Collection: A Submission Series Story Collection

by Reiss, CD

  “He’s up,” Dr. VanDerWaal said on the ninth day, meeting me at the entrance to the cardiac unit. It was Martha’s day off, so I’d come with Gabby, not expecting such good news, nor expecting that it would come with practical entanglements. Like a mother who suddenly wasn’t a celebrity billionaire, I had child care issues.

  “Can I bring the baby in? Should I?”

  “As long as she doesn’t play with the equipment.”

  “She won’t.”

  “And no touching. Not yet.” He high-fived my daughter. “Children are made of germs, aren’t they, little one?”

  She leaned her head on my shoulder.

  “Okay,” I said. “No touching.”

  “Gut, you might change her first.”

  “Right.”

  “There’s a counter in the nursing room.”

  God bless Northern Europe, where every consideration was made. I went through a door with a graphic of a baby on it. The light was soft and the walls were a welcoming shade of pale green. The carpet dulled the hard clops of heels. The countertop had an easily-wipable cushion, and a door led to another room with a rocking chair and pillows.

  “Isn’t this nice?” I said, putting Gabby down onto the changing table. The shelves had plastic and cloth diapers, wipes, and sealable bags for cloth dirties. I got my own diaper out of the bag, kissing and cooing to my beautiful daughter as I changed her.

  “We’re going to see daddy.”

  “Daddeeee.” She reached for the diaper bag. Motherhood made me psychic. I knew what she wanted, plucking a bottle of watered-down juice from the side pocket and handing it to her. She sucked on the plastic spout.

  His heart’s made of the same stuff.

  Love wasn’t in the heart any more than the liver or the spleen. The idea was ridiculous, yet for the first time, I wondered if he’d love us differently. More sensibly. Would his love turn cold and dispassionate, yet become unbreakable? Would his love turn indestructible? Surviving the end of humanity, living fifty thousand years, long after our hearts had disintegrated into dust?

  “Daddy is going to be lying down,” I said to Gabby as I changed her. “He’s going to look sick. But he’s not sick. He just had a new piece put in so he can live a long time.” Her eyes started drooping as she sucked. Was it naptime? I’d lost track of everything in the past week. I kissed her feet. The big toe and ball of her foot were hardening from the bear-crawling. “Daddy’s in a special place where we have to be very careful of him. Just for a little while. You’re going to want to touch him and give him high-fives. You can’t. That’s going to really bother you. You’re going to want to kiss his face and tell him it’s going to be all right. I’m just warning you before we go in. You just keep loving him as much as you do now and he’s going to be fine. He’s going to live a long, long time.” Tucking her wet diaper into the pail, I put her clothes back on. “He’s going to see you take your first steps and hear you make your first sentence. He’s going to be there when you go to kindergarten, and if you cry, he’s going to kiss your tears and tell you how wonderful school is. He’s going to disapprove of your friends, and let you have them anyway. He’s going to catch you when you fall, and when you’re ready, he’s going to let you go.”

  A teardrop fell on my sleeping daughter’s shirt.

  “God, get it together, Faulkner.”

  I cradled my daughter and headed out of the sweet little room.

  Chapter 5

  MONICA

  Jonathan was in a normal room, lying flat so the blood didn’t have to fight gravity. They’d closed his chest for the second time in his life, and hopefully the last.

  “Hey,” I said when the nurse closed the door behind me. He turned his face to us.

  “Is she sleeping?”

  “Like a Faulkner.”

  I sat on the little couch on the other side of the room and laid Gabby out. Without waking, she tucked her knees under her in the face-down fetal position she preferred.

  “You look good,” I said.

  “I’m sick of looking at the damn ceiling.”

  “Now you know how I feel.”

  He laughed as much as he could, turning his head to me. “When I’m out of here you’re going to be blindfolded so much you’re going to beg for the ceiling.”

  He was still Jonathan. I didn’t know what else I expected.

  “Does it feel okay?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Well, do you still love me?” I joked.

  Slowly, he closed his eyes.

  What a stupid question.

  Stupid, insensitive, unfunny question.

  I got up and walked to him, standing at the edge of the bed with my hands behind my back so I wouldn’t be tempted to reach for him.

  “Jonathan.”

  He opened his green eyes. They were lit from within by the fire of uncertainty.

  “You know you love me.”

  “Don’t suggest otherwise ever again.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “When I get out of this fucking bed...the things I’m going to do to you.”

  “Tell me.” I leaned down so the baby wouldn’t hear. My hair fell over my shoulder and onto the sheets. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to be this close. I started to stand straight but he reached up more quickly than expected and took the hair in his fist.

  “Jonathan,” I said through a shot of arousal so surprising it hurt.

  “I’m going to tie your elbows to your knees, like our first night together.”

  “You’re not supposed to touch me.”

  But he didn’t let go, continuing in a husky whisper, and my eyes fluttered closed as every word took hold of my body.

