One Life With Him Page 5

  “He doesn’t take care of you?”

  I must have burned black, smoking holes in his face because he pursed his lips shut and looked at his plate as if he’d just stepped in my personal daisy patch. “I will allow you to take that back,” I said. “A show of gratitude for the thai.”

  He laughed, and it didn’t sound professional. Thank god. “I’m sorry. I take it back. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

  “Got that right, doctor.”

  “Brad.”

  “Fine.”

  A singsong bell rang from the stereo speakers. Naturally, an audio monolith had been connected to the system to make City of Dis a three-dimensional aural experience.

  “Your avatar’s ready,” Brad said. “I’m dying of curiosity.”

  I swallowed the last noodle and bean sprout and went to find out who the game thought I was.

  Chapter 12

  MONICA

  I pulled a last-minute brunch shift, which was such a relief I think I giggled all the way through it. I’d played City of Dis with Brad until midnight, so I was tired which made me punchier. The game was all-encompassing. He’d started me on the eighth circle, where he was, and we cycled around to see if I’d get caught in the trap of my invisible sins. We solved puzzles, interacted with hellions, ate virtual food, and imbibed radioactive-colored drinks that made the screens blurry and shaky. The game was alternately frightening, sweet, intense, dramatic, and funny. I actually forgot about Jonathan for seconds at a time.

  The call from Debbie that morning was like the clouds opening up to heavenly light. I’d texted Margie that I wouldn’t be in to see Jonathan until after my shift. She responded right away.

  —He looks better. Already

  demanding your presence. I

  told him to hold his horses.—

  —Do NOT tell him I need the

  money you’ll give him another

  heart attack—

  At break time, I rummaged through my bag for my phone and found my mother had called me. Funny how I’d forgotten all about that. Not ha-ha funny, but you-are-a-pussy funny. I had ten minutes left of my break, so I had a time limit to how long the pain could last. I stood in front of my locker and dialed my mother’s number. Eight minutes of break left.

  “Hello?”

  It was amazing how her voice could sound so familiar and so strange at the same time. “Hi, mom. It’s me. I’ve been calling.”

  “Are you all right?” She broadcast panic, and the rawness of her emotion sent a welling in my chest and brought moisture to my eyes.

  I hadn’t shed a tear of stress or worry over Jonathan because I wanted to be strong. I didn’t want to show weakness in front of his family. They were all so freaking stoic. But with my mother’s tone telling me that Hi, mom. It’s me was enough to panic her, I almost lost my shit. I remembered my mom then. I remembered the things that put me over the edge, the drama, the constant emotional storms. One such storm had led her to fling names at Kevin and me, sending me out the door permanently, my viola forgotten in his trunk.

  “I’m fine. I’m sorry I missed the rent twice.” Silence. “Mom?” Sigh. “I got an auction notice on the door.”

  “Oh, I’ve been meaning to call you.” I heard the rustle of sheets, and I looked at my watch. It was noon, and to all indications, she was still in bed. Fuck. “It wasn’t just that. There were other things. I talked to the bank. They don’t care about your problems. All they care about is money.”

  “They’re banks, mom.” I rubbed my eyes. “How long has it been since you paid the mortgage?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I should ask how you are.”

  “It’s complicated. I have only a minute left. What should I do about the auction? Should I move?”

  “If you want.”

  “Okay, then. I’d better get going.”

  “Can you come up some time? I’d like to see you.”

  I cringed. I didn’t want to see her. I knew something bad was going on out there, and whether I’d spoken to her in years or not, I was obligated to at least figure out why she wasn’t paying the mortgage. But another responsibility was the last thing I needed. I tried to remove the dread from my voice. “Sure.”

  “I’m free most days. Today, even.”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  In typical Los Angeles fashion, I left the call without making any definitive plans.

  Chapter 13

  MONICA

  “I hate you seeing me like this.” Jonathan’s voice had a little less gravel, but he sounded as if the effort involved in speaking was unbearable.

