SECRET Revealed (19 page)

I
was always happy when Mardi Gras was over, though one never said that out loud in New Orleans. There were a few of us closeted haters, Marsha being the only one in the newsroom who was out and proud of her disdain.

“Mardi Gras gives me a month-long ice cream headache of the soul,” she said, checking her teeth for parsley. We often ate lunch in her corner office, mostly to avoid listening to Bill Rink bleat on and on about his post-divorce sex life.

Mardi Gras meant more stories to report on, most of them nasty, most happening after midnight, at the tail end of our twelve-hour days. That’s why, for the first time, Matilda sent my Step Five card to work instead of home. The courier found me in Marsha’s office. As I signed for the thick envelope, I felt my face redden.

“Did you win the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes?” Marsha asked.

“With my luck it’s probably a subpoena,” I said, ducking out to avoid giving a straight answer.

Behind the closed door of my office, I opened the envelope. Inside was a sturdy card inviting me to the “Mansion after Dark.” There was also a heavy glove box wrapped in silver paper with a black bow. It wasn’t a pair of gloves inside, but rather a set of brushed silver
handcuffs. Holy shit
. Looking through the glass at the bustling newsroom, I discreetly shoved the box onto my lap. Keeping my head down, I poked through the tissue to better examine the cuffs. My assistant, Denise, stuck her head through my door and I dropped the cuffs on the carpet beneath me like they were on fire. Luckily my desk hid whatever it was that made that metallic thud.

“Hey, Solange. I’m taking the FedEx packages downstairs. Do you have anything that has to go out today?” she asked, her curious eyes following the clanking noise under my desk.

I had hired her because I thought she seemed like a younger version of me—a driven workaholic. Turned out, she only looked the part. She was all about “work–life balance,” something I hadn’t even heard of when I was her age.

“No thanks,” I said.

She eyed the silver wrapping paper on my desk. “Did someone send you a gift?” she asked.

Yes, in fact, it’s a gift of silver handcuffs, Denise, what every girl wants!

I blinked at her, giving her a tight smile. “I have a lot of work to do. Can you close my door on your way out?”

Denise got the message, backing out of my office and shutting the door quietly behind her.

Two thoughts came to me in the limousine on the way to the Mansion later that night. One, other divorced women with children never told me that there was a plus side to heartbreak and divorce—free time! It was almost like they didn’t want to admit that splitting custody was an opportunity to regain a little bit of long-lost autonomy. I almost didn’t want to admit it myself. Of course there was that pang tonight, when Gus trotted over to his dad’s idling Jeep, his backpack bigger than his torso. But once I waved and shut the door, there was also that sense of space and possibility.
I can do anything I want tonight
. For years, I rarely took advantage of that. I loved Gus’s company, I really did. Especially after he turned eight and his personality began to reveal itself. He was such a nice kid, and smart to boot; fun to hang out with. But when he wasn’t with me, I spent a lot of my free time worrying about him and what he was doing without me, afraid to turn off my phone, or to really relax and enjoy myself.

But these last few months with S.E.C.R.E.T., I had begun to allow myself the gift of autonomy, to savor and enjoy this strange and lovely experience. I leaned back into the warm leather of the limo’s seat, heading to the “Mansion after Dark” and thinking of all the alluring adventures that awaited me there. New Orleans at night sped past the tinted windows, giving the shops along Magazine Street a sexy glow. The limo rounded left on
Third. My stomach rolled at every stop sign until we pulled into the gates of the Mansion, its windows aglow with a pale orange light.

A uniformed woman stood at the base of the stairs holding what looked like a white shawl over one arm. She greeted me when I stepped out of the car.

“You must be our Solange. I’m Claudette.” She shook my hand, then motioned to take my coat and purse. “Right this way, my dear.”

It occurred to me: my phone! It was in my purse and I’d just given it away. My phone connected me to my child, and to my job.

“Can I keep my purse? It’s just … my phone’s in it. Also the … 
handcuffs
,” I added, lowering my voice.

