S.E.C.R.E.T.: An Erotic Novel (16 page)

“Ah, yeah, it’s perfect. Don’t stop!”

His words fueled my hunger. I took him deeper into my mouth, which made him clutch
the counter for stability. When I looked up at his face and saw he was on the verge
of coming on my command, I felt more empowered and even sexier.

“Oh, Cassie,” he pleaded, my hair entwined in one of his hands, the other keeping
his balance on the stool above me.
“Mother of God,” he whispered, as I felt myself pulling the orgasm right out of him.
He drew a sharp breath and stiffened. Then he went beautifully silent. After a few
moments I felt him receding, and eventually sliding out of my mouth. I kissed that
lovely place where his torso met his thighs. Then I grabbed my T-shirt from the floor
and gently wiped my mouth. A feeling of triumph surged through me, and I smiled up
at him.

“Man alive, girl,” he gasped, stepping back from me. “You didn’t need
any
instructions. That was … amazing.”

“Really?” I said, stepping up to him. We were chest to chest, and I could feel the
muscles of his chest against me.

“Really,” he said, touching his forehead to mine. “A. Maze. Ing.”

He had an astonished look on his face, and he was still breathing heavily. I was totally
naked and standing on my clothes. I looked down.

“Pretty fucking adorable. There’s a washroom behind the pantry there,” he said, pointing.

I gathered my soccer mom uniform from the floor and began to walk away.

“Wait.”

I turned, and he stepped towards me and planted a long, firm kiss on my mouth. “That
was exactly what I needed,” he said.

In the washroom I shut the door behind me. Even this small room off the pantry was
lush and ornate, with gold taps and gold-velvet embossed wallpaper with burgundy
paisley. The sink’s pedestal was a woman’s arms flowering out into hands that became
the basin. I splashed cold water on my face and around the back of my neck. I took
a mouthful of water and swallowed. Water dripped down my chest and into my cleavage.
I traced it with my fingers. I had given someone pleasure, been generous, for the
sake of doing it—and for no other reason.

I had begun to dress, when I heard a gentle knock on the door.

“It’s me, open up.”

Maybe unlike the masseur, Shawn wanted to say goodbye. I opened the door a crack.
He eased his body into the washroom, and I felt my pulse speed up. He turned me around
so that I was facing the mirror and he was behind me. Then he buried his head in the
crook of my neck as he had done in the kitchen.

“This is for you,” he said.

He had put his jeans back on, but I could feel him hard again behind me. And as I
reached my arms up and around the back of his neck, I felt his pelvis press against
me, the cool ceramic rim of the vanity on my thighs. I was wet in an instant. He bit
into my neck gently and then slipped one arm forward and between my thighs. My back
arched into his hand. I bent forward, closer to the mirror, and watched his reflection,
his eyes closed, his hands moving down across my breasts, my stomach, his fingers
fanning out. Even this had a rhythm for him, like he was finding a strain of music
in my body. He was playing me, pulling me closer and
closer, his fingers pulsing intensely inside me. To feel wanted, to be taken and touched
like this, it was like coming to life from the inside out. My eyes met his in the
mirror. The next thing I knew, everything was a blur of color and rhythm, and I felt
myself explode into his hands, the heat rushing through me, and then the flood of
relief.

“There it is, there it is,” he cooed, and without realizing it, I was pushing back
on him until we both reached the wall behind us, leaning against it to stay upright.
Then, for no real reason, I began to laugh.

“Thank you,” I said, still out of breath. I remembered my clothes, the reason I’d
come to the washroom to begin with. My soccer mom apparel was in a little pile on
the floor in front of the vanity.

“Guess you have to put those back on,” he said.

“I think so.”

And after planting one more kiss on my neck, he backed out the door and shut it behind
himself. My face in the mirror was flushed with air and life. I finished dressing,
then splashed more water on my face.

“You are doing this,” I whispered, smiling at myself in the mirror. “You
did
this. You just gave a blowjob to a musical heartthrob, billboard topper, Grammy winner.
And then he just made you come in a bathroom.” At that thought, I quietly squealed
into my fists.
Ahhh!

Fully dressed once again, my hair a sex-tossed mess, I reentered the dim kitchen.
The music was off. The pot was gone. So was the man. On the edge of the island was
a small
Tupperware container with warm gumbo, a gold charm perched on top. I sat down on the
bar stool and just breathed and thought about what had happened.

A few moments later, Claudette came through the door.

“Cassie, your limo’s waiting. I hope you had a lovely stay with us,” she said with
a slight New Orleans drawl.

“Thank you, I did.” I clutched the charm to my chest, grabbed my Tupperware container
and was whisked out the side door of the Mansion and into the plush leather seat of
the limo.

As we drove along Magazine Street, I took in the scenery outside but was really looking
inward. I gripped the gold charm in the palm of my hand. Why had I always been afraid
of giving? What was my fear about? Feeling used, probably. Feeling like giving would
deplete me. But giving actually gave me satisfaction; it gave me pleasure to please.
I rolled down the window and let the wind cool my face while the gumbo warmed my lap.
This was the point of S.E.C.R.E.T., to get us to surrender the body to its needs entirely,
and to help others surrender too. Why had that seemed so difficult before? I opened
my palm and looked at the glowing gold charm, the word
Generosity
, engraved in elegant script.

