One Life With Him

by CD Reiss

  So she was hired, and she’d been the bulwark against my needling that she was supposed to be. I could travel and work without worrying, and without Jonathan worrying that I was worrying. Maybe it had been a bad idea. Maybe Laurelin had made our need to communicate less urgent.

  Four months after she’d been hired, and two weeks after Jonathan reclaimed me, Laurelin shuffled in wearing jeans and a sweatshirt even in the late June warmth. Her code for the front gate worked three mornings a week.

  Jonathan had left his little blue book on the counter for her. It was pliable leather with ruled cream pages and a black ribbon marker. In it, he kept notes about his diet, his exercise, and if he was late or early taking his rejection meds.

  “Hi, Laurelin! How are you feeling?” I asked.

  “Not bad.” She pulled Jonathan’s blue book and box of meds toward her. “I’ve skipped just about every complication I could.” She put on a glitter face, swinging her blond ponytail from one side to the other, then popped open the box of pills that had a day of the week and a time of day in each compartment.

  “How much longer?”

  “Seven weeks,” she said, brows knotted about what she saw in Jonathan’s little pill box. “What’s this?”

  “What’s what?” I didn’t look at her, just the teapot as I filled it.

  She looked at her watch. “It’s ten, and he hasn’t taken his morning treatment.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Monica?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Where is he?” She flipped to the last page of the book.

  “He’s on a run.”

  She snapped the book closed. “Well, we’re going to have to have a little talk, the three of us.”

  I felt chastened. I shouldn’t have. She worked for Jonathan, and thus, she worked for me, and it wasn’t as if I were the one who had missed a handful of pills. That had been my husband, wanting one more tumble before his run, then breakfast, then his cubicle of meds.

  Laurelin hummed and pulled the blender to her. She had packets of vitamin powders and access to the fridge, so she set up his Shit Shake for that day and the two following.

  I felt as if I’d been let off the hook. I hadn’t been able to resist him that morning. He wanted a tumble. No pain, no scene, no demands, just a one-two-three bite of vanilla cake. Delicious. Not something I wanted every day, but a good interlude between the usual screaming, bruising games we played. I must have been smiling, because when I looked up, Laurelin was staring at me and smirking.

  “I know you’re still newlyweds—”

  I slapped my hands over my ears. “La la la! Stop it, Laurelin!”

  She ripped open a packet of powder and dumped it in the blender. “You can get on with it after he takes his meds.”

  “You know how responsible he is,” I said.

  “Generally.”

  “Can you not give him a hard time? I’ll take care of it from now on.”

  She poured milk in the blender and shook it, peeking in the top. “You’re away too often to keep that promise.”

  She was right. But I knew when I was away, he was perfect. When I was around, he let things slip.

  “Well, consider me chastened. I’m going to lunch. You can berate my husband when he gets back.” I kissed her on the cheek and ran out.

  I spotted Darren halfway down the block from Terra Café. He looked taller by a few inches, possibly because Adam, who walked beside him, was only five eight. Darren keened a little to the left, bumping his boyfriend affectionately, and Adam nudged Darren with his elbow.

  “You’re late,” I said.

  “Oh, Miss Hotshot’s on a schedule.” Darren gave me jazz hands while Adam kissed my cheek.

  “The line in this place is nuts. So this five minutes counts.” I wagged my finger at him as if I meant it, which I didn’t. Not even a little. I couldn’t have cared less if he was late.

  “Did you finish the EP?” Darren asked.

  “Yesterday. It was great. I mean, all of it. Every track I feel good about.”

  “How many?”

  “Six.”

  “Nice.” He looked at the menu. Organic fair trade lunch, gourmet cakes and pies, vegan, free-range, grass-fed, gluten-free, cruelty-free, flavor-challenged, and the descriptions of what wasn’t added, wasn’t done, or wasn’t offered took up half the board.

  “You look different,” Adam said, looking me up and down. He’d really grown on me with his sharp mouth and cutting sense of humor. If you could take a joke, he was the guy to hang around, and if you beat him to the punch, even better. Thin-skinned weeping willows need not apply.

