“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.