Текст книги "Breathe"

Автор книги: C. D. Reiss

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 4 страниц)

nine.

MONICA

If you’re told you’re fantastic enough times, you start to believe it. And it was becoming a problem. I was at a plateau. I’d found where I belonged and was getting recognition from people with the power to make my dreams happen. It was their job to make sure I was happy and satisfied so that I’d continue working.

Unfortunately, they were businesspeople. They weren’t artists or fans. They didn’t know shit.

I could sing like the sound of a car screeching on asphalt, and it didn’t matter to them as long as I made money. “Sell it, don’t smell it” was the rule on the western end of Wilshire. And because I’d been traveling around with Jonathan, no one criticized me. My artist friends were back in LA, and I was too busy to just sit around making work with them. No one told me where I could be better. It was ass kissing time all the time.

Truth be told, I was really happy coasting. But the thing about coasting is that at some point, the energy goes out of the work, and I would have to push or grind to a halt.

“Should I wait?” Lil called back to me as she pulled me up to Mrs. Yuan’s warehouse in Boyle Heights.

“Yeah. I’ll be a second.”

She put the car in park right in the red zone and opened the back door for me.

“You probably don’t even have to turn the car off.”

I could have sent her up for the music. I could have stayed home even, and sent her while I worked on the national anthem in the privacy of my home studio. But I went myself for reasons I couldn’t even tell myself. I wanted to touch where the pain of the day before had been.

Yep. Pain. On the elevator, I admitted to myself that I’d been hurt, and I’d been hurt because I surrounded myself with businesspeople who didn’t know how to be critical. I hadn’t sat in a studio with a producer and had my ass beaten in two months. I’d gotten soft, and I bruised easily.

The door to the big white room with the black grand piano was open. I walked in, my shoes echoing. No one was there, but my stupid sheet music was on the piano.

Behind the door Mrs. Yuan had walked out of, I heard the snipsnap of an Asian language.

And on the lid over the keys was the black box.

I put the music back and opened the box.

A tuning fork isn’t an expensive item, but it was nestled inside velvet as if it were a jewel. I tapped the worn ridge of the piano and listened to the hum of A four forty.

Singing the note wasn’t something I decided consciously; it was something I did out of compulsion. I had to mimic it. Had to try it again. I couldn’t just let the vibrations hover in the air without matching them.

I put the bar to my ear and sang it low at first, listening for the wave oscillations I could pick out with stunning accuracy on the viola.

I heard nothing.

I tapped the fork again and committed to doing this stupid, pointless thing. I wasn’t trying to prove I could, or that I wasn’t as bad as she thought. I wasn’t trying to get it right even. I was trying to hear what she heard.

I sang louder. Maybe that was the issue. Maybe I just needed to sing louder to hear it.

Could have been I was screaming, or singing loud enough for Disney Hall. When the inner door snapped open, my sudden silence fell like an anvil over the room.

Mrs. Yuan stood in the doorway in a pale blue wrap. The chopsticks in her hair had little fans on them, and her mouth was a straight red slash. “Why do you come in here to torture my ears?”

She strode into the room, making the seven steps in the time it took me to put the tuning fork back in the box. I snapped it closed when she held out her hand.

“You got worse. I didn’t think it was possible. What did you do to your throat?”

Jonathan’s dick had been down it, but I didn’t say that. “Sorry.”

She took the box. I grabbed my sheet music and walked out. I noticed the molding on the door was red on the white wall, which didn’t matter one bit. Just a simple observation I hadn’t made last time. Why hadn’t I noticed?

Because the last time I walked out, I’d been looking at the floor. This time, I was looking up, and by the time my hand touched the doorknob, I knew why.

I turned before opening the door. She was halfway back to the white inner door.

“Wait,” I said brazenly.

She didn’t have to wait, of course, and if she didn’t respect me at all, she wouldn’t have.

But she did. She stopped and turned to me.

“I dreamed my whole life of singing Dodger Stadium,” I said. “I grew up in Echo Park, and I could hear everything. Sometimes I dreamed I’d be a seventh inning act, God Bless America and all, and sometimes it was a whole concert, when I was feeling really ambitious. But this? I heard someone sing the national anthem eighty days a year, and they were always bad. Always. Even when they were good, between the sound system and the octave changes, the national anthem always sounds bad in a stadium. It’s a capella, and it’s like I’m naked. Everything’s against the performer. And I can’t bear the thought of not being the best. Which is why I had such a hard time yesterday.”

