Submit (Songs of Submission)

by CD Reiss

  In the middle of his pitch, he’d sat down, and like a coiled spring, perched on the edge of the seat, his legs splayed, heels rocking his seat back onto the corners of the legs. His elbows were angled to the tabletop, hands gesturing.

  How young I’d been to fall so deeply in love with his enthusiasm. “So this is what you were trying to do with the Eclipse piece?”

  “I was trying to exorcise you with that, trying to figure it out so I could get rid of you. But it made me think about what something truly personal could mean as a visual narrative, and then I thought, maybe it’s not a visual narrative. Maybe it’s a multi-media narrative, with one party speaking to the visual and another to the aural.” As if reacting to my expression, he leaned forward even farther. “Before you think anything, both narratives need to fight each other. There needs to be an aesthetic tension until it all goes black and silent. It’s an experience of fullness before death. Pow.”

  I sipped my tea. He needed to wait for me to think. I wasn’t fucking him anymore. I didn’t have to jump like a brainless fangirl on every idea he pitched me. Except it was a good idea. Everything about it could be beautiful, a truly moving experience, a three-dimensional cinema of tone.

  “You’re not talking about a linear narrative,” I said.

  “Of course not.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, what?”

  “You should do it. But without my toiletries.”

  “Fuck your toiletries. I want you.”

  I took a long breath through my nose and closed my eyes. I needed to avoid lashing out. He couldn’t have meant it sexually. Couldn’t.

  “Let me rephrase that,” he said.

  “Please.”

  “It’s a collaboration. You do the aural, obviously.”

  I pursed my lips and stared into my tea. “Kevin, I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “For one, it would be awkward.”

  “Only if we let it be.”

  He leaned on the wall, his posture relaxed now that the pitch phase of the process was ended and the artistic seduction phase was about to begin.

  “And two,” I said, “I haven’t been able to write a word or make two notes together make sense. I’m stuck.”

  “Getting stuck is part of the process”

  “It’s a no.”

  “So you’ll think about it?”

  “Your thirty minutes are up, Kevin.” I stood. “It was nice to see you.”

  “Let me walk you out.” He smiled like a man who hadn’t been rejected but had just gotten exactly what he wanted.

  CHAPTER 2

  Fifteen minutes after Jessica Carnes implied Jonathan’s roughness in bed had broken her wrist, Jonathan had texted me.

  —What did she tell you?—

  I didn’t answer, and I didn’t hear from him again. Debbie, my bar manager and a friend of Jonathan’s, had seen but not heard the exchange and had alerted him while he was in San Francisco. She’d admitted it with no guilt.

  “If you saw your face,” she said, “you would have called him too.”

  “Sometimes I think you’re more invested in this relationship than either of us,” I’d replied, arranging drinks on a tray.

  “I like you both. Jessica, not as much. Now go serve those before the ice melts.”

  But I was glad I didn’t hear from Jonathan again. I didn’t want to have some drawn-out phone conversation about what Jessica had told me and why it upset me whether or not he fucked her. I didn’t want excuses. I didn’t want conflicting stories. I just wanted to do what I was supposed to be doing: making music, being at peace with it, watching Gabby, doing my paying job without a sad look on my face or clumsy spills.

  So when I got another call from Jonathan, I sent it to voicemail. I was driving. And I didn’t want to talk to him. I knew he was back, because for all my posturing, I was counting the days until his return. He texted, and I ignored it. But when I got to a red light, I had to read it. I was only human.

  —If you’re ending it with me just tell me, ok?—

  Fuck. He had to go there. He had to undercut my delicious spite. I pulled the car over and drafted and redrafted a text. If I saw him before our studio time for WDE tomorrow, I could cut it short. No twelve-hour fuck sessions. Perfect. I needed to avoid hurting myself on his body.

  —Tomorrow afternoon to talk?—

  My screen told me he was typing, and I imagined his thumb sliding over the glass, the way it had slid over my body, and I shuddered a little as the car idled in a red zone.

  —Public space?—

  I started typing, then stopped myself. A public space meant I couldn’t show that I was upset, and if I were honest with myself for a change, I was upset. The problem with a private space was that being alone in a room with him meant the conversation could only end one way.

  —Private—

  —Would the Loft Club be ok? Not exactly neutral—

  —It’s fine. 1pm. Gotta go—

  I tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and put the car in drive. I’d scheduled Jonathan three hours before a recording session in Burbank. The session had been set up by Eugene Testarossa at WDE because Gabby and I didn’t have a track between us.

  The lunch meeting with Testarossa had gone smoothly and lasted exactly one hour. We were stroked, complimented, and offered gigs and contracts that could never be delivered. I’d become convinced some time during college that the most valuable skill one needed in Los Angeles was the ability to tell the bullshit from the real shit. Only one piece of reality entered the conversation.

  “Carnival has a new label,” Eugene said as he finished his salad. He’d taken us to Mantini’s and spent the whole meal looking at the door. “Singer, songwriters. Not folk, but a kind of trip-hop poetry. Lyrically heavy lounge.”

