Page 19 of The Dirty Version

She tucked her hair back into her cap. “It could have been way worse, and it happens all the time. It’s why I get upset about Transtempora , or Braverman’s Episode Nine notes—which I can’t really bring myself to read yet, by the way.

Gender violence exists, or sexual violence, or relationship violence, and we should absolutely talk about it—but it isn’t ‘for your viewing pleasure.’ It isn’t for other people to exploit.

It’s not entertainment.” Tash paused. “Do you know what I mean?”

Caleb stared at her intently. “I do. I’m sorry that happened.”

Suddenly too raw, wanting to wrap it up, Tash continued their downhill journey. “Anyway. After that, I changed my number. I got off all the apps.”

“Did he bother you again?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t have any of my information.

But I slept at Janelle’s for a while anyway.

She and Denise also happened to be in a bad place—their sperm donor, who’d been a good friend, suddenly wanted parental rights.

It was a shit show, and we went on a bender.

We sat around in pajamas drinking Bloody Marias and fantasizing about a world without men—where we’d never need them for reproduction, where we’d never feel physically at risk.

” She jumped to the epilogue: “Basically, we got super drunk and brainstormed a feminist dystopian quasi-bildungsroman I later called The Colony . The End.”

She finished her answer to Caleb’s question once they finally reached the bottom of the descent. “Then, one day, I met a seemingly sweet pediatrician. Just as I polished the manuscript for a book about how men completely sucked.”

Tash heard Caleb laugh as she led him away from the ocean, toward the clearing, around the rim of the low-tide lagoon.

Crystal clear seawater pooled shallow in its uneven rock basin, tiny fish darting, crab-scamper and silt-swirl in impossible blue. Ahead, now that Tash and Caleb had reached level ground, the dell’s carpet of beach grass beckoned like an oasis. Ribbon palms towered, throwing a ring of shade.

“You know what’s so embarrassing, though?

” Apparently, the ocean’s truth serum continued to work its magic—Tash kept on spilling her guts.

“By the time the book was published, I’d secretly changed my tune.

I was so sure Zachary was different. I was so smug about how I’d found a good one.

” She turned, kicking off her flip-flops and setting her backpack against a tree trunk.

“But there are no good ones.” She sealed it with a grin to Caleb.

“I’m sorry to break that to you, Rafferty.

Because you really do write a nice penis scene. ”

Caleb heaved himself down to the grass, dropping beneath the palm-frond cover, pushing the brim of his cap back. Smiling faintly at her: “You really believe that? There are no good men?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the reason, do you think?” More curiosity than argument. “Same as The Colony —males are inherently flawed?”

Tash let him bridge the reality-fiction divide. “Yes. Men can’t escape their biology.”

He pushed her on it. “And there’s not a single good man in your whole life?”

Tash unzipped her provisions, offering him a bottle of water.

She lowered beside him, taking her time to think.

“Well. I hate to knock my dad.” She recalled the way her mother had ended their last phone call.

“But he and my mom have a very traditionally gendered relationship.” She brushed sand from her ankles.

“My brother Rohan happens to be amazing—but he’s also gay. ”

Caleb pulled his hat off, hair matted and damp. “I take issue with your sweeping generalizations. And the rules of this game.”

“It’s not a game.” Tash retrieved two rolled-up towels from her pack. “But I’ll beat you later. For now, do this.”

She stretched her legs out, knees flat in the cordgrass, gesturing for Caleb to follow suit.

She leaned back, head resting on a towel propped against the tree trunk.

She gazed over her midline, over her belly button, over her cutoffs and bare legs.

She looked to the lagoon and, beyond it, to the sea and the horizon.

She made her hands into a rectangular picture frame, blocking out the BISCAYNE COASTAL OCEAN SCIENCE: NO TRESPASSING sign. The tableau glimmered: green tapestry, white bowl, endless smashing blue. Grass, lagoon, sea, sky. Scruff and bone and sweat and breath.

She waited for Caleb to copy her position.

“Marine Ecology runs a sea turtle rescue here during hatching season—that’s how I know what it looks like at night.

The eggs get laid there”—breaking her finger frame to indicate the nearby dunes—“but sometimes the hatchlings get turned around or get stuck in the rocks. You can volunteer to come out with a flashlight and help them find the water.”

Caleb sat up abruptly on his elbows. “Seriously?” He made a show of revelation. “Babies into the sea? Natasha—this whole time, you’ve been talking about turtles!”

She strained to reach for one of her ruined flip-flops.

She tossed it at his head. “No, I’ve been talking about forsaken human love.

” She tossed the other at him, not mad at all.

“Good thing I’m taking this seriously.” She struggled in her shorts pocket, pulling out a folded sheet.

“I even brought the mock-up from my mood board when I was outlining the book. I thought it would help us with inspiration . Since you said that was key.”

Tash hadn’t been sure she’d want to share it; she’d torn the prep work from an old planning notebook on a whim before she left the duplex. Now, as she read it out loud, she rather pleased herself—the word illustration still struck her as compelling. Even if it was fragmented and unrefined.

Midnight. The moon reflects off the silver lagoon, its perimeter roughened and knifelike, coral banks still warm from the day’s sun.

The scent of night-blooming jasmine is everywhere—mixing with gardenia and lemongrass and arousal.

The only sound is wave-lap. The wind is silent, suspending time.

The impenetrable, luminous limestone creates a moat, separating the lagoon and its cool grass from the ocean.

It’s a private planet. Hewett and Noab are completely alone.

If it had been anyone else, Tash might not have plunged in that fast, but with Caleb, at this point in their collaboration, she somehow didn’t mind.

And in response, he took the torn-out notebook paper from Tash’s fingers, his contemplation shifting from the lagoon panorama to her scrawl. He’d stopped joking; caught, perhaps, in the visualization. After a minute, he turned his musing gaze on Tash.

He stared a beat too long. “Is it too late for me to apply for next semester?”

She flushed, staring back. “Biscayne doesn’t have a film department.”

Caleb just shook his head, aviator smoke opacity remaining fixed on her face. “I’d go back and study psych. I’d investigate the very curious way you marry an obvious, deep love of place with both sex and menace.”

“Is that what you think I do?” Tash pushed herself to sit up all the way, retrieving the notebook paper from his fingers.

“Yes. It’s great. Very intriguing.”

She began to feel exposed. More exposed than when she’d shown him her unvarnished string of syllables.

“Really? I think it’s straightforward.” She crossed her legs, tucking the draft notes into a zipped section of her backpack.

“I wanted Noab to have her island armor nearby when she finally bared herself to him. The lagoon is a protective setting—she has sharp rock and the Mother Beast.”

Caleb’s bemused attention loitered on her. “You’re assuming she’s the one that’s vulnerable. Which, if you think about it, doesn’t make any sense. Noab and Hewett are on her turf. She’s the island warrior. She’s royalty, and he’s just some shipwrecked dude.”

Tash returned to the backbone of her argument. “But he can physically overpower her.”

Caleb nodded. “And I would never discount that. But there are other ways to think about sex and power.” His gaze held something secret.

Then he folded his hands behind his head and lay back in the tall grass. Loftily: “This was very educational, though. I like it. It’s a good thing you’re coming with me to go see some burlesque.”