Dirty Diana

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

—

The next afternoon, two mermaids on fake clamshells are gliding in slow, easy circles around L’Wren’s kidney-shaped pool. I recognize one of them as the teenager who works at the Subway shop near my office. It’s a beautiful early spring day, crisp and cool. Emmy is in heaven, running in and out of an enormous bouncy castle, squeezing Halston’s hand.

L’Wren’s backyard is an explosion of pink and purple, with balloons tied to every chair, table, and tree. Each balloon is like a Russian nesting doll, trapped inside a bigger balloon, which is trapped inside another bigger balloon. At the perimeter of the lawn, her hundred-year-old magnolia trees are shellacked in rainbow glitter.

I spot Liam stationed near the bouncy castle’s moat and feel a sharp pang of sympathy. He looks uncomfortably out of place and very bored. Last night after Roundtop, L’Wren texted me a video from an Australian news station—grainy footage of a bouncy house being swept off a front lawn, the children inside carried away with it.

Should I cancel the castle??? she texted.

For a brief moment, I thought she was kidding. But then I remembered how anxious she is about anything to do with Halston.

I typed: The weather’s supposed to be beautiful tomorrow. I say keep it!

Ok, Okkkk. You’re right. Thx!!! She replied. And then: I’ll have Liam stand next to it and make sure it doesn’t blow away. He can be bouncy castle security, right? He needs a job anyway—LOL.

I bring Liam a purple cupcake with a jaunty unicorn on top. He eats half of it in one bite.

“Are you here all day?” I ask.

“Sadly, no.” He shoves the other half of the cupcake in his mouth and then wipes the excess frosting from his fingers onto his jeans. “I’m crazy in demand these days.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Apparently Rockgate has high winds and a million Kardashian-kid wannabe parties so…” He gestures to the castle behind him. “I’m booked pretty solid.”

“Liam.” L’Wren appears at my side. “Don’t get so distracted by Diana’s sparkling conversation that you forget about your one and only job.”

Behind me, Emmy darts out of the castle and shrieks, “Mommy!” She grabs my hand. “Jump with me! Please!”

I slip out of my sneakers and follow her into the castle. The air is thick with little-kid sweat and screams of joy. It’s also strangely calming. The party noise is hushed—I can make out voices but not what anyone says. I don’t need to mingle, all I have to do is try not to fall into someone smaller than me.

When someone yells “CAKE!” Emmy scrambles out of the castle. I follow, hot and red-faced, and find Oliver at the open bar. He looks into my sweaty face. “What’d you do, find the Peloton?”

“Kevin and I did a quick HIIT workout in his garage.” Oliver brushes a strand of damp hair from my face.

“Right,” he says. “I should have known.” After seeing Kevin enough times by the pool, Oliver and I decided that we knew what it felt like to hang out with Jeff Bezos on his yacht—no matter how many times Kevin rips off that polo shirt, the abs beneath are always a surprise. We also like to pretend we would work out as much as Kevin if we were semiretired, too, but we both know this isn’t true.

Oliver hands me a purple fizzy drink. “Kir Royale?”

“Very on-theme.” We clink glasses and spend the rest of the party mingling with other parents and talking about the weather. Every once in a while, I catch Oliver’s eye and we exchange subtle smiles and tiny eye rolls at the insane level of detail of the party, especially the high school cater waiters dressed like real knights, in actual chain mail.

—

“A vodka tonic for m’lady.” At home, Oliver hands me a drink, and I sit up in bed with my back against the pillows. He pulls off his half-zip and his T-shirt, then strips down to his boxers and lies down next to me. “I was going to do a whole routine, juggling the vodka and the tonic, but I decided against it.”

I laugh and take a long sip. “Thank you.”

He does the same, then sets his glass down. He pulls me into him, so we’re in a perfect and familiar spoon. “This was a good day,” he says into my shoulder.

When I turn to kiss him, I recognize that familiar hungry look in his eye and I force a smile. I know there should be desire—a feeling of warmth or a fluttering somewhere in my body—but there’s nothing. Like my limbs have turned to smooth, immovable stone. Instead of longing, I suddenly feel very tired.

I had quietly hoped we could turn on Law and Order and cuddle in bed until we fell asleep, the perfect end to the day. Not tonight, dear, I have a headache. I only say it to myself. Bad jokes are always depressing, but especially when the only audience is yourself. I take another sip of my drink before Oliver pulls it from my hand and sets it down next to his glass.

And then here it is. His hand on my hip. As he touches me, my mind wanders in the way it likes to do after a long day, where only the most literal and obvious thoughts seem to take shape—like wondering if any woman, throughout history, has ever legitimately, deep in her bones, wanted to have sex with her husband only to pump the brakes because she had a headache. I try to picture this faceless woman, curled up in her bed, hugging only her crushing disappointment—not for her husband, but for herself, as she’s then forced to drift off to sleep, her desires unmet.