“Leave your phone on. If there is any reason to interrupt you, we will not hesitate. You won’t need anything else in that purse. I’ll take good care of it.”

“The handcuffs?”

“Purely symbolic.”

I followed her into the spectacular foyer. The whole house was lit by dim sconces that trailed along a hallway to the left and up the wall of the ornate spiral staircase. The place was gorgeous, the black and white tiles forming a spiral on the foyer floor that swirled around a trio of Botticelli-like female forms standing under a willow tree—one was white, one brown, one black, and all were naked. The whole place seemed coated in a layer of French design that felt both historical and right up to date.

“Follow me,” Claudette said, turning to climb the impressive staircase.

I gripped the gold banister tighter than I’d held anything in my life. She brought me to the second door on the right and handed me what she’d been holding, which wasn’t a shawl at all but a pretty white cotton shift dress.

“Here you go. Please remove all your clothes and put this on. Wait on the bed and you’ll be summoned.”

Summoned?
Ew. I did not like that word. I was not going to be very good at this, I decided, as I stepped into the small, plain bedroom painted the palest of blues and minimally decorated. It had the feel of a high-end hospital room. I took off my jeans, carefully unbuttoned and removed my blouse, and folded both on the bed. Socks, undies, bra were also folded and stowed. The cotton shift was simple, flimsy, with a small lace fringe along the hem. But I … 
obeyed
(ew), letting it cascade over my body, until it ended just at the tops of my thighs.

Sitting on the edge of the oversize twin bed, my legs swinging over the side, I could hear a loud clock ticking but I couldn’t see one on the walls. The room was furnished with a tall, plain dresser between two white doors, blue damask curtains and a round, multicolored rope rug on a wooden floor painted white. Bored, I leapt to my feet and walked over to the dresser. Should I? I was an inveterate snoop.
That makes me a good journalist
, I justified, wrapping my fingers around the handle of the top drawer and gently tugging it open.

“Don’t open that drawer, Solange.”

I gasped. It was a calm male voice, deep and soothing, coming from some corner of the room.

“Who is that?”

There didn’t seem to be a place for a person to hide except maybe under the bed or behind one of the two white doors.

“Never mind that,” the voice said. “There’s only one question to be concerned with.”

He sounded like a late-night radio DJ who played only slow R and B, a voice that was commanding yet a bit bemused.

“The question is: Do you accept the Step, Solange?”

“How can I accept if I can’t see you?”

My expert eyes scanned the room looking for the camera or the speaker system. Nothing. Just silence.

“Are you still there?” I asked. Whenever I was nervous or afraid, my default setting was defiance. But this time was a little different. I decided to be … deferential, for a change.

“I’m sorry. Can you ask me that question again?”

Silence.

“Please?” I added.

The voice crackled to life. “Solange, will you accept the Step?”

Relent. Relent. Relent. I was here to experience new things. Hadn’t I enjoyed every Step so far? Why dig my heels in now?

“I do.”

“Excellent. Will it be pain or pleasure, Solange?”

Oh dear
. Second thoughts crept in.

“What do you mean?”

“Which do you prefer? Pain or pleasure?”

My eyes didn’t know where to look: the walls, the doors, the bed, the dresser, the floor, the ceiling.

“I … pleasure, I guess,” I said, fear shoving me to the safe zone again.

“Then I want you to step through the white door.”

I looked at both doors carefully. “They’re both white.”

There was no answer.

“Tell me which door!”

Still no reply.

“Are you there?”

Nothing. The clock ticked louder, or maybe my heart’s rapid beat enhanced the sound. I looked back and forth between the two white doors. What if I picked the wrong door? I wanted to hear his voice again.
Fuck it. Just pick a door. This isn’t Trivial Pursuit. There can’t be a wrong choice
.

I chose the door to my left, the one nearest the windows. I turned the knob and pushed it open. The room inside was inky black, the air dead still. The light from the room I was standing in only illuminated the edge of an oriental rug covering a beautifully scuffed wood floor. I felt around for a wall switch, and that’s when a gloved hand encircled my wrist and yanked me inside, shutting the door behind me.

