Dirty Diana

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

—

It’s two weeks of thinking of Jasper constantly, without end, and then one day, I show up for work at Justine’s studio and find him pacing out front. My heart and stomach switch places. It has snowed overnight, a light April storm, and there’s a dusting of untouched powder on every surface. At first he doesn’t notice me and I watch him walking back and forth. He’s in short sleeves despite the weather, and he runs his fingers through his dark hair, longer since I last saw him.

He exhales, leaving icy clouds in the air, and when he catches sight of me, he shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He looks like an anxious teenager.

“Hey,” I say. “How long have you been out here? It’s freezing.”

It’s not clear to me whether he’s here to see me or Justine.

“Diana. I hope you don’t mind me showing up at your work.” He blows into his hands and rubs them together for warmth. “But I’m totally fucked and I couldn’t think of anyone else to ask for help.” I’m thrown by his panicked look. I had expected the composed guy of the gallery opening, but now he seems genuinely distressed. His eyes are ringed with dark circles.

“Are you okay?”

“My assistant quit on me and now I’ve got no help and a huge shoot.”

“Oh.” I’m relieved it’s just work that has him worried. Or am I? For a split second I had thought his unease was over me, somehow, and he meant to say, I’m totally fucked because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you and so I tracked you down. “When’s the shoot?”

“I’m supposed to be in Marfa tomorrow; it’s a magazine editorial and a cover. I screwed up and no-showed on an assignment for them last year, and they’re making a big deal about giving me a second chance.” Over his shoulder, I notice the vintage blue-and-white Ford from his Aperture photo. I was so sure it was just a prop, not his actual truck. “I need to leave in the next hour to get there before sundown so I can set up for tomorrow. It’s a quick job, but a big one. I can’t show up without an assistant.” Jasper gives me a funny look. “Diana. Please?”

“Me?” I laugh. “I don’t know anything about photography. Also, I have to work. And it’s in Texas?” He looks down at his boots and traces an arc in the fallen snow. And we hardly know each other. Why me? When he doesn’t say anything, I add again, “And I don’t know anything about photography.”

He looks up at me and smiles. “But you’re an artist and I really just need someone with a good eye. And you work for Justine, which means you’ve already worked for an incredible hard-ass so this will feel like a walk in the park. Or the desert, I guess.” He smiles again and all I can think is Art-Throb, how fitting. “I’d tell you where to hold the lights. You’d hand me lenses. Seriously, Diana, it might be fun. And I’ll pay you double for any work you miss.”

I take a step back, because I can’t think properly when I’m standing so close to him. His explanation sounds reasonable. Cut-and-dried. Like it’s just work. Which is for the best. I could use the extra money, and I’ve always wanted to see Marfa. Justine leaves tomorrow for two days visiting family, so if Melodie can fill in for me today, I could make up the hours next week. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Maybe?” He laughs. “You’d be saving my life. And if you’re worried that there are any weird kind of strings attached, please don’t. You’ll have your own hotel room, and I have a decent budget—we’ll work hard, eat well, and you’ll have a little time to see Marfa, if you haven’t already.”

Annoyingly, my body had said yes the minute he appeared in the parking lot, before he’d even asked the favor, but my brain is still trying to catch up.

“Let me make a call.”

Jasper grins. “That’s a yes?”

“Sure. It’s insane, but I’ll do it.”

His eyes widen in surprise—and I wonder, then, if I should have said no.

—

The weather takes several huge swings on our seven-hour drive from New Mexico to Texas, much like the energy inside the truck’s cab. At first, the drive is peaceful and we’re both quiet for a while, calmed by the muted colors of the desert sliding by. Jasper smokes his herbal cigarettes, drumming his fingers to the music. I make an effort not to be noticeably quiet, but my mind is racing, trying to figure out exactly what we are to each other. Friends? Employer and employee? Friends who might have sex? Jasper gives me nothing but mixed signals on the drive. When we stop for gas he brings me a lollipop, like he’s presenting me a bouquet of roses. In the next breath, he asks me to check the case at my feet and inventory his lenses, a painful reminder that I’m being paid to be on this trip. “And could you call the hotel,” he asks, “to confirm our reservation?”

