Coda (Songs of Submission #9) (13 page)

“Is this Dean telling you everything, or do you have a tracking device on me?”

“Yes to both. How are you?”

“Do you know the Rolls doesn’t even obey the law of inertia? Like when Dean stops at the light, my body doesn’t go forward a little. and when he starts again, I can feel it moving, but it’s not like I feel my back against the seat. Did you know that?”

“I never noticed.”

We went through a busy part of town, and I curled into the seat, watching the Saturday night crowds walk the streets. People crossing stared at the car, big packs and smaller groups, dressed for big things and made up for the lights and sounds, a single wave in an ocean of revelry.

“Did you get my present?” he said.

“Yes. I love it. How did you know I needed to write my name on all my tags?”

“Are you all right?”

“What time is it there?” I asked.

“Sun’s just thinking about setting.”

“Is it hot? Is it gloomy? Tell me things.”

“It’s nice. It’s mid-June. Same as always. The marine layer burned off, and I can see… let me look… one two three four five clouds out the kitchen window. One is shaped like a rabbit. One is shaped like a guitar. It makes me think of you.”

“What about the other three? What are they shaped like?”

“Big white turds.”

I laughed. “Did you take your medicine?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“And drink your shit shake?”

“Yes.”

“And did you go for a run?”

“Yes. You never answered my question. Are you all right?”

I sighed. I knew he could hear it. I wanted him to. “I feel, I guess, not lonely. Not alone. Just separate. Separate from you, and separate from everyone here. It’s… I can’t pin it down. I guess it’s not a bad feeling as much as it’s a weird, disconnected feeling. Uncomfortable. I don’t know.”

I could hear him breathing, and the lawn mower outside our house, and the birds in Los Angeles.

“Would you believe me if I said I know how you feel?”

“Yeah.”

Dean pulled up to the hotel. A doorman in a snazzy uniform was ready to open the door before the car stopped without a jolt. The inside of the hotel looked gilded and soft through the glass windows, as if the lights were colored gold.

“Do you have your marker?” Jonathan asked.

“Of course. I’ll treasure it always.”

“Hang up with me then and call back on the tablet. I want to see you.”

Dean opened the door for me, and I hung up.

MONICA

I
’d kicked my shoes off and dropped my bag before calling Jonathan from the iPad. He picked up on the first ring.

“How is the hotel?” he asked.

“It’s a parody of itself.” In the screen of the tablet, I saw he’d moved out to the side patio that overlooked the twinkling grid of the city. “Or a farce. I can’t decide which.” I pouted at him from the edge of the bed.

“I’ll tell Sam you said so.”

“I wanted to stay in D.” I snapped the drapes open. Manhattan was dark and vibrant and closed tight in a granite-and-clay-brick embrace.

“It’s in Alphabet City. There’s piss in the doorways from the seventies. I already don’t like you spending days in a studio in Chinatown.”

“A little grit’s kind of nice.”

“Nice?” He leaned forward in his seat.

“Yeah, nice.” I opened the patio door, holding my tablet out so he could see me.

“Turn the camera around,” he said. “Show me the view.”

I did, then I showed him the street below and the building across Lexington. “Not much to speak of,” I said. “Except, yeah, New York’s kind of fabulous.”

“Go back inside.”

I turned the tablet and looked at him in his dying-daylight rectangle. He was looking directly into the lens, which was right above the screen, and though the mic was tiny and tinny, I knew I was hearing his dominant voice.

“Put the tablet on the desk so I can see you.”

I leaned it against the lamp. Seeing him inside that rectangle with our backyard behind him was somehow ridiculous. In the top right corner of the screen, a small box showed what he saw as I stood there. My face was off screen. I was only visible from neck to knees.

“Take your clothes off,” he said casually yet firmly, as if asking me to pass the salt. As if it was no more than a courtesy to ask for what should be available to him without question.

I pulled my T-shirt over my head and watched myself take off my bra. My breasts bounced out, and I saw my hard nipples in the screen. Jonathan was impassive, tapping his thumbs together as if keeping a rhythm. I peeled off my pants, down to the lace thong I wore for him in his absence. I let him see it for a second, but he twisted his hand at the wrist in a “get on with it” motion. I got my thong off and stood before the tablet, naked neck to knees.

