I put my knee on the bed and swung myself to a straddling position. “I’m not done nursing you.” I undid his pants.
“Oh, really? What nursing school is this?”
I pulled out his dick. It was half hard already, and when I kissed it, it stood at full attention. “I have no clever answer.” I licked the length of his shaft with the flat of my tongue.
“Hell is freezing over,” he groaned, putting his right hand on my head and running his fingers in my hair. I opened my mouth and let him put pressure on the back of my head, slowly pushing his c**k into my mouth, past my tongue, and down my throat. He kept the pressure, and I breathed calmly through my nose, my eyes locked on his. When he eased up, I drew my head back, sucking him on the way out. He sighed, and a look of pure, relaxed pleasure overcame his face. A line of saliva connected my mouth to his cock. I licked my lips.
“You never let me use my hands,” I said.
He blinked, as if thinking about all the times his dick was in my mouth, counting off instances and places. “Total oversight on my part.”
“You like control.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Let me have you,” I said. “Give yourself to me.”
“Submission’s not fun for me.”
Hands behind my back, I took him again, all the way down, tasting sharp sweat and a drop of salt as I sucked him on the way out. “Let me please you, sir. Let me give you my best.”
“When you put it that way...”
I placed one hand at the base of his cock, and with the other, I cupped his sack. I took him completely, trying to keep submission on my mind and in my attitude as I controlled what he felt. The pace was mine. The intensity was mine. When he put his hands on me, it was with affection, not control, and when he came, filling my throat and closing his eyes, I maintained that attitude of gratitude and abdication, licking him clean.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“How is your arm?” It hung at his side, unused during the whole episode.
“Feels stiff but okay.” His eyelids drooped as he watched me. He stroked my hair and cheek, and I kissed his fingers.
I kneeled and pulled him gently from the waist. “If you scoot down, I’ll rearrange the compresses.”
He did. I put a pillow under his head, elevated the sore arm, put him under the blankets, and drew them up. I shut the light and curled up next to him. Seconds later, his breathing slowed, and I slipped away.
Chapter 21.
—I went home—
The content of Jessica’s text didn’t surprise me. The fact that she’d bothered to send it did. She was desperate for contact.
Jonathan’s car was parked right out front. I’d never actually driven a Jaguar, but as soon as I turned the key, I understood the difference between it and my Civic. It was smooth everywhere. The seams didn’t rattle. No crumbs were in the corners, as if one simply ate more neatly, or not at all, in such a car. It went from park to drive as if by the power of thought, and the dashboard lights didn’t glare or ask me to read them. They existed to be understood in a hueless grey and whispered information urgently. Half full. Forty thousand RPM. Seventy-five miles per hour.
What heaven, driving a black Jaguar on PCH at midnight.
I enjoyed the ride so much, I hadn’t even thought to turn on the radio, and when a classical station came on, I woke up to the complications of being in Jonathan’s car. She had an order of protection. If his car pulled up to Jessica’s place, alarms would be raised. Possibly by Jessica, the police, Santon’s team—wherever they may be. Whatever the case, once she saw the car, I couldn’t pretend we had broken up and I was looking for vengeance. I was going in as the loyal girlfriend, and my leverage would decrease. I passed her house. Lights out. Car in driveway. It was midnight on a Monday, after all. I spun around the corner, wound up all turned around because the streets weren’t on a grid, came back to the beach side of the street, over shot the house by two blocks, and parked. I needed all my options, and that meant walking in as if I’d taken a cab.
The modernist house sat on an incline with twisting stairs to the top and desert flowers on the way up. I slipped up the concrete steps quickly and inconspicuously, hoping the crickets and ocean waves covered my footfall. The door was huge, heavy, and red with a knob in the center. The front of the house had small plate windows since they faced the street. The back would be made of glass from floor to twelve-foot ceiling, since it faced the ocean.
I stood on my toes and peeked. Lights were on farther back in the house, and I saw the blue flicker of a TV. The bell was the light-up kind. I put my finger over it and held my breath.
Then I pressed it.
Ring and run! Ring and run!
When I was a kid in the EP, as we called it, we’d ring bells and run away, hiding behind parked cars or a hedge, just for the joy of watching as someone came to the door. No game was more infantile, yet I was tempted to play it.
Ring and run! Ring and run!
She wasn’t coming. I had enough time to run away and get back in the car. Take PCH to the 10 to the 110 and get off at Stadium Way. Take a leisurely drive through Solano Canyon in Jonathan’s car. Pull the sleek machine into the drive. Crawl back into bed with the love of my life and make him breakfast in the morning like I oughta. Explain I was moving the car and had to take it for a spin. He’d love to hear that. Delight him. That was my job.
Ring and run! Ring and run!
A light flicked somewhere in the house, sending wide bands of dim light across the concrete path. I had a meeting tomorrow with the president of Carnival Records, and my voice would be hoarse and I’d have bags under my eyes. I had to go home and rest. Go immediately. I had a career. I’d worked hard. Jonathan could take care of himself. He was a big boy. Sing. I wanted to sing.
The front light flicked on, and the big knob flicked and twisted. I stepped back. One step.
Run!
The door swung open as I stepped down. She was dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt. She looked as if she’d just walked out of a soap ad. How did Jonathan ever f**k her? Did she sweat? Did she groan? Did a tear of post-orgasmic joy ever drop down her cheek?
“Hello, Monica,” she said. “Finally.”
“Hello, Jessica.”
“Won’t you come in?” She stepped out of the way, and I walked into her house.
Chapter 22.
The ugliest lamp in the world illuminated the room in warm light. It was gold with a parchment shade and a neck shaped like seven tennis balls stacked on top of one another. Everything else was impeccable. Somehow, though, a mark of impermanence stained the décor. Nothing looked settled or important. The corners were visible. The surfaces were without tchotchke or photo. The art was original but marginal. I had been right about the back wall. The windows stretched corner to corner, exposing a lit up pool and a view that was pure blackness at night, but in the day would be clear to the horizon, where sky met sea.