AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“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.
Summer 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.”
