Текст книги "Breathe"
Автор книги: C. D. Reiss
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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 4 страниц)
thirteen.
JONATHAN
They say men and women don’t communicate about their problems because women just want to feel and men just want to fix.
I’d never given that much thought.
But I wanted to fix Monica’s problem with her voice, and she just wanted to go through the wringer. I was suggesting she submit her problems with her art not necessarily to me, but just in general. Overall. To do the job without worrying about what other people thought about it. She could give up this idea she was a fraud if she blocked out everyone but me, the one person who loved her whether she sang on key or not.
That made perfect sense in my head.
Also, that collar.
It elongated her neck, made her submission into an aesthetic. She became a work of art. My work of art. The sight of it put gravity-strength pressure on my balls, and when I pulled on that ring, I nearly came from seeing it in the mirror.
But when her friends entered the room, she put her hand on her throat as if that would hide it. If they knew we had been fucking, she wouldn’t care. But the submission thing? That bothered her. And being collared in public was always a sticking point.
I wanted to rip the thing off before we left the dressing room, but it had a lock, and ripping something off her in front of everyone would have been quite a spectacle.
“Hi,” she said, hand to throat.
They didn’t even look at her. Darren murmured something. Harry said hello but was focused on getting his bass into the bag. The drummer punched my arm, and the other guy glanced at her and thanked her for opening the set.
The girl singer looked me up and down in the way women sometimes do, but their chatter was about the set, the songs, a patois of terms I didn’t understand but knew had nothing to do with Monica’s neckwear. She turned to me, smiled, and held out her hand.
I snapped up her bag, grabbed her hand, and walked out.
fourteen.
MONICA
I was bone tired. The drive home was gentle and almost meditative. I’d held his hand, feeling the soreness between my legs like a reminder of all the good in my life.
We didn’t talk about my horrid performance. We didn’t talk about the collar. We just sat in peace, and it was perfect.
In front of the bathroom mirror, naked from the waist up, I looked at my collar. It was nice, as collars went. Didn’t look doggish. Didn’t look slavish. It looked like a really nice piece of jewelry with a lock on the front. The ring in the back was a giveaway though. But the chain mail made it conform to my movements and even, dare I think it, made it comfortable.
“Jonathan?” I called. I could hear him puttering around the bedroom.
“Yeah?”
“Where’s the key to this thing?”
“In the box it came in.”
“Which is where?”
I didn’t even finish the sentence before he was in the bathroom, holding out a black jewelry box. I opened it.
My tuning fork was inside. That wasn’t right. I put it on the counter and lifted the velvet panel that the fork rested on. No key hid in the bottom of the box.
“Shit,” I said.
“Where was the tuning fork supposed to go?” he asked.
“A little black box. Okay, they got switched. It’s around. Let me check my bag.”
My phone dinged just as I got there. It was Darren.
–You left a black box with a key in the dressing room. I got it but we’re on the flight to Nashville—
I showed Jonathan the phone. “You put the tuning fork away.”
“No, you put it in the box.”
“And you put the box in your pocket.”
“Thinking it was the box with the key.”
“And I was responsible for the tuning fork. Goddamnit! I’m so stupid,” I said.
“I can have it sawed off your neck.”
“Go to hell, Drazen.”
He put his hands up as if he was dealing with a crazy person. “I’ll have someone fly to Nashville to get the key. I can’t have it here by morning, but I can have it off you before Dodger Stadium.”
“I’m so mad.”
“I know.”
“Just free-floating mad.”
“I don’t want to deflect but—”
“But what?”
“Between your anger, the no-shirt thing, and the collar? You have never looked so fuckable.”
My shoulders drooped, and the rage fell right out of me. I held my arms up, and he wrapped himself around me and just hugged me for all it was worth.
fifteen.
MONICA
Jonathan’s gaze was a continuous companion. He owned me with it. He called his pilot to go to Nashville with his eyes on me. He undressed me slowly by the brightest lamp and made love to me so tenderly it hurt. He touched my neck all the time, drawing his fingers over the bumps in the collar and his thumb over the lock. The next morning, his gaze peeled me open from across the room, and he watched me go out the door as if in a state of utter gratification.
I worried on the way to Mrs. Yuan’s that everyone was looking at me with hunger. I felt undressed.
She had a pink hibiscus in her hair. I’d seen them growing outside, and I resisted the urge to touch it to see if it was real.
