Chapter Nine #2
I’ve had so many men since then. But I never did have Will.
Just the memory of his hands on my hips as he passed me in the kitchen.
Of him asking, one time, “Are you okay?” So here’s my fantasy: the boy from the lowest point of my life, high in the air with me on my private plane.
Better yet, it’s a plane the studio loaned me for my own private use to try and get me to sign on to some dumb project.
Even though I’m in a plush leather chair, I’m back in my uniform from the coffee stand.
I have no idea why he’s on the plane with me.
It’s not because I impressed him. No—Will is the captain, he’s flying the plane!
“You made it, Will!” I say, when I see him in the cockpit.
“Yup.” “And this was what you always wanted? I had no idea. You were so hard to read.” He turns around, hands it over to his copilot who, it turns out, is a very safe pilot even though he’s the guy who’d owned the coffee stand.
Will closes the cockpit door and walks toward me. Stunned, I sit down in my seat, or lie down on it since someone has made it up into a double bed. “What I always wanted,” he answers, “was you.”
“You could have had me any day!”
“But I couldn’t have kept you. I knew you were going places. I knew you were a bill I couldn’t afford to pay.”
Will rolls the fabric up my thighs and soon his thick, tattooed fingers are inside me.
The dads from the coffee stand are watching, the teenage boys are watching.
Then Will unbuckles his cheap belt and lets me see his cock for the first time, as luxurious as we were broke.
The airport honeymooners are sucking off their new husbands while they watch us.
He wraps my long legs around his tan shoulders as he slides inside for the very first time after decades of waiting.
“Are you okay?” Will asks as he thrusts inside me.
He was never a built guy but turns out all the weight he’s been carrying is in his cock.
And after he’s made me explode, and we’ve touched down in London for my premiere, I carry that feeling with me all day, through press and then on the red carpet.
How warm he made me feel, then and now, that feeling of the one boy who didn’t collapse with need in front of me, that feeling of flying far, far away.
Oliver plays another one. I’m on a train. It’s dusk, and through the window I can see…
And then another one.
I hear my own voice, over and over again, asking questions.
And when that fantasy ends, he plays another.
…And once the show is over, his security guard finds me in the parking lot and leads me to his tour bus. He wants me to join him for the night.
Then it’s quiet. Minutes pass before I hear Oliver stand, and so I do too.
The door finally opens. I don’t want to be the first one to speak. “Diana…”
I meet his gaze. He circles my wrists with his fingers. “It’s you. How could I not like anything that’s you?” He leans close and kisses me. It’s tender, full of the relief we both feel, both of us knowing there is no place we’d rather be than right here.
And then we can’t hold back. Our clothes come off quickly, as if they were seconds from catching fire. Oliver’s body has changed. He’s stronger, his shoulders broader. I cover my breasts with my hands, suddenly feeling self-conscious.
But in an instant, our hands are all over each other, exploring the places we longed for and missed over the last year.
With his hands on the small of my back, Oliver lowers me to the floor, reaching for his sweater and placing it under my head. “Is this okay?”
All I can do is nod, my voice caught in my throat.
Oliver is on top of me now. And I can feel my body prepare for our familiar sex. But instead of immediately entering me, he slowly teases me with the tip of his erection. I moan in pleasure, letting him know that I love every second of it.
“Fuck me,” I tell him. “Please.” His sparkling eyes never leave mine as he finally enters me, slowly pushing deeper. I lift my head so I can watch our bodies coming together, dripping into each other.
Our lovemaking was always so tentative. Under covers or turned on our sides, both of us going through the motions. But now, I tighten around him. Are these the same bodies? Melting into each other in new levels of ecstasy?
My orgasm comes out of nowhere. Quick, pronounced pangs of pleasure each as short-lived as a struck match. “I’m coming,” I moan and Oliver follows. And then it’s over. I want to applaud. Congratulate us in some way.
“I’m sorry,” he says, smiling, watching my own smile blossom. “I usually last longer.”
“It’s okay.” I laugh. “I do too.”
We lie on the hard wood floors, beneath the shiplap ceiling, our hearts racing. I wonder if my orgasms will always be so within reach? As impossible to stop as a runaway train.
“What next?”
“Well.” He turns his head and smiles at me. “We lie to Miriam, of course.”
“I mean it. What now, for us?”
“We do it again.” He props himself on his elbow looking down into my eyes. “And again. And again. Until we both can’t walk.” He kisses me tenderly. We are both sticky with sweat and sex but I don’t care. I pull him closer. It feels right to be in his arms.
“I think what you’re building is really cool,” he says.
“Cool?” We both grin.
“Great. Brave. Surprising.”
Outside the giant windows, the last of the daylight fades. We watch the biggest of the live oak trees sway. If we lived here, this would be the view from our bed.
“Can I show you something?”
He kisses my neck. “Show me everything.”
Beneath a pile of our rumpled clothes, I find my phone and show Oliver all the plans we have for the site. The press materials. The Q she’d been in a car accident, something awful.
In the morning, when I called her, she would answer, sleepily, “Hey.” As if months hadn’t passed. As if we spoke every day.
Any feeling of relief I had was quickly replaced by a red-hot flush of anger. “Are you okay?” I’d ask.
“God no.”