The space was dim for the middle of the afternoon. Then I noticed all the curtains were drawn. Newspaper trails still lined the floor to catch spatter from the ceiling paint. But the tables had finally been delivered, a cluster of twelve of them, with marble tops and wooden legs. I let a hand caress a cool, smooth surface. And then I saw them, Will’s bare feet on the floor peeking out from behind the cocktail bar, a mickey of whiskey, one quarter empty, on top. Will wasn’t much of a drinker, and he never drank during the day, so this was probably his idea of “making quite a dent in the bottle.”
“Is that you, Officer?” he asked, his voice groggy.
“Why? Are the police after you?” I went along with him, slowly rounding the bar until I stood at his feet.
He was in his jeans, no shirt, using the duvet as a pillow, the mattress bent like a loose taco to fit the narrow space, his face wrinkled from sleeping, probably unsoundly.
“They will be after me when they find my truck out on North Peters,” he said, clasping his hands behind his head, stretching awake.
I couldn’t read his tone. I couldn’t tell if he was still sad or mad or well past both and into an emotional zone even he’d never visited before.
Oh, Will. I wanted to crawl down there, wrap my arms and legs around his pain. Instead, I said, “What’s your truck doing out there?”
“Took that bend at Saint Ferdinand,” he said, using a hand to trace the truck’s path. “And there was this huge possum in the middle of the road and bam—”
He clapped and mashed his hands together.
“Poor possum.”
“Possum’s fine. My truck is wedged in the ditch, stuck between fence posts near the lumberyard. Had to smash the back window to get out. At least, I hope the truck’s still there. Actually, it might be worth more if I claim it was stolen.”
He laughed softly, but I couldn’t. Should I ask? Where have you been and what are you thinking and can you be mine now? Can we be each other’s?
“But you’re okay, right?”
“Okay? I’m fucking great. I’m a damn country-western song, Cassie. Guy loses everything he thought he had in one day. Losing my truck kinda rounds out the chorus, don’t you think?”
There it was, the sarcasm hiding the sorrow, that man I knew so well. The one I loved so much. Here is your opening, Cassie. Say it.
“You haven’t lost everything, Will.”
“That’s true. Day’s not over yet. Or is it? I can’t tell with the curtains shut. What do you think of them? They’re pretty nice, aren’t they?”
“They’re beautiful. See? You have the curtains … and …?”
His eyes moved from admiring the curtains to studying me.
“What else do I have?”
He sat up on an elbow, his gaze heavy.
Say it, Cassie.
“You have … those marble tables. They’re g-gorgeous,” I stammered.
“That’s true. They are gorgeous,” he said.
I was nervously fidgeting with the edge of the bar.
“And … what else do I have?”
For chrissake, say it.
Say it now.
“You have everything, Will, right here in this room—”
“Do I have you?”
Enough, Cassie. It’s here, all of it, right in front of you.
“Yes, Will.”
“Are you sure, Cassie? Because I really want to have you, and earlier, when that guy drove up to the hospital parking lot, and it didn’t look like I could have you either, that’s when I thought—”
“Will. You have me.”
I don’t know if I dove to meet him or if he reached up to pull me down to the mattress, but soon I was kneeling in front of him, letting him pull off my T-shirt, my stupid bra, my dumb belt, kicking off my awful jeans, both of us hating every single thing that still stood between us, even if it was just our clothes.
Now astride him, our fingers entwined, I felt lucky and so, so grateful.
“You should see your face right now,” he whispered. “So beautiful.”
I was going to say, You make me feel beautiful, but it wasn’t true. I felt beautiful before he said it, a miracle in and of itself.
“Thank you, Will.” My fingers graced his sternum. He was all I ever wanted.
He reached up, curling a firm hand around the back of my neck, pulling me down on top of him until my breasts were pressed against his warm chest. His eyes were calm, his hair a tangle of anguish and sleep. I smoothed it back.
“Kiss me, Cassie. Kiss me like you meant what you just said. That I have you. That you’re mine.”