“Is that going to constrict you?” was the first thing she asked. Not a surprise.
“I don’t think so.”
She turned to Sherri. “Was she wearing it last night?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well,” she said, turning back to me, “from what I understand, we have nowhere to go but up.”
My face got hot. Sherri wouldn’t look at me even when my eyes burned holes into her.
“It was pretty bad,” I said.
“Good,” she said, surprising me. “I’d hate for you to peak too soon. And it’s out of your system. You survived it. Nothing can hurt you now.”
I felt inexplicably relieved, as if she’d given me some sort of indefinable permission I’d been unable to give myself. Not permission to succeed or fail. Permission to just do the thing without calling it a name.
She removed her fork from the box. “Let’s start with some scales. Then work on our transition to banner.”
I tilted my head right then left, feeling the collar bend with me.
“You will be good,” she said.
I lowered my lids, as if I had to see her through a narrower opening. Had she said something nice? “I’m still not Whitney Houston.”
“No, you are not Whitney Houston. You’ll do it without changing the phrasing.”
She tapped her fork before I could absorb what she’d said, and I hit the note, working back and forth as we’d done for two weeks.
The rehearsal was light and more positive than usual. Mrs. Yuan had more exhortations up her sleeve than I’d given her credit for, and she didn’t look at the collar once more. But she and Sherri were the only ones to see me, and I’d made plans to be in public that afternoon to get my mind off the evening.
Once in the car, I checked my texts.
Yvonne:
—I’ll be at Earth in twenty—
Jonathan:
—Having coordination issues in Nashville. They’ll get it here before you sing. Or I’ll get a locksmith to break it.—
Well, no. The collar jammed my uncomfortable places, but I had to admit it was nice. I liked it, and I didn’t want it broken. He said he’d buy me another, but I didn’t want another one. This was the one he’d gotten me, it was the one I wanted, and I wanted it exactly the way he got it.
Whole and with a key.
—I don’t think I can make Earth today—
—Bullshit – you show up. Today it’s my problems—
—What happened???—
—Men are shit—
I touched the collar. I hadn’t been out in public with it. Not really.
Sometimes I was left alone and treated like any other Angeleno, and sometimes the paparazzi showed up. I never knew when I was watched and when I wasn’t. I took a deep breath. It was too hot for a scarf or turtleneck. Even if I ran out and got a lightweight neck wrap, covering my collar with it would only announce that I was ashamed. The only thing worse than wearing it in public was broadcasting shame over it.
Fuck it. Yvonne needed me.
sixteen.
MONICA
—Lil’s driving me to Santa Monica at five. Picking the key up myself – but it’s going to be close. I’m sorry—
Santa Monica Airport to Echo Park on a game night, at rush hour, on a Friday, during the school year. Game time was seven. Close didn’t begin to cut it.
I’d heard Yvonne out and tried to soothe her. Cursed every penis-owning human in the universe while simultaneously exonerating Jonathan in my head. I hated seeing her in pain and didn’t even know what to promise her except my devotion.
On the way out of Earth, I ran into a herd of paparazzi, and what the waiters didn’t notice and the patrons ignored, the paps caught immediately.
What’s on your neck, Monica?
Is that a lock?
Moooniiiiiicaaaaaa
Turn so we can see it!
I smiled and waved, trying to keep the pounding of my heart out of my expression. But one girl pap with rings up and down her fingers leaned over my car and got an angle no one else had. The shutter slapped over and over.
Fuck it.
I moved my hair so she got a clear shot of it. Print that, bitch.
She moved her camera so I could see her face. “Thank you!” And she disappeared into the crowd.
I got in the car before any of the rest of them could get a clear shot. Because, fuck it. That shot should be worth real money to someone.
The stadium was a short hop away, at least by Friday traffic standards.
But I checked my phone when I parked by the players’ entrance, and my collar was all over the gossip pages. How did I feel, seeing what everyone else was seeing? Me pulling my hair away to show off a chain mail locked collar?
I felt like his.
It was as if he was standing beside me next to the Jag, holding my hand to make sure nothing bad happened. It was a buffer between the world and me, a shield against people’s eyes and intentions. It attracted stares, yes. But in a way, it warded them off. Drained them of their power. Protected me from anything I didn’t embrace.
Did it only work in photos? Or—if I changed my attitude—would it work in person?
Only one way to tell.