  I wasn’t allowed to sit on the edge of the bed, so I sat in the chair next to him and put my elbows on the railing. “Then you shouldn’t let me in here.”

  “I need you. Deal with it.”

  “Okay, well, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You look thinner.”

  “These are my skinny pants. You like them?” I was sitting. He couldn’t even see my pants.

  “I can see your cheekbones.”

  I touched his face, stroked the stubble on his chin, and brushed his lip, dry yet yielding under my touch. Was it wrong to want him even in that horrible place with him cut open? Was it wrong to want his arms around me when he could barely lift them? I wasn’t feeling lustful but greedy, ravenous, ardent. He took my hand away and held it. Obviously, he wasn’t that weak.

  “Let me ask you a question,” I said. “If I was in a hospital bed for a week waiting for open heart surgery, how much would you eat? How well would you sleep? I’m not complaining. I’m just saying don’t try to deflect away from what you need by making yourself worry about me. I’m fine.”

  “When I can get up—”

  “You can give me the spanking I so richly deserve. Until then, I’ll be the one doing all the legwork around here.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Oh, I will.”

  There’s a chair in your bedroom.

  It has red leather cushions on the seat, back, and arms. It looks antique and probably is, now that I’m thinking of it. You tied my ankles to the place where the arms meet the seat. You tied me gently, stroking between my thighs, kissing my legs, but in the end, I’m naked and spread-eagled, tied to your antique chair. Though your hands were gentle, the binds are tight. I can’t move.

  Then you tied my hands above my head, looping the leather straps around the sconce above me. You kiss my breasts until my nipples are so hard they’re the size of dimes. You make sure I feel safe and loved. You don’t want me to be scared. I’m not scared. I’m so turned on I’m pretty sure I’d come if you breathed on me.

  Then you undress. You do it slowly, not sexy and camp, but methodically. You put your things away and spend a minute in the bathroom. You don’t let me speak. You threaten to gag me if I make another joke. You need control over me. This is how you feel safe.

  So I wait, my cunt getting wetter every second. I feel it dripping down the crack of my ass. Then you’re naked and magnificent. Jonathan, darling, you are utterly spectacular. But you don’t want to hear that.

  You look at me. Your eyes eat me alive. I feel you between my legs even though you’re half a room away. If I could draw you closer with my desire, you’d be on me. I’m hungry for you.

  You step toward me and put your hands on the back of the chair, leaning over it. My arms stretch above me. You put the tip of your tongue inside my elbow then draw your tongue down until your lips touch my breast. You circle my nipple, caressing it with your lips. It’s so hard, pointing up like it wants to be millimeters closer to you. You kiss it, making it wet, then release. I feel the cold air. It’s so sensitive, and you glance at me like you know it. You suck it again and release it to the cold.

  Then you warm it with your mouth, and you bite. I arch my back. I thrust my hips into you. I moan your name.

  ‘Behave,’ you say, pushing my chin up so I can only see the ceiling. ‘Don’t move.’

  You roll the wet
nipple under your fingers, then move to the other and do the same. Suck, release. Suck, release. Suck, bite. I’m on fire.

  You kiss my belly, my legs, and I feel your fingers inside my thigh. You’re brushing your fingers toward my cunt. It quivers. You flick my clit like it’s a crumb on your pant leg. You do it hard, and I bite my lip. It stings. Then it fills up with pleasure.

  You do it again and again while kissing inside my thighs. I’m trying not to wiggle, but everything in my body wants to arch toward you. You hurt me with your fingers then stroke. I burn with the pain, but it only makes the pleasure more unbearable. It’s not enough to make me come.

  I want to beg, but you told me not to speak. I’d take you anyway you’d give yourself. I’d have you in my mouth, my ass. I’d crawl on the floor to have you. You’re barely even touching me, but you have complete control over me. Just with your fingertips.

  And when you draw your tongue over my cunt, my toes, eyes, and fingernails feel it.