His mouth was slightly open and I sank down on it with mine. We weren’t urgent, nor ferocious. Not yet. There was no hurry. I kissed him roundly, fully, once, then suckled his bottom lip, savoring him, kissing him again as his tongue darted hesitantly between my teeth, tasting me too.
“Will,” I said between kisses, “I missed you so much.”
He sat us both up, my legs still wrapped around him, his erection insistent between us.
“I missed you also … as you can see,” he laughed, flicking my hair away from my eyes.
My hand instinctually reached for him, and I rolled my fingers over his smooth, round head, feeling him stiffen more. His eyes took in the parts of my body he now reached to savor—my neck, my shoulder, my breasts. His tongue circled hot around my nipples, his lips gently tugging them into tense peaks slick with his kisses. Satisfied, he nudged my torso away from him so I rested on my palms behind me. Suddenly, I didn’t even like being this far away from him, but it was to allow his hand to slip beneath me, to tease out my wetness with a few feverish strokes of his fingers.
“I’ve wanted you for so long, Cassie,” he whispered, sending two fingers higher still, curving up to hit a spot so sensitive, so perfect, I felt my eyes go wide. “I want to look in your face while you come. While I make you come,” he said, licking his fingers quickly and covering my clit, now aching, under the soft pad of his thumb.
“I’ve been wanting to do this to you for so long, Cassie.”
His lips curled as he increased the speed but not the pressure, hitting my perfect spot with an insistent, delicious tempo. “Come for me, Cassie. Come for me.” Oh and I did, right then, right there, throwing my head back, pressing my knees out, my whole body arching towards him. I came, releasing all the ache, all the pain, all the longing into that dusty, perfect room upstairs, the one that grew more and more beautiful each and every time we found ourselves alone and naked in it. His fingers continued thrusting, as I moaned for him, until I had to beg him to stop, desperate to catch my breath, desperate to come down, to come back to him, my Will.
My whole center heaving, I reached to stroke his sleepy, stubbly face, vowing silently to take care of this good man better, to never let him go again. His mouth found my thumb and he sucked and swirled it, bucking slightly as I reached my other hand between my legs to take him in my hand.
“I’ve missed this too,” I said, wrapping my hand around him as he rested back on his hands.
He watched my fingers flutter up and down, loosely, but quickly, my grip tightening with his obvious appreciation, my fingers moving faster, until that became too much for him, and he rolled his eyes heavenward. I quickened my pace still, leaning forward, my mouth next to his ear, my nipples grazing his upper arm.
“It’s you, Will, it’s always been you. It’ll always be you,” I whispered, as he moaned, saying my name.
He patted around for his wallet, stuffed in his jeans nearby, stopping my hand so he could slide a condom on. Then he gathered my legs around him again, arms encircling my waist tightly. “You feel so fucking good,” he said, as he eased me down onto him, all the way to the end of me, filling me up more completely than anyone ever had or ever would. We stayed still for a moment, joined like that, my hands on his cheeks, my wet lips sliding sweetly across his, breathing in his breath, my hips grinding him slowly, feeling him all the way in me, one
strong arm braced behind him, the other around me, holding my hips down. He moved beneath me, lovingly at first, reverently watching my face. Then his thrusts increased in intensity, and my hands braced on his shoulders as I felt him plunging up and into me, as I drove down onto him.
“Oh god, Will.”
“Cassie … oh, I love you, I love you like this,” he said, his face twisted in sweet agony as I rode him, my whole being focused on squeezing him, my hips rocking hard enough to finally pull the ecstasy right out of him. He came. I made him come, and then he fell backwards, panting for a few seconds.
I savored my beautiful victory until his body missed mine, and he pulled me down against him, gathering me close again. We spooned, my ass tucked in his sticky lap, his hard thigh thrown over mine, quivering from what he had just done to me, from what I had done to him, from what we had done to each other.
“Promise me something,” he said.
“Anything.”