Halfway to Marfa, we pull off the highway for something to eat. Jasper’s never hungry before a big job, he says, so we sit in the bed of his truck and he watches me eat a plate of nachos. The sun is high in the sky and the sharp piney air mixes with the salty food. It’s windy enough that I have to tuck the hem of my dress tightly between my legs and sit on my napkins to keep them from flying away. By the time I finish, the weather has shifted again. The clouds are fat with coming rain and I wish I hadn’t left my sweater in the cab. I take a sip of my drink and shiver.

“Here.” Jasper drapes his jacket across my shoulders.

“Thanks.”

“Of course.” He pulls the collar tight around my neck and starts to button the coat from the bottom up. When he gets to the last one, our eyes meet. He drops his hands and looks up at the gray sky. “We should probably get going, anyway.”

For the next hundred miles, we hum along to the Police and any weird tension slowly melts away. We can work together and still have fun, I tell myself. I begin to wonder, too, if I imagined the way he froze buttoning up the coat. By the time Little Feat’s “Willin’?” comes on, it’s sunny again and we’re singing along, loud and terrible.

Jasper turns up the volume. Instead of resting his hand back on the wheel, he places it on the center console, inches from mine. Both of us watch the road straight ahead. When I do glance at him, he bites his lower lip and runs a hand through his hair. Then he replaces his hand again, next to mine. Our fingers are so close I can feel the heat of his skin.

Long minutes pass where neither one of us moves. Jasper clears his throat and lets his ring and pinkie fingers rest on top of mine. My heart races. He traces my hand with his finger and looks at me. “No jewelry?”

“No,” I say, quietly. “I’ve never worn it.”

Jasper’s hand lingers and he shifts in his seat. The late-afternoon sun beats through the front windshield. When it’s too hot to ignore, he rolls down his window. I pretend not to notice and let the wind lift my dress high up my thighs. I hear his sharp inhalation and turn my head toward the window so he can’t see my smile.

Close to Marfa, he tells me about his favorite restaurant in town and says we should have dinner there tonight. “You’ll love it,” he tells me, and I don’t know what excites me more—the thought of being on a date with Jasper or the idea that he’s already guessing at what I’ll like.

I spend the last few miles of the drive quietly imagining Jasper is my fiancé and we take weekend getaways like this often. Packing our bags and heading out on the next adventure. I don’t even realize that I’m smiling when Jasper pulls up to the location of the shoot.

The house we’ve come to photograph is a massive adobe structure with large circular windows facing out on a desert garden of prickly pear cactus and brilliant red salvia bushes. The walkway is lined with large agave plants and tall stalks of rain sage showing tiny lavender flowers. Jasper’s subject—a country music singer named Annie James—opens the door to her house in bare feet. She is petite and beaming, with neatly made features and warm eyes. She is wearing a loose white cotton shirt and heavily beaded necklaces, which clack against each other as she wraps us in a hug. “I’m so happy you’re here!”

Nothing about the home’s plain exterior prepares you for the grandeur of the inside. We enter a large room like an atrium with a ceiling made of steel and glass. Sunlight splashes down on the white walls and cream-colored floors and catches each crystal petal of the two massive chandeliers. An oil portrait of Annie brandishing a guitar hangs on one wall, and there is a white grand piano on a furry white rug. A row of waist-high ceramic vases hold stalks of feathery pampas grass.

At a long wood table, a woman with close-cropped hair is arranging camelias in bowls of water, her long gold earrings brushing against her shoulders. A small man in a squat bowler hat is helping himself to a dish of strawberries and cream. “My publicists,” Annie says by way of introduction. “We’re in a bit of a crisis.” She lets out a throaty laugh. I’ve never seen three people look less in crisis, but we just nod.

“Nothing Jeremy can’t handle,” says Annie pointedly, staring at the man in the bowler. “Let me show you around.”