“Are you wet?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Check for me.”

I put my hand between my legs. I saw it slipping down my belly in the screen, saw the way my knees bent a little when I spread my legs to accept my fingers.

“I’m wet,” I said.

“Put your fingers in your mouth. And let me see.”

I bent to look at him, lips puckered around my fingers, tongue curled around them. The pungent, sordid, sexy taste of my cunt filled my mouth. His eyes warmed with arousal.

“Go get the pen,” he said.

I plucked it off the desk and showed him.

“Put the pen in your mouth. Get the desk chair. Sit in it, and put your feet on the desk. I want to see your beautiful cunt.”

I wheeled the chair over, placing it in front of the desk. He waited, fingers laced together on the iPad screen. He was casual and intense at the same time, as if he didn’t have to worry about me doing what he asked. He was just going to wait.

I put my feet up on the desk, exposing myself to him. I could see myself on the little corner of the screen, the soft part of me, the place where I was split in two, the fold of sensation between the smooth mass of skin, and I was shocked by the sight of it.

“That’s mine,” he said. “You understand, my wife, that everything I see there is mine?”

“Yes.”

“You’re wet, and that’s mine too. No matter where you are, I own your cunt.”

“It’s yours. It’s only for you. It’s so wet for you.”

“Mark it,” he said.

It took me a second to understand, even with the Sharpie in my teeth. Then, seeing my thighs against the wet flesh between them, I knew what he meant. I popped the base free of the cap and leaned over, pressing the pen tip to my left inner thigh. I glanced up at him.

He gave a slight shake of his head. “You start on your right, at the knee.”

I switched and pulled the skin to make it taut for the marker. Like his fingers, the Sharpie was firm and purposeful; like his tongue, it was damp and warm.

“Wherever you are,” he said low and steady as I wrote his name, knee to crotch, “I own you. I own your filthy mouth. I own your dirty mind. When you get wet thinking about fucking, it’s mine. Every drop from you. I own your every thought. You are my property.”

I looked back at him. My breath was short. When I saw myself, the flesh between my legs was now exposed, wet, and swollen. “Jonathan’s” marked my inner thigh, and a bolt of pleasure ran through me.

“This is crazy,” I gasped. “I’m going to come.”

“Not until you finish the other side.”

“Okay.” I didn’t know if I would make it.

“No touching.”

What was I supposed to put on the other side? I couldn’t think. I glanced at him. A shadow of a smirk crossed his lips.

I started with the letter “P” a few inches from my center, the pen tip becoming him, his body, his intention, his attention. The tingling was a wall of sensation as I spelled “Property” down my leg. As I put the leg on the Y, the pressure had built up so much, I knew I didn’t have long.

“Look at yourself,” he said.

“I’ll come if I do.”

“No, you won’t. Not until I say.”

But I didn’t. I just looked at the marks between my legs. I was owned. Property. Without desire or ambition, a slave without responsibility or longing. Free.

“Look, Monica,” he said sternly, and I looked.

Jonathan’s Property
.

“Yes,” I said, flooded with a tsunami of an orgasm that pushed at the walls of my control. “You own me. I am your subject.” I could barely speak through the throb. “You are my master.”

“I’m going to put my cock inside you, everywhere, and I’m not going to ask first. You’re going to spread your legs and submit yourself. Your mouth. Your cunt. Your tight little ass. I’m going to hurt you. I’m going to crack you open and suck you dry.”

“Oh, god, when you talk like that.” Every word rushed me to orgasm, but like the door at the end of the hall in a movie, it got closer and farther at the same time. Juice dripped over my ass. How long would he do this? “I am yours,” I said, because I wanted to say, “Let me come.”

“Put your fingers inside yourself.”

I slid two fingers in me and groaned.

“Shh. Over your clit. But don’t come yet.”

I didn’t know how it would be possible. My clit was swollen and soaked. I touched it gently.

“Would you like to come?” he asked.

“Yes, please.”

“Move your fingers very slowly, and don’t make a sound. I want to see how your body moves.”

I moved my finger in circles.