  Then you do that thing. With a flick of your wrist, you undo the knots at my ankles. You stand up and tell me to get my clothes on. We’re going out.

  “You’re fucking with me,” he said.

  “Turnabout’s fair play.”

  He smiled then caught his lips between his teeth. “It hurts when I laugh.”

  “I wasn’t joking.”

  He put his hand on my cheek, brushing the skin. Even sick as he was, the feel of his body on mine was electric. “Can you stay?”

  “I have something to tell you.”

  “You love me.”

  “My God, Jonathan, I’m crazy with loving you.”

  “Feeling’s mutual. Now, what were you going to tell me?”

  “I need to go see my mother. In Castaic. I’ll be back late, but I’ll come right here.” I wrinkled my nose to let him know the trip wasn’t a vacation away from him or his hospital room.

  “Lil can drive you.”

  “You bought me a car.”

  “Let me take care of you. You can rest in the back. Put your feet on the seats.”

  I turned and put my lips to his palm. “Go to sleep, darling.”

  “It’s a long drive.” I kissed his mouth. His lips were dry but responsive, and his face scratched mine. He put his hands on my face and pulled me close. “You trying to shut me up?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hate being like this.”

  “You can boss me around when you’re better.”

  I put my head on the mattress next to him, and he stroked my hair. I watched the clouds move across the sky, humming a tune that may or may not have been “Collared.” When I knew he was sleeping, I slipped away.

  Chapter 14

  MONICA

  I took a white-knuckled drive up the 5 freeway past all signs of civilization, past subdivisions, up a bifurcated mountain and back down it. The bestfuckingthingever drank gas like a frat boy drank beer at a kegger. Everything was dead, flat, dry. Then it hit. Castaic.

  All the garage doors faced the street like mouths stretched into a closed grimace. Front yards that had not been flattened by concrete were neglected and brown or tamed and green with sad blowup snowmen and fat, jolly Santas. Everything in the unforgiving landscape was scorched by the sun. Even the mountains ringing the town looked compacted under the weight of the sky. Or maybe that was just me.

  Big girl pants.

  Maria Souza-Faulkner had two settings: Park—which meant she was passive, sweet, and slept seventeen hours a day—and fourth gear—which meant she was in full-on rage with an eye to wiping the world of sin. Kevin had suggested she was bipolar. I’d laughed not because he was wrong, but because she’d never do something as sensible as see a doctor to figure out why she was crazy. Dad had loved her through all of it, so obviously she saw no need to fix what was functioning just fine.

  Her house, a one-story beige box with a two-car garage and a front door set back twenty feet behind it, had fallen out of repair. Dad wouldn’t have allowed that. He’d spent his time in the States painting, plastering, and gardening. The young citrus he planted had a few leaves on the twiggy branches, and the front lawn looked like an infield. I didn’t know how long she’d been stuck in park, but judging from the look of the place, it had been at least through the beginning of the summer.

  My mother answered the door in a long polyester thing that fell over her curves in a way that was modest but sexual. Like me, she had a body that was hard to hide, and unlike me, she kept trying. She was a Brazilian beauty my dad had met on some unholy peacetime mission. She was five eleven, in her early fifties, and she had darker skin than mine but the same dark eyes and hair. She was Catholic as only a South American girl could be, and that was the rub. She believed in the infallibility of the Pope and the virginity of Mary long after anyone else with a brain had moved on.

  “Hi, ma.”

  She hugged me, and after a second, I hugged her back. She held on longer than I thought she would. Maybe the visit wouldn’t be so bad. We’d just forgive each other. She moved out of the way, and I stepped inside.

  She saw the car. My immediate reaction was to make excuses for it. It was borrowed. I was returning it. I didn’t ask for it. Then I decided to shut up. I didn’t come to fight, and I didn’t come to lie. She closed the door without saying anything.