She folded her hands in front of her, still holding the black box, tilted her head, and said nothing for too long. “Everyone is bad, then?”

“Whitney Houston,” I said. “She was great. But she used weird phrasing.”

“You are not Whitney Houston.”

“No, I’m not.”

More silence. It hung at the perfect key for a new start.

“Can I come back?” I said. “I have two weeks. It’s not enough time to find perfection, but maybe I can get closer?”

She stepped forward. “You have nothing to do for two weeks but tone your voice. Nothing. You will think in scales. You will be silent unless you are singing. You will repeat repeat repeat. At home and with me to the point where your voice is tired, but not over that line.”

“Yes.”

“For two weeks, I own you. Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

“Now.” She straightened herself when I thought she couldn’t get any straighter. “I have twenty-one minutes to spare. Would you like to start?”

In my gratitude and relief, I had no other answer but, “Yes.”

ten.

MONICA

I bounced into the house. Jonathan was in his running gear, finishing up a puke-colored protein shake. I kissed his cheek and rinsed out the blender pitcher.

“What took you so long?” he asked.

“She gave me homework, and we set up a schedule for the week.”

“So there’s hope for you?”

“Apparently not, but she’s martyring herself for my sake.”

He pressed himself to me, pinning my hands behind me. “I’ll make you sing.”

“We need to talk about this for a minute.”

He let me go, and I turned to him. He pressed himself against me.

“Okay,” he said, picking up my shirt. Jesus, he had such a one-track mind. I tried to pull it down, but he shooed my hands away and yanked my bra up over my breasts. “Talk.”

“I have to protect my throat for the next two weeks.”

“Wear a scarf.”

He bent down and kissed my breasts, licking the nipples until they were hard. I dug my fingers in his hair. God, he knew how to use his mouth.

“The inside,” I said. “Warm tea with honey. Soothing food.” He took a good, hard suck, and my back arched toward him. “Not dick.” I groaned it, because I wanted the dick. I wanted it a lot.

He knelt in front of me and unbuttoned my pants. “Two weeks, no oral. You’ll make it up to me.”

“I can’t scream either.”

“Happy to gag you if you want.” He wiggled down my pants.

“And crying. I can’t have too much gunk in my throat.”

He stopped trying to wedge me out of my clothes and looked up at me. “Anything else?”

“I see her when she has time. She owns me, she said.”

“She what?”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

He stood, putting his finger in my face as if about to make a point. Stopped. Raised it again. Pressed his lips into a line. Looked away.

“You’re not threatened by a voice coach, are you?”

That did it. Whatever indecision had been interrupting the flow of his thoughts was driven away by my pure snottiness.

“Bend over the sink. I’ll show you who owns what around here.”

eleven.

JONATHAN

I didn’t know if she said someone else owned her to annoy me or to prepare me for the coming weeks, because once I’d had her over the counter, she kissed me, cleaned herself off, and started.

Scales.

All fucking day and night.

Monica’s voice went straight from her throat to my higher self. Its vibrations were coded to the wavelengths of my heart.

But scales? All the fucking time? No words. No melody. Just up up up up and down down down down. Do re mi fa so la ti do without the cheerful little animals and sunshine. Or, more specifically, without a point.

“Monica?” I said, peeking into her studio.

She finished the scale. “Yeah.”

“I’m going to lunch with Eddie.”

“Okay.”

She didn’t just say okay though. She ran though half a scale to do two syllables.

I loved her. I’d give my life for her. And she looked like a queen just standing in the middle of the room with her mouth open and her hand clutching that stupid fucking fork. But, man, I would have preferred a smart-ass answer to the boring earnestness of those notes.

“There’s a thing in March,” I said. “In New York. It’s a contest for money for the Arts Foundation. It’s more for the prestige than anything. All the guys are going.”

She tapped her fork and put the handle to her ear, keying, then answered. “When is it in March?”

I gritted my teeth, because she didn’t ask the question. She sang “When” to do, “is” to ray, “it” to mi, “in” to fa, “Ma” to so, she took a second “Ma,” and added “rch” to la. It wasn’t lost on me that she would have normally asked “When in March?” but needed the extra syllables for the full scale.