“Promise me we’ll never let anything or anyone come between us again.”
“I do,” I said, closing my eyes. “I promise.”
21
CASSIE
DESPITE THE FACT that Will and I had known each other for the better part of a decade and had seen each other naked (at least three more times since that glorious afternoon, once at his place, once at mine and again on that mattress before he hauled it to the trash when the new chairs arrived), the night he came to fetch me for the S.E.C.R.E.T. event at Latrobe’s was, technically, our first date ever.
The weeks leading up to that fateful night were the happiest I’d ever had in my life. There was no more hiding, no sneaking around. With Tracina away from the restaurant and off building a new life, we were free to start ours, the restaurant turned into our discreet proving ground, a kiss here, an open embrace there, a hot look around every corner. And I didn’t care that Dell rolled her eyes or Claire was a little confused, too young to be a confidante but old enough to know some “heavy adult shit just went down,” as I caught her saying to her friends over smokes in the back.
After he said yes to my invitation, I took Will to the Funky Monkey to buy his first tux and to see Dauphine, so radiant with newfound love herself that it was like looking in a mirror. We kept our overwhelming joy at seeing each other to a normal level in front of Will, saying only that our acquaintance was the result of membership in this women’s group whose formal event we were both attending.
He stood in front of a mirror in the changing area, handsome in his tux, as Dauphine pinned the hem of his pants.
“I’m glad I kept this one,” she said. “It’s too big for Mark. Though I have a feeling even getting that boy in a tux that fits him will be a lot harder than I expect.”
A week later, the night of the event, after a clumsy attempt to assemble the damn bow tie, Will asked why I’d never mentioned I belonged to this charitable organization, especially one flush enough to give away fifteen million dollars.
“Because, it’s a secret. It’s sort of part of the whole schtick, the anonymity, the quiet servitude, that sort of thing. But you’ve seen me with Matilda a thousand times. I wasn’t hiding anything.”
Oh my god, was I becoming a liar? Or more comfortable with the truth? It was becoming difficult to tell the difference.
“But now this group wants the whole city to know it’s giving away millions?”
It was a question I had put to Matilda too, but she said in her experience it was best to hide in plain sight. A donation that big, to that many organizations would hardly remain anonymous, so why not openly celebrate it? And S.E.C.R.E.T., under its other name, desperately needed the tax deduction to keep afloat a little longer.
“If you don’t want anyone to know about your underground group dedicated to female sexual fulfillment and exploration,” she said, “house it in a mansion in the middle of the city. Why? Because no one would believe you even if you told them the truth.”
Absently fastening my charm bracelet to my wrist, forgoing his assistance, I suddenly felt nervous to bring Will to such a strange event. But I trusted the women, especially Matilda, not to blow my secret. Also, it was the last bit of solidarity I could show, before leaving S.E.C.R.E.T., for these women who’d done so much for me and asked for so little in return. I even bought a beautiful black dress for the occasion, a long backless, strappy number, in luscious sateen.
I backed out of my bedroom wearing it, so Will could pull up the zipper—a bad idea. No sooner had he secured his fingers to the clasp than the damn thing was around my ankles and I was being carried, naked again, kicking and screaming to my bed. “Pick up the dress, don’t leave it on the floor like that, Will! It’ll wrinkle! That cost me a fortune!” I laughed as he collapsed on top of me, telling me, “Fuck that dress,” while bunching his own beautifully tailored tuxedo pants down around his ankles, sheathing himself, then entering me sharply enough to stop the giggling altogether. God, the look in his eyes that night, burning and fierce while he drove into me again and again, my head cradled in his strong hands; I never wanted to lose that gaze.
Yet I was also looking forward to a time when just being alone with him didn’t make me want to rip my clothes off. I actually longed in some strange way to be a little bored by all this, for a time when his skin brushing mine in the Café wouldn’t make me damp with desire.
