Complete Submission: (The Submission Series, Books 1-8) (56 page)

“Yeah.” My throat was dry. “Did you leave him at the airport? Did he get on the plane?”

“No. He followed me to the parking lot. I mean, the poor guy was so baffled. He’s asking me if there’s someone else, or if I’m upset about Gabs and that’s causing the freak out.”

“The thing about a freak out is you don’t know why you’re freaking out,” I said, opening the fridge. “How do you feel about him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ah.” I cracked a beer for myself.

“I do know how I feel about missing that flight.”

“How?”

“Fifteen hundred in the hole. Non-returnable flight. Whole new last minute ticket. I have seven hundred in the bank and two maxed out credit cards. I could take the car, but even if I start driving now, I’ll miss the show.”

I swallowed my beer, thought for a second, and said, “I think I have a solution to that part of the dilemma.”

MONICA

D
arren had taken some convincing. He was obviously uncomfortable with using Jonathan’s money, but he needed it. He was swayed when I assured him it would be just him and me. Jonathan wasn’t coming, and I wouldn’t let the plane ride color my decision to stay with him or not.

We took the bus to Santa Monica Airport to avoid parking fees. I’d explained as much of the situation to Jonathan as I thought appropriate. I left out Darren’s freak out and replaced it with “he missed his flight.” Jonathan didn’t seem smug about winning the Great Private Jet Battle, only irritated that I insisted on taking the bus.

“It’s just a waste of time,” he said. I heard him tapping computer keys. Multitasking again.

“I have nothing else to do. And I like the bus. It reminds me of when I was a kid.”

“Were you this worried about tainting conversations when you were a kid?”

“My spankings weren’t undertaken so willingly back then.”

He sighed and let it go.

Darren and I sat with our bags between our feet. He got up for women with children twice during the hour-and-a-quarter long ride. By the time we got to Sepulveda, the crowd had thinned, and he and I had stopped the seat-flip.

“Did you tell Kevin you wouldn’t be on the flight?” he asked.

“Texted him.”

“He told me his side of what happened the other night.”

I shook my head. “I bet he did.”

“Really, Monica, I’ve been meaning to tell you. I think you should give Kevin another chance.”

I twisted around to look at him. “Are you serious? Is your mind totally poisoned?”

“He’s not the same.”

“No, he’s worse. Let me ask you something: Were you the one who told him about me and Jonathan? Maybe you mentioned the bruises on my wrists?”

Darren pursed his lips and looked down. “He had an idea already. Geraldine Stark spent a couple of nights with Drazen and came back with some stories. To Kev, it was like a lightning bolt.”

Geraldine fucking Stark. Of course. The artist who put the trompe l’oeil on the side of Kevin’s building had to have been with Jonathan. She told Kevin, probably post-coital, and then Kevin went ahead and told Darren. Together, they’d strategized how to get us back together.

“It bothers me that we worked together so many hours at a stretch to make this thing, and the whole time, you and Kevin are planning a reconciliation I don’t want.”

“What do you want?”

“Right now? To be left alone by anyone with a dick. You’re all trouble. I want to never again hear who Jonathan fucked before I met him. Even if it was the first lady or Brad Pitt, I don’t want to know.”

“Why not?” His tone was confrontational, as if he was daring me to give him the truth.

“You know God damn well everything about this
hurts.
So stop being a prick.” I turned toward the window, shutting out further argument. We travelled in the fold of time between day and night, when headlights got turned on and the streetlights went from dead cold to humming half light.

“Did you open the envelope I left?” he asked.

“No, did you?”

“No. Is it still in the house?”

I turned away from the window to reengage our conversation. “I left it at your place.”

“Not even curious?”

“It’s probably a family tree.”

“Then why not open it?”

“I haven’t had time.” I could see, from his expression, he didn’t believe me. “I need to talk to him. And I need it to be clean. About us. No external shit. If there’s nothing in there, it’s nothing. If it’s external shit, then it’s not fair for me to know it.”

His eyes locked onto mine, and I felt naked. “You want him back.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

“Fuck. You want him.” He shook his head in a way that indicated nothing less than disappointment and shame.

