Dell entered the kitchen as I tore the address off the back of the paper menu on which I wrote it. She peered sternly over her reading glasses at me.
“What?” I barked.
What kind of help was this Matilda woman going to offer? I had no idea, but if it was the kind that would end with an ardent man sitting across from me at a table, it was the kind of help I welcomed. Still, I worried. Cassie, you don’t know who this woman is. You’re okay on your own. You don’t need anyone. You’re fine. That was my mind talking, but my body told it to shut up. And that was the end of that.
The day of our meeting I left my shift early, instead of waiting for Tracina or Will. As soon as the dining room died, I yelled goodbye to Dell and headed home to shower. From the back of the closet, I pulled out the white sundress I had bought for my thirtieth birthday. Scott had stood me up that night, and I hadn’t worn it since. Five years in the South had darkened my skin and four years of waitressing had toned my arms, so I was shocked to see that it actually looked better on me now. Standing in front of the full-length mirror, I kept a hand over my nervous stomach. Why was I nauseous? Because I knew I was letting something into my life, some element of excitement, maybe even danger? I tried to recall those steps from the journal, Surrender, Generosity, Fearlessness, Courage. I couldn’t remember them all, but pondering them this last week had created such an incredible pull, straight from the gut, that making that phone call had been more a compulsion than a decision.
The Magazine Street bus was packed with tourists and cleaning ladies heading to the Garden District. I got off at Third, stopping in front of a bar called Tracey’s. I contemplated putting back a couple of shots to steel my nerves. Scott and I had done the Garden District tour when we first moved here, gawking at the colorful mansions, the pink Greek Revivals, the ones with Italianate architecture, the wrought-iron gates and the obvious money oozing everywhere. New Orleans was a study in contrasts. Rich neighborhoods next to poor ones, the ugly next to the beautiful. It frustrated Scott, but I liked that about this city. It was all extremes.
I headed north. At Camp Street, I got confused. Had I gone too far in the wrong direction? I stopped abruptly, causing a small pileup.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, to an alarmed young woman behind me holding the hands of a child and a dirty-faced toddler. I continued up Third, staying closer to the houses to let a group of tourists pass me.
Turn around, Cassie, and go home. You don’t need help.
But I do! One meeting. One, maybe two hours with Matilda. What could it possibly hurt?
Cassie, what if they make you do awful things? Things you don’t want to do?
That’s ridiculous. That’s not going to happen.
How do you know?
Because Matilda was kind to me. She peered into my loneliness and didn’t laugh at it. She made me feel like it was a temporary condition, perhaps even curable.
If you’re so lonely, why don’t you just go to bars like everyone else?
Because I’m afraid.
Afraid? And this is less scary?
“Yes, frankly it is!” I mumbled.
“Cassie? Is that you?” I turned around. It was Matilda on the sidewalk behind me, a line of concern across her brow. She was carrying a plastic bag in one hand and a clutch of gladiolas in the other. “Are you all right? Did you have trouble finding the place?”
I was absently clutching a wrought-iron gate, using it either to hold me up or to hold me in place.
“Oh my goodness. Hi. Yes. No. I guess I’m a little early. I thought I’d sit for a bit.”
“You’re right on time, actually. Come, let’s go in and I’ll get you something cold to drink. It’s a hot one.”
I had no choice now. I couldn’t turn back. All I had to do was follow this woman through the gate, into which she was now punching an elaborate security code. I glanced down Third and watched Five Years slink off without looking back at me.
I followed Matilda through a lush courtyard with overgrown vines and trees. My mind was still holding on to my mother’s legs like a scared toddler. We were heading for the red door of a quaint, white coach house to the left of a massive mansion that had been barely visible from the street. A wave of dizziness rolled over me.
“Stop. Wait. I don’t know if I can do this, Matilda.”
“Do what, Cassie?” She turned to face me, the red flowers framing her face, setting off her red hair.
“This, whatever this is.”
She laughed. “Why don’t you find out what this is and then make up your mind—how about that?”
I stood still, my palms soaked in sweat. I resisted wiping them on my dress.
“You can say no, Cassie. I’m only offering. Ready?” She seemed bemused more than impatient.
“Yes,” I said, and I was. Enough equivocating. I shut off my reluctant mind, or rather, I opened it.
Matilda led. I followed. My eyes were drawn back to the ivy-covered mansion and its riotous garden. April in New Orleans meant vines and flowers in full bloom. Magnolia trees blossomed so quickly it was like they had thrown on ornate ’50s bathing caps overnight. I had never seen a garden this lush, green and vivid.
“Who lives there?” I asked.
“That’s the Mansion. Only members are allowed inside.”
I counted a dozen dormers, ornate ironwork suspended over the windows like lace bangs. The turret was topped with a white crown. Though it was all white, it had an eerie feel, like it was haunted, but perhaps by very attractive ghosts.