  “I’m going to light a candle and put it between your breasts. The wax is going to drip on you, hotter and hotter while I finger your ass and cunt. You’re going to beg me to let you come, but I won’t. I’m going to move the candle over your hard little nipples. I’ll let it drip between your legs. I’m going to fuck your mouth so you stop begging. When the candle burns out, I’ll fuck you until you come for me.”

  “Yes. God, yes.”

  “I am so in love with you,” he said with the same hard growl he’d used to describe the power of his desire. “You’re everything, Monica. Don’t you ever, ever forget it.”

  I opened my eyes. His love was as present as it had ever been, hard with ardor and tender with adoration.

  “I love you.” My words seemed insufficiently poetic. “I love you so much. And I want to kiss you but I shouldn’t.”

  He spread his hand over my neck, exerting a slight pressure toward him. He wanted that kiss. I wanted that kiss. That exchange of sensation in the most sensitive parts of our body.

  “Daddy!”

  I spun around. Gabby was in bear crawl position. Hands on the floor, knees straight, feet leveraged on the linoleum floor.

  “Gabby! Stop!”

  I went for her but a single syllable from Jonathan held me.

  “Wait!” He barked in a fragile voice that hadn’t sounded as brittle a second before. I looked back at him. What his voice couldn’t impart, his raised hand did. “Just wait.”

  Gabby’s hands left the floor and she stood as she always did. She wouldn’t be crawling over to us. That was good.

  “Wait,” Jonathan said again as if he knew. As if his heart could see into his daughter’s intentions.

  She moved one foot forward tenuously. I gasped.

  Arms out, she took another step.

  “Daddy!” She waved to him with her fat little fingers. Another step. More confident.

  I crouched down and held my arms out.

  “Come on,” I said.

  She took another, picking her foot up a little more. Looking up at her father to make sure she was okay. Another step. So close.

  “One more,” Jonathan said. “Go ahead, little girl.”

  One more turned into two and she fell into my arms.

  The
cheer from the three of us brought the doctors and nurses in like an invading army.

  I didn’t try to hide his proximity to his daughter. Instead, I leaned down so he could give her the high-five she so richly deserved.

  I never doubted he could love us with an artificial heart, but seeing his face as he touched his daughter’s hand, I knew he didn’t doubt it either. He’d love us as much as he ever did for the rest of his long, long life.

  * * *

  My name is Monica Faulkner-Drazen.

  I am an artist.

  I will make music until my heart is empty, then I will fill it again. To do any less is to cheat myself and my family of my full humanity.

  I am mother to my child.

  I will protect her from harm. I will nurture her to womanhood. She will be resilient and tender. Compassionate and strong. She will know her worth and demand that everyone around her be worth the same. She will be a warrior because I am a warrior.

  I am Jonathan’s mate.

  I will protect him from harm. I will give him everything he needs and more. I will submit to him and partner with him. Care for him and let him care for me. I will speak my mind and listen to him with an open heart because to do any less is to cheat him of my own love. I will accept his love for the prize it is, never take it for granted, never reject it or find it insufficient.

  My name is Monica Faulkner-Drazen.

  I stand nearly six feet tall in bare feet, but with my family, I can reach the clouds.

  Jonathan is the sky. I am the sea. Our daughter is the horizon that cements us together.

  COUNT

  There are some writers who used all the downtime of the 2020 lockdowns to pound out books. God bless them.

  I tried.

  I failed.

  The inability to plan for anything in my real life shut down the part of my brain that mapped stories and built characters.

  Jonathan and Monica are such comfort food for me, that they were the only characters I could write at all, because I didn’t have to build a world, or situations, or conflicts. And I love them so dearly that they cheered me up during the hard months of 2020. I hope they lift your spirits.

  Chapter 1

  JONATHAN

  Nothing was cuter than a redheaded three-year-old in a pink tutu. Especially my three-year-old, with her chubby legs in sagging stockings and the dead-serious drama on her face as she raised her arms in front of the closet mirror. A row of stuffed animals were lined against the floor, with Pokey the Pig front and center. Best seat in the house.

  “Fith pishon,” she said.

  I nodded even though I had no idea what she was talking about, and checked my phone.

  Nothing.

  I tapped my fingers on the arm of the adult-sized princess chair in Gabby’s room. Monica had texted when her plane landed and not since. I hadn’t seen her in two weeks, and these last twenty minutes of waiting for her to get her ass home were the longest of them.

  Gabby lowered her right arm and said, “Fath pishon.”

  I was fluent in five languages and could manage in half a dozen more, but conversational toddler defied all standard logic. I picked up my phone and tapped out a message to my wife.

  —Goddess. Did you find Lil?—

  The answer came immediately. Lucky for her.

  —Yep. There’s traffic, but I should

  make it to the studio in time—

  The studio? Did she think she was going right to work?

  My first instinct was a flat no, but we’d been down that road before. Blocking her outright brought out the brat.

  —Studio for what?—

  “Tur pishon,” Gabby said, switching her arms again.

  The phone rang in my hand. My wife. I picked it up.

  “Tell me you’re joking,” Monica said before I could say the exact same thing.