  “I’m the same.”

  “Just richer,” Adam snapped. Darren elbowed him, and Adam laughed.

  I shrugged. “There’s that. But you’re still buying your own lunch.”

  “But no,” Adam continued, “seriously, something’s changed since the last time I saw you.”

  Darren cut in. “The last time you saw her, she was in a hospital cafeteria. She hadn’t eaten in weeks. It was a fucking nightmare.”

  They’d come to visit a few days after Jonathan had his transplant. I barely remembered it. No, I did remember it. It was Christmas. Darren had brought me a piece of holiday cake, and I’d eaten it down to the last scrapings of frosting. The cake I remembered, the conversation, which probably centered around physical damage and medical procedures, was lost.

  We sat at a cramped spot by the window and put our number on the table. I’d seen Darren a lot since the hospital. He was the only one I’d told about the horrors of Sequoia. The recurrent dreams. The heart-gripping fear whenever I heard a machine beep or saw an innocuous color combination. I told him about how I went miles out of my way to avoid the hospital compound and turned off any TV show with scenes in a medical facility. I even refused to use white sheets in the house because the sheets in the hospital were white.

  He’d been there for me in the middle of the night when the door alarm beeped and I freaked out because it sounded like a heart monitor. He gave me directions when I got lost in West Hollywood because I couldn’t find a way to get where I was going without passing Sequoia. He’d heard about all the dreams of endless hospital hallways while Jonathan died in a room I couldn’t find.

  “When is Jonathan going back to work?” Adam asked. He traded real estate insurance products, so anything that happened in real estate was hugely interesting to him. I always had to make sure to only tell him things that had been announced publicly.

  “He’s selling most everything,” I said.

  “Really?” He considered his iced green tea latte. “He need more money?”

  “Shut up.” I flicked a few drops of condensation from my cup at him.

  “Sorry.”

  “I mean, who wants to run an empire on borrowed time?” I said. “At this point, it’s either sell it all or go back to working like a dog. And that’s all you’re getting out of me, Mister Corporate Raider.”

  Adam rolled his eyes. “You going to tell her?” he asked Darren, biting the straw of his emerald-color latte.

  “Tell me what?”

  Darren pressed his fingers into his eyes as if he still had sleep in them.

  “You are an unbelievable chickenshit,” Adam mumbled.

  “Fuck off.”

  “Okay.” I held up my hands. “Listen, this is cute, but if you guys haven’t talked about this already, I’d be happy to step outside while you—”

  “Easy, it’s not a big deal,” Darren said.

  “Really?” Adam seemed put off.

  “I’m moving out of Echo Park.”

  “You’re moving in together!” I squealed joyfully. “That’s awesome!”

  “Yes, but that’s not it. We did something impulsive, and we’re just sticking with it before some asshole makes it illegal again,” Darren said.

  I heard something about assholes at the end, but not really, because I’d scraped my chair back to run around the table. I ploppe
d right in Darren’s lap and hugged him. Adam got in on the action until we were a pile of happy limbs.

  “Just say it so I know I’m not hugging you for buying a pot farm,” I said.

  “We got married!” Adam said.

  Three tables of people twisted around to look at us then broke into applause. I stood and clapped too, and Adam pushed his lips onto Darren’s cheek. My ex-boyfriend blushed. I sat when the applause died and our food arrived.

  “So,” I said, “why now? Or then? Or when?”

  “Yesterday,” Darren answered. “The deal was, when I had a foothold as a musician—”

  Adam interrupted between taps on his phone. “And I was not holding my breath—”

  “Oh, fuck you.”

  “It’s got nothing to do with your talent, and you know that, honey.”

  “Whatever. That was the deal. I’ve been working at Redlight Studios pretty regularly, and Harry and I have been working on some really broad, commercial stuff.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know all this. Why are you stalling?”

  “I don’t want you to compare this to what you get, because you, I mean you’re getting a different kind of deal.”

  “Oh. My. God. You got signed.”