It was love, yes, but it was more than that. He was my deepest, closest friend. I felt like he was the only person on the planet (besides Matilda) who really, truly knew me. And now, moving on top of me with the grace of a man who understood my body as well as his own, searching my face, almost studying it, smoothing my hair back and thrusting, thrusting, my nails digging into his skin, his eyes closing, I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. I couldn’t remember other men. He pressed my knees back and up, pushing both our limits, mine of exquisite pain, his of pleasure, his body clenched and straining, on the verge of another orgasm that I was giving him, while I tightened and writhed beneath him, finding my perfect spot, until, pleasure undulating through us and over us, we finally brought each other over the edge, calling each other’s name, both our bodies a greedy blur, and we were left gasping and laughing—because that’s what you do when you’re utterly astonished by love.
“Holy hell, Cassie,” he said, lying beside me, clasping my hand until his breathing steadied.
I rose to take a quick shower, but he held my hand down into the bed, rolling up on an elbow next to me.
“You know what? It’s all been worth it.”
“What’s been worth it?”
“All the bullshit of the past year, all that stuff, the lies that kept us apart. It’s been worth it. A few weeks ago I was so fucking angry. I said to myself no more women. I wanted nothing to do with love. I was going to take a good long break. And today, now … now I feel like I’m out of some long tunnel. I feel light. I feel brand-new. Like my faith’s been restored.”
“Me too,” I said, pulling his face in for a kiss.
He fondled my bracelet. “I haven’t seen this on you in a while.”
“I wear it only on special occasions,” I said, letting him examine it, knowing there was nothing to hide anymore.
“So let me get this straight—for every sort of good deed or challenge, or whatever, you get one of these charms?” he asked, reading some of the Steps under his breath, Generosity, Bravery, Trust. “Reminds me of Girl Scouts.”
“Ha. Sort of,” I said, sliding out of bed.
“What kind of charm do you get for having a restaurant named after you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I’ve decided to call the new place Cassie’s. A sign’s going to be delivered tomorrow—and here,” he said, fishing a piece of paper from his jacket, which he’d retrieved from the floor where it was tossed with the rest of our clothes. He presented me with a folded-up prototype of the new menu, Cassie’s printed on a pretty scroll across the top. I gasped, speechless, fat tears falling down my cheek
s.
“Are you serious?”
“Never more so,” he said, kissing me.
“I don’t … I can’t … no one has ever …”
“Cassie, just say thank you. And let’s get dressed and get this event over with.”
“I’m not going to say thank you now. I’m going to say thank you later, when I get you back here alone.”
“So I take it we’re not staying late?”
“Hell no.”
We showered, one after the other as my tub was too small for two, and later as he zipped me tenderly into my dress. I felt blessed, and, dare I say it … very loved. Had I known it would be the last time we’d be together, I would never have left that bed or that apartment, and I certainly wouldn’t have washed him off my body so quickly, before slipping back into that beautiful, cursed dress.
Latrobe’s was an intimate corner building, made of cream stucco, tucked in the heart of the French Quarter. With its curved Moorish ceilings and dim interiors, it was the perfect place to hold a private party or a small elegant wedding, something discreet and un-showy. So it was unusual to see a boisterous crowd of reporters lining the entrance. But fifteen million dollars was going to be donated to at least eight different local charities that worked to help women and children who were abused, hungry, neglected or who were in any other way disadvantaged. It was the kind of money that could change lives. So it was a big deal, deserving of big coverage.
Matilda was handling all the press, all the questions and all the follow-up. We were told to relax, mingle and eat. A Committee meeting was struck for the following day. That’s when we’d find out how much money was left in the S.E.C.R.E.T. coffers. That’s also when I planned to formally resign, but not before profusely thanking each and every one them for my good fortune and my lovely life.
We ducked past a throng with clacking cameras and into the narrow foyer that led to the main dining area. The room was filled with the highest echelons of New Orleans society, including, much to our shock, a very solo and newly re-elected District Attorney Carruthers Johnstone, mopping his brow and greeting guests in a too-snug tux, his PR person hovering close by, fielding questions.
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