Secret Sins: (A Standalone)

by CD Reiss

  “My voice, mostly,” I said. “But I play everything. I play piano, guitar, viola. I learned to play the Theremin last year.”

  “What is that?”

  “Oh, it’s beautiful. You actually don’t touch it to play it. There’s an electrical signal between two antennae, and you move your hands between them to create a sound. It’s just the most haunting thing you ever heard.”

  “You play it without touching it?”

  “Yeah, you just move your hands inside it. Like a dance.”

  “This, I have to see.”

  When he tipped his head toward me, I thought, oh no. He wants me to play it for him. Never gonna happen. For some reason, the idea of this guy seeing me sing or play made me feel vulnerable, and I wasn’t in for that at all. “You can watch people play it on YouTube.”

  “True. But I want to watch you do it.”

  I didn’t know where we were going, so I didn’t know how much of a drive we were in for. I wanted to get off the subject of me before I told him something that gave him a hold over me. I had to remember he was my new boss’s friend, and I really liked working at the Stock.

  “What do you do besides own hotels and pick up very attractive waitresses?”

  “I own lots of things, and they all need attention.”

  He pulled the car to the side of the road. We were on the twistiest part of Mulholland, the part that looked like a desolate park instead of the most expensive real estate in Los Angeles County. A short guardrail stood between the car and a nearly sheer drop down to the valley and its twinkling Saturday night lights.

  “Let’s go take a look,” he said, pulling the emergency brake.

  I got out, thankful for the opportunity to uncross my legs, and slammed the door behind me. I walked toward the edge overlooking the city. My heels kept hitting little rocky ditches, but I played it off. They were comfortable, but they weren’t hiking boots. I stood close to the guardrail, leaning against it with my knees. I felt him behind me, closing his door and jingling his keys. I’d been to places like that before. There were thousands of them all over the city, which was surrounded by hills and mountains. Way back when, before I’d even kissed Darren, I’d been up to a similar place to squirm around the back of Peter Dunbar’s Nissan. And after the prom, I’d come up to drink too much and make love to Darren behind a tree.

  “Do you live up here?” I asked.

  “I live in Griffith Park.” He stepped behind me. “Those bright lights are Universal City. To the right, that black part is the Hollywood reservoir.” I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. “Toluca Lake is to the left.” He put his hands on my neck, where every nerve ending in my body was now located, following his touch as he stroked me, like the little magnet shavings under plastic I’d played with as a kid. When the pen moved, the shavings moved, and I arched my neck to feel more of him. “The rest,” he said, “is hell on Earth. Not recommended.”

  He kissed me at the base of my neck. His lips were full and soft. His tongue traced a line across my shoulder. I gasped. I had not a single word to say, even when I felt his erection against my back and his hands moved across my stomach, feeling me through my clothes. God, I hadn’t been touched like that in so long. When did I decide men were too much trouble? A year and a half since I shed Kevin like a too-warm coat? I couldn’t even say. Drazen’s lips were more than lips; they were the physical memory of myself before I shut out sex to pursue music.

  I twisted, my lips searching for his, my mouth open for him as his was for me. We met there, tongues twisting together, his chest to my back, his hands moving up my shirt, teasing my nipples.

  I moaned and turned to face him. He pushed me against the car. The hardness between his legs felt enormous on my thigh. He moved his hand down and pushed my legs open, gripping tight enough to press my jeans against my skin. He looked down at me, and the intensity of the lust in his eyes was nearly intimidating, but I was way past sense. Miles. The thought of saying, “No, stop, I need sleep so I’m fresh for rehearsals tomorrow,” didn’t even occur to me. He pushed his hips between my legs and kissed me again. I was hungry for him. A white hot ball of heat grew beneath my hips. We kept kissing and grinding, hands everywhere. I pinched his nipple through his shirt and he gasped, biting my neck. I hated my clothes. I hated every layer of fabric between myself and his cock. I wanted to feel skin sweating above mine, his dick rigid and hot, his hands at my breasts. I wanted those hard, dry thrusts to be real, slick, sliding inside me.

  The siren blast split my ears. I almost choked on my own spit. Jonathan looked over at the police car and the tension in his neck was the last thing I saw before the light got too bright to see anything. I lowered my legs, and when he got off me, he held his hand out to help me off the hood.

  “Good morning,” came a male voice from behind the driver’s side light. The passenger door opened, and a female cop got out.

  “Good morning,” Jonathan and I answered like two kids greeting their third grade teacher. He wove his fingers in mine. The female cop shone her flashlight in my face. I flinched.

  “You okay, miss?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you step away from the gentleman, please? Come toward me.”

  I did, hands out so she knew I wasn’t reaching for anything. The cop pulled me out of earshot.

  “Do you know this guy?” she asked, shining a little light into my pupils to see if I was on anything stronger than pheromones.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you here of your own free will?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was pretty hot.” She snapped her little light down. “Next time, get a room, okay?”

  eleven

  Things cooled on the way home. I kept my legs crossed and his hand stayed on the gear shifter. When I told Jonathan the lady cop said we should get a room, he laughed.