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “It’s music for a video game. City of Dis, if you’ve heard of it.”

  “I have.”

  “Well, it’s a good gig and good money. And I didn’t even mention it because who cares? But it just got us noticed enough that we’re getting signed by Beowolf Records for a really small thing—”

  Adam dropped his phone on the table. “And this is why I said, ‘Marry me now, or I’m done with you.’ Nothing is a big enough deal for him. He’d accept my proposal after his fifth Grammy, maybe.”

  “Are you guys having a party or something? I want to give gifts and get drunk. You owe me that.”

  “When we get a place not in the slums of Los Angeles, so sorry,” Adam said. “Something nice on the west side with a big enough yard for a reception.”

  The look on Darren’s face told me there had been some contention over either the size or the location, but I said nothing. I’d get it out of him later.

  My phone rang.

  “Let me get this.” I slid the phone off the table and walked outside.

  Jonathan and I had made a new deal after he reclaimed me. If he called, any time, any place, I picked up. If he called during a show, I had to pick up in front of the audience. The only way to avoid that was to tell him when I would be on stage and when I would be in the studio, then he’d only call if it was an emergency.

  “Hello, goddess,” he said.

  “Hi.” I felt warm and giddy.

  “I think we should cancel on Sheila tomorrow.”

  “Why?”

  “I noticed you were walking straight. Can’t have that.”

  As appealing as the thought of him making it hard for me to walk was, he needed to be at Sheila’s tomorrow. “We can work around it.”

  “Since when are you so eager to see my family?”

  The rule of never lying to save each other pain was still in effect. I couldn’t travel thinking he wanted me gone, and he couldn’t chase me out to save me from being around him. We were to be direct in our insecurities and our desires, even if they would hurt.

  “I want to go,” I said, telling the truth but keeping a tiny lie to myself. “I happen to love almost all of your sisters as much as Margie.”

  “Truth?”

  “Truth.”

  “Come home.”

  “May I finish lunch?”

  “Hurry. I want to fuck you blind.”

  Fluid rushed between my legs. I almost buckled at the knees. We hung up, and I dialed Margie while leaning against a parking meter.

  “Yes?” she snapped.

  “He’s trying to wiggle out of tomorrow.”

  “You have one job, Monica. One job.”

  “I can do my best, but—”

  “For the tenth time, he is not going to have a heart attack when we yell ‘surprise.’ You’re going to give yourself an ulcer,” she said.

  “The doctor said no stress. That’s stressful.”

  “Is he taking all his rejection meds?”

  “Yes.”

  “Eating right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he exercising?”

  I sighed, frustrated. She was building a case, and the jury would find in her favor. “Jogs miles and miles a day.”

  “Is he not taking care of himself in any way possible?”

  “He’s a model citizen.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “I love him, and I don’t want to lose him. That’s the problem. When are you going to tell him about the Swiss thing?”

  “Tomorrow I’m going over to your place to get some things signed. I’ll bring it up then. Be scarce.”

  “Okay.” What I said with that “okay” was that she’d better do it or I would blurt something out in the bedroom. We’d agreed that it should be presented as business, and Margie was business, but after one more day, it would feel like withholding.

  “What did you get him for his birthday?” Margie changed the subject.

  “I wrote him a song.” As soon as I said it, I knew the song was wrong. It was about a flat compromise over a house. I’d written it before he’d reclaimed me, and I suddenly hated it.

  Margie’s sigh was audible over the traffic. “You’re a good wife. It’s almost sickening.”

  Chapter 59

  MONICA

  The morning of Jonathan’s birthday, I woke him by putting his cock in my mouth, and he twisted me around and put his mouth on me at the same time. He didn’t even say good morning before I came, groaning with his dick down my throat.

  “Monica, you didn’t ask.”

  “But, wait, we’re in scene?”

  “Get up and stand by the window.”

  I had to write him a new song, and dinner was at five. I was already cutting it close. I wasn’t a particularly quick songwriter. Since we’d both collapsed without fucking the night before, this could go on for hours.