“Indeed,” I said out loud, as I secured the fourth charm to my bracelet.

S
ummer covered the city like a thick wool blanket. And since the Café’s air-conditioning
was always challenged, the only relief from the heat was a brief visit to the walk-in
refrigerator. Tracina, Dell and I covered for each other as we did it, careful not
to let Will see us waste the cold air.

“Just move slower,” Will advised one day. “That’s what they did in the olden days.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem for Dell,” Tracina snarked, while unloading a bin of dirty
dishes next to me.

I wanted to blame the heat for her mood, but there was no real correlation. A track
by my new favorite hip-hop artist came on the radio and I turned up the volume, sending
Tracina into a tizzy.

“Why’s a white girl listening to this beautiful black man’s music?” she asked, turning
the volume down.

“I’m a fan.”

“A fan? You?”

“Actually, I’m quite familiar with his work,” I said, barely concealing a smile. Tracina
shook her head and walked away. I cheerfully turned up the volume and continued bleaching
the cutting boards. Though I could never imagine myself in a sea of fans at his feet,
the thrill of that fantasy had lingered. I’d get a memory flash of my skin against
his, his face tightened in ecstasy, and a shiver of arousal would snake up my spine.
It was one thing to use a fantasy to trigger that feeling, and an entirely different
thing when that fantasy was realized, stored and then recalled. This was what made
S.E.C.R.E.T. so marvelous. These fantasies were creating sense memories that I could
store for life and have at the ready whenever I needed a boost. I was not a voyeur.
I was a participant.

But despite these thrilling scenarios, I had begun to fantasize about a certain kind
of sex that had so far eluded me. I wanted … well, I wanted a man inside me.
There
. Admitting to myself that I wanted something was getting easier.

The hard part was admitting it out loud to Matilda, who later that day sat across
from me at Tracey’s on Magazine Street. It had become our regular place, and not just
because it was down the street from the Mansion. Its raucous sports bar atmosphere
made it easier to talk without anyone overhearing.

I told myself today was the day I would ask her why none of the men had wanted to
do it with me. My brain, of course, had interpreted it as rejection, leftover fears
from my days with Scott. He had a knack for making me feel unwanted. And because I
was beginning to understand the
weird reciprocity at work with the fantasies, I started to worry that perhaps I was
not fulfilling the men I was with—that I was, in a word, undesirable.

“Nonsense, Cassie! You are very desirable!” Matilda said a little too loudly during
a sudden gap in the music. In a whisper, she added, “Are you saying you’re unhappy
with your scenarios?”

“No! I have zero complaints about the fantasies so far,” I said. “In fact, they amaze
me. But why has no one wanted to … 
you know
?”

“Cassie, there’s a reason these fantasies haven’t involved full-on sex,” she said.
“Sometimes sex has a way of turning into love for some women. Their emotions get caught
up with the ecstasy and they forget that physical pleasure and love can be two separate
things. We’re not trying to help you fall in love with a man. You clearly don’t need
help doing that. We want you to fall in love with yourself first. After that, you’ll
be in a much better position to choose a partner, the right one. A
real
one.”

“So you’re saying I can’t have sex in my fantasies because you’re afraid I’ll fall
in love?”

“No. What I mean is we need to wait until you understand the tricks your body will
play on your mind. Sex creates chemicals that can be mistaken for love. Not understanding
that about our bodies creates a lot of misunderstanding and unnecessary suffering.”

“I see,” I said, looking around the bar, one mostly filled with men having beers with
other men. Fat, short, young or
old, I used to wonder how they did it, how some men could have sex and then so easily
disengage. I guess it wasn’t their fault. It was chemical. Still, Matilda was right.
I got attached easily. I ended up marrying the first man I had sex with because my
entire body said it was the right thing, the
only
thing to do, even though my mind knew it was completely wrong. In fact, I almost
got off the train at the Jesse stop because he talked to me, made me laugh and was
an amazing kisser.

“Cassie, please don’t worry so much. But believe me when I say to you that this is
about sex. Pleasure and sex. Love, my dear, is a whole other thing.”

My next fantasy card arrived almost six excruciating weeks later, after the heat wave
had been replaced by a storm watch, the weather perfectly mirroring my frustration.
The fantasies would take place over the course of a year, I was reminded. And though
the Committee tried to space them out evenly, even Matilda admitted in a quick phone
call that six weeks was unusual. “Patience, Cassie. You can’t rush some things.”

A few days later, at night, a courier rang the buzzer downstairs. I practically ran
down the stairs to sign for what he had. I was so excited I almost kissed him on the
mouth.

“I saw that you were up,” he said, pointing to the dormers on the third floor of the
Spinster Hotel. He was young, maybe twenty-five, with the kind of body only the most
aggressive of bike couriers can achieve in a city this flat. But
he was so damn cute that inviting him up crossed my mind.

“Thank you,” I said, snatching the envelope from his sinewy hands. The wind whipped
my hair around my face and sent my robe flapping up my legs.

“Oh, there’s this too,” he said, handing me a cushioned envelope the size of a small
pillow. “Storm’s coming. Dress appropriately,” he added, taking one bold look at my
legs and spinning away with a wave.

I took the stairs in twos, ripping open the card as I ran. It said: Step Five,
Fearlessness
, which sent a little chill down my spine. The card also said a limo was fetching
me first thing in the morning, and that “appropriate attire is included.”