Dirty Diana

Prologue

—

Outside our tent, the night is dark, deep, and absolutely clear. Inside, I close my eyes and try to sleep.

But the ground is cold and so hard beneath my back. I press my lips together to keep my teeth from chattering.

It must be warmer in your sleeping bag.

I shift onto my side so I can see you. It’s a new moon and only the stars give off light. They paint you in a dreamy tint—your skin is smooth except where the stubble of three days in the desert has grown in. Your eyes are closed, your face turned up toward the tent’s mesh opening and your lips, full and perfect, are arranged in a relaxed smile, as if you’re stargazing in your sleep. You must not be cold because your arms are outside your sleeping bag, resting triumphantly by your sides. Your chest, naked and muscular, rises and falls in a steady rhythm.

We haven’t had sex in hours, but it feels like years.

I was prepared for the desert days to be hot and the nights to be cold—or at least, I listened and nodded as you warned me, which I know now is different from being prepared. I underestimated the weather the same way that, earlier today, we had both underestimated the craggy hills surrounding us. “The peak isn’t so high,” we’d said. “Let’s hike to the top.” You climbed like the sun didn’t bother you, and if I hadn’t been with you, you would have moved much faster.

Near the top, we passed the entrance to a cave. I wondered aloud what lived inside. “Maybe a bobcat,” you said and shrugged. So I shrugged, too, said, “Cool,” and backed away.

I burrow deeper into my sleeping bag and wish for another layer of clothing. It has to feel different in your sleeping bag. I imagine crawling inside. But I’m not sure if you want to be woken up. Our relationship is so new that every choice feels weighted, like it could be gravely misinterpreted—waking you up might signal that I don’t understand boundaries and the importance of a little space to balance out the intensity of our physical closeness. The infancy of this is intoxicating, but also slippery and uncertain.

It’s been this exhilarating for the last three days, both of us set off by the smallest thing—a slow puff of weed, a bra strap that slips off my shoulder. We look up constantly from our work to catch the other one staring.

I pull my arms into the sleeves of my T-shirt for extra warmth and stare through the tent’s mesh roof at the stars. I think of the steep, rocky trail, of the entrance to the cave. And the bobcat.

I remember the wool hat I left so cavalierly by the campfire. It’s suddenly the solution to my sleeplessness. It will make me warm. I have to have it.

I slip out of my sleeping bag, careful not to wake you, and unzip the tent to sneak quietly into the night.

The air is so cold it’s sharp. There’s an owl close by; I can hear her, loud and watchful, as I grope for my hat near the dying campfire. The trees at the edge of our campsite have a bluish glow, and near my feet, some kind of lizard skitters by. I startle so easily I make myself laugh.

I take a deep breath and find consolation in the fire’s last red embers, holding my hands out to warm them. As my shoulders relax, I drink in the stillness.

“Diana!” The sound of your voice makes me jump. You grab my shoulders and scoop me to your side. The beam of your flashlight illuminates the trees, dancing across them, until it settles on a set of eyes—shiny and bright and glowering right at us. “Get back in the tent.”

I gasp, then step away slowly. She’s watching.

Inside, we shine the light through the tent’s window until her long, feline body skulks into the night, toward the hills.

“Do you think she’ll come back?”

“We’re fine,” you say, but your heart still hammers against your chest and so does mine. In the quiet, we study each other—our eyes big and vigilant, our bodies frozen. My laugh breaks the tension first, then yours.

“That was terrifying,” you say.

“Truly.”

The tent is small but the distance between us is suddenly too far. Your eyes flit from my eyes to my mouth. I study your throat, the thick muscles of your arms, your face.

When our lips touch, I realize I’m shivering. Your mouth is warm and briny, and we kiss until we can both feel the heat radiating from my body. I pull off my T-shirt. You sit back so you can take in the curves of my breasts, soft and wanting in the pale light.

You unzip your sleeping bag and smooth it out as a blanket for us. We lie down on our backs, both of us naked from the waist up, only our hands delicately touching. We try to slow the ecstasy of this moment.

“I don’t want to go back to the city tomorrow,” I say. When we do, I think, everything will evaporate, including us.

I watch the night sky, but you’re too distracting. When I turn to face you, you’ve already shifted to meet my gaze. We turn on our sides and you pull me into you. Your skin is warm, as if you’ve just been lying in the sun.

I pull the waist of your pants down over your hips then brush the bare skin of my stomach against you, feeling you grow harder.

I take you in my hand and you groan. “Where am I?” you ask.

I smile and hold you tighter.

“And what are we doing?”

I laugh. “With our lives or in the moment?”

You kiss me, biting gently on my bottom lip. “Both.”

“We’re camping.” Then I add, “And we’re also out here having sex. Lots of it.”