“First weekend,” I replied, and she tapped the fork. It vibrated. She opened her mouth to answer, but I couldn’t bear it. “If you answer me in scales, I’m putting a collar on that pretty little throat.”

She stood there, straight as an arrow, fork at her chest as if in prayer. I felt half an ounce of regret and a gallon or more of desire. The throat. I hadn’t had my dick down it in too long. It had become a prized piece of real estate, and I was losing a bidding war.

Then, like a child testing her limits, she tapped the fork.

I thought I made it to her in two steps. I didn’t know what I was thinking, but I put my hand under her chin and pressed myself against her.

“You’re pushing me.” I was gentle on her neck, but she couldn’t move.

“I have something the first few days in March,” she said.

Those were her words. And though she was telling me all kinds of truths, the words were a lie because she wasn’t talking about her schedule. What she was actually saying was I’m not scared of you.

Which was fine. I didn’t want her to be scared. I just wanted her to stop answering in vocal exercises. I wanted her to submit. Abdicate. All of it. To me. And she hadn’t in a week. I’d topped her, but it hadn’t been that. She was a china doll.

I wanted to own her again, but since she started with this teacher, she’d been distracted. Yes, I respected her talent. She needed her career and her work to thrive as a human. But I was getting frustrated, and it came out when I spoke into her cheek in the low register of a command.

“You have plenty in March. You’ll be so sore you won’t be able to walk. But that first weekend, you show where I tell you to show, or I take you on a leash.”

Her jaw set against my fingertips, but her eyelids fell a fraction of an inch. I got my free hand under her skirt. She had garters on, and stockings that stopped an inch below her beautiful cunt. I short work of getting around her lace panties.

“You’re wet. Again.” I drew my fingers along the length of her wetness and back. “Was it the leash? The collar? Or knowing how I can hurt you?”

“You can hurt me after opening day.” A smirk played on the edges of her lips, then she gasped when I put my fingers inside her. “Save it up,” she groaned.

“I’m going to destroy you.”

Two strokes, and she clenched and came, toes curling so hard her shoe fell off. But she didn’t scream. She didn’t say a word. I put my fingers in her cunt and felt it tighten and release, then tighten again as I rubbed her clit with the heel of my hand. She threw her head back, exposing her bare neck.

That throat. The length of it. The curves and rises no less than a topography of possession.

I let her go.

She straightened her skirt, looked at me, and tapped her fork. “Do do do. Do do re. Do do mi—”

“What’s that?” I asked, grinding my teeth at this new pattern of offense.

“Intervals. You like?” She raised an eyebrow.

I was going to respect her talent and her music. I was going to give her space. I was going to be a supportive and good partner no matter what. Another six days. But she wouldn’t be finished with the word brave before I bent and broke her.

twelve.

MONICA

Mrs. Yuan hadn’t come to the club. I felt both good and bad about that. Sherri was there with a little klatch of Asian girls, but she didn’t look at me. I could only assume she was there to report back.

From the stage, I saw Jonathan sitting to the side with Leanne, who was talking on her cell phone while picking at her shoe, and Maura, my new agent. Eddie was there. Darren’s buddies were with his husband, Adam. Mostly though, the Thelonius Room was packed with strangers. Not fifty-five thousand of them, but scale wasn’t the issue. Singing this bitch of a song in front of anyone was the issue.

Jonathan had threatened to collar me five days before. We’d always been at war over the concept, and as I learned more about it, my opinion hadn’t changed. He owned me. He didn’t need me to walk around in a collar to prove it. And I didn’t need to feel owned in that way. A little humiliation was fine and part of the game, but a collar?

No.

Just no.

I wasn’t a dog, and though I was completely submissive, I wasn’t a slave.

End of.

Except….

Except when I let myself think of him pulling on it, or imagined how it would feel during the day, how it would remind me of him, or how it would feel to kneel before him and look up enough so he could see the symbol of my tender obedience.

I breathed into the bottom of my lungs, filling the widest part first, to the top, then exhaled slowly.

Darren whipped a quick beat on his drum. To my right, Harry, the bassist from Spoken Not Stirred, and Steve, the guitarist, was to my left. Evanie sat to the side, always an excellent sport when Monica Faulkner showed up to sing. It was because of Evanie that they’d gotten a deal and a little tour that would take them to Nashville right after they finished Thelonius.