The darkness engulfed me. I screamed. Another gloved hand gently went over my mouth. I was pulled back against a fully clothed man, taller than me by a head.

“Shh. Solange. You’ll wake the neighbors.”

It was
him
, the bearer of the same mellow voice I had heard over the intercom, his mouth now inches from my ear.

“You fucking
scared
me!” I shouted through his fingers.

“Shh. It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re very safe,” he said, keeping my mouth covered. He kept saying it as he walked me deeper into that room, my upper body restrained by his strong arms, my legs prompted by each of his legs.

“If I let you go, do you promise not to scream?”

I nodded, intrigue beginning to replace fear. His hand fell away from my mouth and he released me.

I took a deep breath. “Where am I?” I asked, my hands drifting up and feeling around.

“You’re in the Den.”

I could hear him circling me. I tried to follow his footsteps but I couldn’t make out a thing.

“I can’t see anything.”

“You don’t need to. You need only to feel. Can you trust me? Can you let me be your eyes?”

“I’ll try.”

“Good.”

I wrapped my arms around myself.

“Are you cold?”

Could he see me? How? “No. I’m nervous.”

“I’ll take care of that.”

After a few seconds, he was behind me again.

“I’m going to place my hands around your waist, Solange, and I’m going to guide you over to the wall. Will you let me?”

“Okay.”

It was the strangest, warmest sensation, being surrounded by pitch-darkness, his lean body folding around mine; it was like being spooned while standing. I quickly absorbed his body heat as he guided me across what seemed from the echo to be a large room.

Then he stopped. “Put your hands out in front of you. What do you feel?”

At first I thought it was just a wall, but padding around I felt a sort of diagonal beam, which crossed another shooting up in the opposite direction. Along the beams I felt an apparatus of some kind—hoops—soft but firmly formed.

“Can you find the center?” he asked. “Here. Let me help you.”

He took me by the waist again, spinning me around to face him, positioning me against the cross of the two beams. By now I was comfortable with his hands on my waist. I liked the firm and confident way he handled me, even though I hated the term itself:
Handled. Man-handled
. The term was demeaning, and yet what this man was doing wasn’t demeaning at all. It was … relaxing. He took one of my wrists and with a swift
click
, locked it in place above my shoulder along the beam.

“Hey, what is this—?”

But before I could get the whole sentence out, he secured my other wrist. I felt his hair gracing my thigh as he bent to do the same to my right ankle. Then the left one was immobilized. The final restraint was an arm-like
lever covered in a soft rubber sheath that clicked into place around my waist.

“Are you comfortable, Solange?”

I was completely restrained on a diagonal cross with padded limbs.

“I guess. But I can’t move.”

“Good.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“Everything you want, nothing you don’t.”

I squirmed, arousal spiraling up my limbs.

“Are the restraints too tight?”

I tested and pulled, still astonished to be in this situation, restrained in a contraption wearing what amounted to a lacy nightie, while a total stranger with a soothingly sexy voice was clearly in charge.

“I think they’re okay. What is this thing I’m on?”

“It’s called a Saint Andrew’s Cross. It allows … access. We can stop anytime you want. Just say the word. I suggest simply ‘Stop.’ Say it.”

“Stop.”

“Say it louder.”

I yelled it out.

“Good.”

I felt his hand under my chin and then his fist blossom open as his thumb trailed along my bottom lip. I opened my mouth slightly, loosening, releasing. His other hand traveled over my breasts, caressing my nipples through the thin fabric. Both hands traveled down my sides, over
the restraint. Instinctively, I brought my legs together as his hands drifted closer and closer to my most vulnerable parts. But I couldn’t budge. This was both very frustrating and very, very arousing. I tried to use my arms, to no avail. This feeling of being completely restrained yet totally free, and blind to what was happening or what was going to happen, was crazy. My body didn’t know what to do with the sensations, except bit by bit to give in to them, to all of them.