  “I don’t have a lot of songs ready,” I’d jumped in. I didn’t want to say I didn’t have any have songs, but I couldn’t lie completely without getting busted.

  Eugene waved his hand. “We have a songwriter. We need your pipes.” As an afterthought, he turned to Gabby. “And your compositional skills.”

  So we’d agreed to cut two songs written by a WDE client at DownDawg Studios in Burbank. Gabby and I were hip-pocketed, meaning they could take a portion of any money we made without committing to represent us over the long term. Gabby giggled the whole way home, but I felt as though I’d just had a fist removed from my ass.

  The songs had been messengered the next day. For all Eugene’s pretentions about lyrically driven vocals, they were lame garbage. I was going to have to work twice as hard to make them sound like anything. The last thing I should have done was make a date with Jonathan just before the recording session, but I’d been compelled. It was good timing. I’d have an excuse to leave.

  When my phone blooped, I didn’t look at it. If Jonathan and I were on, then we were on. If he had a change, he was going to have to wait for me to accept it. I wasn’t playing games with him. I really needed to get to Darren’s if I was going to talk to him and still get to Frontage on time.

  I parked in my driveway and walked down the hill and right on Echo Park Ave. Darren lived in a two-story apartment building with a courtyard in the middle of a giant U. It was exactly like thousands of other buildings in Los Angeles: poorly thought-out, carelessly built, and hopelessly ugly. But the tall hedges and trees in the front gave it the appearance of a quiet hideaway, and its proximity to his damaged sister, who he had to watch if he was going to sleep at night, made it the perfect place for him.

  The front gate was chocked open as always by the kids running in and out. I was thinking about how to ask him what I wanted to ask him and what answer I wanted as I trudged up the steps. I passed his window. The TV was on, so he was home. The front door was open, the screen was shut, and inside, Darren leaned on the kitchen doorframe and laughed. It was a relaxed laugh, done with his arms crossed, as an answer to something, and I felt as though I was eavesdropping. I raised my hand
to knock, but a man with short sandy hair got up from the couch, and Darren laughed harder as he was engulfed in arms and kisses—wet and passionate—and four robust male arms tangled around each other.

  I couldn’t keep silent. “Aha!”

  They pulled off each other and looked at me.

  “Musical theater!” I shouted. “You’re the mystery woman taking him out to shows!”

  “Which one is this?” Sandy Hair asked.

  They looked at each other, and Darren said, “You coming in or what?”

  I went through the door and held out my hand. “I’m Monica. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Adam. Same here.”

  We shook. His grip was tight and dry. He was hot, with a little blondish stubble and grey eyes I knew would change color depending on what he wore. I tried to stay calm, but inside, I was giggling with delight. I was happy not only to uncover Darren’s secret, but that he was only hiding happiness.

  Adam picked up his jacket. “I gotta go.” He approached Darren and went in for a kiss. Darren kept his arms crossed and turned his face to catch it on the cheek. Adam took him by the cheeks and turned his face, kissing him wetly on the lips. Darren was non-responsive.

  “Oh, come on,” Adam said. “Look at her. She’s smiling.”

  “Kiss him! Kiss him!” I said.

  He did, and it was such a lovely sight to see my friend happy that I had clench my hands to keep from clapping.

  Adam finally pushed him away. “God, slut. You’re making me late.” He winked at me on the way out.

  I knew I was smiling again. It was the uncontrollable type of grin that hurt my face.

  “You’re embarrassing yourself,” he said.

  “I don’t care. Are you going to tell me everything?”

  He threw himself on the couch and turned off the TV. “We met in the Music House. He comes in all the time. I thought he was asking for me because of my expertise.”

  “But it was your hot body.”

  He threw a pillow at me. “Would you stop?”

  I buried my face in the pillow. “I’m so happy. I worried about you all the time because you rarely went out with anyone.”

  “I was confused, as they say. And Lord knows I couldn’t burden Gabby.”

  I flung the pillow back at him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “We have a past. I didn’t want you to feel like I was… I don’t know, like I didn’t love you the right way.”

  “You didn’t, you fucktard. Now you do, but then you didn’t. And why don’t you tell Gabby now?”

  He sighed. “Adam’s last name is Marsillo. Which means nothing to you. But the CEO of Foundation Records? That’s her maiden name.”

  “That’s his mother.”

  “Gabby would know that,” he said, “and freak out. She’d start making marriage plans. He’s nice, but I’m not ready for her to start hovering.”

  I looked away, fondling the crease in my jeans. Gabby would handle her brother’s homosexuality just fine, but he was right. Any connection to the music industry could send her spinning in either direction.

  I jumped up and dropped into his lap, hugging him for all I was worth. I kissed his cheek.

  He laughed and pushed me away. “Sorry, baby, you’re not my type.”

  “I’m heartbroken.”

  “Did you come here to snoop or did you have something to say?”

  “I saw Kevin.”

  “Uh oh?”