“What? Is that a problem for you?”

“I should have driven up.”

“Are we back on the whore thing?”

“Don’t hit me again!” He covered his cheeks with his hands. “Please. My manhood couldn’t take it.”

Despite the fact that I wanted to belt him, or yell at him, or even shut down and go ice cold, I laughed.

He smiled and said, “Can you tell me, do you think this is you liking to get tied up? Or are you doing it because he likes it?”

The woman in the seat in front of us turned her head a little, and I shot her a look. She had a baby on her lap and a hemp sling over her shoulders.

“Both,” I said, looking straight at her because fuck her. I was ashamed and horrified, and that made me feel hostile. She turned away. “It’s his reputation I don’t like. And everyone knowing. That’s coloring the type of attention I’m getting from the industry.

“I want to reassure you. I want to tell you this is who I am, and this is me now and forever, and I’m so happy I discovered this side of myself. But I don’t know. Everything about it is wrapped up in him. I can’t imagine letting anyone else touch me like that, which is not what you want to hear. I know that. You think it’s a power thing, and sure, it is. Would it be with anyone else? If I met the right vanilla guy, would I go vanilla?” I shrugged and put up my palms. “It could go either way. I’d have to be in the situation to find out.”

“Well, I like him because of the way he treats you. But I don’t, because of the way he treats you. And I think you’re missing out with Kevin. He loves you.”

“Oh, please give me a break.”

“Deal with it.” He squeezed my hand but looked away. “This is our stop. Let’s get out of here.” He waved to the baby in front of us. The mother held the child tighter.

JONATHAN

A
s soon as Will confirmed he couldn’t send anyone to Vancouver, I knew I was going. I’d sleep even less than usual if I didn’t. I arranged a revised manifest, made my calls, packed, and met them on the plane already set to leave that night.

My hope had been that she’d take the plane, I’d slip on with her, and we’d have three solid hours to sort ourselves out. Her fears about what other people thought were well-founded but meaningless. They’d think what they would. She needed to know that what we had was bigger than them and that any concerns she had about being dumped were unfounded. Sexually, she and I needed hard limits. Our discussion had to include how much control she actually exerted when we were alone. I’d gone too far with her without properly setting limits and explaining kinks she had no experience with. In my delight over her, I’d been irresponsible.

I still wasn’t sure how to convince her without touching her. But I felt as though she was slipping away, and I couldn’t let that happen.

I’d gone through immigration and carried my own bags. Security was non-existent. It was my own plane after all, and everyone at the airport knew me. I told them not to hassle my two passengers, and they joked about my habit of bringing women on planes and sending them back without me. I looked forward to the jokes changing. The prospect of keeping Monica was more exciting than bedding a hundred women. I rejected the offer of a ride to the plane. My legs worked, and I didn’t want to announce myself so loudly.

Monica and Darren had gotten through immigration in record time, apparently, and they were already stepping up into the cabin. They were inside and out of sight before I reached the stairs. My pilots, Jacques and Petra, had been married seven years and still held hands as they waited for me.

“Jacques,” I said.

“Jon. We’re scheduled to wait for you. Two days,” Jacques said.

Petra chimed in. “We might have to bounce back for a doctor’s appointment.”

“Well, I think you’re going to have to come back and do a pickup anyway. I’ll text you the names for the manifest when I have them.” I looked them both over. They seemed nervous. “Something you want to tell me?”

Petra smirked.

“No,” Jacques said. “Come on. We have a schedule to keep.”

I stepped onto the plane behind the pilots.

MONICA

T
he plane was probably the nicest thing I’d ever seen. The pilots had pointed us up the little stairs embedded in the dropped-down door and into a cabin with ten cushy leather seats. Two seat banks faced each other around a gleaming lacquer table. The wood matched the liquor cabinet and the galley, which was cleaner than my kitchen had ever been.

Darren threw himself into a seat, and I sat next to him. We had work to do. We’d detected a flaw in the sound for the show. It wasn’t much, but the music was meant to be loud, and the little click in one of the forty-some tracks would seriously ruin the experience. I freed my phone and headphones to start.

