With Gabby gone and the promotional machine at a standstill, the room’s body count went back to normal. It was the same-sized crowd as the first night we’d played: just tables and a few people waiting at the bar. Any buzz we’d had about our shows died with Gabby. Basically, I was starting from scratch, which was fine. I didn’t think I could take much more than that without her to lean on.
The table by the warm speaker had a RESERVED sign. Jerry and Eddie were meant to sit there, if they came at all. I said hello to some lovely couples by the front and asked if they had any requests, which I’d play if I knew. A group of frat boys had heard about me and come for dinner. They were half drunk already, and their appetizers hadn’t even arrived, so I didn’t linger. I made a last visual sweep around the room and cast my eyes to Rhee. She was leading two women to a table in the corner. I recognized both of them. One was Jonathan’s sister Deirdre. One was his ex-wife.
My skin burst into tingles and my throat closed. I couldn’t feel my fingertips. Then I remembered I was playing that song. Jonathan’s song. I hadn’t shown it to him or told him about it yet. Jessica would hear it. And she would know.
She would know.
I wasn’t ashamed of what I was doing with Jonathan, but letting her hear my fears as if I’d whispered them in her ear was sickeningly intimate. A cold trickle of regret ran down my back. I should never have made the thing, never written it down, never set it to Gabby’s music. Though I wasn’t hiding it from Jonathan, at the very least, I should have shown it to him before playing it publicly. I hadn’t even thought of that.
I sat down at the piano and touched the keys. No, I’d skip it. Play something else. Jerry wasn’t there, so no one would be the wiser. Rhee didn’t really care. I started playing. Yes, I’d hide behind Irving Berlin, then Cole Porter. I’d stay safe. I’d still paint them the colors of Jonathan. I’d still feed them his lust, his touch, his voice. But Jessica would never hear it because I was protected by dead men’s lyrics.
I was coming off “Someone to Watch Over Me,” the middle of my set, when I saw Jerry with two men at the bar. He tipped his glass to me. They weren’t sitting at the table. Stopping by, maybe? Well, shit. I’d have to play it.
With the lights in my face, blinding me to half the room, Jessica didn’t loom as large. After warming up with the standards I knew so well and hiding behind that shiny, black baby grand, I didn’t feel as vulnerable. I could play that song.
I could do it. I could belt it out. Fuck her. Fuck her to Sunday. Fuck her with the lights on. Fuck her fuck her fuck her. It was my room. My song. My audience. My rules.
Rule number one? Fuck her.
I hit the keys, owning them, and I launched into Jonathan’s song as though he was naked and I was jumping him.
We wove words under Popsicle trees,
The ceiling open to the sky,
And you want to own me
With your fatal grace and charmed words.
All I own is a handful of stars
Tethered to a bag of marbles that turns
Oh, her ears would burn off at the mention of Popsicle trees and a ceiling open to the stars but guess what?
Fuck her.
My questions and fears were pregnant with heated longing, a desire for encouraging answers, begging for appeasement. My list of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors became a list of exciting possibilities.
Will you call me whore?
Destroy me,
Make me lick the floor,
Twist me in knots,
Turn me into an animal?
Will I be a vessel for you?
Slice open our lying box
Through a low doorway for our
Shoulds and oughts.
Choose the things I don’t need,
No careless moments, no mystery.
And you need nothing.
My backward bend doesn’t feed.
And just to call to her, just because she’d hurt me, and just because I could, I changed the last chorus on the fly, turning questions into statements.
I will own you.
Tie you.
I will collar you
Hurt you,
Hold you, and take you.
You will be a vessel for me.
For all my inner ferocity, the song had to complement the rest of the set, so I didn’t scream or wail. I didn’t hit the top of my range, but the ragged emotion was there as I hit the last note at low, dinnertime volume. A whisper even. I moved right into “Stormy Weather.” The lights blacked out for half a second. Jerry and his buddies were leaving, blocking the spots. I felt a core of relief. I didn’t think I could deal with managing them and Jessica.
I finished my set, thanked my audience, looked humbled for the applause, and strode back to the dressing room with my chin up. I didn’t start shaking until I got the door closed and locked. My breath became ragged and my eyes filled. Jesus, fuck, what was she doing there? With Deirdre? Who was going for gold in the family Olympics, for fuck’s sake? God damn it. Which lie was incoming? Which bomb would she drop? I would stay in the dressing room. I’d tell Rhee I was too upset about Gabby to do the good-byes, and I’d stay in there until the bar closed.