They played a few notes, and the crowd quieted. I smiled. I loved that moment of expectation, anticipation. The vacuum I was meant to fill.

“You all know Monica Faulkner,” Harry said, putting his hand out to me. Applause. Whistles. “She’s gonna open with a classic.”

“Thank you, guys,” I said, looking at each of them. Darren had offered me this opportunity to work out my nervous kinks, and it had seemed like a fun idea at the time.

Still thinking this would be a fun tryout, I sang the first few words.

Oh, say can you see….

Harry popped the bass a little, but I was otherwise a capella. Then something I didn’t expect happened. Everyone stood and put their hands on their hearts.

You were supposed to stand. It was a rule. But the scraping of chairs and the good-humored salutes distracted me, because in the first second, I thought they were getting up and leaving. They were a bunch of freaking hipsters after all, not the most reverent type. So I faltered. They were leaving because I’d insulted their sense of irony.

But I was wrong. They were staying.

I adjusted to that, but in doing so, I diverted precious mental bandwidth.

And my voice went off the fucking rails. A key is a bookmark. If you know where you are, you can travel up and down the scales accurately.

But I lost my place. I kept to the beat and knew the words, but the key was all screwed up. Before I even got to ramparts, I was fighting tears, and that was the hardest line. It led into gallantly streaming, which was flat as fuck, and led into rocket’s red glare, which felt superhumanly sharp and high, and I had no way of getting there.

I got to the home of the brave and smiled, but I wanted to die. Oh sure, they clapped, because it was fun and unexpected and even ironic. But they didn’t get what a complete fuckup that had been, and I’d almost done it in DodgerStadium.

I’d almost sounded like that in front of 55,695 people.

There were lists on YouTube of the worst game-time renditions of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” and I was about to be one of them.

I had to get out of this.

I shook hands and smiled and did all the things on my way to the back room. My stuff wasn’t in that room though, since I wasn’t a real act. My bag was next to my husband, and I was supposed to sit by him and have a drink and plan little adjustments to my song. But there were no little adjustments. There was my quitting and staying home with a beer and a flat screen on opening night, or there was a complete overhaul I didn’t have time for.

So I went into the back room where Darren had his shit, and I closed the door behind me. My hands were shaking as hard as my knees. I leaned against the makeup counter. The linoleum edge was chipped down to the wood. It looked like Mrs. Yuan’s piano where she habitually hit the fork. I pressed my thumb against the ridge.

What was she going to say? She’d seemed pleased with my progress, and now what would Sherri go back and report?

I wanted to throw up.

There was a knock on the door. I knew who it was.

“Jonathan, just leave me be.”

He came in carrying my bag. “You want to go out the back?”

“I want to die.”

“I didn’t give you permission to die.” He dropped the bag on the counter.

“How bad was it?”

He shrugged. “You’ve sounded better. But you psyched yourself out.”

“I should back out, right? Claim a sore throat?”

“No. Quitting’s not your style.”

Outside, Darren’s band started playing loud and fast.

I stood and grabbed Jonathan’s belt. “How about this?” I tapped my throat. “You fuck my face so hard I can’t even speak. Really get it in there. Down the throat all the way. You’ll get your dick sucked, and I’ll get out of opening day.”

He started laughing before I was even done. Fucker.

“I can’t, Jonathan. I can’t do Dodger Stadium.” I pulled out his belt. “But this? Your dick? That I can do. I should have just stuck to that in the first place.”

He slipped his hands over mine and pulled them off his pants. “I’ve been annoyed with the whole thing, I admit. But I want you to see it through. I can take being a little annoyed. I’m a big boy.”

I crossed my arms and leaned my butt on the counter. I felt petulant and immature. I wanted to kick dirt and stick out my tongue.

“You can do this,” he said.

“Fuck you.” I pouted right through the cuss.

“Maybe you need to use the fork before you start next time.”

“I hate that thing.”

“Me too. Where is it?”

I pointed my chin at my bag. “Right in there. Coulda used it, but noooo… Miss Egopants didn’t need it.”

He plucked the box out of my purse. When I’d committed to the process, I’d gotten a little black bracelet box out of a drawer for my fork, just like Mrs. Yuan’s. I wanted to be as reverent as she was. Jonathan removed the fork and tapped it.

The tines hummed.