  “If only she knew who she was talking about,” he said. After a few seconds, he stopped at a light and turned to me. “So, what’s up with you saying you’re not sleeping with me, then pushing up against my dick on the hood of my car?”

  I was a little annoyed with the question, because he brought me there and he started kissing my neck, but I also couldn’t pretend I wasn’t just as responsible for the raw heat of the scene.

  “I just…” I had to pause and think. The light changed, and when he turned his head back to the road, I felt like I could talk. “I have things I’m doing. I can’t be up all night fucking because my voice gets messed up. I can’t think about a man, any man, nothing personal, when I should be writing songs. Carving out enough nights for song writing, between gigs and working, is hard enough without making time for a boyfriend. So, I mean, I had to give up something in life, and it’s men.”

  He nodded and thought about it. He rubbed his chin, which had a little bit of stubble. My neck remembered it very fondly. “I get it.”

  “So, I’m sorry I led you on. That was careless.”

  His laugh was loud and inappropriate, considering what I’d just said, but he didn’t seem embarrassed.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “You’re taking all my best lines.”

  “Didn’t mean to steal your thunder.”

  “No problem. I enjoyed hearing it.”

  I leaned back and watched the scenery change from the twisted forestation of Mulholland to the expanse of the 101. How did I end up in this car, at four in the morning, with a known womanizer? Yes, he was gorgeous and warm and knew all the right places and ways to touch me, but really? How stupid would I be? How many women had fallen for this crap, and I was going to be another one in line?

  The wind made it hard to talk until he pulled off downtown. “What’s with you and sleeping around?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “All the women. You have a reputation.”

  “Do I?” He smirked, not looking at me as he drove. “And that didn’t chase you away?”

  “I trust myself. I trus
t my instincts and my resolve. You just make me curious is all.”

  He shrugged. “What do you think your reputation is?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Of course you do. Everyone does. When people talk about Monica, what do they say, besides that she’s beautiful?”

  I let the compliment slide. Coming from someone who had almost made his way into my pants, it didn’t mean much. “I guess they say I’m ambitious. I hope they say I’m talented. My friend Darren would say I’m cold.”

  “Did he try to get you into bed, too?”

  “Shut up.” He glanced at me and we smiled at each other. “I was with him for six and a half years, so it’s not like he had to try for a long time.”

  “Was it a hard breakup?” He stopped at a light and turned his gaze to me, ready to offer me sympathy or words of wisdom.

  “No. It was the easiest thing we ever did.” I couldn’t discern what he was thinking from the way he looked at me, but he got serious, draining his tone of all flirtation.

  “Easy for you?”

  “Both. It was dying for a long time.”

  He looked out his window, rubbing his lips with two fingertips.

  “You want to say something you’re not saying,” I said. “I don’t want to be your girlfriend, so being honest isn’t going to come back and bite you on the ass.”

  The Stock, and my car, were a block away. He pulled up to the curb. He put the Mercedes in park but didn’t turn the key.

  “You really want to know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you make me curious.”

  He smirked. “My wife and I were married that long. It wasn’t easy.” He rubbed the steering wheel, and I realized he regretted answering even the first part of the question. It was too late for me to give up on him now, so I waited until he said, “She left and took everything with her.”

  “I don’t understand. Are you broke?”

  He put the car into drive and turned to me. “She didn’t take a dime. She took everything that mattered.”

  I felt sorry and then I felt stupid for feeling any kind of sympathy. I wanted to hold his hand and tell him he’d get over it someday, but nothing could have been less appropriate.

  “I’m kinda hungry,” I said. “There’s this food truck thing on First and Olive. In a parking lot? You can come if you want.”

  “It’s four in the morning.”

  “Don’t come. Your call.”

  “You’re a tough customer. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  I shrugged. I really was hungry, and nothing sounded better than a little Kogi kimchi right then.

  twelve

  Jonathan was right in mentioning the time. Four in the morning was pretty late, as evidenced by the fact that he found a place for the car half a block away. We walked into the lot, against the traffic of twenty- and thirty-something partiers as they filtered out, one third more sober than they had been when they got there, carrying food folded in wax paper or swishing around eco-friendly containers. The lot was smallish, being in the middle of downtown and not in front of a Costco. The only parked vehicles lined the chain link fence, brightly painted trucks spewing luscious smells from all over the globe. My Kogi truck was there, as well as a gourmet popcorn truck, artisanal grilled cheese, lobster poppers, ice cream, sushi, and Mongolian barbecue. The night’s litter dotted the asphalt, hard white from the brash floodlights brought by the truck owners. The truck stops were informal and gathered by tweet and rumor. Each truck brought their own tables and chairs, garbage pail, and lights. The customers came between midnight and whenever.

  I scanned the lot for someone I knew, hoping I’d find someone to say hello to on one hand and wishing Jonathan and I could stay alone on the other.

  “My Kogi truck is over there,” I said.

  “I’m going to Korea next week. The last think I need is to fill up on Kogi. Have you had the Tipo’s Tacos?”

  “Tacos? Really?”

