“Can I admit something to you, my beautiful wife?”

“Yes.”

“I’m scared.”

I squeezed his hand and laid my head next to him. That was when the machine’s beeping was replaced with a high, constant whine.

MONICA

I stood in the hall, staring at his door.

They’d just done CPR. Changed the tube. Pumped more drugs into him. Assured me there wasn’t a spare heart with his blood type anywhere but Paulie Patalano’s chest.

What the hell were we made of? Sausage casings and prime cuts to be wrapped up and swapped out as needed. I felt ill. The twisting in my gut told me to run into the bathroom and bend over the toilet. But nothing came, because I hadn’t eaten in Lord knew how long. When I returned, panicking , he was alive, stable and unconscious.

All the wrong things seemed definite and secure. I knew he loved me. I knew he was right in my life. But the very life that fit mine so perfectly, was going to end. Soon. Tomorrow. The next day. Didn’t matter. Too soon. And the house of our love would crumble under a cracked foundation.

I found myself outside Dr. Thorensen’s office. He’d have answers, or at least different questions.

“You’re here,” I said.

He was in the dark again, shades drawn, screens flashing. “Come in. Wanna play?”

“I can’t believe you get away with this.”

“I’m waiting to hear about something.”

“Jonathan?”

“Sit.”

“Is there a heart somewhere?”

He sighed. “I’m getting him put on the emergency list. I’m pretty sure it’ll go through in an hour, but I don’t want to leave until I see it. Come on. Sit. Your avatar’s on the cloud. We can start you from the beginning.”

I hesitated. He patted the seat of the couch behind him. “Come.”

“Fine.”

I sat, kicking off my shoes and tucking my feet under me. He rolled his chair back until the back of it pressed against the couch, where it was already indented from hours of play.

“You ready? There you are. I made you look like you.”

“Jesus, I don’t look like that.” My avatar was ravishing.

“Yeah, you do. Okay, so we start out in the wood. Forest all over, and we’re lost. We have to solve this puzzle before our guide comes, hold on there! Get them!”

We shot down a leopard, a lion, and a wolf. We avoided shooting a blind guy. As a reward he set us a puzzle to solve. We had that sorted out in no time, and I saw something I recognized.

ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE

“Such a cheerful game, Brad. Don’t you have something with bunnies?”

“You can come over and play that next week.”

There won’t be a next week, Dr. Thorensen…

I had no time to make that into a joke. We had to navigate a parade, and a flag, right, left, left, right and still get to our destination, a boat on a black river.

“Tell me something,” I said. “What are the odds of him getting a heart in time?”

“Can’t say. Hit left, left. Nice.”

“Do I duck the guy in the Pope hat?”

“God, yes.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t or won’t what? Just don’t let him touch you.”

“Can’t or won’t say about the heart. Fuck.”

“Oh! Nice move. Both. His blood type’s rare, so a good heart is hard enough but…okay, see that opening right there? Hit your blue button and the joystick at the same time.”

“Is there any way to speed it up? The heart thing? Shit! Wait…”

“You got it…no. Only what I’m doing. Pushing him up the list.” His shoulders slumped. “We’re in. River Acheron. Good job. You earned the coins so give one to the guy in the hood.”

I clicked my buttons. “He won’t take it.”

“That’s weird.” He took the controller from me.

“What about the mafia guy? The brain dead one. If he died, would Jonathan get his heart?”

Brad was focused on the controls. “I can’t promise anything. Crap. I heard this happens sometimes.”

“What?”

“You’re stuck in the vestibule. That’s your sin. Wow. I guess we can make you a new avatar.”

“My sin?” I asked. “Which one?”

He threw the controller down and kicked his feet up on the couch. “The vestibule is where you go when you don’t take sides on an issue. Like when you could have taken action, but didn’t. Or, look. I’m not going to pretend to be a philosopher. But you were probably just feeling passive when you answered the questions. Wanna do it again?”

I thought for a second. Did I want to sit in Brad’s tiny office until sunrise, waiting for Jonathan to get bumped up a list, or did I want to make a decision, one way or the other, about helping him?

“I’m going to brush my teeth and find an empty waiting room couch.”

“Suit yourself.”

“When you know something, can you tell me?”

“I will. You tell me if you need anything, okay?”

“Sure, and thanks.”

I was pretty sure he didn’t really know what I was thanking him for.

MONICA

He was still sleeping when I got back. I sat in the chair by his bed and looked at his hand in the light of the moon and the little light-up Christmas tree on his nightstand. The fingers were set in a relaxed curl, veins and light hair, the keyring wedding band half falling off. I knew those hands. They were strong. They were his instruments. I couldn’t see past his elbows, but I knew the rest of him. I read it like a book. The velvet of his skin. His scent when his cologne’s worn off. The warmth of his touch, its perfect pressure on me. The tones and cadences of his voice, rising and falling; clipped to command, breathy to soothe, chopped fine to laugh. I put my palm on his cheek, in my mind, and his eyes close for a second before he turns his head and kisses my hand, my wrist, the inside of my forearm, stubble scratching, lips awakening, tongue taunting, fingers closed on my wrist like a vise. I feel bound, secure, safe, my tingling body is an exploding cage of sin.

He is before me, dressed in his business clothes, and I am naked. We are in the hotel room where he spanked me the first time, the night I tried to hide my navel from him, and he gave me my voice back. He’d told me to be naked, and this is how I imagine it would have gone if I had been obedient.

He tells me to put my hands behind my back, then kicks my legs open. He tells me that he won’t fuck me until he hears my voice, and I whisper my doubts that it will work. He smirks in that way he does, and runs his fingertips across my shoulder, then down my chest to my nipple, which he strokes until it’s hard, bending it down, then circling it.

He switches the light on and turns me toward the windows.

It’s night, we’re on a high floor and Los Angeles is covered in a blanket of lights. I can see myself, naked, reflected in the windows, a ghost over the city.

“Put your hands on the glass,” he says. I do. The basin is spread before me, a checkerboard of pinpricks, exactly as Mondrian had envisioned, squares of light, blinking signs of life to a haze in the distance. Above it all, my body, leaning into the window, stretched across miles of Los Angeles, bent at the waist as if I was about to fuck it.

“Anything that sounds like ‘no’ or ‘stop’ is effective. But you have to say it.”

He draws his palm across my ass in a hard slap. At that point, he hadn’t spanked me yet, so my surprise overwhelmed the arousal. I was immediately angry and defensive.

“You have to use your voice. Do you understand?”

He puts his left hand on my rib cage, fingertips brushing my breast, and slapped me again.

I am not surprised the second time, nor am I angry. The raw tingle is arousing enough, as is the stroke and grab that follow. But what really arouses me is letting him do it. I submitted to it, making myself beneath him, under his command and control. I want it. I want every sting, every brush of his fingers against my sensitive skin. He slaps the back of my thighs and I gasp.