I want to role-play. Could I do that? Be someone else, not me? Would I have the guts? I could always back out if I had to.
So this became my list: nine fantasies that would be followed by a final decision. And, as instructed, I wrote them in the order in which I thought I could handle them.
I looked at them one last time. My head filled with all the wonder and worry and joy and fear that these fantasies would release. Imagine getting everything you ever wanted and more. Imagine being what other people want and desire—every inch of you—exactly as you are. This was happening. This was happening to me. I had thought my life was winding down, but it was about to change forever.
When I was done, I called Danica.
“Hello, Cassie,” she said.
“How did you know it was me?” I asked, glancing uneasily out my front window.
“Er, call display?”
“Right. So I know it’s late, but Matilda told me to call as soon as I was done. So I’m done—I have them … selected.”
“What?”
“You know … the list.”
There was silence.
“List?” she prodded.
“My … fantasies,” I whispered.
“Oh, Cassie. We definitely found the right candidate in you. You can’t even say the word!” She giggled. “I’ll send someone right over, sweetie. And hold tight. Things are about to get very interesting.”
Fifteen minutes later, my front doorbell rang. I whipped it open expecting to see a scraggly teenage courier, but a lanky, good-looking man leaned against the doorjamb. He had puppy-dog brown eyes, and wore a hoodie, white T-shirt and jeans. He looked about thirty years old.
He smiled. “I’m here to fetch your folder. And I’m also instructed to give you this. You must open it now.”
I couldn’t make out his accent. Was it Spanish? He passed me a small cream-colored envelope. It had the letter C on the outside.
I slid my finger under the flap and ripped it open. Inside was a card that read: Step One. My heart sped up. “What does the card say?” he asked.
I looked up at this impossibly handsome man, this courier, or whatever he was, in front of me. “You want me to read it?”
“Yes, you must.”
“It says … ‘Surrender.’ ” My voice was barely audible.
“You will be asked at the beginning of every fantasy if you accept this Step. Do you accept this Step?”
I gulped.
“Which Step?”
“Step One, of course. Surrender. You must surrender to the fact that you need help. Sexually.”
My God, he practically purred the word. He placed a hand under his T-shirt and touched his stomach while he leaned on the doorjamb and took me in with his eyes.
“Do you?” he asked.
I didn’t know it would all begin this quickly.
“I … with you? Now?”
“Do you accept the Step?” he asked, moving ever so slightly towards me.
I could hardly speak. “What … what will happen?”
“Nothing, unless you accept the Step.”
His eyes, the way he was leaning …
“I … yes. I do.”
“Why don’t you clear a space for me right there,” he said, making a big circle with his hand and indicating the area between my living room and dining room. “I’ll be right back.” Then he turned around and left.
I ran to my living room window and saw him heading to a limo that was parked outside.
I placed my hand on my chest and glanced around my spotless living room, candles flickering everywhere. I was showered and scented. I was wearing a silk nightgown. They knew! I kicked the ottoman to the wall and shoved the couch closer to the coffee table.
The young man returned a minute or two later with what looked like a portable massage table.
“Please go into the bedroom and take everything off, Cassie. Put this towel around you. I will call you when I’m ready.”
I gathered Dixie on the way in. This was something my cat didn’t need to see. In my room I let my robe drop to the floor and took a last glance in my dresser mirror. My internal critic kicked in immediately. But this time I did something I had never done before. I shut it off. I waited, clenching and unclenching my fists. This can’t be real. This can’t be happening. But it is!
“Please come in,” I heard from behind the closed door.
I entered as timid as a mouse to a transformed room. The blinds had been shut. The candles were placed on my end tables on either side of a massage table. It was equipped with stirrups and the bottom half had a split down the middle. I reflexively pulled the towel tight around me as I tiptoed over to the table towards this impossibly handsome young man standing in the middle of my living room. He was just shy of six feet tall. His hair was shiny and wavy, long enough to tuck some of it behind his ears. His forearms were sinewy and tanned, and his hands looked muscular. Maybe he really was a massage therapist! When he rested one of his hands under his T-shirt, I caught a glimpse of his flat stomach, also tanned. He wore a knowing smile that made him look a little older, and a lot sexier. Brown eyes. Did I mention his eyes? They were almond-shaped, with a bit of mischief in them. How could a guy be both kind-looking and hot? I’d never experienced that combination before, but it was potent.
“Drop the towel. Let me look at you,” he gently commanded.
I hesitated. How could I show myself to a man this attractive?
“I want to see you.”
Good God, Cassie, what have you gotten yourself into? What choice did I have? There really was no turning back now. I barely met his eyes as I let the towel drop around my feet.
“My hands have a beautiful woman to work with,” he said. “Please lie down. I’m here to give you a massage.”
I eased onto the table and lay back. The ceiling loomed above me. I covered my face with my hands.
“I can’t believe this is happening.”
“It is. This is all for you.”
He placed his large warm hands on my naked body and lightly pressed down on my shoulders, then urged my hands away from my face and down to my sides.
“It’s okay,” he said, his brown eyes smiling at me. “Nothing bad is going to happen. Quite the opposite, Cassie.”