That actually seemed like a viable plan, but when I scrolled through my contacts so I could text Rhee an apology, I slid past Debbie’s number. Her words came back to me as if whispered in my ear.
Be a woman of grace.
Yeah.
Maybe it was time to grow up. Maybe if I knew I wasn’t doing anything wrong and if I stood by my right to be with any man I liked, I didn’t have a reason to hide in a filthy dressing room.
I texted Rhee.
—I’m a little upset about Gabby—
She got right back with a bloop.
—Can I do anything?—
—If you could bring back two
Jameson’s? One shot and one on
the rocks for my nerves?
And I’ll be out right after—
—Sure sugar—
I straightened my dress, wiped mascara from under my eyes, and reapplied my lipstick. A waitress came. I cracked the door to thank her for the drinks and remove them from her tray.
Once the door closed, I knocked back the shot. The other one was my prop. I looked in the mirror and tried out my customer service smile. Awesome. I was just smashing. And fuck her.
I went out to do my job. I entered the room and said a few hellos, smiling and graciously accepting compliments. Deirdre was at the bar. Jessica was alone at the table, half paying attention to her phone and half pretending she didn’t see me.
I went to the bar and squeezed next to Deirdre. “Hi, I think we’ve met,” I said.
She was more polite than before and nodded, a noncommittal smile playing at her lips. “Yeah. Nice singing.” She tucked a strand of tight curls behind her ear. They bounced right out.
“Thanks. I, uh, I don’t want to launch into this and be rude, but I couldn’t help but notice you came with someone?”
“Yeah. She’s family. She wanted to see you. I knew where you were, so…” She ended with a shrug.
“She’s borderline malevolent.”
“She’s my brother’s wife.”
“Not anymore.”
“You have a lot to learn.” She tried to put the hair behind her ear again, but it sprang in front of her eyes.
I took a deep breath. She was one of seven, and I was alienating her. “I’m sorry. I just don’t understand.”
She considered me deeply. There was something about her, some sadness, a touch of melancholy. She had a deep spring of sorrow. I saw it in her eyes and the way she fought a losing battle with the strand of hair that wouldn’t tuck behind her ear. “Like I said. Family. A man is meant to marry one woman. One life, one wife.”
I wondered for a second if Deirdre lived in the twenty-first century, then I saw her crucifix necklace. I got it then. She was saving Jonathan’s soul by serving Jessica.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll go say hello. You walking over there?”
“In a minute.” She smiled at me. I couldn’t read it. Besides the spring of sadness, I couldn’t read Deirdre at all.
Jessica pretended to see me for the first time when I was halfway to her. Quelling a tidal wave of hatred that would surely overcome even the power of my customer service smile, I sat at the edge of her booth. We were equals. I wouldn’t stand over her as if I was her waitress.
“Nice to see you again,” I lied.
“Same here,” she lied back. “You play beautifully.”
“Thank you.”
“And your voice is heavenly. You’re an artist.”
I put my elbows on the table and fondled my glass of whiskey. “Is there something you want? Being here? Because I do believe in the odd coincidence, but not this one.” I was all smiles. If Rhee saw me, she’d assume I was making friends with a customer.
Jessica looked down at her own drink, a half empty clearish-brownish thing with soda and lime. “You played a song in the middle I didn’t recognize. I mean, let me correct myself. I did recognize it. I asked myself many of the same questions.”
“Were you as honest with yourself as you were with me?”
A smirk played at her lips. “I deserve that.”
I could have pounced, but I didn’t. She wasn’t there to get beat up. She wasn’t there to apologize, and she certainly didn’t come to see me sing. She came to get Jonathan back. As far as I was concerned, I was pissed as hell at him, but I hadn’t decided I was finished with him. So I stayed silent, waiting for her to explain. She didn’t move a muscle unnecessarily. Her face gave away nothing. She didn’t twitch or fondle a glass like I did, and she didn’t have a customer service smile. She had an expression that went deeper. It was more practiced, more ingrained. She had the grace Debbie tried to instill in me. In spades.
“There will come a day when you want to talk to someone.” She reached into her bag and took out a card. “Someone who knows more about who you’re involved with. If you can forgive the little joke I played on you, you can contact me. We can talk.”
She slid the card to me. It was a plain, matte, white business card with her name, number, and an address in the industrial part of Culver City.