Maybe it’s the long drive or the soft perfection of the light, but by the time we reach the upstairs I am wondering why a house like this would need to be photographed. If it were mine, I would not want it to appear in a magazine. I would wander these rooms in private, probably congratulating myself for whatever I’d done to acquire it.

“I spent so much time as an expat in Europe, I guess I really fell in love with Georgian proportions,” Annie says. “It made me want a home that felt grand but still welcoming.” She gestures to a massive fireplace in one of the bedrooms covered in mosaic for her by a local artist. In the next room, a handmade quilt, a gift, she says, from a Tuvan shaman she met in Russia.

The house is full of art and very few everyday objects. I’m lingering in a large bathroom, peering into a copper bathtub that shows no signs of use. There’s toilet paper on the roll holder but no soap, no shampoo, nothing in the medicine cabinets. I hear Jasper cry out excitedly, “Diana, check this out!” and find them at the other end of the long hallway. There on the wall is one of Justine’s pieces—a beautiful blue-and-gold tapestry. “How crazy is that?” Jasper grins at me with something like pride and explains to Annie that I work with Justine.

Annie looks genuinely starstruck, even though I’m only an assistant. “When I saw it, it reminded me so much of Marfa. I just had to have it.” I know this tapestry—it used to hang in Justine’s studio and was finished shortly before I was hired. I start to say that it was inspired by a Talking Heads song, but Jasper and Annie have already moved on toward the next bedroom.

Annie and Jasper find a million things to talk about. They discover two friends in common, and a mutual love for the now-defunct Panorama club in Berlin. Both attended the same performance piece last summer in New York City—oh, they must have been days apart! I can’t shake the sinking feeling that I’m on someone else’s first date.

By the time we head downstairs, Annie’s two publicists are packing up to leave and I’m ready to follow. As everyone kisses goodbye, I stand woodenly nearby. Jasper notices and presses the keys to the truck into my hand. “Why don’t you get some air. I’ll be right out.”

I’m grateful for a moment alone in the car. I slip low in my seat just as the sun is beginning to set and the intense beauty of the light makes me catch my breath. The horizon is like a child’s painting, a strip of golden light under a strip of cobalt blue sky and above that a layer of moody gray-black clouds. Annie’s not wrong, the blues and gold in Justine’s piece match the Marfa sky exactly.

Jasper taps the window and I roll it down. “Hand me that black case behind the seat?” he asks. I slide it through the window. “Listen, I have to do a little bit of prep work before we lose the light, and Annie just invited me for dinner. Do you feel okay driving the truck to the hotel?” He reaches over me and fumbles through the glove compartment. “Here’s the address. I’ll call ahead and let them know you’re checking in without me.”

“Of course,” I say. My stomach sinks at the thought of going to the hotel alone. “You don’t need me to carry any more stuff in?” But he is already headed back inside.

—

At the hotel, I check into my room and collapse onto the bed. I’m swallowed up by the size of the room, with its big, brightly colored rugs, an oversize pink-striped chair, and an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. How had I gotten this so wrong? There were no mixed signals. Jasper wasn’t using this shoot as an excuse to spend time with me or whisk me out of town. He needed an assistant. Plain and simple. I was an employee and it was convenient and, more humiliatingly, he knew I would say yes. Maybe I wasn’t even the first person he asked. I flip onto my stomach and groan into one of many king-size pillows.

I cut myself a deal. I can wallow in my disappointment over Jasper bailing on me for the length of a hot shower, and then I’ll get to work.

I have my tape recorder with me and the interview I’ve just done with a college friend named Brynn. I asked her specifically about her sex life because I remembered her as having been very embarrassed to talk about such things. She surprised me by taking up the whole interview with tales of sex escapades she’d had since we’d last seen each other. I decided I was going to use the interview’s steamiest bits for a new series of paintings I would dedicate to Alicia called “Points.”

The bathroom is also designed for more than one person with a generous clawfoot tub and a separate shower with multiple shower heads. I step inside and let the warm water run over my face and name all the reasons why coming on this trip was a dumb idea. I realize I would have said yes even knowing the trip was purely work, just to spend time with Jasper. Certain images of him are impossible to forget. Like the night of his show, the two of us in the hallway, pressed against the office door. Or his hand over my heart when we couldn’t stop kissing.