The contact felt amazing. His hands on my thirsty skin. How long had it been since I’d been touched, let alone like this? I couldn’t even remember.
“Turn over onto your stomach, please.”
I hesitated again. Then I rolled over, shoving my shaking arms beneath me to calm them down, turning my head to one side. He gently placed a sheet over my body.
“Thank you.”
He bent over to bring his mouth close to my ear. “Don’t thank me yet, Cassie.”
Through the sheet, I felt his hands on my back, pressing me flat to the table.
“It’s going to be okay. Close your eyes.”
“I … it’s just nerves, I guess. I didn’t think it was going to happen so fast, like right now. I mean—”
“Just lie still. I’m here to make you feel good.”
I felt his hands traveling down my thighs under the sheet, then covering the backs of my knees. Then, standing at the base of the table, he split the bottom half of the table in two, like a Y, and stood between my legs.
Oh my God! I thought. This is happening.
“I don’t know if I can do this right now,” I said, trying to turn around.
“If I touch you in any way you don’t like, you tell me. And I will stop. That’s how this works. That’s how it will always work. But, Cassie, it’s just a massage.”
I could hear him take something out from under the table and then I smelled the delicious perfume of coconut lotion. I heard him rubbing it on his hands. Then he clasped the backs of my ankles.
“Does this feel okay? Tell me honestly.” Okay? It felt way more than okay.
“Yes,” I said.
“This?” he asked, slowly moving his warm, oiled h
ands up the backs of my calves.
Sweet Jesus, his hands were amazing. “Yes.”
“How about this? Do you like this? Tell me,” he said, reaching my thighs and stopping just below my buttocks. Then he began to knead my inner thighs. I felt my legs opening up to him.
“Cassie. Do you want this?”
“Yes.” Oh God I said it.
“Good,” he said, moving his hands to the crests of my cheeks. There he began to massage in widening circles, touching me almost between my legs. Almost, but not quite. My body was in panic mode and yet highly aroused. I had never existed in this place between fear and nirvana before and it was strange, intoxicating, and wonderful.
“Do you like it firm or soft?”
“Um—”
“I mean massage, Cassie.”
“Oh. Firm, I guess. No, soft,” I said, my words still muffled by the table. “I don’t know what I like. Is that normal?”
He laughed. “How about we try both, then?”
He squirted more lotion on his hands and rubbed them together. This time he moved up my back in a large circle, pulling the sheet off me entirely. I watched it drop to the ground beside me. I was naked.
“Take your arms out from under you and rest them over the top of the table, Cassie,” he said.
I did so and began to relax into the most intense back massage I had ever had. His thumbs traced the outline of my spine from my tailbone up to my neck, then down around my rib cage, brushing by the sides of my breasts. He circled like that for several minutes, and then dipped down to circle my butt cheeks up and out. I could feel his hard-on through his jeans against the inside of my thigh. I couldn’t believe it. He was feeling something for me too? I instinctively pressed back into him.
I let my legs, on the split table, fall apart even wider. It was the sweetest, oddest thing to be open to a man like that.
“Turn around, Cassie, I want you on your back.”
“Okay,” I said. The room was warm from the candles, or perhaps from my overheated body. Just his hands, that rub-down, had removed so much tension and anxiety. I felt completely boneless.
I did as he asked. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing. I guess this is what Matilda meant by surrendering. Before I left the coach house that day, she left me with one simple instruction for my first Step.
“Above all else, sex requires surrender, the ability to simply melt with each arriving moment,” she said.
As I adjusted myself, I was so oiled I nearly slid off the table. Positioned where he was, between my legs, he grabbed me by the thighs to hold me firm. He took my entire body in with hungry eyes. Was he faking this? He seemed, dare I say, into me, which made the whole thing that much more enjoyable.
“You have the sweetest-looking pussy I have ever seen,” he said.
“Oh, well, thank you, I guess,” I replied, embarrassed, lifting one hand to cover my eyes. I was curious about what would happen next, and at the same time still incredibly shy.
“Do you want me to kiss it?”
What! This was insane. This was also marvelous, this feeling, this weird and perfect thing that was charging like a current through my body. He wasn’t even touching me there and yet I was losing a part of my consciousness. Two weeks ago I had no idea a world like this existed, a world where sexy men knock on your door on a Wednesday night and bring you to the brink of ecstasy without even touching you. But it was real and this was happening—to me. This achingly beautiful man wanted to do this. To me!
I could have laughed and cried.
“Tell me what you want, Cassie. I have the power to give it to you. And I want to give it to you. Do you want me to kiss it?”
“I want you to,” I said. And then I felt his hot breath on me, as his lips brushed my stomach. Oh my God, he trailed a finger down my stomach and then slid it inside me.
“You’re wet, Cassie,” he whispered.
I reflexively placed one hand on his head and gently grabbed a fistful of his hair.
“You do want me to kiss your sweet pussy.”
That word again. Why was I so shy of it?
“Yes … I … want you to—”
“You can say it, Cassie. There’s nothing wrong with saying it.”