I twisted up my hair, checking in the rearview for strays, and sang of the braaaavvveeeeee into the mirror.
Sounded good. I was ready to go.
seventeen.
MONICA
Another day. Another dressing room. I worked on my intervals and scales, tuning my voice to a vibrating fork, and checked myself in the mirror. I felt ready. My dress came just below the knee and two inches above the cleavage line, sleeves covering me tight to the elbow. The beads looked dull and lifeless in the flat light of the cinderblock room, but would flash in the stadium lights.
And the collar, well…the collar was another thing entirely.
It made me look like I’d been captured in the wild and brought to heel, and behind a closed door, alone, I liked the idea that I was an animal that needed taming.
Jonathan texted.
—We’re on the 110. I’m getting out and running—
—NO! not safe!—
A knock came at the door. I checked my watch. It was go time.
—Freeway’s a parking lot. It’s safer than crossing La Cienega with the light—
—Please please please be careful.
He didn’t answer. Someone knocked again and said. “Two minutes.” Gary. The pregame coordinator.
“I got this,” I said, smoothing my skirt. “I got this.”
***
Last year’s Cy Young Award winner stared, absently tossing the ball up and catching it. I felt as if I didn’t need a key at that point, because people’s eyes were burning a hole in the collar already. Since Jonathan had texted that he was running into traffic to deliver the key, I’d met eight players I admired, including one whose batting stance I wanted to correct every time I watched him at the plate, and the manager, who I wanted to slap over the previous year’s play-offs.
“My wife is a huge fan,” the pitcher said. “If you sign this, we can trade.”
Perfect little athlete smile as he handed me the ball. We were in the cinderblock hallway leading out onto the field. Jonathan hadn’t texted since he told me he was running across the 110 with the key to my collar. If he was a grease spot, I would kill him.
The pitcher was looking at my tits. I took the ball, and I gave him the one I’d passed around.
“You gonna pick off Fredricks tonight?” I asked while I wrote my name in Sharpie on the curved surface.
“That’s the plan.”
“You’ve got the best pickoff move in the league,” I said, handing it back. “If anyone can do it, you can.”
He handed me my ball back and looked me in the eye. “Thanks. That’s a nice vote of confidence.”
“Go get ’em, killer.”
Gary, the coordinator of the pregame activities, handed me a mic. “You ready?”
“Yeah.”
The umps and managers stood on the mound, talking about I didn’t even know what. After they broke and went to their places, the color guard would come out, and that was my cue to go in and sing.
“Wait!” came a breathless voice.
“Jonathan!”
He was huffing and panting down the hall in his dress shoes.
“Are you all right? Your heart!”
He waved away all my concerns. “Please. Easy run.” He held up the key, still panting. “But I got here in time.”
He was so perfect, chest heaving, broad shoulders back, jaw straight and sharp as he smiled. His green eyes shone with clarity and strength. My gorgeous man, by my side always. We were surrounded by people and not one of them could touch us.
“I’m sorry,” I said, putting my hand on his forearm. “You ran… it’s got to be half a mile uphill but...”
He tilted his head, waiting.
“Can I keep it on?” I touched the collar reflexively. “I’m sorry. I changed my mind.”
He laughed. I’d never heard a sound so right.
“Go,” Gary said, guiding me out.
“Go!” Jonathan reiterated.
“Thank you.” I kissed his mouth, tasting salt and feeling the scratch of his upper lip.
He put his hands on my cheeks and lengthened the kiss. “Get out of here, goddess. I’m watching.”
One quick kiss on his cheek, and I stepped past Gary onto the field. The expanse was bigger than I ever imagined possible, the crowd louder, the pressure more intense. Somewhere in Echo Park, a girl with a voice was listening, and I sang for her, so that when her day came, she wouldn’t be afraid.
eighteen.
MONICA
Jonathan had sent Lil home and driven me home in my car. I closed my eyes when he pulled down our drive, listening to the cracking of pebbles under the tires and the beating rumble of ocean waves.
The crickets around our house were sand-colored with back legs that bent away from their bodies and to the horizon, not toward the sky. They creaked all seasons of the year, as if they wanted to fuck all the time. When Jonathan opened my door, their mating call filled my ears.
We’d skipped the game. We didn’t even have to talk about it. I could see if Fredricks got picked off in tomorrow’s news.
