The sound of the motor dying down woke me from a nap. I had no idea how long I had been out, but the waves had calmed considerably. I could hear Jake bumping around above me, making his way across the deck to the stairs to the galley, where I lay on the bed waiting. I wasn’t good at waiting. Calmness in the face of chaos wasn’t my style. But this was, after all, my rescue fantasy. While I decided I didn’t like being rescued one bit, I was willing to take part in the aftermath.
“Hi,” he said, grinning from ear to ear at the sight of me on the bed.
“Hi.”
“Everything’s good up there. We’re safely away from the storm. Do you mind if I take off the rest of my wet clothes?”
“I don’t mind at all,” I said, resting back on the pillows. If he was going to rescue me, I was going to play along. “So I’m safe, then?”
“You were never in any danger,” he said, shuffling off his damp jeans. This comment pricked the fantasy bubble and left me reeling in reality.
“Are you kidding? I fell off a boat into the Gulf during a hurricane!”
He was so tall he had to duck in the galley as he made his way to the bed.
“Yes, you did, Cassie, but I’m trained to save lives. And yours was never in great danger. I can assure you.”
He was so smooth from head to toe that he looked like marble. “But, but what if … something had happened to me?”
“It was a tropical storm that became a hurricane very quickly. No one saw it coming, not even the weather bureau.”
I had to admit, there is something exciting about surviving an accident. You feel alive in the most visceral way; your veins pulse; you can detect your skin breathing. You feel very fragile and human, but at the same time nearly immortal. Jake tentatively approached the bed. I could smell the salt water on his skin and some other scent beneath that, something velvety and dark.
“Do you still accept the Step?” he asked, his black eyes on me, his hands pushing his wet hair back in a way that reminded me so much of Will.
“I … guess,” I said, my chin jutting out over my blanket like an impudent child’s. “But I don’t know if I can feel sexy and terrified at the same time.”
“Let me help,” he said, taking a fistful of my blanket in one hand.
He drew the blanket away from my shoulders and nestled it around my waist. He took a long look at me, then tugged me closer to him, tilting my head up and putting his salty lips to mine. He loomed over me, making me feel safe again, protected. He told me over and over that I was okay, that I’d be okay, slowly nudging the blanket at my waist to the floor and pushing me back onto the bed. I felt my damp hair spread out around me, and his skin, that expanse of smoothness, meeting every inch of my own flesh. I closed my eyes and let my resolve melt. And I took in his smell: the ocean.
“I’m going to take very good care of you, you know that, right?”
I nodded, too stunned to talk. This was a man the likes of which I’d never seen, never experienced. He made me feel soft and small and delicate. In my constant self-sufficiency, I had forgotten it might be possible to have a man protect me, to be my anchor. I swear to God I trembled as I watched him move to the foot of the bed, gently fold his enormous hands around my ankles, lift a foot to his face, then run his tongue along the tender arch, kissing the tips of my toes, then putting them in his mouth. I couldn’t help but giggle. I relaxed back on my elbows as he slipped his hands up the length of my calves, my thighs, and then stopped to look at my face, devouring me with his eyes. He knelt on the bed, resting my legs on either side of him, and parted me. He trailed his hands along my quivering thighs (yes, they really were quivering!). He skimmed over me with his thumbs, not quite touching me there, then up my torso to my breasts. I arched forward, aching for him. I arched in a way that said, Now, please! And yet he continued to tease me with his tongue, arousing me so quickly and so fully. See? See what you’re doing to me? I wanted to say. But I was speechless. Oh God, I had never been with a man this compelling, this strong. He was a work of art.
“Do you want me inside you, Cassie?” he asked, propped up on one elbow, his free hand caressing my breast.
Do I?
“Um … yes.”
“Say it. Say you want me.”
“I … want you,” I said, with an urgency that had me on the brink of tears.
With that, he trailed a hand from my breasts down to my stomach and thrust his finger inside me. “You do want me,” he said, a dark smile crossing his lips.