The poke of Oliver’s optimistic erection against my thigh brings me back to the moment, to our king-size bed that feels too small, in our bedroom that feels too big. Why can’t his penis ever read the room?

I exaggerate a yawn, but Oliver either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. He drapes a leg across my own, heavy, and kisses my neck. This time the voice in my head doesn’t joke but only asks, What the fuck is wrong with you? Why do I make this so difficult? It’s just sex. With my husband. My kind, loving, attractive husband, with whom I’ve spent a perfect afternoon. He nuzzles deeper into me and my body stiffens. What the fuck is wrong with you? Whatthefuckiswrongwithyou? His right hand moves from my hip to my stomach in its familiar dance.

“Think of it as a love gift” I once heard on a relationship podcast. The woman’s voice was raspy as she leveled with her listeners about sex: “Let’s face it, some occasions call for giving and not receiving.” But I’m not in the mood for giving or receiving. Last time, when Oliver curled up against me just like this, I pretended to be asleep. I faked a light snore until finally he rolled away and began real snoring.

Now his hand slips up my T-shirt and across my bare skin, lightly squeezing my breast. His mouth finds mine and we kiss, his familiar tongue moving in its familiar ways. I can’t play the exhaustion card.

His hand moves down my bare stomach where I know it will pause, for a brief moment, at the hem of my underwear. I know because it’s always the same. We’ve been having the same sex, with the same five-minute foreplay and in the same positions, for what seems like a lifetime. So why is it suddenly so hard to play along? What the fuck is wrong with— I arch my back and moan the way he likes, the way that gives him permission to slip his fingers inside me. I watch as he licks his hand first, because he knows I’m not wet. Then he moves his fingers in slow broken-record circles, the same broken record he’s never repaired in the years we’ve been together. I bite down on my lip.

He moves his body on top of mine and slides his other hand beneath me, grabbing my ass. I close my eyes and try to picture his sweet face, his easy smile. He’s handsome and loving. And clean. So clean. I run my fingers through his hair and breathe in the smell of his soap. Kind of woodsy and citrusy. I wonder what the soap makers were going for. Maybe they wanted the scent to remind us of the outdoors, like a waterfall, or that nice mineral scent of dirt just after the rain. This is not sexy, thinking about soap scientists. I moan again and try to bring myself back to the moment, back to the feel of Oliver’s skin on mine. He responds with his own guttural sound and an excited thrust of his penis against my stomach. I pull down my underwear, inviting him in and hoping to move things along. He accepts the invitation, kissing me hard on the mouth as he pushes inside me.

I look up at his intent face then close my eyes and moan a little more.

“Does that feel good?” he asks.

“Uh-huh.” I moan again, but my delivery is off. Instead of boredom, I feel something more dangerous begin to warm beneath my skin. I try to push it away, but I can feel my anger building. I resent Oliver for enjoying my performance. Why does he buy it so easily? Or maybe he doesn’t even need me here? I stop moving my hips, to see if he notices. He keeps up his steady rhythm, moving inside me. I take it a step further and in the voice of a tired phone-sex operator at the end of a sixteen-hour shift, I purr unconvincingly about how rock hard his cock is, something I’ve never said before. Then I open my eyes and sneak a peek at his face. I expect him to laugh. Or to be confused. Or repulsed. We can’t be so disconnected that he isn’t startled by the flatness in my voice, by the uncharacteristic line of dirty talk. But his eyes are closed and he seems lost in ecstasy. “Yes,” he says. “Mmm.”

I stay quiet. I shut my eyes tight and decide in this very moment that I’ll stop pretending to be present, stop faking my own pleasure. I’ll consider this an experiment. Like making soap scents. Will he stop? Will he finally ask me what’s wrong?

He doesn’t.

My T-shirt is pushed up around my chin when Oliver groans, then shudders, his eyes so far back in his head he can no longer see me at all. “God, I needed that,” he says. He rolls off me and sighs.

I pull my T-shirt down while Oliver pads off to the bathroom, yawning, and turns on the shower. He doesn’t pause to kiss me or to look back. The warmth under my skin is now a prickly fire. For a moment, I think about curling into my pillow and crying, how maybe that would bring some relief. But I’m not sad; I almost long to be sad—then maybe Oliver could come back from the shower and comfort me, and I’d sheepishly smile to myself about how overly dramatic I’d been, and we’d fall asleep holding each other. And in the morning, we’d both feel better. But it’s not sorrow under my skin. It’s rage. The feeling is so uncomfortable I want to run into the bathroom and jump into the cold shower. But I don’t want to be anywhere near Oliver.

I get up and pull on my jeans. I grab my keys and purse, slip out the front door, and then I’m starting the car without letting myself wonder what Oliver will think when he steps out of the bathroom and finds my side of the bed empty.

Nothing. He’ll think nothing except that I got up to check on Emmy, like I always do. He’ll climb into bed and fall asleep, satisfied and snoring.