Page 62 of Dirty Diana
Close to threea.m., I hear the rattle of keys in the door, then footsteps on the stairs. In the bedroom, Oliver drops his wallet on the bedside table and shuffles toward the bathroom, peeling off his clothes as he goes.
“How was poker?”
Oliver jumps. “Holy shit. Diana. I thought you’d be asleep.”
“I can’t sleep.”
He sits on the very edge of the bed. “Is everything okay? How’s Emmy?” I smell beer and perfume. He’s flowery and sweaty.
I turn on the lamp and Oliver blinks and squints in response. He looks rumpled. I ask him again. “How was poker?”
“What?” he asks, pretending again that he didn’t hear.
“Poker. How was it?” Now I just want him to tell me the truth. If he does, maybe I’ll feel closer to him, like we can still tell each other things.
He studies my face to see what I know—and that’s when I know he’s going to lie to me.
“Good,” he says, without flinching. “I won forty bucks.”
Chapter 19
—
Iwasn’t going to tell you the truth.
I sit in my office, letting Mia’s voice play through my headphones. My seventh interview in two weeks. It’s been two weeks since I interviewed Jada. Two weeks since Oliver lied to me about poker. So far, I’ve coped with his lying by no longer asking him where he’s going when he tells me he’s “off to poker.” At night, I watch him walk to his car and I can hear the music in my head, the loud thrumming bass of whatever club he was calling me from, the snippets of a lap-dance conversation and heavy breathing. But I don’t say anything. I don’t want to give him the chance to lie to me again. I’ve almost confronted him so many times, but then what? I avoid him more than ever, making up excuses to stay late at the office on the nights he’shome, then lining up interviews, which have steadily trickled in, one after the other, by word of mouth alone.
Mia is a friend of Jada’s, and as soon as she sat down, Mia let me know she was not interested in talking about her real life.
The truth is, I haven’t had sex in a year and all my friends are getting married and I’m meeting assholes with bad breath online. But I do feel it all—I feel it in my body all the time. Just not in real life. Jada said she told you about one of her fantasies?
I told Mia she could talk about anything she wants, so she does.
In my fantasy, I’m a coat-check girl at one of the snottiest bars in Dallas. I actually did that job in real life for years. I’m a terrible waitress and I’m nosy as fuck so it works out well.
I love looking in people’s coats and purses after they’ve left them with me. I’ve never stolen anything. I’m just curious what their lives are like. The bottom of my purse is like the bottom of a trash can at the beach. Crumbs from an old granola bar, a tampon that’s lost its wrapper, old receipts that I don’t even know why I took in the first place.
But these Dallas women—their purses are meticulous. They smell like a fragrance counter. Everything is clean and new. A fancy tin of mints. A monogrammed wallet with crisp bills. A lipstick the shade of rubies. And in my fantasy, well, I do steal one thing—a card. This SoulCycle mom—perfectly manicured in every way—tosses her Stella McCartney car coat at me without even making eye contact. I can smell her perfume as she walks away and so I rub my wrists on the inside of the jacket, you know, to steal some of her scent. In her coat pocket is a thick black business card, like a black American Express, expensive and heavy, like something dumb that Tesla would make. And it’s blank, except for a phone number, hand engraved in gold type. I know instantly it’s for sex. These wealthy women are all bored and underfucked.
I call the number on the card and a man answers. His voice is low and gravelly. He asks me for my address. I race home and clean my disgusting apartment and wax everything that needs to be waxed. I smoke a joint and drink a glass of wine. I’ve never done anything like this before.
So this guy knocks on my door and I answer. I don’t know what I imagined. This guy looks like nothing, really. Reddish-brown hair, nondescript eyes. He’s just a guy you would pass and never even remember. Totally anonymous. But he walks around my apartment with a confidence that makes me horny, like he owns the place. Like nothing is off-limits to him.
