Burn (Songs of Submission #5)(23)
Author: C.D. Reiss

I grabbed tea and followed. “We should blow by the hotel.”

“Yeah. Then we gotta go to the B.C. Mod and pray we can figure it out.”

I shrugged. “You know he’s probably there in a designer suit already, chatting up the curator about luminous banalities and cultural fetishism until she lifts her skirt.”

“It’s a him.”

“Kev’s not that picky.”

“Crabby this morning. Did we fail to get Mister Drazen into bed?”

“He means nothing to me.”

Darren cracked a laugh.

“Good morning,” came a voice that shouldn’t have surprised me at all.

“Speak of the devil,” Darren said.

“Good morning,” I said as Jonathan sat down. He looked well-rested and fresh as a f**king daisy. Suit pressed. Shoes shined. Hair messed up exactly enough so it looked as though he spent no time on it at all. I figured I looked pale and wrung out, dark circles and all. My body wasn’t built for three hours of sleep a night, and certainly not for as little as I’d gotten in front of his motherfucking door.

“How are you guys getting around today?” he asked.

“Don’t even think about it,” I said.

A waitress brought Jonathan scrambled eggs, potatoes, and fruit. He didn’t even have to stand at the buffet for it.

“Please,” Darren said around his cereal. “Whatever you’re going to offer, I’ll accept. She won’t take anything from you in front of me. We had this fight—”

“Shut up,” I snapped.

Jonathan put sugar in his coffee, smiled at me, and turned back to Darren. “The hotel car is a blue Audi. Your driver’s name is Feran. He’ll take you to the museum and back, and he’ll take you back for the event tonight.”

“We have to make a stop,” I said. “We haven’t gotten in touch with Kevin, and I want to go to the Marriot and see if he’s there.”

“They won’t tell you anything,” he said. “Not even his room number. It’s the law. Do you want me to find out for you?”

“You own that hotel, too?” I said.

“Yes,” Darren cut in. “Can you do that please? See if he checked in? Text me if she’s being a bitch.”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow at Darren, seemingly offended by the name-calling. Was he seriously being protective against Darren? And this was the same guy who left me in my bathroom, fully unfucked, without looking back? This guy was bristling about me getting called a bitch by a guy who was practically my brother?

“Darren,” I said, “it’s cunt to you. See-yoo-en-tee.”

Jonathan smiled behind his coffee cup.

Darren laughed but didn’t repeat the word. “I prefer bitch, but whatever.” He threw down his napkin. “I gotta arrange the equipment. When is the driver going to be around?”

“The front desk knows who you are. Have them send him when you’re ready.”

“This is the only way to fly, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

Darren kissed me on the cheek and left me with Jonathan, who looked unflustered.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

“You don’t sleep anyway. You nap.”

“Three hours I need, and I didn’t get them.”

I leaned to the right, just to be a little closer to him. “I crashed in front of the door.”

He sighed as if he got no satisfaction from the information. “I was lying on the couch not sleeping.”

“My guess is it was for the same reason I was on the floor, not sleeping.”

He fingered his water glass, and again I couldn’t keep my eyes off his hands. His watch had a fat metal band in a blackish silver. Analog. One dial. The simplicity of it, draped on his wrist, brought out the arch of his hand, and I remembered the deep clinking sound it made when he f**ked me.

“What are we doing?” he asked.

“You’re trying to get me to beg for you back.”

“I’m trying to get you to see that your fears are real. If we do this, if you commit yourself to me, you’re going to get consumed. I think that’s what you’re trying to avoid.”

“Yeah.” I could see it. The cameras in my house were no more than a sign of worse things to come. The uncontrollable publicity that had nothing to do with my music. The implication that any success I had was because of him. The kink. The enemies. But worse, the emotional entanglement. I already felt more than I wanted to. If I actually let myself go, he would truly devour me.

I shook my head. “Can we decide when we get back? My brain’s mush right now.”

“Would you come to Seoul with me?”

“What? Why?”

“I’m going to have to leave as soon as I get back to L.A., and I can’t wait another two weeks for us to figure this out. If I take off, I could lose you. I need to convince you, and I need it to be real. I can’t f**k a commitment out of you. That’ll be worthless. I have to have your heart, Monica. The real thing. Without fear.”

“I can’t promise I won’t be ever scared.”

“Of me.” He put his hand over mine. He didn’t touch it; he hovered as though he wanted to touch me and was as afraid of the contact as I was. “I don’t feel close to anyone, except sometimes you. Sometimes I have moments with you.” He took his hand away and put it back on his glass. “I want you, and I need everything from you. First, that you take me the right way. No compromises. No halfway mark.”

He didn’t equivocate with his gaze or posture. A part of me melted in his direction. How I wanted to yield to him, and how I wanted to run in terror. The tension between those compulsions made words as impossible as movements. I couldn’t run away from him or touch him. I couldn’t agree to two weeks away from L.A., the logistics of which were no small thing. I had a job and a commitment to Frontage.

“Will you come?” he asked. “I’ll be working, but I can make sure you have the time of your life.”

His eyes seemed bigger than they ever had. As if he really wanted me to come and would be devastated if I didn’t. As if our relationship hinged on a trip to Asia.

“Monica.” Darren spoke up from behind me, interrupting a gaze a hundred feet deep and a million years long. “Come on.”

“We’ll talk later,” I said to Jonathan.

“See you tonight.” He smiled as if nothing in the world was wrong.