I open the shower door and emerge in a dramatic billow of steam. I’m revitalized and I have an idea for how to paint Brynn. I pull on a pair of sweatpants and set myself up on the bed, sketching with charcoal pencil. I’m listening to Brynn talk about sneaking into a movie theater after it closed.

I should have known he didn’t really work there when he pulled out a credit card and jimmied the lock.

In quick strokes, I draw a rectangle and place Brynn in the center of the movie screen dressed like a 1940s starlet. Then I run her dialogue like subtitles along the bottom.

I was too excited to care. Maybe more excited because we might get caught.

I take a break to check my phone, pretending—but failing—not to watch it in hopes that Jasper will call. I toy with the idea of texting him. Something friendly and upbeat. Casual, even.

How’s dinner? Nope. Delete. I have never texted Jasper so why would I now breezily interrupt his night with Annie?

Unless it’s just to let him know I got in okay? Checked into hotel. Room is great. It sounds less officious and more desperate. Delete.

To make myself laugh, I type, Room 112. Fuck me senseless? But instead of smiling, I roll my eyes and chuck the phone far away, to the end of the bed, where it bounces off a pillow and clatters to the floor.

Maybe I should just act like an actual assistant and ask him what time we start tomorrow. I pick the phone up off the floor.

And there it is. An envelope flying across the screen. And then:

Message sent.

No. No, no. God no. I scroll to confirm that it did indeed send to Jasper. Room 112. Fuck me senseless? I scream loud enough to wake the entire hotel. There must be something I can do. A way to delete the text. There’s no way. Do I drive to Annie’s house and find Jasper’s phone before he checks it? My face burns a deep crimson, imagining him gently chuckling with Annie over dinner, shaking his head at my sweet crush. Or what if Annie reacts more earnestly, “Be careful. She sounds a bit unhinged.” I will leave. I will somehow find a ride back to Santa Fe and disappear.

I almost call Alicia, then reconsider. If I don’t tell a soul, maybe I can block it out. I check the phone, apprehensively, for a reply, then turn it off, afraid to touch it ever again.

—

The woman at the front desk points me toward a small liquor store across the street and I buy a half-pint of vodka. My new brilliant plan is to drink until I fall asleep and tomorrow I’ll blame it on the alcohol.

I pass a young couple holding hands, on their way to a night out, and I tuck the paper bag beneath my sweatshirt. I debate ordering room service, but it’s so expensive and I can’t decide what’s a reasonable amount to spend on someone else’s expense account. So I order a pizza with olives and turn on Dateline, slowly sipping on my drink. I turn my phone back on, praying for the off chance that Jasper thought it was a hilarious joke and responded with something equally funny. But there is no response. Minutes pass like hours and I try to lose myself in Stone Phillips and an unsolved murder.

A quiet knock on my door and I thank god for the pizza I ordered. I open the door, still searching my purse for my wallet, and look up to find Jasper standing on the other side. Too surprised to say hello, I just stare.

And then he holds up his phone, his eyebrows raised, and I want to sink through the floor.

“I was drinking,” is all I can think to say.

He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” His expression is unreadable, his hair tousled and his stubble even darker. He’s still dressed from the road, so he must have come right from Annie’s.

“How was dinner?”

“Good. Ended early.”

“Oh.” My heart starts to pound in my chest. “Why?”

“I told her I was exhausted.”

“Of course. Yeah, me too.”

He grips the back of the pink-striped chair, then sweeps his eyes over the room. I’m painfully aware of my wet towel on the bed, my suitcase spilling onto the floor.

“They gave you my room.”

“Sorry?”

“This is my room. I had the suite.”

“Oh.” Is that why he’s here? “I can pack up my stuff. I had no idea.”

He blushes. “No, no. You should stay.”

Someone knocks on the door. I pay the bellman who’s brought up my pizza while Jasper does a slow lap around the room. He notices my sketch of Brynn on the bed and picks it up. “You did this just tonight? It’s beautiful.” It’s the way he looks at it so closely and holds the paper by the edges so delicately that feels especially good.