“Mmm, right,” you murmur, still kissing me.

“And maybe hiding out from the world.” I drape a leg across you, then my whole body. “Or maybe no one’s looking for us.” Maybe it’s only the owl watching over us.

Your hands move down my back, sliding beneath my pants. “We need these off,” you say.

I smile and lift my hips so you can undress me. “And definitely these,” you say, and together we slip off my underwear so we’re both naked.

“Are you still cold?”

I spread my legs in answer, just slightly, so I can brush the warmest, softest part of me against your erection.

You tilt your head back in pleasure and grip my hips. “I like hiding out with you.”

“Me too.” I kiss the stubble along your cheek. You pull me even closer and your guttural moans fill the tent. We’re also falling in love, I add, but not out loud.

I hook my legs around yours, then skim my body along yours. I need you inside me. It’s no longer a desire, but a need. I inch my body up higher and I tilt my pelvis forward so the tip of your penis enters me. “Wait.” You hold me by the hips. “Let me touch you first.”

You gently ease on top of me, your forearms pressing into the ground beside us. I spread my legs wider. But you shake your head no. “Don’t move.” You pin my wrists above my head. A wave of heat rolls through me and I shift underneath you, hoping to feel your hardness inside me. You shake your head again. “No moving,” you whisper.

You let go of my wrists and trace your hands down my sides. My hands are free, but I keep them exactly as they are. I close my eyes. We’re both somewhere else now, floating in a kind of feverish dark where the only thing I can concentrate on is following your directions toward the depths of our pleasure.

Kissing the hollow of my throat where it meets my chest, you cup my breasts. Then you kiss my nipples. They’re erect beneath your lips. You slip two fingers inside me and I know you can feel how swollen I am. I can’t help it, my hand grabs for yours. “Please,” I whisper. “I want to fuck you.” But you keep your hand where it is, moving your fingers in slow circles.

“I want you inside me,” I say.

“Trust me.”

At the sound of your voice, deep and hungry, a fullness builds in me, a pressure that only you can release. Or maybe it’s that no one has ever tried like you to become so intimate with the geography of my body.

The fuller I become, the more I want to wriggle away. I fight the urge to pull at your hand and a molecule inside me awakens. Will it evaporate or build, I wonder.

It flits away, and I take the time to catch my breath.

“Stay with it,” you whisper in my ear.

I arch my back and push deeper into you. Your stubble scratches my cheek, leaving a sting. This time the molecule returns, and now it’s multiplying. My mouth opens and I breathe faster and harder.

“Trust me,” you say. “You’re so close.”

My hips move with your hand, urging you to press harder, stay longer, keep going until I can melt against you.

“You’re so close,” you repeat, as if you know my body better than I do.

I move against you until I’m about to shatter. “I’m going to come.” Declaring it out loud gives my body permission. I let my head fall backward. I scream into the desert sky.

You smile, kissing me hungrily, and I know then that we are not done.

My body trembles. “What was that?” I ask.

You just smile, and in between kissing me, you ask, “Can I fuck you?”

My body is yours. You can do whatever you like with it. I nod and lie back into the warm sleeping bag, spreading my legs for you, my thighs still quivering. You enter me quickly and your thickness is even more pronounced. I tighten around you, as if begging you to stay. Never leave.

You grip my hands and we intertwine our fingers, digging into the hard ground.

“God, you feel good,” you whisper.

I roll on top of you so that my legs are wrapped around your waist. You sit up, too, your hands on the small of my back. You take my breast in your mouth, biting my nipple and then sucking on it, as if to apologize. I raise and lower my hips as you push more deeply inside me. We move together, faster and faster.

I lean back and feel a strange tickle at my neck. It’s warm. Too warm. I swipe at the sensation with my hand.

I sit up straighter and focus on you. I focus on our bodies, your skin against mine, the feeling of fucking you.

Now there is a tickle at my cheek. More like a cloying wind. I brush it away. I move against you, but the pressure of our bodies against each other has gone. I can feel the hard earth beneath me—but I’m on top of you, I should feel you, not the ground. The strange, annoying breeze returns to my cheek, distracting me from you.

I look down, but you turn away. I can’t see your face.

I press my eyes shut and will myself back into my body, into its rolling waves of pleasure. I desperately want to get back to the heat between us.

But I’m somewhere else now.

My eyes fly open. I’m staring directly into the face of my husband, sleeping beside me. I’m not in a tent or beneath the stars. I’m in my bedroom, between crisp pin-striped sheets.

The heat I feel is not my own desire but my husband’s breath, warm and stale, against my face. Each time he exhales, he makes a noise like a tiny bicycle pump working hard to inflate an enormous liferaft.

I sink my face into the pillow, willing myself back into the dream, to the tent, to the cold, starry night.

It’s no use. I’m awake now.