“Oh my God,” I laughed, trying to imagine how that would even work. How or where I would find it, much less watch it. “No. No porn.”

“What’s the naughtiest, dirtiest thing you’ve ever seen in real life?”

I barely had to think; the memory was right there. Plugged in like it had been waiting.

“My cousin…” Shit, I was already using Layla’s name. “Annie. My cousin Annie and my aunt came to visit my mom and me on the farm. And I think…maybe because my aunt was there, Mom let me take my cousin into town for ice cream. She never, ever let me go into town by myself.”

“How old were you?”

“Sixteen.” It was a year before Mom got sick. Hoyt had just been hired but I hadn’t really met him yet. Saw him in the barn every once in a while, a big blond guy with his hat pulled down low.

God, it seemed like a lifetime ago.

“What happened?”

“Town was like a half hour away and we drove the old station wagon in, but once we got there my cousin decided we should get beer instead of ice cream.”

“Naughty girl. Were you on board with that?”

“I was terrified, but I didn’t want my cousin to think…or to know, really…how weird things were in my life, with Mom and being out so far. I mean she probably knew, but I wanted her to think I was…normal.”

“Normal?”

“You know…”

“No. I got no damn idea what a normal sixteen-year-old does.”

“You were sixteen once.”

“But I was never what anyone would call normal. So what happened?”

“We went to the liquor store parking lot and sat out on the hood of our car…just waiting I guess for someone to come by and offer to buy us beer. It took like five minutes. My cousin was real…pretty.”

“So you got a six-pack and got loaded?”

“No, the guy…the guy asked if we wanted him to buy us beer and my cousin said yes. And he asked what was in it for him? And my cousin told him she’d give him a hand job in the back of the station wagon.”

I remembered that night like it was yesterday all of a sudden. The hot summer air, the smell of the fried chicken place up the street and Layla’s clove cigarettes that truly did make her seem like the coolest girl in the world. The cowboy had been rail thin, his belt buckle nearly bigger than his waist.

“How old are you girls?” he asked, his eyes making me feel dirty. And scared. And…excited.

“How old do you want us to be?” Layla said, twirling the end of her ponytail with her finger.

“What happened, baby?” Dylan asked.

“He said yes,” I said, “but he wanted me to watch. My cousin shrugged like it was no big deal, like she gave hand jobs to strangers with me watching all the time, and she just hopped off the front of the car and then climbed in the backseat. The guy jumped in after her and I…I went to sit in the front seat.”

“I want you to watch, sugar,” the guy said. “Back here with us so you get a good view.”

“She can see just fine,” Layla said in the backseat. “Just tilt the mirror, Annie.”

“I tipped the mirror,” I told Dylan. “So I could see what was happening in the back.”

“And did you see?”

“It was dark, too dark really. I could see her hand…moving. But mostly I just heard it.”

“What did it sound like?”

“Wet, sort of. And the guy talked a lot.” I squeezed my legs together remembering what the guy said, the filthy things that came out of his mouth about what a good girl Layla was, and how he wanted to fuck her.

“Were you turned on?”

“I guess…I mean, I think I’m more turned on now, thinking about it, than I was then. Mostly, then I was scared.” But I wasn’t now. The ache was back. That empty throb.

“Did he buy you beer?”

“Yep. I drove around while my cousin drank a six-pack and talked to me about how to give a hand job.”

“Yeah, what was her advice?”

“Spit. She said you need to spit on your hand.”

At the time I’d never heard anything so disgusting, but right now I wasn’t so sure.

“I’ve never told anyone that story.”

“No?”

“Not a single person in my life would appreciate it.”

“I appreciate the fuck out of it, baby.”

I laughed. “How about you? How many—”

“How many men have I slept with? None.”

“Hilarious. How many women?”

“Lots. But I used to be wild.”

“Wild?”

“Following around my badass brother. It wasn’t pretty and I’m not proud of it, but it was wild.”

“What’s the wildest thing you’ve done?”

“Baby, it’s not—”

“Tell me.”

“A couple women at once, I guess.”

Lightning struck my body. “How—?”

He groaned as if my curiosity turned him on, or maybe he was remembering those women. “Truthfully, I was so messed up I barely remember. Mostly, they did each other and I watched. By the time I got around to actually fucking one of them it was over pretty quick. I was wild, but I was young.”

“Well, there’s the difference between us. I’ve never been wild.”

“You want to be, don’t you? That’s why you’re calling me?”

“Yeah, I guess…maybe…”

“Yes or no. There’s no one else here to hear you and I ain’t judging.”

“Yes. Yes, I’d like to be wild.”

I had my doubts that I’d ever really get there. I was after all still in my underwear. But just today I’d gone skinny-dipping. There was no telling what could happen. A girl had to have goals.

“All right, you listening? We’re going to get back to it in a few seconds and we’re gonna come and then I gotta go, but before you call me again, I want you to go out to that strip club your friend works at and watch the girls dance.”

“What?” I cried. How did I graduate from cake for breakfast to going to a strip club?

“You heard me, and before you start acting like you’re not interested, remember it’s just you and me here right now. And I do not judge you.”

I do not judge you.

The problem was not him. Not at all. It was these ghosts in my head. My mother and Hoyt and a lifetime of trying to appease the unappeasable by suppressing everything about myself.

That’s Annie, I thought. Annie is the one with ghosts.

Layla is the one giving hand jobs in the backseats of cars for a six-pack of beer.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Okay, what?”

“Okay, I’ll go out to the strip club,” I said.

“You want that?”

I thought of Joan’s perfect body and how hard I’d tried not to stare at it.

“Yeah…I do.”

Again that laugh of his did something to my blood because my whole body got hot.

“Fuck, that’d be something to see, baby. That would be something to see. Now, where’s your hand?”

“In my pussy,” I whispered, feeling brave and bold and flush, and the word came out of my mouth on a gust of air, so easy. “Where’s yours?”

“Around my cock,” he moaned.

We were silent for a moment, just the sound of our breath between us. Harsh and raw.

“Dylan,” I groaned.

“Right here. Right fucking here.”

It was fast and hard and quick and over in seconds, and I listened to him gasp and groan and wished, more than I could say, that I could see him right now.

“Layla?” he asked after a moment.

“Yeah?”

“You okay?”

I laughed, boneless and weak on the bed. “Yeah. I’m good. You?”

“I’m good, baby. Real good.”

“Can I ask you something…that’s not dirty?”

“As a rule I only answer dirty questions.”

“Dylan,” I laughed. “I’m serious.”

“Shoot.”

“Have you ever done this before?”

“Phone sex? Sure.” Part of me was crushed at his words, though it was ridiculous. I had no reason to care. “But this other stuff?” he continued. “Talking to a total stranger like this? Totally new.”

Ah, not so crushed anymore.

“Me too.”

“You grew up on a farm?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

“Worlds away from here. Where did you grow up?”

“You changing the subject?”