S.E.C.R.E.T. (Secret 1)

After one more Step. Then I’d stop. Then I would most definitely put this book away.

I opened it randomly to the middle, flashing forward, I assumed, through pages of sexy words:

Wow. First off, it was weird! I won’t lie. But yet it had this incredible filling effect. That’s the only way to describe it. Like I had it all inside me. Like I couldn’t go any further and then I found I could. I didn’t care how loud I was being. His hands were working me over all the while. It felt so incredible! Thank God the Mansion is soundproof, or so I’m told. It must be; otherwise everyone would know what was happening in each of these rooms. But I’ll tell you, the best sensation came from the other guy, Olivier, who lay beneath me, my lovely dark-haired stranger with a full arm of tattoos, who was sucking on my …

I snapped the book closed. Okay, I had to stop. This was too much. Two men? At once? I looked to the top of the page. This was Step Five: Fearlessness. I was shocked that I felt damp between the legs. I didn’t normally read erotic stuff, and when I came across pornography by accident, I rarely found it arousing. But this? This was all about desire. I wanted to read the whole thing, but no, I wouldn’t. I held the book shut tight in my lap.

She didn’t seem the type, Pauline, with her short hair and her clean looks. But what’s “the type”? What’s the furthest I’d ever gone with a man? The riskiest? A giggly handjob in a movie theater in high school with a boy I dated when Scott and I were on a “break.” I’d given blowjobs. Maybe not well, and not always to completion. Sexually speaking, I was sorely inexperienced. Dixie had rolled onto her back in a posture that was appropriately lewd.

“Oh, kitty, you’ve probably had more fun in the streets than I’ve had in my bedroom.”

I had to put the notebook away. To read any more of it would be to violate Pauline’s privacy irrevocably, and to drive myself to distraction. I got up and almost angrily shoved the book deep into the drawer of the telephone table by my front door. After ten minutes, I moved it to a pocket of an old ski jacket I had brought from Michigan and left hanging in the back of the closet. Still, the book called for me. Then I put it in the broiler beneath the gas stove. But what if the pilot light ignited it?

I decided to put the notebook in my purse so I wouldn’t forget to bring it to work the next day, in case Pauline came back to retrieve it. Oh God, what if she thinks I read it? But how could I not? Well, at least I didn’t read all of it, I thought, taking the notebook out of my purse and finally locking it in the trunk of my car.

Two days later, after the lunch rush died down, the door chimes signaled the arrival of Pauline. My stomach lurched, like she was coming to arrest me. This time she wasn’t with her sexy man but with a beautiful older woman, perhaps fifty or a well-preserved sixty with red wavy hair, wearing a pale coral tunic. They were both a little grim-faced as they made their way to an empty table by the window. I smoothed down my T-shirt and steeled myself as I approached the table. Try not to look at her too long. Try to appear nonchalant, normal. You don’t know anything because you never read the notebook.

“Hi there. Start with coffee?” I asked, my lips pulled tight across my teeth, my heart bashing against my rib cage.

“Yes, please,” said Pauline, avoiding eye contact with me and looking directly at the red-haired woman. “You?”

“I’ll have green tea. And a couple of menus, please,” she replied, staring back at Pauline.

I felt a rush of shame. They knew something. They knew I knew something.

“O-of course,” I stammered, turning to the table.

“Wait. I was wondering …”

My heart leapt to my mouth.

“Yes?” I said, turning back, hands shoved deep in my front pouch, shoulders up at my ears.

It was Pauline who’d spoken. She was as nervous as I was. Her companion’s face, however, was serene, supportive. I sensed a slight nod urging her on. I noticed the redhead also wore one of those beautiful gold bracelets, the same brushed pale finish and dangling charms.

“Did I forget something here the other day? A small booklet. About the size of this napkin. Burgundy. It has my initials on it, P. D. Did you find it?” Her voice was quivering. She looked on the verge of tears.

My eyes darted from hers to the calm face of her companion.

“Um. I don’t know, but let me check with Dell,” I said, way too brightly. “I’ll be right back.”

I walked stiffly back to the kitchen, punched the door open and stood with my back against the cool tile wall. All the air was gone from my lungs. I looked over at old Dell, who was cleaning the big pot that she’d used for the chili special. Though she kept her nearly white afro shorn close to her skull, she always wore a hairnet and a professional waitressing uniform. I had a lightning bolt of an idea.

“Dell! You have to do me a favor.”

“I have to do no such thing, Cassie,” she said with her slight lisp. “Use your manners.”

“Okay. Really fast. These customers out there. One of them left something here, a small notebook, and I don’t want her to think I read it. Because I did. I mean, not all of it. But I had to read some of it. How else would I know whose it was, right? But it was like a diary, and I might have read too much of it. And it was personal. Very. But I don’t want them to know I read any of it. Can I say you found it? Please?”

“You want me to lie.”

“No, no, I’ll do all the lying.”

“God, girl, sometimes I don’t understand young women today with all your dramas and stories and such. You can’t just say, ‘Here, I found this’?”

“Not this time, no. I can’t.”

I stood in front of Dell, hands clasped pleadingly.