He looks up at me. “Did you get a tub? I requested a bathtub.”

“I did, yeah.” I look down at my sweats, bare feet, chipped polish. I’ve never so simultaneously wanted someone to stay and leave.

He takes the pizza box from me and sets it on the desk. “Let’s take a bath.”

“Now?”

“Yeah, now.” He smiles. “If you want to?” I can’t think of anything I want more. “Run the water how you like it. I’m fine with whatever.”

In the bathroom, I turn away from him, filling the tub with mostly hot water. Behind me, I hear the pearl buttons of his denim shirt as they hit the tiled floor. I pretend to adjust the bath’s temperature while I watch his reflection in the mirror.

As he undresses, I take in his toned arms, his biceps flexing as he pulls his belt through the loops of his jeans and drops them both to the floor. Steam begins to fill the room. Jasper stretches his ribbed tank over his shoulders exposing his taut stomach. A dark, narrow trail of hair runs from the center of his chest all the way down to his boxers. Longing flows through my entire body as I wait expectantly for him to take them off. I can’t help myself. I turn to face him and his lips turn up in a crooked smile, knowing he’s being watched. As he slips out of his boxers, his uncut penis rises. He’s already aroused.

Jasper lowers himself into the water and tilts his head back. “You coming in?” Then he closes his heavy-lidded eyes, as if knowing I’m less sure about how to undress as casually as he did.

I lift my T-shirt over my head, tiny beads of sweat caught at my breasts, then slip out of my sweats. Completely naked, I step into the hot water. Jasper watches me now, making room for me as I ease myself in. I sit facing him and pull my knees toward my chest. I lean back until I’m submerging my face in the water, taking a long beat beneath the surface. When I come up, neither of us moves. I can feel his gaze on my face, my shoulders, then lingering on my breasts.

“So.” He finally breaks the quiet. “About this text. I didn’t realize you were also a poet.” He breaks into a smile and my face flushes red. Without thinking, I splash him in the face and he pretends to cower, laughing.

“Sorry!” He holds up both hands in defense. “Sorry. It was a very nice text. Maybe one of my favorites.”

“Is that why you’re here?” I ask, in mock offense.

“No. I would have knocked on your door regardless. The text just added a little urgency.”

I smile. The air has been cleared. And now it’s just us. Rugged, handsome Jasper naked and wet, inches away from me. It feels like a dream I never want to wake from.

He takes my foot in his hand and massages me with his strong fingers, then works his way up my calf. My whole body quivers. “And so you’ve come here to answer it?” I ask.

Jasper sits up and slips his arms around my waist. “I’ll be honest. I was hoping we could fuck each other senseless.”

Every morning since meeting him, I have lain in bed after waking up and tried to imagine what it would be like to be Jasper’s lover. What would he say? How would he take my clothes off? Would he talk during sex? What would he sound like? What would he feel like inside me?

Now he’s here in front of me, close enough that I can I feel the heat from his body. He pulls me close for a kiss. His tongue is so hungry for mine and I’m just as eager, wrapping my legs around his torso so I can get closer.

“I missed you all day,” he tells me. “Even when you were right next to me in the truck.”

I press my forehead to his. “What exactly did you miss?”

“This.” He grips my hips with both hands and lifts me up out of the water. I hold the sides of the tub for support as he pulls me to his mouth, parting my lips with his tongue and entering me with a force I don’t expect. He moves his tongue in and out and it feels so incredible I want him to slow down but I also can’t imagine changing anything about the sensation. I press my thighs to his head, the warm water lapping against my back and onto my stomach, his stubble rough against my skin.

My head feels light and dizzy and I think he can read my mind when he moves his hands up my back and says, “I won’t let you fall.”

I open my legs wider and he slowly licks up my inner thighs, then takes his time stroking me with his tongue, varying the pressure and movement, which makes my nerve endings want to explode.