  “Nothing like that. He wants to collaborate on a project. I’m totally stuck, and I thought if the three of us worked on it, I’d get unstuck, and we could be together again.” I looked at my watch and bounced to my feet. “But now I have no time to even discuss it. Are you coming tonight?”

  “Adam and I have tickets.” He smiled. “Musical theater.”

  “You’re a cliché.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t tell Gabby yet. I don’t like this thing with Theo.”

  “Why not?” I was annoyed that he’d deny her happiness just when he’d found his own.

  “He deals scrips. He’s the last person she should be messing with.”

  “How did I not know that?”

  “You’re head hasn’t been in the game since you spent the night up in Griffith Park. Speaking of, did you see the pictures of you and Mister Gorgeous at the Eclipse show? They were all over the internet.”

  “God, no.”

  “Do you want me to pull them up? You look amazing.”

  “Absolutely not. I don’t want to hear what anyone has to say about my life. Living it is hard enough.” I went to the door, but thought better of bolting out. I hugged Darren again and kissed his cheek. “I’m happy for you.”

  He pushed me toward the door. I felt closer to him than I’d felt since we were in high school. “Get out of here,” he said. “Knock ’em dead or whatever.”

  CHAPTER 3

  At first, I wore the outfit least likely to land Jonathan’s dick inside me. My jeans were tight enough to cut the curve of my ass and accent the space between my skinny thighs, but so difficult to get off in a heat of passion that I’d have plenty of time to think about what I was doing and deny him access. I wore a bra with three hooks in back and a woven shirt that couldn’t be pulled over the head without unbuttoning it. I looked hot and physically inaccessible.

  I realized that made me very easy to lie to, because I’d walk into the room, he’d make plans to remove my clothes, assess the difficulties and say whatever he had to in order to soothe my mind. I didn’t want that. I wanted the truth about what had happened between him and Jessica the night he dropped me at my house. I wanted it in all its ugliness and gritty detail. I wanted all the pain and all the hurt. I owned it for trusting him and for asking more of him than he could give, even though I’d been warned. If he hurt me enough, I wouldn’t make those mistakes again.

  Despite the bruises that still stained the backs of my thighs, Jonathan wasn’t the kind of guy to revel in hurting me, at least not emotionally. I was going to have to pull it out of him, and my suit of armor wasn’t going to cut it. I had to weaken him. I had to make him tell me everything, even against his better judgment. I had to make him beg.

  It was garter, then, and a dress with a flared bottom. I got aroused just putting on that outfit. I’d go to the studio in Burbank directly after, so I stuck a pair of spare undies in my bag and called myself done.

  CHAPTER 4

  As I stepped out of the elevator into the club’s lobby, a throbbing ache developed between my legs, and with each step down the hall, my snatch swung a little as if aware of the garter I wore under the skirt. The upcoming conversation was going to be very difficult if I didn’t get a handle on my sex drive.

  I towered over Terry, the hostess, in four-inch heels. They made me about six feet tall, but I’d wanted to be looking Jonathan in the face. I needed to catch lies and half-truths before they dropped.

  The room was a different one, smaller, with two sets of cocktail tables, and a leather loveseat and coffee table in the center of the room. He stood by the wall of windows, and when he looked at me, my heart stopped for half a beat. It was the work clothes, the charcoal suit, maroon tie, and the cufflinks. The glass of Perrier in his fingertips.

  But when I got close, something had changed. His scent wasn’t the dry one I remembered, but something like sawdust, leather, and wet earth. The aroma was less beautiful, but sexier, and I felt the effects of it in the weight and wetness of my snatch and the tingle in my ass.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hello.”

  The door closed behind me. I wanted to hold him, to forget everything. If I could only pretend Jessica hadn’t come into the bar, I would have wrapped myself around him. I stepped close to him, until we were eye to eye.

  “Can I get you a glass of water?” he asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Flat water? I can get it without bubbles.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “I can order
up some cookies.”

  “I don’t want anything.”

  “Can you just tell me what she told you?”

  “You’re all aquiver, Jonathan. What do you think she told me?” My tone was sharper than I’d intended.

  He swirled the ice around in his glass. “Something that upset you.” He was going to dance around indefinitely. He was guarded and undoubtedly ready to be dishonest about something.

  I had come prepared to make it very difficult for him. “Yes. She said something that upset me. A lot.” I hooked my finger in his waistband.

  “Did she say you looked fat? She can be very catty.”

  “Funny guy.” I pulled his belt from the loop, yanking the tongue from the metal hook. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I want it answered in detail.” His belt fell open with a metallic clank. I took the glass from his hand and placed it on the table. His fingertips went for my face, but I pulled them away. “Hands at your sides.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Do I look like I’m joking?” I unzipped his pants. “I’m going to be on my knees. No touching.”

  “Was there a question? You said there was a question.”

  I dropped to my knees and rubbed his organ through his underwear, hardening it. I put my lips to it and breathed a hot breath, then rubbed my teeth through the cloth covering his growing stiffness. He groaned.

  I pulled out his cock, the gorgeous thing, and licked the tip. “Are you ready for my question?”