I smelled Jonathan. Then I saw him standing over the table. I felt like a kid caught eating her lunch before the bell.

“I had a feeling you’d show up,” Darren said.

Jonathan slipped in across from us. “And you didn’t bring me flowers or chocolates or anything?”

I slid toward the window, watching Darren as he said, “I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

“Or Monica to get the wrong idea,” Jonathan looked at me with that irrepressible smile. It was nice that he was smiling and nice that Darren was remembering that part of him liked the guy, but I had a mixed bag of feelings.

“This is the second time you’ve shown up where you weren’t supposed to be,” I said.

“It’s my plane.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do. I am going to the opening and the viewing the night before because I love art and because I’m on the finance committee at the B.C. Modern. Now. I have work to do.” He put his laptop on the table and glanced at each of us expectantly. Despite the six other seats, that table was the only laptop-convenient surface. Bastard.

Darren followed suit, his Mac out in a flash. He glanced between Jonathan and me as if one of us would suddenly go into heat.

“I need to check the loops,” Darren said to me, all business. “There was a weird clicking. Then I’m mixing down again.” He handed me the clunky pro headphones he’d brought and looked at Jonathan. “She has a perfect ear.”

“Indeed.”

I put on headphones and watched Darren’s computer screen, listening for a flaw that might be part of the hardware or a tiny blip on track thirty-two of forty.

The plane took off. The tiny thing felt shaky, unsure, too fast. My stomach fell between my feet, but I tried to keep a straight face, even when I gripped Darren’s forearm. We had to start the loop again when the laptop slid across the table. There was no one there to tell us to put our stuff away, and it didn’t seem to be a requirement anyway. Jonathan pretended to work, but I knew he was watching me.

I glued my eyes to Darren’s screen when the plane evened out and I could swallow again. I’d heard the music for the B.C. Mod piece a hundred times, but in only a few minutes, I was listening with my whole brain for a click that may or may not have been there. I watched the wavy lines flow across the screen like heartbeats until my phone buzzed and lit up. A text. From the guy sitting across from me.

—Is it hot in here? Or are you just gorgeous?—

He was looking at me over his computer screen, lips curled in a smile.

—That’s so unpoetic. Even for you—

—Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?—

—In Los Angeles? Yuck. Is there a shower in this tin can?—

He leaned back, a smile creeping across his face. He ignored his computer in favor of the phone. The cold, electronic blue lit his face while the soft light from above warmed his brow and hair.

“Mon?” I barely heard Darren through my headphones. “Did you hear the click?”

“Uh, no. Can you run the loop again?”

—I feel your hands on the phone—

My heart skipped a beat. Or stopped. Or did the thing where I felt its presence in my chest.

—How, exactly?—

—As if they were on my body—

—We have a no touching rule in effect—

—Only until you commit yourself to me—

I knew where this was going, and I wanted it, dangerous as it was.

—What if I don’t commit myself?—

—You will—

—Then what?—

—Then I’m going to take those touchy little hands and tie them to your knees—

—No kissing first?—

—No—

—Not even your cock?—

He pursed his lips and looked at me. His hands slid over the glass. Fuck that, he was not taking control of this conversation. I put my elbows on the table, leaning over it toward him.

—What if I crawled at your feet, kneeled before you, looking up at you as you pulled out that piece of meat between your legs—

He glanced at Darren, who sat in the dark, eyes glued to his computer screen and unaware of our bloops and dings. Then Jonathan leaned forward, mirroring my position on the table, as he texted.

—When I’m done tying your hands, I’m going to bend you over and press your cheek to the mattress. Then tie your ankles to the bed’s legs, holding them spread for me as you stand—

—What if I kissed the tip of your cock? And you took me at the back of my head while you rubbed it along my closed lips, and I opened them—

Our forearms rested on the table, lateral, not touching, as we watched each other and our little glowing screens. Our phones dinged and blooped and buzzed rapid fire, like electronic jumping beans.