It was so wildly classy I resented her all over again. I slipped it into the pocket of my dress. “If I have something to ask, I can just go to Jonathan, don’t you think?”
She sipped her drink. “Has he told you about Rachel?”
“Yes.”
“Everything?”
“I can’t prove a negative. Neither can you. And if you think I’m repeating what he told me so that you can cross-check it… well, that says more about you than it does about me, doesn’t it?”
“Your hostility does the same.” I felt slapped, and I shouldn’t have. She barely moved a muscle or changed her expression, adding to my feelings of inadequacy. “There are a lot of moving parts here, and if I may be honest, you’re out of your depth.”
I rolled my glass between my palms, cooling them, thinking of Jonathan’s porch on our first night together and how he’d used his glass and the ice in it. The shot had loosened me, reducing my stress and inhibitions. I’d walked minefields like Jessica’s before. Unfortunately, I always forgot my map. “So what you’re telling me is you want to help me stay away from your ex-husband, whose heart you broke? No, I don’t think so.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Oh, yes, it is.”
“Things have been put in motion. I wanted to warn you away, so you don’t get hurt.”
I didn’t like threats, especially vague ones. They implied the person making the threat didn’t respect me enough to explicate, and that was guaranteed to twist my knickers in a knot. I tried to keep my game face on. “I’d understand if you just wanted him back, but you want something else.”
“Right now, I’m trying to get you out of harm’s way. I’ll be happy to explain but not here.”
Oh, that was a sneaky trick. I wouldn’t touch it. Wouldn’t believe it. Why would she have my best interests at heart? I thrust myself forward. She didn’t balk. “He has one dick, and it can be inside one woman at a time. Nothing you say will stop me getting peeled off the ceiling every time he puts that astonishing cock in me. If you miss it badly, if you imagine it when your new man’s on top of you, if you think about it when you’re alone with your hands under the sheets, I understand completely. He’s a monster fuck, Mrs. Drazen, and you’re going to have to go through me to get him back.”
Through the slight smile spread over her face, she practically whispered, “You’re a class act.” I tried not to react. I tried to be implacable and cold, and I knew, as sure as it never snows in Los Angeles, that I failed. My face was lemon Jell-O held up by toothpicks. Jessica pushed her glass away and stood. “I’m sure your refinement will keep the astonishing gentleman coming back for more.”
Lemon Jell-O turned to cherry, and if there was a deeper shade of red to turn, I had no idea what flavor it was. She looked over my head and smiled. “Jon, how are you?”
His voice came from over my shoulder like a warm sweater, fresh from the dryer on a cold night. “Fine, Jessica.”
My plan had been to rail at him, to throw rage his way. To let him know he couldn’t have me watched. I had boundaries even if he didn’t, and I didn’t like being stalked. But when he put his hand on the back of my neck as if he owned me, I was awash in gratitude. It was the best possible comeback to Jessica’s jab about my lack of refinement, and I didn’t have to say a word.
Jessica said, “I was just having a word with Monica about her song. It made me think of you. Deirdre, honey, you all right?”
Deirdre had entered the circle, still tucking her stubborn red curl behind her ear. “Yeah.” She turned to Jonathan and punched his arm. “Hey, man.”
“I hope you’re getting a lift home, Dee. Monica and I are leaving.” He looked at his ex-wife. “Jess, I don’t know what you were doing here, but I’m dispensing with all the niceties and saying good-bye.” He squeezed my neck and looked down at me. “You ready?”
“My stuff’s in the dressing room.”
“Let’s go, then.” He held out his hand and I took it, sliding from the booth as he helped me up.
I walked to the back without saying good-bye, pulling him along. I didn’t start shaking until we were both behind the dressing room door. Before I could even flick on the light, he pushed me against the wall, his mouth on mine, pressing my head to the plaster.
“Jonathan,” I gasped. Didn’t I want to yell at him? Wasn’t I mad about something? I knew I had things to say.
He kissed my neck and stroked my breast through my dress. “The camera. Not mine. I asked Dave to keep an eye on you is all.” He pressed his club of a cock against me.
Fuck it. Fuck explanations. Fuck boundaries. Whatever he said was good enough for me if it let him take me right then.
With both hands under my skirt, he kneaded my ass as he kissed me. His finger looped in the crotch of my fancy Bordelle panties and yanked them. I pulled one leg out, and he draped it over his hip, opening me to him. He taunted my nipple through my dress, drawing his thumbnail against it before putting his whole hand over my breast.
