit mine, I held her head there an extra few seconds. She smiled and trotted away.

I had a problem. She was going to Caracas for three days to open two shows with some madhouse band, and I wasn’t going with her because of doctor’s orders. The impulsive side of me wanted to follow her and let the team of highly-paid specialists kiss my ass, but I stayed behind. There was no need to rush. Three days wouldn’t change anything.

When I’d met Monica, I’d known what I was. Who I was. I knew what I was made of, and I knew how to get what I wanted. I’d still been in love with my idea of my ex-wife, but my goddess had cured me of that. I’d thought being happy was what had made me demand control in the bedroom, but I was wrong, or at least only partly right. All the soul-searching in the world had led me to a false conclusion.

I’d been dominant because I knew myself. In knowing myself, I had the confidence to bind and hit and hurt, because I’d know when to stop.

When we got home from the hospital, Monica and I eventually made love again. Still, I wasn’t myself. I was mostly me and partly someone else. An alien piece of meat had been lodged in me, and I didn’t know what it would do. Would it beat right for me or for the person it was meant for? Would it skip a beat at the sight of some strange woman? Would it break over a different past or a lost present? I kept imagining it jumping out of me like a frog from a frying pan, slapping on the kitchen floor with a splat, and beating on the tiles while squirting yellow plasma. Once, I dreamed it bounced out of me and landed in the pool to swim with Sheila in a trail of curly red blood. I laughed in my dream, but when I woke up, I ran to the bathroom mirror to make sure I had a scar instead of a hole.