Collection: A Submission Series Story Collection by Reiss CD

Author:Reiss, CD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

MONICA

Jonathan’s gaze was a continuous companion. He owned me with it. He called his pilot to go to Nashville with his eyes on me. He undressed me slowly by the brightest lamp and made love to me so tenderly it hurt. He touched my neck all the time, drawing his fingers over the bumps in the collar and his thumb over the lock. The next morning, his gaze peeled me open from across the room, and he watched me go out the door as if in a state of utter gratification.

I worried on the way to Mrs. Yuan’s that everyone was looking at me with hunger. I felt undressed.

She had a pink hibiscus in her hair. I’d seen them growing outside, and I resisted the urge to touch it to see if it was real.

“Is that going to constrict you?” was the first thing she asked. Not a surprise.

“I don’t think so.”

She turned to Sherri. “Was she wearing it last night?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Well,” she said, turning back to me, “from what I understand, we have nowhere to go but up.”

My face got hot. Sherri wouldn’t look at me even when my eyes burned holes into her.

“It was pretty bad,” I said.

“Good,” she said, surprising me. “I’d hate for you to peak too soon. And it’s out of your system. You survived it. Nothing can hurt you now.”

I felt inexplicably relieved, as if she’d given me some sort of indefinable permission I’d been unable to give myself. Not permission to succeed or fail. Permission to just do the thing without calling it a name.

She removed her fork from the box. “Let’s start with some scales. Then work on our transition to banner.”

I tilted my head right then left, feeling the collar bend with me.

“You will be good,” she said.

I lowered my lids, as if I had to see her through a narrower opening. Had she said something nice? “I’m still not Whitney Houston.”

“No, you are not Whitney Houston. You’ll do it without changing the phrasing.”

She tapped her fork before I could absorb what she’d said, and I hit the note, working back and forth as we’d done for two weeks.

The rehearsal was light and more positive than usual. Mrs. Yuan had more exhortations up her sleeve than I’d given her credit for, and she didn’t look at the collar once more. But she and Sherri were the only ones to see me, and I’d made plans to be in public that afternoon to get my mind off the evening.

Once in the car, I checked my texts.

Yvonne:

—I’ll be at Earth in twenty—

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