Page 58 of Dirty Diana
“Oh yeah, honey. They all think he’scute-cute, not justdad-cute. You know those suburban sixties parties where everyone throws their car keys into a bowl and you go home with whoever’s keys you pull out? Listen, if anybody brought back that key party theme, you know they’d all pray for his.”
“Thanks. I think?” It’s like taking pride in a Participation Medal.
“So where is he really going tonight?”
“What?”
“Poker is never really poker, is it?” She sees my face fall and walks it back. “I mean, out drinking with the boys, being dumb, you know.” She slaps me gently on the thigh. “Unless it is! Play me another interview!”
“It’s all I have. And I’m going to erase it. It was good for a laugh, though.”
“No! Don’t erase it. Yes, if word got out you were recording porn stories and talking about screwing, okay, yes, maybe Emmy would have a few less playdates in Rockgate. But fuck that. We’re so trained to color in the lines. I’m sick of apologizing. I’d let you interview me about sex. I’ve been dying to talk about what happened anyway. About myaffair.” She puts air quotes around it, like the whole thing is untrue. “Turns out the ladies I know don’t really want to hear about it. They want to talk about what they heard, with each other, but nobody wants to hear about it from me. I’m not asking anyone to take my side. But if you’re going to hate me, don’t you want to know exactly why?”
“No one hates you.”
Her smile is small and sad.
“I want to hear about it.”
“Yeah? I’ll tell you right now.”
She looks down at my phone on the bed. I open my voice memos and hit record.
“Where should I start?”
“How did you meet him?”
Raleigh leans over my phone, addressing it directly. “Well, first off, you should know that my husband never went down on me. Dustin said if he did, then I got too wet and sex didn’t feel as good. Not enough friction.”
“Did you want him to go down on you?”
“I wantedhimto want to. I don’t particularly enjoy havinghisdick inmymouth, but I did it because it made him feel good. Honestly, I don’t know how he could have been satisfied with our sex life. I think his standards are lower. He eats the same turkey sandwich for lunch every day. Zero variation. Mayo, mustard, tomato. I get it—I’ve spent enough time in my own therapy trying to figure him out. The predictability comforts him. He grew up in chaos.” Raleigh shakes her head. “But I got sick of that. It didn’t comfort me, I wanted something exciting.” She pulls her T-shirt over her knees and hugs her legs close to her chest.
“Where did you find it?”
“On a plane! On a fucking plane, Diana! I swear to god. I mean, thank god I had shaved my legs because that doesn’t happen on the regular anymore.” She leans back against the bed. “I was flying home to see my mom who was really sick. Dustin had booked me a first-class seat for the trip, which was nice of him. He said he didn’t want me crying in coach. And as I was boarding the plane, I saw this man in a firefighter’s uniform.”
Raleigh sees a flicker of disbelief cross my face.
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but I swear to you, there he was; well, not in full about-to-knock-down-a-burning-door gear, but he was wearing his navy polo shirt, with the fire department insignia, and these matching navy trousers. He was broad and muscular, of course, and I overhear him talking to the agent at the gate. He’s flying to Florida to see his mom because she is feeling poorly and he’s on standby. He’s in a panic, but the agent finds him a seat and hands him a boarding pass. As he passes me, heading back to his coach seat, I offer him mine in first class. I couldn’t imagine this big guy, this hero, squeezing himself into a coach seat, while I’m sitting up in first class. And he’s so sweet and grateful. I tell him I’d heard why he was flying, and that my mother is sick too. It’s this nice little moment of connection, like for a minute we’re not strangers. It feels…intimate. And then I go back to his seat in coach. I sit down and I feel warm just thinking about him,and a little less alone and sad. And I guess he thinks about me, too, because as soon as the seatbelt light goes off, the flight attendant brings me a Crown and Coke, compliments of my firefighter. It’s not my drink, but let me tell you, it goes down easily. So then I sendhima drink. And then he sends me three at once!”
She crosses her legs and settles into the pillows.
“So I think, is he flirting with me? Maybe he’s just being polite? But you know what finally makes me realize there’s something going on? The flight attendant. She’s sojudgmental.When she comes back with the drinks, there’s this look of distaste on her face. ‘This isn’t a nightclub. I can’t keep doing this,’ she says to me. Of course I’m mortified, and I assure her there won’t be another time. Then I drink each drink. I start to feel like I’m floating. You know when you smile and you don’t even realize you’re smiling? So, I decide,Fuck her, I’m going to pay my firefighter a visit in first class.I get up and peek my head through the curtain and there he is, looking right back at me. Strong jaw, broad shoulders.
“I mouth the wordsthank youto him. I have this overwhelming urge to comfort him. I want to kneel down next to his seat and hold his hand. I’m not even thinking about sex. I’m thinking maybe I could give him a hug or let him talk to me about his mother. And then he unbuckles his seatbelt.”
She looks at me, and then at a spot over my head. I hear the garage door creak shut as Oliver’s car drives away. Raleigh looks like she’s trying to decide what to leave out.
“He gets up and walks to the bathroom, and I follow him. Slip in right behind him. He’s slightly confused at first. Then he kisses me. And we keep kissing, and it’s that kind of kissing you do when you’re a teenager. Kissing that could last hours. There’s nothing but us, and our mouths. We’re connected, me and this stranger. But he keeps his hands at his sides. He doesn’t touch me anywhere. I get a feeling like he’s waiting for me to take the next step—if there’s going to be one. So I take one of his hands and lead it to my blouse. Together weunbutton the top buttons so I can slip his hand inside my shirt and he can feel my naked breasts, my nipples getting erect. He studies my face and smiles. He’s like me, he wants to keep going. So I lift up my skirt to let him know I want more too. He watches me pull my skirt up around my waist, standing in front of him in my lace underwear, ready to be touched, and I can hear his breath catch. Now it’s his turn. He unzips his pants and they fall to his ankles. His legs are massive, all muscle, and when he pulls down his boxers I swear I can see his erection throbbing. I slip out of my underwear and let him know I’m ready. His arms are solid and strong and he scoops me off the ground and I wrap my legs around him and suddenly he’s inside me, pushing deep into me, and we’re fucking. He’s sostrong,and no one has ever made me feel so tiny and safe.
“I have this strange, primal urge to inhale as much of him as I can. All of this, his smell, his skin—the feeling of him inside me—his strength. I just give myself over to him completely. I think we’re both so desperate to feel anything other than our sadness. It feels like something we have to do. Ihadto follow that grieving man into an airplane bathroom and have the most exciting sex of my life.”
Raleigh stops. She studies my expression.
“Did you ever see him again?”
She shakes her head. “I cried after we both came. It was like something inside me broke and hit me like a tsunami. He held me after and I cried into his chest until someone knocked on the bathroom door. I apologized. Then we got dressed and went back to our seats. I tried to diminish the experience just so I could survive it. I told myself he couldn’t be as magical as I wanted him to be. Back in my seat, I forced myself to imagine him turning me off, like driving away from the airport in a neon monster truck, drinking one of those tallboy energy drinks and belching. But I’d only start laughing. It didn’t work. He was still magical. And as if to prove my point, just as the pilot announced we would be landing soon, the flight attendant walked over to my seat and said, ‘This is from 3D.’ Then she plopped down a plastic bag fromduty free. Two Toblerones, a carton of cigarettes, and a whole bottle of Crown. I laughed again, even though she was scowling at me.”