“It’s too late,” I said. If he made me sing, I would seriously turn into a brat the likes of which…

He put the fork to my lower lip.

“It tickles.” I slapped it away.

He put his hand on my throat and held me still, tapping the fork again. “Hush now.”

His voice left no room for argument. It was a fact. I was hushing. I was submitting. I was letting him do whatever he wanted, because he was my king, and his voice let me know a king was precisely what I needed.

He put the fork to my lower lip. It tickled like mad, and I fought to stay still.

“How long is Darren’s band going to play?”

“Half an hour, forty minutes.”

“Lean back.” He locked the door.

“You know why I failed tonight?” I said.

“Why?” He put the tuning fork in his pocket and pulled up my shirt.

“I got cocky. I practiced just enough to think I had it but not enough to get it right.”

“You’re really hard on yourself. I didn’t know that about you.” He put his hands up my skirt, simultaneously exposing me and drifting over my inner thighs. “You’re either a talentless hack because you have to work on your craft, or you’re a lazy ass because you don’t work hard enough.”

“Maybe I’m both.”

He slid off my underwear. “Sure. You’re a master con artist. Everyone’s fooled. Why aren’t your legs spread? Come on. Let’s work on this position. I have something to propose.”

He picked up my knees and placed my heels on the edge of the counter, then he pulled them apart until I was completely exposed to him. God, his eyes on me made the air between us into a solid mass I could rub up against.

“Shoulder blades together. Good.” Gently, he put his hand under my upper back and pulled it up until my lower back was straight and my tits stuck out. “Put your head back. I want to see that throat. I want to see where the music comes from.”

The top of my head brushed against the mirror. I felt thrust forward. Exposed. Vulnerable. As if I was attacking with my soft underbelly. Only trust made this possible.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Fine, sir.”

“I want you to keep your mind between us. What note is this?”

“A.”

He tapped the fork. It hummed to A, and I fought the urge to join it to see if I could match it with my legs spread. But all I was angled to see was the cracked ceiling.

The fork touched my lower lip again before he drew it down to my throat, ever so lightly, so the vibrations wouldn’t stop.

“Don’t answer,” he said. “Let me talk.”

He tapped again and put one of the tines to my nipple, and I stiffened. The sensation was so intense. He shushed me, got me back to center, and put the vibrating fork to my other nipple. The pleasure went right between my legs.

“You trust me,” he said. “And I trust you. What we do, it’s no one’s business. But I think you lose me when you’re running around chasing perfection. I think your mind wanders, and I want to bring you back to me—to us—when you need it.”

Tap.

And the little tingling vibration inside my right knee and coursed upward. The flinching tension of my cunt as he got closer, a recoil couched in desire. He got six inches and tapped again. God, it tickled and sent me wild. I wanted it, and I didn’t. He tapped again. Left side. Wince. Want. Gasp as he got close.

Tap. Circling the tingling vibrations along the outermost part of my lips. I squeaked.

He put his other hand on my throat, covering it. “Let me hear you.”

He tapped the fork, and I hummed in A, my vocal cords safe against his hand as he touched my clit with the fork. I bucked like an animal, and he held me with the safety of his hand.

“I want to feel the note.”

I stayed on A, or as close as anyone could manage with the tines of a tuning fork vibrating against her clit. He worked lightly, or the vibrations would stop, putting it lengthways against me, just enough to get me so close. So close. He tapped again when it stopped and put it against me so lightly it drove me wild.

“Don’t stop,” he said, tapping again. “And don’t come.”

“I can’t I can’t—”

“You can.”

Again with that vibrating piece of metal on me. I was so wet that he only touched the juices flowing from me. The liquid quivered, and my humming broke into a hitch.

He tapped again.

“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t not come.”

“Keep humming. You look stunning. You sound perfect. You’re going to come until you can’t breathe, but not until I say.”

He put it on me again. I was on fire. I existed between my legs and below my chin. If I stopped humming, I’d come, and if I came, I’d stop humming. That note, which was probably off by a lot, was the only thing keeping me from exploding.

The vibration in the fork tapered to nothing, and I prayed he wouldn’t tap it again.

“Close your eyes,” he said, putting the fork down. “No shouting. We don’t want to strain that voice.”

I did, thankful for the relief to my aching clit. He was going to let me come, he had to. I was throbbing to the breaking point.