  But I couldn’t hesitate. I wasn’t afraid he’d beat me harder. I was afraid he’d think I didn’t want to play. So I stood, already naked, and faced the back patio. I wanted to do this and do it hard, then write the song, because I had no idea what I wanted to write. I had no idea what to say except everything.

  “Put your hands on the glass.”

  I leaned forward and put my fingertips on the back doors. Behind me, I heard his belt buckle clink and his fly zip as he put on his pants.

  “Whole hand. Come on, Monica. Commit.” He spanked my ass playfully.

  I put my whole palm on the glass and stretched my back.

  “Open those legs.” I did, and he pressed on my lower back until my ass was all the way up. “Good.”

  “Thank you.”

  He nonchalantly went out the back door and looked out over the ocean. The salt breeze blew his hair back. Then, as if noticing something for the first time, he played with the bamboo stalks in the patio’s stone planter as if they were strings on a harp. Then he stood in front of a pot of rattan. It looked just like any other potted palm in Los Angeles. He’d had it brought in a few days ago to block a sliver of view from the beach. He’d insisted on rattan, and from what I’d heard on the phone, he had to go see it personally. I’d had no idea what his problem was. I didn’t know if it was some obsessive pickiness he’d inherited from his new heart that hadn’t yet had the opportunity to show itself or if it was something I simply had never known about him.

  But my king wasn’t impulsive. He bent one of the leaves and snapped out his pocketknife, which also just happened to be in his jeans. He cut off a branch and stripped off the leaves.

  He stood right in front of me on the other side of the glass door, as if he were in a different room, as if I couldn’t see him. He rolled the cane around in his hands, then across them,
inspecting it for I didn’t even know what.

  He walked back in the house with the switch. “Now,” he said from behind me, “I think we’ve talked about your orgasms before, and who owns them.”

  “You do.” I looked out the window. Without him in front of me, I felt exposed, my breasts hanging, ass up.

  “No one can see you.” He slapped my ass.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you believe me?”

  “I want to.”

  He swatted me with the rattan switch, lightly, as if testing. Then he did it harder. It was no thicker than a pinky, and that second time, it made a whipping sound before it landed with a crack. Then he did it a little harder.

  I sucked in my breath.

  “How is that?” he asked.

  “Good, sir.”

  He cracked it again, at the topmost fleshy part of my ass. The sting was incredible, searing me. I felt as if my flesh was opening. Then he did it again, an inch or so below the last stroke. I let out an mmm sound, biting my lips. And he did it again. There was a rhythm to it, a slow build as he worked his way down to my knees, searing pain leaving blossoming pleasure in its wake. Two taps to aim, one to awaken the skin, and one to make me scream in pain, and it went thwap thwap thwap THWAP. thwap thwap thwap THWAP. thwap thwap thwap THWAP.

  In the little studio in the guest house, the piano keys went tap tap tap TAP. tap tap tap TAP as I searched for the notes. I shifted in my seat. Jonathan had given my ass and thighs plenty of aftercare, but I wouldn’t be comfortable for a couple of days. I’d think of him and his mastery of me whenever I sat or walked, which was the point.

  I had only a few hours, and I was slow. Slow with words and clunky with melody. I missed Gabby. She made things work in minutes. I’d write a poem to the snap of my fingers, and she would tap out the rhythm and embellish it until we had a song. Not every song was good, but at least I knew what I was dealing with before ten minutes had passed.

  But by myself, I had a hard time. I thought the work was good in the end, but I wasn’t producing well under pressure. I didn’t even know what the song was about, except time.

  Ten years. It had been impossible to talk about that length of time without impaling myself on it. It was so far off, and tomorrow. It was a lie, because it could be so much more if he took care of himself and played by the rules. Even after his heart gave out, if the doctors saw he ate right and took his medicine, he’d get another heart if it came available. It had been done. And was it really ten? Because there was a very healthy guy in Wyoming who had had his for a record-breaking twenty-five years, and there were new advances in anti-rejection meds every day and and and… .