“More,” I say, but it doesn’t sound like my voice. I don’t even know where it’s coming from, somewhere so deep inside. Jasper leans back slightly, and gently pulls me with him. I’m spinning at this point but I need to feel him. I reach beneath the water and grab hold of his erection. As he sucks me, I massage him with one hand, feeling him grow even harder.

Our touches become frenzied, panicked, as if this kind of extreme pleasure won’t last and we need to keep it all in. When he moans, his lips vibrate between my legs and I’m so raw, the sensation so intense, that all I want to do is come into his mouth. And then, without warning, I feel him pulsing in my hands and it sends me nearly over the edge. But we both stop at the same moment, knowing we are seconds away from orgasm.

I lower myself back beneath the surface of the water and when I come up for air, Jasper takes my hands in his and pulls us out of the bath. I wrap us both in towels and lead him toward the bed.

He lies still while I dry him off slowly, running the towel down his body and paying special attention to his erect penis, perfectly smooth and big enough to fill me completely. My body warms with excitement thinking of him inside me.

He pulls me onto the bed and I stretch my body close to his, resting my head on his chest. When he lifts my chin, his lips graze mine. A shiver runs down my spine. I close my eyes briefly, and when I open them again, he peers into them. The diamond cut of his eyes floats in my vision while his calloused fingers trace their way down my body back to my inner thighs. I climb on top of him and pull his arms over his head and kiss the hollow of his neck, his nipples—atrail of kisses down the skin that slopes from his shoulder blades. His breath goes ragged and the sound makes me want to swallow him entirely. I sit up, resting my hips against his. With the softest part of my body, I feel how hard he is. He slides a finger into my mouth.

“Diana,” he says, his voice thick. “You feel so good.”

“So do you.”

“Tell me what you want”

I put my mouth to his ear. “I want you inside me. I want to sleep with you inside me.”

“Fuck,” he groans. I slip off him and he grabs for my hips. “Where are you going?”

I stand naked at the foot of the bed. “I want to show you.”

“God, you’re beautiful.” He grips the pillow beneath his head with both hands.

I sit in the pink-striped chair and hold his gaze. Then slowly I spread my legs, opening myself up to him. I slip a finger inside me, and he watches it disappear, in and out, his mouth slightly open. I close my eyes with the pleasure of being watched, then open them again to see him stroke himself slowly. We find our timing together. As he strokes himself all the way down to the base of his erection, I plunge a finger deep inside me, as if he’s making love to me.

“Fuck,” he moans again. “Diana. I need to be inside you.”

We’ve put it off for as long as we can handle. Our breathing fast and shallow. I walk to the bed and straddle his waist, pressing myself against the warmth of his stomach. He opens his eyes, pleadingly. “Please.”

I lean down and kiss him, breathing him in. I take him in my hand and lightly tease his erection against my opening. We both moan, aching for the same sensation.

I let go of him and spread my legs letting him know I’m ready. He kisses me hard, and I lower myself onto him. He slides deep inside me, in and out, and I’m convinced nothing in the world feels better. Then he straightens his legs and lifts his hips, just slightly off the bed, longing to be closer to me. I give him what we both want, pressing my pelvis firmly into his. The feeling of fullness, of him inside me, makes me cry out in pleasure.

Jasper sits up and wraps his arms around the small of my back. He kisses my forehead then moves to my ear, biting me gently on the lobe before whispering in my ear. “I’m so fucking happy you said yes.”

I picture myself in the snowy parking lot, trying to decide what to do. “Me too.”

He thrusts deeper into me and I arch my back, grabbing onto his legs to keep from falling onto the bed. He slides in and out of me, and we move together like this, closer and faster, until we’re both pulled under by the crashing pleasure—both our bodies climaxing then collapsing into each other.

Afterward, the room is quiet. Our bodies are still trembling. Sex shouldn’t be this good. He offers me water from the nightstand and we both take a long drink.

In the dark he says, “I want to keep you in this room forever. And never let you leave.” I smile as he drapes an arm over my belly and stretches a leg across mine. Within minutes, he’s asleep.