“Slower, not enough to come. Not yet.”

But it didn’t matter. I was on the edge. The dam burst, and I came, first bending over, mouth open, face rigid, then arching my back until I was leveraged on the edge of the desk and thrusting my pussy at the camera. When I came down, looking at him with my hair disheveled and my hand cupping the throbbing mass between my legs, I smiled.

He shook his head. “You are in so much trouble.”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t—”

“No talking. When I see you, be ready for the spanking of your young life.”

He winked and cut the call. I was left staring at a dead iPad.

I wanted to go home. I wanted his arms around me, his sharp scent, his cruel hands, and his unforgiving mouth. I held my phone as if I was testing its weight. I could book a flight right now and show up naked on our doorstep.

But what if the tightness in my stomach was the flu? Everyone was getting it. But it didn’t feel like any flu I’d ever had, because it was just tight. No more, no less. Like a butterfly’s torn ligament. But if I had it, I couldn’t go home.

Between my legs, the words
Jonathan’s Property
was scrawled in Sharpie. I was his, and I wanted to go home to him. Could I go home the day after tomorrow for a weekend? And if so, should I? I could have the flu. I could be carrying it. No, I couldn’t go. I couldn’t risk his health, because complications were a cotton candy funnel rolling around the edge of the drum. It looked like nothing, then not too much, then an insane cloud of pink sugar before you even blinked, and we were back to dying at Sequoia.

I couldn’t go home if I was sick.

The phone buzzed in my hand. It was Quentin.

—Omar’s got it. We’re off for a week—

I could go now. Tomorrow.

—Ok got it—

I tapped the phone to my upper lip, looking out over Lexington Avenue. So many people everywhere, in a city that never sleeps.

—Do you have the number for a doctor who keeps late hours?—

—Sure. You all right?—

—I’m fine just want to see if I have this flu thing. I want to go home and can’t be sick. Pls don’t tell Jonathan it’s a surprise—

An address and number came through. I believed I was being diligent about my husband’s health, but I knew that no matter what the doctor said, I was going home. I’d rather talk to Jonathan through a wall than a phone line.

JONATHAN

I
 cut the call because I was frustrated and I couldn’t show it. Watching her come thousands of miles away wasn’t good enough. Her willful obedience drove me to distraction, and her accidental disobedience made my palms sting with the longing for her ass under them. I wanted to mark her with my own hand. Make her come with my body. Fill her with myself, and there I was in my kitchen, with a dick hard enough to crack the granite countertop.

This wasn’t working. A thousand times this wasn’t working.

And why? Because I didn’t want to travel. Because the thought of being too far from Sequoia froze me solid. And a plane? I couldn’t get the image of my heart jumping from my chest out of my mind, and the thought of isolating myself on a plane made that image play and replay until the organ squeaked out a puddle of blood in the leather seat.

But being away from her wasn’t working either. She was getting recognized for her talent, and that meant she was becoming desirable to a certain kind of asshole. She was trustworthy. I didn’t have to assert myself. I didn’t have to lay claim on her. I was an intelligent man with a wife who had laid down her life for him. I knew she’d never betray me. I could feel the fidelity in her heart.

But I did need to assert myself, and the thought of men who wanted to fuck her breathing the same air as her made me boil. I was a child. An unreasonable, hateful brat.

All true. And so what?

I was hungry, and the fridge was empty of anything I wanted. I snapped out my box of pills and the last jar of chimichuri.

If staying close to her and keeping those men off her meant I got on a plane and went where she went and did what she did, then my anxieties about traveling would have to just shut the fuck up. I took a handful of pills and choked them down with warm tap water. Then another, swallowing more frustration than vitamins, more anger than medicine. My body was going to reject this heart just because my mind was rejecting everything I’d held on to for months.

That picture with Omar. If I trusted her, why had it burned me? Why did it feel like a punch in the gut?

Because I’d left her alone. I’d deserted her. She didn’t need a leash. She didn’t need a reminder of her vows or commitments, but I’d assumed she didn’t need or want my presence. I’d accepted that because it was convenient for me. I didn’t have to go anywhere if I made it her fault I wasn’t going. I’d been responsible for that picture and the state of our current discontent.