Resist (Songs of Submission #6)(5)

He was holding my hand in an elevator. Like a normal person. I looked at him, and he turned to me.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

Grey Suit got out, and the doors slid shut.

“Margie litigated my divorce,” Jonathan said, still facing the doors.

“Okay?”

“We had a lot of talk about irreconcilable differences over sex. How it was had, et cetera. There were gag orders that were broken. No pun intended.”

“Okay.”

“My sister may look at you in that way you were afraid of. She’s still curious about the whole thing.”

“That’s awkward.”

“You have no idea.”

My face hurt from holding back a nervous smile. “If she’s curious, you should send Debbie at her with a riding crop.”

He glanced at me, and I knew he was trying to hold back nervous laughter as much as I was. The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. “Madame Silk would have her crawling on the floor in a second.”

“I knew it!” I exclaimed.

He put his arm around me, and we walked into the hall. He opened glass doors for me. Two receptionists sat behind a stark white counter topped with red blooms. The older seemed to know him and picked up the phone when she saw him. He still had his arm around me.

“Did Madame Silk ever get her crop on you?” I whispered.

“We discussed it and decided against.”

“How thoughtful and sensible of you.”

He pulled me to him. “It was much, much more complex than that.”

“Mister Drazen?” the receptionist called. “Come this way.” We followed her past the desk and into the belly of the office. He held my hand the whole way.

Margie was almost as tall as I was, and she shook my hand like a man. She did not size me up, nor did she give me the impression she had an ounce of curiosity about what I did in bed with her brother. Either Jonathan was wrong and she didn’t give a shit, or she was as in control as he was. Her sage pencil skirt and tapered jacket were tailored to exist without being noticed as anything but part of a God-created whole. I knew her age, and she wore it well. She had the alertness of a child, yet her comportment was so graceful and self-aware, she was more adult than I thought I’d ever feel.

We sat across from her desk like recalcitrant schoolchildren, facing huge windows that looked over the city. We shared small talk, a few lines about their family I didn’t understand, a word or two about traffic on the 405, and a couple of innocent questions about waitressing and music.

Then Margaret Drazen put her elbows on the desk and indicated her brother while speaking to me. “So what did this one tell you?”

“He lied. As usual.” I glanced at Jonathan. He leaned into the arm of his chair and rubbed his upper lip as if he was trying to hide his mouth. I knew he was biting back a smile.

“Which lie was it this time?” Margie asked me.

“The one where they both had their clothes on and there was no touching.”

“This the same scene where he hit his ex-wife with a belt?”

“That one.”

Margie leaned back. She looked as if she was going to fall out the window and get poured over Los Angeles. “This is so f**king fascinating. See, he tells me this story, and I’m thinking assault and battery. You hear the exact same story and think infidelity.”

Jonathan broke in. “You’re going off the rails, Margie.”

“But, Jonny…”

“We talked about this,” he said, his posture still relaxed.

“It’s very simple,” I said, my voice clipped and brusque. “His belt is for holding up his pants, binding me, and hurting me. His body, any part of it, is to give me pleasure and pain. If he gives any other woman either of those things with his body or any clothing accessory, it’s cheating.” I turned to him. “The fact that we were officially broken up notwithstanding.”

“You said she wouldn’t want to talk about it,” Margie said to Jonathan.

“Apparently I was misinformed.”

“You two need to talk more.”

“Sorry if you’re an hour behind the curve.”

Margie put up her hand. “Okay, that was fun, let’s move on.” She turned back to me. “First. Let me tell you about the great state of California. We’re a preferred arrest state. Any domestic violence accusation with some merit warrants an arrest.”

“Define merit,” I said.

“You’re sharp. Merit means she had a recording of the incident on her phone and pictures of a reddened ass consistent with getting hit hard with a belt. Since she provided all of this to the police, the prosecutor decides how to proceed. But with the multimedia presentation available to him and the years of rumors, if he didn’t arrest Jonathan for felony battery, he’d lose his job. Even if she drops the charges or recants, the prosecution still has to continue.”

“Felony battery?” I said softly.

“They’re required to arrest as a felony,” Margie said. “The DA can bump it down to misdemeanor, but if the Ice Queen remains trenchant, a reduction’s unlikely.”

I couldn’t look at Jonathan. It sounded so dire, and yet, what he’d done to her wasn’t a fraction of what he’d done with me. “I don’t understand how this will lead to getting her husband back.”