He flicked and probed with a single finger around the inside and outside of me.
Next, he placed his mouth on my stomach, and explored my belly button with his tongue. He trailed along the same path as his finger, and found me there and licked and nibbled, the whole time keeping his fingers circling around and just outside of me. I couldn’t believe the sensation, like I was slowly going uphill in a roller-coaster, higher and higher. I heard him moan, just slightly. Oh God, it was like a thousand nerve endings were finally awakening.
“Cassie, I love how you taste.”
Really? Was that possible?
His hands began to move up the length of my legs, spreading them farther open on the table. I had never felt so helpless, so vulnerable, before. I was exposed, all need and want. I was powerless, and happy to be so. I was on the rim of a thousand explosions, a million different sensations, and if he just kept going I would—And then he stopped.
“Why did you stop?” I cried out.
“You don’t want me to stop?”
“No!”
“Then tell me what you want.”
“I want to … come. Like this. Just like this.”
His tawny skin, that face … I lay back down and covered my face with my hands again. I couldn’t watch. Then I couldn’t not watch. Suddenly I could feel something hot and wet circling my left nipple. His hand cupped the other breast firmly. His mouth was warm. He sucked and pulled on me, while his free hand left my breast and traveled back down over my quivering stomach, past my pubic bone and beyond. This time he slid two fingers inside me, gently at first, then urgently. Oh God, this felt so good! I tried lifting my knees to arch my back.
“Lie still,” he whispered. “You like that?”
“I do, I like it so much,” I said, throwing my arm up over my head, grabbing the top of the table. He stopped moving his fingers. Then he stood over me for a second, and took me in.
“You are beautiful,” he said.
Then he leaned over and placed his tongue on me again. He kept still for a hot, quivering second, while his breath blew life into me. Involuntarily, I pushed into his face. He could sense my need and started to lap at me, slowly at first. Then he used his fingers again. With the weight of his mouth and tongue on me, he licked me again, releasing his juices and mine. I could feel all the blood in my body shoot straight down there. Oh sweetness, this was so crazy! An incredible surge ran through me, a storm of something I couldn’t stop. He released his hands up to my breasts, while his tongue circled me at a perfect rhythm.
“Don’t stop!” I heard myself say.
It was all too much. I squeezed my eyes shut. The beautiful feeling just built and built, and I was coming hard against his face and tongue. When I was done, he pulled away and placed his warm hand over my stomach.
“Breathe,” he whispered.
My legs relaxed over the edge of the table. No man had ever touched me like that, ever.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded. I had no words. I tried to catch my breath.
“You must be a little thirsty.”
I nodded again as a bottle of water appeared. I sat up to drink. He looked me over, seeming quite proud of himself.
“Shower off, beautiful,” he said.
I peeled myself off the table.
“Who has the power?” he asked.
“I do,” I said, smiling over my shoulder.
I stumbled towards the bathroom and took a hot shower, and afterwards, while towel-drying my hair, I had a realization. I ran out to the living room.
“Hey, I don’t even know your name!” I said, still rubbing my wet hair dry on a towel.
But he was gone. So was the massage table and my fantasy list that he was sent to fetch. The pla
ce was exactly as it had been before he arrived, except for one difference: resting on my side table was my first gold charm. I crossed the room to get it, and caught a glimpse of my face in the mantel mirror. It looked flushed, my damp hair snaking around my neck and shoulders. I picked up the charm and dangled it in the candlelight. It was embossed with the word Surrender on one side, a Roman numeral I on the other.
I secured it to the chain around my wrist, feeling a boldness rise in me, making me giddy. I did the strangest thing! The strangest thing was done to me! I wanted to scream, Something happened to me. Something is happening to me. And I will never be the same again.
They always say that the first step is the hardest. That first surrender, the first time you say: Yes, I accept that I need help. I can’t do this alone. Scott struggled with that when he gave up drinking. He hated the idea that he had to accept help from anything or anyone. So he fought it, whatever it was. Yet, here I was in full surrender. I had stopped fighting. I had accepted help from a strange group of women.
Then I walked into a room bathed in candlelight, wearing only a towel. I let that towel drop around my ankles, and I bared myself. I trusted this process, this man, this S.E.C.R.E.T. group. But everything that had happened occurred in my home, in my living room, and though it was my body, I gave it over only temporarily to a complete stranger. As I recounted this a week later to a rapt Matilda, I couldn’t help but feel I was talking about my experience as if it had happened to another person, someone I knew very well but who had aspects I was only just beginning to understand.
I told Matilda I had felt safe, that what we did was erotic, and I was beyond compelled to complete the fantasy. And for a one-time thing, I had to admit I had felt wanted, desired, which of course makes any woman feel ecstatic.
“So, yes. I was … transformed, I guess,” I said, burying my burning red face in my hands, suppressing a giggle. A few weeks ago, I had had no one to talk to, unless you counted Will. Now, here I was sharing intimate secrets with a woman I could no longer call a stranger. In fact, I had to admit she was becoming my friend.
S.E.C.R.E.T.: An Erotic Novel Page 6
