Resist (Songs of Submission #6)(17)

Jessica knew everything. At our engagement party, I’d been hypnotized as a party joke and remembered what the whiskey had blacked out. Rachel had survived the crash. She didn’t walk away. But on the night of the Christmas rains, she’d been pulled out of the ocean with a part of her brain intact. Jessica had helped me find Rachel and helped me move her. She’d helped me fail in finding her family. Mother dead. Father disappeared. Her stepfather had never been worthy of her. Jessica, by my side, had reminded me to man up and take responsibility for my part in her condition.

“Okay, I know you did your best,” Margie said, her tone promising bad news. “But people in vegetative states don’t travel well. I just got word from the new facility that she has pneumonia.”

“She’s had it before.”

“She’s dying, little brother. I’m sorry.”

Chapter 15.

MONICA

Jonathan left me with a lot of breakfast.

He'd come back without any color in his face, looking as if he was miles away. With no chance in hell of talking him into a good-bye screw, I walked him out.

“I’m going to be gone for a few days,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“We talked about this. You travel. It’s fine.”

He stood half on the porch, half on the steps when he turned back to me. “You promised you wouldn’t see my ex-wife.”

That was a hard comment to answer. If I told him I had every intention of seeing Jessica, he’d worry needlessly. If I said otherwise, I’d be lying. “Jonathan, honestly, promises made while I’m in a submissive posture shouldn’t count.”

He paused, looking at our clasped hands. “Probably not.”

Even though it hurt to lift my arms, I put my palms on his cheeks. He did not look well. His skin was cold. There really must have been a towering inferno at Hotel K.

“I have a meeting with her on Tuesday,” he said. “Can you wait until after that?”

“I don’t see why not.”

My sneaky non-promise must have been completely transparent to him. There was a pretty good chance the only time I’d get to see her was when he was out of town and unable to use his dick to lure me away. He knew it. I knew it. Pretending otherwise was absurd. Yet we did. Somehow, he was willing to take the chance and walk down the steps to his bike after a deep, soulful goodbye kiss that let me know he was still my master and king.

I cleaned up breakfast and dressed to rehearse. I had a lot to say about pain and its relationship to desire, glory, satisfaction. Maybe I had too much to say, because I wrote a seven-page ramble of a song with three alternating choruses and verses up the wazoo. I still felt as though I hadn’t scratched the surface.

My body ached. I was tired. I felt isolated. Jonathan’s touch stayed on me in the soreness between my legs, the rawness of my lips, the sharp bite of pain when I moved my arms. I pulled my collar up over my face to see if his smell lingered. It did, if only slightly, and I kept the collar up even though it increased the heat of my longing with every breath.

A couple of days. How could I last that long? How would I think about anything else? And what would happen on the next two-week trip? Did he think I would agree to come with him every time?

When I realized I’d been staring at the piano keys for twelve minutes, I shut off the metronome and crawled into bed. Our scents lingered on the sheets like the twin deities, pain and pleasure, lulling me to sleep with thoughts of their harmonized perfection.

Chapter 16.

MONICA

I woke when the sky was melting from light to dark, and the nest of crickets outside my window started screaming their mating call. Every living thing was trying to f**k, except me. My aches took on a new level of sharpness after a decent rest, and the smell of sex exhausted me. I stripped the bed.

I’d brought piles of clothes back from Darren’s. I hadn’t done laundry in his building unless it was absolutely necessary, but I was home now. The sheets needed doing, and the towels, and my clothes, obviously. The Bordelle underthings I hand-washed lovingly, caressing them the way he did.

I passed Gabby’s closed door a dozen times. That part of the house was as much mine as it ever was, but I still couldn’t go in without Darren. I still braided my hair for her. I still kept what little music she’d written to integrate into my mine, to save her name and her legacy.

The battery on my phone had died, so I plugged it in and went about cleaning my bathrooms, mopping the kitchen floor, doing all the things I’d neglected while I was away. In my mind, the metronome ticked in four-four time. A song was bubbling up, and my verbal mind waited patiently while my non-verbal brain processed the point and purpose of it.

I was on the porch shaking the dust out of the couch throws when the phone blooped. It must be Jonathan saying something that would make me smile. I ran to it.

—are you there?—

—Yes—

—I feel your hands on the phone—

—I miss you already. Can we have a call—

—Can’t. Just checking in. I feel good knowing you’re there, and mine—

The subtext was he felt good knowing I was there and doing what he told me. Which meant, no Jessica. He either thought very little of me believing I was obedient, or a lot believing I’d get the right message from so few words. Or maybe I should just take it at face value.