I almost made a joke about going overboard, but I shook it out of my head. His face came towards mine and his kiss was full of vigor and fire. I kissed him back with the same force. It was different from Jesse’s kiss, or any kiss I’d ever had. This one was all-consuming. I kissed him like my life depended on it. Then his hand reached beneath a pillow and freed a condom, and he stopped kissing me just long enough to rip the package open with his teeth. He slipped it on with ease and then guided himself into me.
“You’ll never be afraid again, Cassie,” he said.
I lifted for him, and then with my eyes closed, savored the feel of him. How long had it been since a man entered me? Had I ever been taken so richly, so completely before? Never. My wanting was so intense, it almost felt like my first time.
He was thrusting into me, deeper and deeper, stopping every inch so that I could take him in, breathe into him, and then began to move above me, slowly at first, and then faster, rhythmically, smoothly. I couldn’t help but gasp. His arms were beneath me, pulling me towards him so he could move deeper inside me. I couldn’t believe how wet I was. My thighs were now wrapped high around his back, the muscles in his arms tensing and twitching.
“Cassie, this is incredible,” he said, before nudging me to turn over and slide on top of him, which I did. His hands found my waist and held on, and he lifted me until we found our rhythm again. Then he put his thumb to me, bringing yet another part of me alive.
“I could do this to you forever,” he said.
But it was too much to bear. I threw my head back, my hands on his chest. He was so far inside me it felt like he was part of me, and as he stroked in and out, something in me ignited as he touched a spot, the sweetest spot I owned.
Pleasure swam to the surface, moving me out of the way so it could take over. “Baby, you’re going to make me come.” The words tumbled out of my mouth.
He pushed into me, into that spot inside of me, until I had no choice but to let go. It was like a wave, inside and out. I rode him hard, and as I did I could feel him tense up and let out a low, deep moan. I didn’t care anymore about falling, about the danger, about where I was, and what was happening outside with the sea. Only what was happening inside mattered, here on the bed, in this boat, with this Greek god of a man who’d plucked me from the water and who I was now straddling on a high, soft bed.
Moments later I collapsed across his chest. I felt him recede inside of me until he gently eased himself out. And then he lay there, lazily stroking my back, tugging at my damp hair, and muttering, over and over again, “Incredible.”
That night, lying in my own bed, my journal in my lap, Dixie on the pillow next to me, I still felt some leftover vertigo from the boat. The Spinster Hotel seemed to be gently rocking from side to side.
I tried to put down in words why this sea adventure had been so transformative. Was it the thrilling ride to the yacht, surviving the plunge over the side of it, or sex in the rescue boat with a man who did everything so beautifully? Was it coming on deck with him to sip hot chocolate and watch the sunset, so vivid after the storm? Was it when he slipped my Step Five charm into my hand, Fearlessness engraved on the back? Yes, it was all of those moments and more. I remembered Matilda telling me that fear can’t be released without our permission. Since we ourselves generate it, only we can let it go. And that’s exactly what I had done. There was fear. I felt it. Then I let it go.
A few weeks after my spill into the Gulf and that incredible session on
the tugboat, a newfound fearlessness manifested in me. I began to stand up to Tracina’s subtle bullying at work. I wasn’t mean about it, but when she was late, I left my shift on time rather than helpfully waiting until she got there. I decided it was Will’s problem to fill the gap, and to scold her, not mine. I also started to wear my hair in a low ponytail, which showed off my new blond highlights. I dipped into the insurance money I had received when Scott died and bought some new clothes, a luxury I’d never allow myself before. I bought a couple pairs of tight black pants, and bright v-neck T-shirts. I finally got up the nerve to duck into Trashy Diva, a retro clothing and lingerie store in the French Quarter that Tracina frequented. I bought some pretty bras and matching thongs and a sexier nightie to sleep in. Nothing too risqué, but it was a step up from my usual cotton fare. I wasn’t irresponsible with money. I just wanted my outside to reflect the vividness that I was beginning to feel on the inside. My runs became more regular, too, after work, taking in the three-mile loop around the French Quarter. I saw parts of the city I had always ignored, so stuck had I been in my own routine. I even volunteered the Café to staff the booth for the New Orleans Revitalization Society’s fund-raiser costume ball, though Will balked at first. “Don’t we have enough to do with the Café renovations?”
