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“Fine. Good. I … I did it. I had sex,” I blurted out.
“Oh? How lovely. With whom?”
“Some guy I just met,” I said, sounding oddly triumphant. “The one from Ignatius’s that day. He’s not really my type. But sexually, he was fun.”
“So you’re not going to see him again?”
“I don’t know. He’s almost ten years younger than me. Young. Self-centered. Sexy, though. Maybe I will see him again. The beauty of it is, I don’t care whether I do or not. But the sex was incredible.”
“So you don’t want to hear from him again?” Matilda asked.
“Not really … I don’t know. Does that make me a slut?”
Matilda turned her whole body towards me, her attention fully off the soccer game. She looked as though I’d just slapped her.
“The word slut, unless employed by iron-clad feminists or ironically by irony experts, has no business coming out of a woman’s mouth, do you hear me? Not when she is describing her own sexual behavior and especially if she’s describing another woman’s. It’s the kind of word that can scar, Cassie.”
I was stunned. I’d never heard her use such a sharp tone.
“That word has been used as a weapon against women all around the world, since the beginning of time, to keep us feeling unworthy and separate. It can have especially tragic consequences for young women. Some shut down; some lose their confidence; some lose their desire to explore their sexuality; and still others end their lives over sexual shame.”
I’d never really given the subject much thought, but I have, in my life, felt that shame, that sense that there was something wrong about wanting and enjoying sex. But since joining S.E.C.R.E.T. that shame had been fading. In fact, it seemed ludicrous to hold on to any of those old ideas. Then something else occurred to me.
“If shame is so toxic, why isn’t S.E.C.R.E.T. more public? That would be a way to fight the stigma, the double standard. Why should ‘slut’ be an insult to women and not necessarily to men?”
“Let me ask you something. If we went public, would you admit to being an enthusiastic member of a group of women that arranges sexual fantasies for other women? Would you like to share with the world all the marvelous men you’ve met and all the marvelous things you’ve done with them, in S.E.C.R.E.T.?”
She lifted her sunglasses to look right into my eyes. She had me. There was no way I could face that potential scrutiny.
“We can’t change the world, Cassie, but we can liberate one woman at a time. Reduce her shame. That’s all we can do. Now, tell me all about this young man you slept with.”
“Well, let’s see. I like him. I like being with him. But when I’m not with him, I don’t think about him. Then I feel guilty because I should have more feelings for him, shouldn’t I?”
“Should. Shouldn’t. Who cares,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I think it’s perfectly healthy, perfectly necessary, that a thirty-six-year-old woman like you has terrific sex with a younger man from whom she wants little else. Let me ask you something: were you honest with him about what you wanted?”
“Yes.”
“Was the sex consensual?”
“Of course.”
“Did you use protection?”
“We did.”
“Well then, good for you! What fun it must be to be back in your body, to simply experience a man. So, no more talk of sluts, all right? No judgment. No limits. No shame. That applies to how you think about yourself too.”
It felt like a good time to bring someone else up, someone who I did want to see again, for whom I still had lingering feelings.
“How’s Jesse?” I asked, as casually as possible. “Is he next on Dauphine’s fantasy list?”
“I believe he is,” she said, looking out over the field. “He was your numbe
r three. We think he should be Dauphine’s as well.”
Ouch. I tried not to look at her, but she was eyeing a cute, sweaty player with his hands on his knees who was catching his breath. He looked about thirty, Latin, maybe South American or Italian. Not too tall, stocky, fit, with a head of messy black hair and teeth so white they flashed brilliant from ten yards away.
“See that one?” she asked.