  “Come on.” He took my hand and pulled me over to the taco truck. “You’re not a vegetarian or anything?”

  “No.”

  “Hola,” he said to the guy in the window, who looked to be about my age or younger with a wide smile and little moustache. “Que tal?” he continued. That was about the extent of my Spanish, but not Jonathan’s. He started rattling off stuff, asking questions, and if the laughter between him and the guy with the little moustache was any indication, joking fluidly. If I’d closed my eyes, I’d have thought he was a different person.

  “You speak Spanish?” I asked.

  “I live in Los Angeles,” Jonathan replied as if his answer was the most obvious in the world.

  “You don’t speak it?” Little Moustache asked me.

  “No.”

  He said something to Jonathan, and there was more conversation, which made me feel left out. They were obviously talking about me.

  “He wants to know if you’re as smart as you are beautiful,” Jonathan said.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Prospects are good, but I need time to get to know you better.”

  “Anywhere in that conversation, did you order me a pastor?”

  “Just one?”

  “Yes. Just one.”

  “They’re small.” He made a circle with his hands, smiling like an old grandma talking to her granddaughter about being too damn skinny.

  I pinched his side, and there wasn’t much to grab. It was hard and tight. “One,” I said, trying to forget that I’d touched him.

  We sat at a long table. A few trucks were breaking down for the night. There was a feeling of quiet and finality, the feeling he and I had outlasted the late nighters and deep partiers. I finished my taco in three bites and turned around, putting my back to the table and stretching my legs.

  He took a swig of his water and touched my bicep with his thumb. “No tattoos?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I don’t know. Mid-twenties. Musician. Lives in Echo Park. You need tattoos and piercings to get into that club.”

  I shook my head. “I went a few times, but couldn’t commit to anything. My best friend Gabby has a few. I went with her once, and I couldn’t decide what to get. And anyway, it would have been awkward.”

  “Why?” He was working on his last taco, so I guess I felt like I should do the talking until he finished.

  “She was getting something important. On the inside of her wrist, she got the words Never Again on the scars she made when she cut herself. I couldn’t diminish it by getting some stupid thing on me.”

  He ate his last bite and balled up his napkin. “What happened that made her try to commit suicide?”

  “We have no idea. She doesn’t even know. Just life.” I wanted to tell him I’d found her, and been with her in the hospital, and that I took care of her, but I thought I’d gotten heavy enough. “I have a piercing, though,” I said. “Wanna see?”

  “I can see your ears from here.”

  I lifted my shirt to show him my navel ring with its little fake diamond. “Yes, it hurt.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Lovely.”

  He touched it, then spread his fingers over my stomach. His pinkie grazed the top of my waistband, and I took in a deep gasp. He put a little pressure toward him on my waist, and I followed it, kissing him deeply. His stubble scratched my lips and his tongue tasted of the water he’d just drunk. I put my hands on his cheeks, weaving my fingers in his hair.

  It was sweet, and doomed, and pointless, but it was late, and he was handsome and funny. I may not have been interested in having a boyfriend, but I wasn’t made of stone.

  When Little Moustache had to break down the table, we had to admit it was time to go. The sky had gone from navy to cyan, and the air warmed with the appearance of the first arc of the sun.

  We got to his car before he had to feed the meter. We didn’t say anything as he pulled into the parking lot at the Stock and went down two stories
to my lonely Honda, sitting in the employee section. I opened the door with a clack that echoed in the empty underground lot.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll probably see you at the hotel sometime.”

  “We can pretend this never happened.”

  “Up to you.” He touched my cheek with his fingertips, and I felt like an electrical cable to my nervous system went live. “I wouldn’t mind finishing the job.”

  “Let’s not promise each other anything.”

  “All right. No promises,” he said.

  “No lies,” I replied.

  “See you around.”

  We parted without a good-bye kiss.

  thirteen

  Gabby and I lived in the house I grew up in, which was on the second steepest hill in Los Angeles. When my parents moved, they let me live in the house for rent that equaled the property taxes plus utilities. I was sure I’d never need to move. I had two bedrooms and a little yard. The house had been a worthless piece of crap in a bad neighborhood when they bought it in the 1980s. Now it had a cardiologist to the west of it and a converted Montessori school that cost $1,800 a month to the east.

  The night Jonathan Drazen took me up to Mulholland Drive, I returned to find Darren sleeping on my couch. We had agreed to not leave Gabby alone until we knew she was okay, and she’d gotten no better after a week on her meds. The first blue light of morning came through the drapes, so I could see well enough to step around the pizza box he’d left on the floor and get into the bathroom.

  I looked at myself in the mirror. The convertible had wreaked havoc with my hair and my makeup was gone, probably all over Jonathan Drazen’s face.

  I still felt his touch: his lips on my neck, his hands feeling my breasts through my shirt. My fingers traced where his had been, and my cunt felt like an overripe fruit. I stuck my hand in my jeans, one knee on the toilet bowl, and came so fast and hard under the ugly fluorescent lights that my back arched and I moaned at my own touch. It was a waste of time. I wanted him as much after I came as I did before.

  My God, I thought, how did I do this to myself? What have I become?