He tells me to show him the bedroom and he follows me in there. Then he tells me to sit down on the bed. So I do. I’m used to taking control in the bedroom. That’s the way it’s always been. I’ve never had someone order me around. But I want him to. I’m hanging on his next command and it’s turning me on. “Take off your pants,” he says. I keep trying to read him—he’s direct, but his eyes are soft and curious.
I do exactly what he says. Sort of. I take off my pants but I leave my underwear on, which annoys him. He comes closer, so he’s standing over me, looking down at me on the bed. “You know what I meant,” he says. His voice is commanding but gentle. He is showing me how to play the game. “Do you want me to leave?” he asks. “No,” I say. “Please.” I pull my shirt off and lie back on the bed. “Don’t move,” he says. But it’s hard to stay still when he touches me, slipping my underwear down my legs and spreading them open.
He sucks on his fingers and immediately pushes one inside me, then two. It’s surprising and powerful. His fingers reach a place most guys miss. Then he tells me to turn over. For a moment, my body freezes. Maybe I’ve taken this too far. Maybe lying on my stomach would feel too vulnerable, not being able to see what’s coming next. But part of me wants exactly that. The thrill of not knowing what’s coming, or what he is going to do to me next. I feel as if he can see my mind turning, or maybe my legs starting to quiver, thinking about how it would feel to have him fuck me from behind, when he repeats, “Turn over.”
I do what I’m told, flipping onto my stomach. At first, nothing happens. He doesn’t move and neither do I. In the stillness, I imagine him admiring my body, lingering on my legs, my body glowing. Then I hear him shift. He leans over my body, resting one hand on the bed next to me. With the other hand he grips the back of my thigh, pulling my legs farther apart. I moan, my hipslifting up toward him. He slips a finger inside me and moves it in a circle, then pulls it out again. “You’re ready,” he says. He found what he was looking for.
“Where’s the money?” he asks me. I tell him I don’t have the whole amount, I can’t afford what he charges. I bury my head in my hands, terrified now that he’s going to walk out of the room. Because I want him to keep touching me so badly. When I don’t hear him move, I turn over my shoulder and find him staring at me. He walks away from the bed and I think he’s going to tell me he’s leaving. But then he comes back, takes my hands, and ties them behind my back. I keep my head turned so I can see and he likes that. He stands at the side of the bed close to my face. He unzips his pants and pulls out his dick. And it’s big. Thick and heavy. Then he kneels on the bed and pulls me to my knees. From behind, he holds my hips in place and slides inside of me. I’ve never been with a guy this big, so I gasp. He fills me up. Moving in and out, and in and out, over and over. And he’s so deep he’s hitting a spot that no one has touched. He moves in a steady rhythm, pushing inside me while resting one hand lightly around my throat. It’s a soft pressure. Like a hint of his power. My legs are spread and I’m sweating and open so deeply to him because I’ve let go of the control. Suddenly it feels like I’m going to come. I try to slow it down but he says, “No, let go. You’re so close.” And then he whispers in my ear that I feel so good to him and that’s it. I let go. And I have this crazy once-in-a-fucking-lifetime orgasm. And then he pulls out, gets dressed, looks at me, and says goodbye.
I listen to Mia, alone in my office. My mind wanders to the sound of Oliver’s voice against the loud thrum of the strip club, until that is all I can hear. Distracted, I shut off the recording. I think about catching up on some work, since I had told Oliver I’d be at the office late, and Emmy is at her grandparents’ for the weekend anyway.
Instead I open a folder on my laptop with the audio files I’ve recorded. Lately what this project might be has shifted for me. I’m no longer just sketching the women who are sharing their stories with me. I’ve begun to feel they don’t need my interpretation of their words. Their desire. Their fantasies are perfect as they are: raw,unvarnished, and true. With permission, I’ve been sharing links to audio files of the interviews with Alicia. I told her how the stories have taken on a life of their own. “I’m thinking about giving them a place to live where other women can listen.”
She agrees. “My friends keep asking when the next one is coming.”