  The house was hermetically sealed against the desert heat and dust, and the artificially cooled air was stale and thin. Everything was beige. Dad had hated beige, but my mother insisted. When she insisted, she got what she wanted.

  Well, everything permanent was beige. Whatever had been moved in was a color, and a bright one. African masks and Mexican blankets. A hand-carved teak partition blocked a window draped in Ikat fabric. Stacks of travel books stood in front of the stuffed bookcases. It looked as if my mother had gotten the shit stamped out of her passport.

  “You came,” she said.

  “Yeah.” The couch had a pillow on one end with a case that matched the bed sheet balled up at the other end. She was sleeping on it, probably regularly.

  “I don’t think we can save the house,” she said.

  I had a speech prepared, so I spit it out. “I didn’t come because of the house. It’s not that I can’t move or get an apartment or whatever. I just find it hard to believe you’d let the place go. I got worried about you.”

  “Oh, Monya,” she said, calling me by my grandmother’s name. “All this way for nothing.” She put her hand on the doorknob.

  That was her. She’d kick me out and waste away rather than admit there was a problem. Though she seemed healthy, if older, I could tell sunshine and butterflies weren’t the order of the day. “Come on, Mom. I’m here. Make me some tea.”

  Her hand slipped from the knob. She glanced out the window at the white Jaguar as if she didn’t trust it and didn’t like it. As she walked me to the kitchen, I saw more third world knicknackery and clean, beige rectangles spotting the walls as if old pictures had been removed.

  It wasn’t until she indicated my seat that I realized what those rectangles represented. They were where the pictures of Dad had been. She’d kept them up after he died three years before, but now they were gone.

  As she put a copper pot on the stove and got out a mug with I LOST MY HEART IN BELIZE scripted across it, everything became clear. The tchotchke. The missing pictures of Dad. The depression. The multiple mortgages.

  “Still waitressing?” she asked.

  “Yep. You still doing the books for the church?”

  “What’s his name?” she asked, not answering my question. “You didn’t buy that car on a waitress’s salary.”

  “I don’t make a salary. I make tips.” What kind of answer was that? That was the answer of a woman ashamed of who she was, and I’d given that up. “His name is Jonathan. I hope we’re not going to argue about it.”

  “As long as it’s not that other guy. I didn’t like him.”

  “Does yours have a name?” She didn’t answer, just dicked with so
me floral canisters that may or may not have been full of expired tea. “Mom, is there anyone out here you can talk to? The priest? Someone in the choir?”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “Is it the rector that dumped you?”

  “For the love of all that is holy, Monya, that is—”

  “A totally reasonable assumption. Except for the obvious world travel that’s happening. You’re sleeping until after noon, so I know you’re not working for him. You can’t talk to anyone, and all your friends are there.”

  “I don’t want to.” The teapot whistled.

  “I’ll be gone in a few hours. So you might as well tell me.”

  She put the mug of hot liquid in front of me and left the room. I started to follow, but I saw her open a door in the china cabinet. She crouched down, rummaging through old dishes and cookbooks, until she came up with a brown paper expanding file. I sat back down, and she slapped it in front of me.

  She said, “This is what you came for. All my paperwork. Take it. No, I don’t want to lose the house. I love that house as much as you do. If I didn’t love it, I would have sold it and kicked you to the street for being an insolent, disrespectful bitch two years ago.”

  “Don’t hold back, ma. Tell me how you really feel.”

  She didn’t say anything else, but she didn’t laugh and forgive me either. That was it. That was what she’d wanted to say. It wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. I didn’t get crushed under the weight of her disapproval. But she was right. Despite my initial protestations, I wanted to save the house.

  “I’m sorry about whatever-his-name-is,” I said. “It looks like you guys had a good time together.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay.” I unspooled the string from the felt disk and flipped open the envelope. I don’t know anything about finance. Numbers only interested me insofar as they related to sound vibrations, but once I spread the papers across the table and stacked them into a narrative I could get my head around, one thing was abundantly clear.