It’s a fitful sleep. I feel him toss in the bed, and when I finally begin drifting off, he shifts again. I open my eyes and he grins hungrily. I’m wide awake once more. He pulls me close and props himself up on an elbow. “Thank you for showing me how to touch you.” He traces a hand down my stomach. “Can I try?”

“Yes.” I spread my legs. Slowly, he moves his fingers in and out, exactly as I had done. I close my eyes and picture my own body curled around his. “I can’t get enough of you, Diana.” And then he’s inside me, pushing deeper and harder, and we’re fucking, but this time faster, with more urgency, my fingers digging into the smooth skin of his back. When I feel him coming, everything inside me tightens again with pleasure, and something bright and blinding creeps in at the edges of my vision, as though I might pass out. Then we lie back on the bed, panting and laughing.

—

At Annie’s the next day I feel drunk. I can still smell Jasper on my skin. After he went back to his room, I showered but not with soap, hoping that his smell would stay on me. On the ride to Annie’s house, he’d told me what we’d be shooting, which rooms in which order using what equipment. I was on the tour with him, wasn’t I? I realize how little I’d taken in.

“Diana,” Jasper says, “where’s the twenty-five?”

I look around me at the sea of equipment spread around Annie’s kitchen. We’re shooting Annie in various casual-seeming positions around the room she probably uses the least. I peeked in her refrigerator and there was a carton of milk, some organic blueberries, and a jar of face cream made with manuka honey. Does she have another kitchen, I wonder, where the food actually is?

“Diana? The twenty-five?”

Recognizing my limitations, Jasper comes over to grab it.

I manage to finish out the day by thinking of everything as a tray of hors d’oeuvres that I need to pass out. It’s a kind of meditation. This camera lens is any one of Barry’s minicreations. The bounce boards are platters. This man asking me for a lens is the host. You don’t talk to hosts. You just smile at them politely. That spectacular woman being photographed is just another guest at a party who won’t eat what I offer her.

—

“You were quiet today,” Jasper says as we’re driving back to the hotel late that evening.

“Was I?” He’s clearly finding the delineation between work and play much easier than I am. Every time he gets near me I want to slip my hands under his clothes and feel his bare skin on mine.

Jasper nods. “Very quiet. You have this talent for making yourself invisible. I’ve noticed that. It’s like you’re getting smaller before my very eyes.”

Maybe to seem bold, I place a hand on his leg and rest my fingers against his inner thigh.

He stares straight ahead, then slows and pulls to the side of the road, still a few miles from the hotel. There is nothing around us but the desert scenery and the deep black sky. I climb onto his lap and straddle his hips. “I’ve been waiting for this all day,” I say.

“Me too.”

I slip my hands under his T-shirt, feeling his warm skin. I unbutton his jeans and slide his erection inside me. We both exhale in relief—relief that it still feels this good, that he is finally back inside me where he belongs. I begin moving my hips, but he stops me, his voice rough in my ear. “I’m going to come…Don’t move. Please. Don’t move.” So we both sit there, still, staring at each other like aliens dropped from the sky into a magical field. Neither of us moves an inch. We don’t close our eyes or look away. Jasper teeters on the edge of orgasm—he bites on his lip as the pleasure rolls through him and I clench myself around him, tighter. That’s when my own pleasure floods through me, meeting his, waves rolling over us both. Sweat drips from his forehead and down the middle of his chest.

After a quiet minute Jasper asks, “Are you a witch?”

“No,” I say, laughing.

“Has that ever happened to you?”

“Has someone made me come just by looking at me?” I ask. “No. That’s never happened before. Not even close.”

“Good.”

The boldness I felt on that first night at the gallery has never left my body. But there’s an intimacy that has come to meet it tonight—and it has taken us both by surprise. I feel the hot prick of tears behind my eyes and quickly turn my head, looking out the window at the stars stretched across the night sky. I don’t want Jasper to see me cry and mistake this feeling I’m having—a kind of happiness at the overwhelming feeling of our intimacy—for sadness.

