Her thumb hovered over the phone screen.Just pick one, she thought.Pick one, hashtag it, and post it. What’s the worst that could happen?
“Ha,” she said to the empty room.This plan could fail, and I’ll have begged Nick Jacobs for help for nothing, and I’ll retire in obscurity at thirty-two with no marketable skills. And I’ll have no choice but to take money from my parents.
Anxiety prickled at the back of her neck, and she took a deep breath through her nose, trying to keep it from spreading through her whole body the way she knew it could. Exhaling slowly, she walked over to the little window and peered out at the ocean. She could do this. And if she couldn’t, she would figure something else out. She was good at figuring things out. She’d figured out how to support herself without her parents’ help, and how to get Heather out of the country after her asshole ex-fiancé, Jack, had destroyed her best friend’s sense of self,andhow to get her job back when Jack had gotten her fired. She could do this. She took one more deep breath, then tapped on the middle photo and pulled up Instagram.
@carlymontgomery: Soaking up the Sydney sunshine at North Head National Park! Photo by the talented and in-demand @NickJClicks #ballerinasinthewild #sydneytourism #attitude
She scanned the caption for typos—God forbid she posted Nick Jacobs’s photo above a misspelled word—and was about to hit POSTwhen her phone buzzed and a text popped up. It was from the number she’d saved under the name “Nickhead.”
Nickhead: Sunrise is at 6:30 tomorrow. Do you want to get some early shots on the beach?
She stared at the message. Was he insane? She was on vacation, and supposedly so was he. Who got up at 6:30AMon vacation, and who looked good enough to be photographed if they did? She was about to tap back a snarky message to that effect when she paused. She was still jetlagged, so a 6:30AMcall time wouldn’t be so hard. Nick Jacobs was offering to help her—volunteering, even, after she’d had to wheedle help out of him this morning. And she wasn’t in a position to turn him down.
She glanced over her shoulder out the window. The beach would look spectacular in the golden hour right after the sun came up. She sighed.
Carly: Sure. I’ll meet you in the lobby. Coffee’s on me.
The first round, at least, she thought, turning back to the photo. She took one last look at it, exhaled a shaky breath, and then hit POST.
Carly: I just put the first photo up. Please share it with your tens of followers.
Nickhead: Dozens. I have *dozens* of followers.
Carly: Pedant.
Nickhead: I wouldn’t say I’m pedantic, per se, I’m just precise.
“Oh myGod,” Carly muttered, wondering if she was going to pull a muscle from rolling her eyes at this man.
Nichead: OK, that was pedantic.
Carly laughed and restrained herself from texting back in amused agreement, but only just. She changed into her pj’s and brushed her teeth. Then she slipped one of her dilators and a little bottle of lube out of their clear plastic bag and got comfortable under the covers.
Angela had told her to start with some breathing exercises, a few deep inhales and slow releases to get her muscles to relax—the exact opposite of the kind of short, shallow breathing she’d expect to be doing right before trying to have sex. Once that was done, she lubed up the sterile white dilator and slipped it under the blanket. Shifting against the pillows so she could reach, she slipped the dilator slowly and steadily inside her, reminding herself to breathe deeply as she did.Picture a flower opening, Angela had told her.Imagine your muscles letting go instead of clamping down.
Once the dilator was all the way in, she released her head back onto the pillow and took a few more deep breaths. It didn’t hurt tonight, but she could feel a tight, stretching sensation as she laid there and let her muscles adjust to it. Still, this counted as a Good Vagina Day. She was having more and more of those lately, sometimes two or three of them in a row, but she’d learned not to get her hopes up that she was magically cured now. Sometimes Bad Vagina Days just came out of nowhere. So did Very Bad Vagina Days and Fucking Awful Vagina Days. That was the most infuriating, exhausting thing about chronic pain: there was no consistency, no control, no way to know when a string of good days would end or a string of bad days would start.
But today was a Good Vagina Day, she thought, letting her eyes drift closed. A good day all around, even if she’d spent it with Nick Jacobs instead of with Heather. He’d agreed to help her, and they’d gotten at least three usable photos out of the morning, and there would be more tomorrow. A good day.
Unbidden, the image of Nick’s long, agile fingers swam to the top of her mind, the way they’d fiddled with the camera before he’d reluctantly handed it over in the car this morning. And his intense blue gaze, fixed on her as she posed on the cliffside, his eyes watching her closely but seeing everything else, too. And the deep, muscular channel that ran down his back to his round, unforgivably muscular ass. Her muscles gave a needy throb around the dilator, and her eyes popped open.
She froze on her back, staring up at the ceiling in horror. She’d never once had a sexy thought while doing her dilator exercises, because the whole thing was so profoundly unsexy. Sure, the end goal of all this was pain-free sex, but the exercises themselves were about as sexless as the planks she did to warm up her core before morning class. She reached down to pull the dilator out as quickly as she dared, and her muscles throbbed again.
She propped herself up on one elbow and threw the blanket off her body. “Absolutely not,” she declared, glaring down her body at her vulva. “Not a chance in hell. Don’t even think about it.”
Carly slept fitfully, and far too soon, her phone was vibrating rudely against the nightstand, blaring “God Is a Woman” at top volume. She groped across the bed to silence it, growling in exhausted irritation. “Sorry, Ariana,” she muttered and laid back down, wondering how long she could snooze the alarm without making herself late. God forbid she keep Nick Jacobs waiting. But before she could reset the alarm, something on the screen caught her eye. A notification from Instagram.
“Shit,” she breathed, staring even though the bright screen made her want to squint. “Godisa woman, and she worksfast.”
Ten minutes later, she’d pulled on her faded old NYB sweatshirt and a pair of bike shorts, rubbed some brightening moisturizer on her face, swiped on two coats of mascara, and twisted her hair up into a rushed bun that she hoped looked messy-chic and not just messy. She dropped her phone and wallet into her shoulder bag and hurried out the front door in the direction of the Freshwater Hotel.
She found Nick waiting in the lobby, his camera bag slung over his shoulder. He was wearing jeans and a slate gray polo shirt, and he looked both sleepy and impatient. His eyes were a little puffy, but his posture was impeccable as always.
“Did you see?” she said, without preamble.
“Good morning to you, too, Carly,” he said, and she ignored him, pulling her phone out of her bag.
“It is a good morning!”
