Resist (Songs of Submission #6)(35)

“My intentions? My intention was to go home and get some work done before a dinner meeting. She was already there.”

“You’re stating you did not expect her?”

“Yes.”

“Can you describe your frame of mind?”

“No.”

“Mr. Drazen—”

“I have to agree,” Margie said. “You haven’t even filed civil charges, and you want to go into discovery? Or was there something else?”

Myers cut in. “There are circumstances under which we can drop civil actions, which would give the state prosecutor little to go on. We can advocate for thirty-days probation and a standing order of protection.”

“Describe the circumstances,” Margie said.

“All financial channels between Mr. Drazen and Ms. Carnes can be reopened, permanently.”

I looked at my gorgeous ex-wife, whose need for money must be deeply shameful to her. She didn’t look at me but kept her back straight, her shoulders relaxed, and her eyes on her lawyer.

“No,” I said before Margie, and I felt her heel again.

That was apparently exactly what Rinaldo wanted to hear. He opened a folder with full-color photographs that made me want to avert my gaze. My ex-wife’s welted behind, three red slashes across it. I had no idea I’d hit her that hard. I had been pissed off, and it was difficult to feel how hard I was swinging through a haze of rage.

“You admit to giving her those?” Rinaldo seemed to be in charge of the uncomfortable questions.

“I do.”

“Why?”

“We agreed to it beforehand,” I said.

“Are you saying she asked for it?”

“Not in those words.”

“And in the month previous, you broke her wrist during sex.”

“She fell.”

“Yes, I understand that’s the story. You left her in the emergency room as well, so you wouldn’t be questioned,” Rinaldo said.

“I left her because I had a plane to catch and her boyfriend showed up.”

“Your current girlfriend was seen last night with bruises. Did she ‘ask for it’ as well?”

I glanced at Jessica. Her eyes were in her lap. “You must really want this money,” I said.

“Your comment has been noted, Mr. Drazen.”

“Monica and I fell down a hill last night. I’d laugh about it if I wasn’t so banged up myself.”

“Bruises at the base of her neck are not consistent with a fall.”

Margie clicked her pen to get everyone’s attention and spoke in a tone that stopped Rinaldo and Myers in their tracks. “Thank you, Doctor. Unless you can produce photographs of these alleged bruises, I couldn’t care less about them.”

Rinaldo listened, then smirked. “We can send a forensic photographer to her right now. The State of California doesn’t need her to accuse him of anything.”

“The State of California cannot compel a woman to use her body as evidence in a prosecution. Do you have anything else?” Margie demanded. “Because I’m seeing precious little.”

Myers nodded to Rinaldo, and the young litigator’s shit-eating grin returned. “Ms. Carnes’s phone turned itself on to record when you threw her against the table.” He pressed a button on his phone.

It started with a scream when I pulled her hair. What a convenient starting point. I looked at Jessica again, and her eyes were glued to the phone. I felt her desire to look at me as her screams echoed through the room.

I demanded a safe word. She questioned its necessity, and I said,

“Question me again, and I’m f**king your ass so hard you won’t be able to sit.”

It sounded bad. Really bad. As if she didn’t know what a safe word was or why one was necessary, and I’d interrupted her with a threat.

“It hurts. You’re hitting me.”

Calculated. So calculated. Somewhere in my mind, I admired her. She would have made a truly impressive partner if she wasn’t such a cunt.

The clacking of my belt opening sounded filthy and violent, and my telling her not to yell when I hit her couldn’t have sounded more like abuse. Listening to the scene play out was as uncomfortable as it should have been. And it was quite possible a judge would hear it. The recording could fry me.

“Wait,” Margie interrupted. “Can you pause that a second?”

Rinaldo paused it, but the violence of the encounter lingered in the room.

“Where did that start again?” Margie asked.

“With a scream.” Rinaldo had a wonderful shit-eating grin on his face that would look great once it was wiped off.

“Funny,” Margie said. “I heard this one this morning. It starts much earlier.” She pressed her own phone. My voice came through.

“Jess, how are you?”

A vanilla conversation progressed into the lead in the pipes of her studio, her hurt for money, our history.

“And you’re saying you want to try it my way?”

“I want to. We’d need to set some boundaries beforehand.”

“No, my way. Right now. Then you tell me if you can take it.”

“Stop,” said Jessica. “This is fake.”

“No,” I said. “It’s exactly what happened. I’d swear to it.”