He reaches for my hand and holds it in his. When I turn, he’s looking out his own window. His voice comes out low and hoarse. “I was thinking about staying here in Marfa for a few more days. Maybe renting an Airstream at Cosmico, maybe even camping and checking out the Marfa lights. Would you want to stay with me?”

I don’t think about missing shifts or how pissed Justine will be if I fall behind or any of the usual excuses. I don’t wait for my fears to well up and spill over. I just say yes.

That night, we check into our rented Airstream. It’s painted turquoise and pink and has its own small shower. We squeeze in together, and Jasper lathers my entire body with soap, working from my feet up to my shoulders. Then he gently shampoos my hair and wraps me in a robe. We lie together on the queen-size bed and I fall into a deep sleep, my head on his chest.

—

Morning is my favorite time of day in Marfa. The air is cold and the sun is just starting to burn. The sky is a light show, at first pale and moody and then, by early afternoon, beginning to slap on its makeup. We wrap blankets around ourselves and drink coffee by the fire in front of the Airstream. I tuck my feet under me and feel giddy. I don’t need anything more than this. I really think I could stay for months, surviving on only sex and s’mores.

We visit the same spot each day for lunch, and then shop for supplies in the tiny grocery next door, which caters to a wide range of eating habits—bologna in the same aisle as organic tofu, boxes of Fruity Pebbles next to hand-labeled bags of heirloom grains.

Packs of dogs roam the desert during the day and one straggler makes its way to the porch of our Airstream. She’s a chihuahua mix, with two milky eyes and a patch of mange on her forehead. Her nipples are dark and rubbery from countless litters and she has an underbite that makes her look as though she’s permanently growling. I sit down slowly, and she runs into my lap, tail wagging. “Look at this!” I say, and Jasper startles when he sees her.

“Is that a dog?”

“Yes, it’s a dog. She’s cold, I think. And obviously not in the best shape.”

“I thought it was an armadillo.” Jasper takes a step toward us and the dog growls, warning him away. “I’m not going to hurt you, buddy.”

“I don’t think she likes men,” I tell him.

“All dogs like me.” He reaches out a hand and she nips him. A bright red drop of blood appears on his skin.

Jasper sits a safe distance away and snaps her picture, getting acquainted with her through his lens. She lifts her head regally, turning the most egregious spot of mange away from the camera.

He doesn’t give up. He goes back to the grocery for a pack of hot dogs, and he breaks off small pieces and feeds them to her until he can pet her without her tensing up. That afternoon, we spread our blanket out by the fire, and she hops in between us.

“Is this our dog now?” he asks. I can tell we both hate the idea of her all alone in the desert. “Because let’s be honest, no one else is going to love this dog. Ever.”

I can’t help it—my heart leaps at the idea of owning something with Jasper. I hold her up to the sky like a proud parent. “She’s pretty cute. In a horrible way.”

Jasper smiles. “She’s got charm.”

Later we give her a bath in the Airstream’s tiny sink and do our best to get the prickers out of her fur. Jasper squeezes some of his expensive conditioner into his palm and rubs it into her skin. We name her Pippi. By the end of the night, she’s sleeping on Jasper’s face.

“I can’t move. I live here now,” Jasper jokes.

We move her gently to a spot on the bench. And then he kisses me deeply and I climb on top of him on the bed. I’m struck by the way our bodies fit together, two pieces of a clasp to a delicate necklace. His tongue explores my mouth and I bite down on his lip, lightly. He tastes like saltwater and smells like campfire and I want to stay here forever, breathing him in.

He moves his hands up my shirt and my body responds immediately, my nipples hard and wanting. I pull my shirt over my head, then remove his. I skim my naked breasts across his bare chest and he pulls me close. Pippi starts growling. We stop what we’re doing immediately, laughing. Pippi calms down and closes her milky eyes, but as soon as Jasper pushes inside me she sits up on high alert.

“How does she even know what we’re doing? She’s got to be legally blind?”

“Pippi knows all,” I say, laughing.

“Can we not talk about Pippi while we make love?”

Love. “Sure.” I smile, an intoxicating mixture of happiness and desire running through my body. “Pippi, look away! Hide your eyes!”