I undid his pants and released him. He put one hand on my chest, leaning into me, and he used the other to guide himself in me, which he did with a hard, fast thrust.
Eyelids half-mast with pleasure, he thrust again, even harder. I squeaked when his dick hit the end of me. He put my other leg over his hip so I was wrapped around him. He leveraged me against the wall with his body, a fulcrum where we were joined, the base of all that held us together.
I put my hands on his face, and he took them off, holding them down.
“You ready, goddess?”
“Take me.”
He grunted as he pushed hard, getting so deep it hurt. Without a moment’s hesitation, he pounded me again, forcing me against the wall as if he wanted to punch through it. Again and again he took me, hard and fast, pushing into a tingling warmth, forcing pleasure to current through me, the base of his cock slamming my clit over and over.
“Look at me,” he demanded in a husky voice. I did, though my hair was falling into my eyes. My breath was timed to his thrusts. “You talk to me, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” I could barely understand myself.
“Never shut me out.”
“Never. Oh, God. Jonathan. My king.”
“Don’t come, Monica.” He slowed down, angling himself differently so I felt him inside me, deep, hard, deliberate. “Don’t let your emotions get the best of you. Talk. To. Me.” He thrust with every word, sending me into a place where verbalization was nearly impossible.
“Yes.”
“What do you want to say?” he asked.
“Let me come?”
“No. What else?” He slammed into me and ground against me, pushing all the way in, his face by mine, his scent of leather and earth and clean laundry overtaking me. “Why did you shut me out?”
“I’m scared. You scare me.”
He cupped my cheek. “Why?”
The room wasn’t well lit, but I saw the green in his eyes where the lights from the parking lot cut through the window blinds. “You can hurt me, Jonathan. You can do damage.”
He stroked my bottom lip with his thumb. “Your honesty is beautiful.” He pulled out and pushed into me again, jamming himself against my wide-open sex.
“Again, please,” I begged.
He thrust into me again. And again, until I thought I’d explode from the crotch out in a spray of screams. My breath got raspy and hard, my chest hurt with the effort to move air through my body when I wanted to stop breathing completely. He put his hand over my mouth and took me fast and hard. I came, crying out into his palm. He put his chest to mine, his cheek against my face, and with a long groan, he filled me, jerking and rocking. I felt his warm breath on my neck, his hand sliding down my sweat-coated face, whispering my name. We leaned against each other for a minute, breathing together, until he kissed my cheek.
“You’re staying with me tonight, at least,” he said softly.
“Why?”
He kissed my mouth again and said, “Your house and your car need to be swept for cameras. I can’t let you go back there until it’s clean.”
“What if whoever put that there was really after you? How do you know your house isn’t full of cameras?”
“It’s getting checked right now.”
We kissed as he pulled out of me. He let my legs down. I was still short of breath, still sensitive between my thighs. My lips hurt where his late-day scruff had rubbed me, and my spine ached from being pushed into a brick wall. As usual, I felt as if I’d been beaten near death with a fuckstick.
Jonathan kneeled before me and helped me get my lacy underpants back on, kissing a trail up my leg. When he’d straightened my dress, he kissed me.
“We have to talk,” I said.
“About Jessica. What did she say?”
“About that, and—”
There was a loud knock on the door. The handle jiggled. “Monica,” Rhee called, “you in there?”
“Yes.”
“Bernie’s here.” Bernie was the guy who played after me.
“Out in a second.”
I hoisted my bag. Jonathan ran his fingers through his hair and took it from me. We got outside into the crisp, autumn night. The valet went for Jonathan’s car. Mine was parked on the street. He walked me to it, our fingers linked. “People are waiting at your house to sweep it for cameras and mikes.”
“This is so weird.”
He held my chin when we stopped by my car. “It’s probably nothing. We need to go there so you can let them in.” He put his arms around my waist. “You, darling, will gather clothes and things. Then I shall bring you back to my bed, and I will have you again. And maybe again.”
“We have to have an unpleasant conversation.”
“Do you believe I’m not spying on you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you fuck someone else?”
“God, no!”
“Are you leaving me because I interrupted your work?”
“No.”
“Are you leaving me at all?”
“No, Jonathan, really—”
“Then I fail to see the urgency. Let’s take care of business and let unpleasantness take care of itself.”