  I got up and went into the hall. Gabby didn’t need to hear the power dynamics of my relationship with her mother.

  “You don’t give the orders around here,” I said.

  “Jonathan. It’s recital day. Karen Cooley planned a lunch after dress rehearsal and Gabby can’t miss it.”

  I knew that. My daughter was in a sparkly tutu, waving her arms around in front of a mirror, for that exact reason. That wasn’t a reason for my wife to extend her work trip another few hours.

  “Martha’s coming in ten minutes,” I said. “You’re home in twenty. Your first orgasm’s in thirty.”

  “Hang on, let me get the ear things in so you hear me.” After a pop, the outside noise was reduced. “Better?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. So the answer is no. We’re going to both.”

  “Oh, goddess, the punishment’s going to fit the crime if you don’t get your ass—”

  “We can’t miss her dress rehearsal because you want sex.”

  I stopped pacing the hall and fixated on a knot in the wood floor, searching my mind for the thing I’d misunderstood.

  “Pepty pishon,” Gabby said from inside her room.

  Monica wasn’t planning on going to her studio. She wanted to meet us at the dance studio, which was a whole other problem. I was used to talking her out of overworking, not overparenting.

  “We’re going to the recital,” I explained. “There’s no need to go to the dress rehearsal.”

  “Like hell.”

  I rubbed my eyes in frustration. I’d been hoping to send Gabby to the dress rehearsal with Martha while I fucked my wife so we could meet them at the lunch with the other parents and tiny ballerinas as sexually satisfied adults before the actual performance—which would be even more charming and adorable after I got my dick inside my wife. But now it was looking like I wouldn’t get Monica on her knees until the night nurse showed up at seven.

  “Martha’s already coming,” I said, leaning in the doorway to watch my daughter move her arms in the mirror. “She’s taking her to the dress rehearsal so the performance can be a surprise for us.”

  Making that up on the spot was a stroke of genius my wife would neither appreciate nor fall for.

  “Oh, well in that case, sure. Let’s show our child how important she is to one of her nannies.”

  “She knows she’s important. Going to a dress rehearsal won’t change that.”

  Monica sighed, and I thought that meant I had her. Maybe I could squeeze another hour out of her this afternoon too.

  “Jonathan,” she said.

  “Monica.”

  “In second grade, I was in the children’s choir at St. John’s. I was the youngest singer to ever have a solo. My father was on deployment during the season, but he promised—he swore he’d get back for the performance, and guess what?”

  “I’m not your father.”

  “Then show up. Every damn time, unless your convoy’s hit with an IED, you show the fuck up.”

  Foolishly, I’d assumed once I got the artificial heart, Monica would stop worrying that one day, Gabby would lose her father, but no. She was a worrier, and the best way to soothe her anxiety was to bend a little and not an inch more.

  “Between the dress rehearsal and the performance,” I said, going to the end of the hall where I wouldn’t be overheard. “No lunch with the other mothers. No bullshit. Martha can watch her while you beg to come. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “And I won’t let you. Not until after the performance, after dinner… after bed. You’re going to have to live with a wet cunt until she’s sleeping.”

  “Okay, sir,” she purred, turning me on with her eager acquiescence.

  I heard the toilet lid click against the tank in Gabby’s room. Depending on what she was doing in there, I had a few minutes.

  Slipping into my office, I got out of earshot and leaned against the window. I closed my eyes and imagined her. My wife had just gotten off an international flight and would be in something comfortable.

  “The glass between you and Lil…” I said.

 
“It’s up. She listens to the news and I can’t deal. Why? You have something on your mind?”

  She was alone, behind tinted windows, with an opaque, soundproof barrier between her and our driver, and we were very practiced at long distance sex.

  She knew exactly what was on my mind.

  “You’re wearing your travel pants,” I said. “The black ones with the drawstring.”

  “Yes, actually.”

  “Pull them down to just above your knees.”

  I heard her shuffling. “She’s not around, is she?”

  In this context, she was always our daughter.

  “Of course not.”

  “Good, because—”

  “Hush.”

  She hushed, and her obedience was what got my dick hammer-hard.

  “Your underwear. Pull it down so there’s nothing between your cunt and the world.”

  Shuffling.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Slide down the seat and lift your knees into your chest.” I heard her obey with one long exhale. “Pull it open, but don’t touch. Offer yourself to me.”

  “God, Jonathan.”

  “Don’t tell me my name. Tell me how you feel.”

  She swallowed. “I feel like my inside is bigger than my outside. Like my skin is a balloon. It’s stretched tight over an explosion.”

  “You’re swollen.”

  “Yes.”

  “Touch yourself. Tell me if you’re wet.”

  “I am.”

  What to promise? Everything. Nothing. Pleasure. Pain. A touch of humiliation to remind her who she trusted.

  “You’ll come with a flick of my tongue. So I’ll hurt you first to make it last, then—”

  “Daddeeeeeeee!” Gabby cried, half a world away, and I deflated like the balloon between my wife’s legs.

  “What?” Monica gasped. “Is she okay?”

  “I need wipeeeeey!”