It was true that the Café was going through a very slow renaissance, one that was consuming much of Will’s free time, to Tracina’s chagrin. He had started with painting the interior and buying new stainless steel appliances. His big plan was to open up the second floor for fine dining and music, but after installing a small washroom near the landing, city hall stalled the permits. He threw a mattress on the floor and if he wasn’t sleeping at Tracina’s, that’s where I’d sometimes find him, planning, ruminating or just pouting. For now, he had to content himself with hauling old junk from upstairs, stuff that had been up there since the place was a PJ’s Coffee franchise, to the dump.
“Altruism is good advertising, Will,” I said. “Giving is good for the soul.” I flashed back to the scene in the Mansion’s kitchen months ago, when I’d learned the inherent benefits of giving. So much change in so little time.
In volunteering for the booth, for the first time in my life I actually threw myself into one of New Orleans’s unique popular pastimes: joining things. I had never before been a joiner of clubs, or groups, or charities, or anything for that matter. And while reading the society pages never made me long for money or prestige, it did give me the sense that there was a whole other world out there, one where community mattered and where camaraderie could be fun. I had lived in the city for almost six years. One of the Café regulars once told me that New Orleans “claims you at seven.” I was starting to understand what he meant. This place was finally feeling like home. I told Matilda as much when I saw her for one of our post-Step discussions at Tracey’s.
“It takes seven years to make a home,” she said. She was a transplant herself decades ago, albeit one from the South. She also offered the deepest apologies for the spill over the yacht and the terror it caused. “That was not part of the scenario. We were going to fake the engine dying where Jake could find you, never dreaming it actually would die. Let alone during a tropical storm!”
“Tropical storm? It was a hurricane, Matilda,” I said, eyebrows up.
“Right. I’m sorry. But you certainly earned that Step Five charm,” she said, pointing to my beautifully cluttered bracelet. I held the pale gold up to the light and watched the charms shimmer. While I loved collecting them, I was craving constancy in my life. I had begun to imagine what it would be like to have one man in my life, one devoted only to me. As much as the fantasies were changing my life and the way I felt about myself, I did feel a void. I didn’t want to mention that to Matilda. I had four fantasies left, and I knew she’d urge me to see these through and not rush into a relationship before I was ready, if at all. But soon I’d be finished with S.E.C.R.E.T. Then what? Will I want to become part of S.E.C.R.E.T. or will I want to take my experiences and find someone special to build a life with? Was I ready? And who would want me? I had so many questions for Matilda.
“You’re on an exploration,” she said over drinks at Tracey’s. “Who you are as a person, your likes and dislikes, they come first. Then your partner’s. Do you understand?”
“But what if I tell the next man I’m serious about that I was a member of S.E.C.R.E.T., and it freaks him out?”
“Then he’s not the man for you,” she said, shrugging. “Any man who’d balk at a single, healthy woman being intimate with other consenting adults, joyfully and safely intimate, isn’t worth your time, Cassie. Besides, you don’t owe a new lover a full inventory of your past sexual behavior, especially if it doesn’t affect him in the least. Especially if it benefits him!”
I looked at my bracelet again. I didn’t wear it every day, but when I did have it on, I felt infused with something special. Maybe it had to do with the words embossed on the charms: Surrender, Courage, Trust, Generosity, and now Fearlessness. So far, beyond the comment from Will at the auction, no one at the Café had mentioned it. Not even Tracina, who was like a magpie when she saw shiny things.
“These words really mean something to me,” I said to Matilda. I was surprised I had said this out loud.
“Well, that is the paradox, Cassie, one I hope you’re learning to embrace. In some ways a moment of bliss doesn’t mean anything. But if you can learn to let it happen and then let it go, it can begin to mean everything.”