I took his hand and let him help me out. The dim spotlights that dotted the curved walkway were the only illumination.
“We should’ve gotten a place with a porch,” he said, lacing his fingers in mine. Only good stuff had happened on his old porch, back when he’d subtly made sure I didn’t enter his house with my clothes on.
“I miss your craftsman,” I said.
“Me too.” He stopped at the front door and gently put his hand around my throat, feeling the collar. “You were magnificent tonight.”
“Thank you.”
He put the code in the door lock, and it popped open.
“You’re not a fraud,” he said, moving his hand up to my face. “You’re very real.”
With the door open and the promise of a night under him a step away, I turned and parted my lips, letting his finger slide between them. I flicked my tongue along the length of it then took it all in my mouth. With a sharp breath, his own lips parted as I cupped my puckered lips around his finger and slid it out.
“My mouth is yours,” I said. “I have an idea.”
“An idea?”
“I think you’ll like it.”
***
I was on my back on the kitchen table. Jonathan had made sure the staff was gone for the night, and once that was cleared up, I’d gotten undressed, down to my black garters, and gotten on the hard, flat surface.
“This idea,” he said, stroking inside my legs and hooking his finger on the crotch of my panties. “I like it already.”
As I pushed myself back until my head hung over the edge of the table, he pulled off my underwear. I let my head drop until I could see through the glass doors to the backyard. The world went upside down. I gripped the sides of the table, so intense was the feeling that I’d fall over.
Jonathan stood beside of me and stroked me from cunt to tits.
“May I have it? Please?” I groaned.
“Have what?”
“Your cock in my mouth. Down my throat. Come down my throat.”
He took out his cock. Magnificent beast, dripping with salty pre-come, and he put it to my tongue to lick off.
He put his fingers on my lips. With a sharp inhale, he shoved his fingers into my mouth. I opened my throat, pressing down the back of my tongue. My throat, the collar was exposed to his eyes, and he touched it with his other hand.
“Open. I’m going to fuck your mouth.”
I did, and he pushed his fingers down. All the way down. The sinews of my neck pushed against the collar, and he groaned when he pulled them out.
“Take it,” he said, putting the tip of his dick to my lips. “Take it all.”
I could only feel it. I felt my body, out and vulnerable, his cock invading my throat. I closed my eyes. He pulled out to let me breathe, and I heaved.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.” I was still facing upside down, collar exposed to the ceiling. I opened up for him, and he guided his dick back in.
“That collar,” he said as he put his length down the throat extended before him. “Fuck. You’re mine.”
He put his hand between my legs as he fucked my face, timing it again so he had three strokes, then I got a breath. His hand pressed against my cunt, gathering fire. I pushed my hips into him, screaming in pleasure against his cock.
He grunted, pulled out. “Breathe!”
It was a command, an order, and I pulled in a breath before he shoved himself back in, invading me, breaking me, leveraging himself with my tits.
“God,” he growled and came in the back of my mouth, marking it.
Sticky in my throat, and salty as he released onto my tongue. Forward again, the last few drops down deep. He released my tits on the last thrust and drew his hands across the collar, pulling on the lock. He gasped and pulled away so I could see him.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you.”
I was too full of him to answer.
I lifted my head to get the blood flow back, and he picked me up. He carried me toward the stairs, but we didn’t make it past the living room. He dropped me on the couch and kneeled before me, kissing inside my legs. I ran my fingers through his hair and let his mouth do its work. He didn’t let me come but mounted me when he was ready, fucking me until I stiffened and arched, coming with him, breathing deeply to a shared rhythm.
THE END
For more info on Jonathan and Monica, keep scrolling.
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I have another kinky billionaire lined up for 2016.
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If you’re interested seeing where Jonathan and Monica’s scorching journey began:
You can get the bundled versions of The Submission Series
1) Beg/Tease/Submit
2) Control/Burn/Resist
3) Sing/Coda/Dominance
Or individual novellas
1) Beg
2) Tease
3) Submit
4) Control
5) Burn
6) Resist
7) Sing
8) Dominance (A Submission Reader)
9) Coda
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If you want to know more about what it’s like to sing at a baseball game, or even why the Star Spangled Banner is the most sadistic song in the world, check out Drew Magary’s retelling of his experience.
deadspin.com/5928720/whats-it-like-to-sing-the-anthem-at-a-baseball-game-the-story-of-one-mans-perilous-fight