“I only expect you to wear this in our personal space,” he continued. “And I should discuss it with you, but I want you to feel it, not react to the sight of it. Do you trust me?”

I swallowed. Did I? “Yes.”

I dropped the sir because he needed to know I wasn’t saying it in a scene. I trusted him in all things.

He put his hand on my throat again, then behind me. I felt a tightening then a click.

“Hey.” I stiffened.

He pushed me back down, putting his beautiful face close to mine, a groan escaping his lips. “This”—he ran his thumb along the edge of the collar—“is magnificent.”

“Jonathan.” I wanted to explain why I hated it, but I didn’t have a real explanation.

He stepped back, pulled me off the counter, and turned me, putting my back to his chest.

“Look at it,” he whispered in my ear.

I did as he asked. It was silver chain mail, an inch and a half wide, with a tiny lock in the front. He pushed my hair out of the way and ran his fingers over it, tugging on a ring at the back of my neck. Standing with my clothes askew and my pussy still on fire, I felt like a possession. His possession.

“I don’t know.”

With a slight push to my shoulders, he said, “Put your hands on the counter. I’m going to fuck you until you know.”

I leaned down, and he yanked my head back by the hair.

“Look at it. Do you know what that does to me? I’m so fucking turned on right now, I’m blind. I own you. I can see how I own you. You’re wearing my collar. Fuck.”

He picked up my skirt. I groaned when he put his hand on my ass then slapped it hard. The pain, the arousal, and the sight of the collar put me in a place of acceptance that was lower than low and higher than high.

He undid his pants, removing that spectacular, powerful cock. I put my ass up, and he slapped it again.

“Thank you,” I gasped.

He got a finger around the ring and pulled with just enough pressure to make me feel him. I must have stiffened.

“After opening day, I won’t be so gentle with the ring. Now, open up for me.”

He spanked me again, letting the ring go. I grabbed my ass cheeks and pulled them apart. He guided himself into my soaked pussy then slammed forward. I grunted.

“Hush,” he said. “Not a sound out of you. Just take it like a good girl.”

He got the rest of the way in, and my mouth opened, but nothing came out. I became nothing but a vessel for his pleasure. He moved me where he wanted me, pounding me, and I was slick and receptive.

“Look, Monica.” He pulled my hair and jerked me to nearly standing. “Look at yourself.” His hand went around my hips, and he wedged his fingers between my legs. “I put that collar on you. You’re my property.”

As he uttered it, I lost myself. Keeping my eyes open became difficult. His cock battered me, his eyes soothed me, and his collar debased me into a space so submissive, I couldn’t remember my name.

“You ready to come, Monica?” he growled.

I made a little noise. My mouth was open. My eyes half closed.

“Fuck. You are so hot. Come with me. Give it to me.” He slammed me. “Give me everything.”

With his permission, I exploded into a soundless howl. Thighs tightening, fingers curling. He gripped my ass so tight it hurt, prolonging the orgasm with the pain, intensifying it. He thrust into me so hard I thought I’d break and all my pleasure would spill out.

He growled as if he were trying to wedge his whole body into mine. He was coming, and hard. A sound came from me as if pushed out, because I was flooded with a new warmth, a second-tier climax that burst from the inside. Soul to skin and back again.

“Oh, God,” I whispered, because it wasn’t stopping. “Oh god, oh god, oh god. I’m still… I’m still…”

And tears, and blackness, and the places where I was sore. After three thrusts that jerked upward as if he was making a point, he stopped. In the mirror, I saw him panting, my collar, my submission leaking away, and regular life coming back to replace it.

Jonathan ran his hands down my back then back up, gently turning me to face him. He looked barely conscious himself.

“Thank you,” he said. “You’re a goddess.”

He said it without irony or condescension. As if he was stating a fact.

“The collar,” I said.

“Yes?”

“Bedroom only?”

“To start.”

Outside, the band stopped.

We reacted immediately. He got his dick in his pants, and I dropped my skirt and got my shirt arranged. He gathered the fork, the bag, whatever. Against the clatter of a pre-encore band coming down the hall, Jonathan unlocked the door. I thought nothing of it, because it should be unlocked before they got their hands on the knob.

But when it opened and the guys were right there, I realized why Darren raised his eyebrow before he said hello.

I still had the collar on.