I’d known men who couldn’t imagine being with only one woman, who’d die for the chance to experience all their sexual fantasies, no strings attached, with several dream women recruited specifically to do their bidding. It wasn’t that I was ungrateful to Matilda and to S.E.C.R.E.T., but the urge to bond, to draw one special someone nearer to me, was becoming harder to resist. Why had I rejected Will years ago? I had always found him attractive. Incredibly so. But back then, I felt that if he got closer to me, he’d see me for what I was—boring, afraid, unlovable. Now, for the first time I was beginning to believe I was none of those things. I was gathering a sense of self, a belief that I might be worthy of a man like Will. Sadly, it was happening just as he was developing a deeper relationship with Tracina.
I still looked forward to seeing Will at work. I perked up when I heard his truck pull in, felt jittery when we were alone, the two of us, in the office. And with plans for Café Rose to man the donation booth at the New Orleans Revitalization Society Ball, we were spending more time than ever together designing the banners for the booth. More time than he was spending with Tracina.
The night before the ball, Tracina recruited me to help her help Will with his costume. She couldn’t sew, but she certainly knew how to boss me around while I did. The theme of this year’s ball was “Make-Believe”; guests would dress as their favorite fictional or fairy-tale characters. After the dinner, the city’s most eligible bachelors and bachelorettes would be auctioned off to top bidders, winners getting a dance with their prizes. Tracina had signed up both Will and herself for the auction. She may have lacked social standing, but Tracina was a stunner and would likely go for a good price. And Will, despite being the proprietor of a rather diminutive café, did come from one of the oldest families in the State of Louisiana. Still, he was a reluctant participant.
“Come on, Will! It’ll be fun,” Tracina said. “And it’s for charity.”
I was holding a mouthful of pins, working on the hem of his pants. Will was going as Huck Finn, with short pants, suspenders, straw hat and a fishing pole. Tracina was going as Tinker Bell, white tutu, wings and a wand. Dressing like an irritating pixie seemed a perfect choice for her, I thought, as I watched her prance around the kitchen. She was holding the wand, touching everyone on the head.
“Dell, I hereby grant you one wish,” she said, touching her head with the wand.
“If you poke me with that thing again, I will snap it in half and shove it up your ass.”
Trac
ina made a nyah-nyah face at Dell, then pointed her wand at me like an imaginary pistol.
“Bang! Listen, I can’t work that booth with you, Cassie. I’m dancing! And you better dance too.”
“I’m not going to have fun. I’m going to help.”
“Come on, it’s a ball. When do you ever go out? Anyway, what are you dressing up as?”
“Nothing,” I said. “My shift ends when dinner’s served. And if you’re not taking over in the booth, I’ll have to find someone who will.”
“I’ll help,” Will offered.
“But you’re my date,” Tracina whined. “We’ll get Dell to do it. But you have to wear a costume, Cassie, and I know the perfect one. Cinderella!”
The thought of me in a ball gown was laughable, and when I said as much, Tracina laughed too.
“No, I meant Cinderella before the ball! When she was a scullery maid doing all the sewing and cleaning while her evil stepsisters had a great time. It’s perfect for you!”
I wasn’t sure if Tracina was being insulting or funny. Will was standing shirtless above me, his baggy pants held up with one hand, looking a little too much like a statue of David. He wasn’t a gym rat, but he had an impressively flat stomach and muscled arms. I tried hard not to stare.
“Cassie, why are you being ‘Miss I’m Not Participating’?” he asked. “That’s not very local of you.”
“I guess I’m still working on my citizenship.”
Tracina warned Will that she wanted to score a dance with the guest of honor, Pierre Castille, the billionaire who owned acres of waterfront property along Lake Pontchartrain, which had been in his family for generations. He was a private man who had a reputation for ducking in and out the back door at every function.
Kay Ladoucer, a local doyenne and the most conservative member of the city council, was the chair of the ball going on four years. She had arranged for Pierre to make an appearance during this year’s ball. Will was not a big fan of Kay. He had had a run-in with her during his bid to expand the restaurant upstairs. Kay argued that until he updated the electrical in the whole building, he couldn’t expand. But Will couldn’t afford to do that unless he was allowed to expand. So there was a stalemate over the proper permits, despite the fact that half the places on Frenchmen Street had ancient wiring.
S.E.C.R.E.T.: An Erotic Novel Page 13