After we reached the coach house and Matilda entered yet another security code, we passed through a big red door and were inside. I was hit by a blast of air-conditioning. If the exterior was nondescript and blocky, the coach house interior was a study in mid-century minimalism. The windows were small, but the walls high and white. On them hung several stunning floor-to-ceiling paintings of vivid reds and pinks, dotted with yellows and blues. Tea candles flickered on the windowsills, giving the place the atmosphere of an expensive spa. I relaxed my shoulders, which had been hunched up to my ears. Nothing bad could happen in a place like this, I thought. It was so pristine. At the end of the room stood a set of doors that must have been ten feet tall. A young woman with a sharp black bob and black thick-rimmed glasses stood up from her desk and greeted Matilda.
“The Committee will be here shortly,” she said, rushing around the desk to grab the groceries and flowers from Matilda’s hands.
“Thanks, Danica. Danica, this is Cassie.”
Committee? Was I interrupting a meeting? I felt my heart fall into my stomach.
“So nice to finally meet you,” Danica said. Matilda gave her a stern look.
What did she mean by finally?
Danica hit a button below her desk and a door opened behind her, exposing a small brightly lit room lined in walnut, with a round plush pink rug in the center.
“My office,” Matilda said. “Come in.”
It was a cozy space, facing a lush courtyard, with a glimpse of the street just visible beyond the gate. From her office window I could also see the side door of the imposing Mansion next door, a maid in uniform sweeping the steps. I took a seat in a wide black armchair, the kind that makes you feel like you’re being cradled in King Kong’s palm.
“Do you know why you’re here, Cassie?” Matilda asked.
“No, I don’t. Yes. No, sorry. I don’t know.” I wanted to cry.
Matilda took a seat behind her desk, rested her chin in her hands and waited for me to finish. The silence was painful.
“You’re here because you read something in Pauline’s journal that compelled you to get in touch with me, is that right?”
“I think so. Yes,” I said. I looked around the room for another door, one that could lead me to the courtyard and away from this place.
“What is it that you think compelled you?”
“It wasn’t just the book,” I blurted out. Through the window I noticed a couple of women entering t
he courtyard gate.
“What was it, then?”
I thought of my couple, their arms entwined. I thought of the notebook, of Pauline backing towards the bed, and the man—
“It was Pauline, the way she is with men. With her boyfriend. I’ve never been like that with anyone, not even my husband. And no one has ever been like that with me. She seems so … free.”
“And you want that?”
“I do. I think. Is that something you work on?”
“That’s the only thing we work on,” she said. “Now, why don’t we start with you. Tell me a little bit about yourself.”
I don’t know why it all felt so easy, but my story poured from my mouth. I told Matilda about growing up in Ann Arbor. How my mother died when I was young, and how my dad, an industrial fence contractor, was rarely around, and when he was, he was by turns sour or overly affectionate, especially when he was drunk. I grew up cautious and alert to how the weather in a room could change. My sister, Lila, left home as soon as she could and moved to New York. We barely spoke now.
Then I told Matilda about Scott, sweet Scott and sorrowful Scott, the Scott who slow-danced with me to country music in our kitchen and the Scott who hit me twice and never stopped begging forgiveness I couldn’t give. I told her how our marriage deteriorated as his drinking escalated. I told her how his death hadn’t liberated me but rather had relegated me to a quiet middle ground, a safe corral of my own making. I had no idea how badly I needed to talk to another woman, how isolated I’d become, until I started opening up to Matilda.
Then, I said it. It just kind of spilled out: the fact that it had been years since I’d had sex.
“How many years?”
“Five. Almost six, I guess.”
“It’s not uncommon. Grief, anger, resentment play awful tricks on the body.”
“How do you know? Are you a sex therapist?”
“Sort of,” she said. “What we do here, Cassie, is we help women get back in touch with their sexual side. And in so doing, they get back in touch with the most powerful part of themselves. One Step at a time. Does that interest you?”
“I guess. Sure,” I said, as squeamish as the time I had to tell my dad I had started my period. With no woman in the house growing up, except for my dad’s listless girlfriend, I’d never actually spoken about sex out loud with anyone.
“Will I have to do anything … weird?”
Matilda laughed.
“No. Nothing weird, Cassie, unless that’s your thing.”
I laughed then, too, the uncomfortable laugh of someone past the point of no return.
“But what do I do? How does this work?”
“You don’t really have to do anything but say yes to the Committee,” she said, glancing at her watch, “which, my goodness, is assembling as we speak.”
“The Committee?” Oh my God, what had I done? It was like I’d fallen down a deep hole.
Matilda must have sensed my panic. She poured me a glass of water from the jug on her desk.
“Here, Cassie, take a drink, and please try to relax. This is a good thing. A marvelous thing, trust me. The Committee is simply a group of women, kind women, many of them just like you, women who want to help. They recruit participants and design the fantasies. The Committee makes your fantasies happen.”
“My fantasies? What if I don’t have any?”
“Oh, you do. You just don’t know it yet. And don’t worry. You will never have to do anything you don’t want to do, nor will you ever be with anyone you don’t want to be with. S.E.C.R.E.T.’s motto is: No judgments. No limits. No shame.”
The water glass shook in my hand. I took a big gulp and choked.
“S.E.C.R.E.T.?”
“Yes, that’s what our group is called. Each letter stands for something. But our whole reason for being is liberation through complete submission to your sexual fantasies.”
I stared into the middle distance, trying to shake the image of Pauline with two men …
“Is this what Pauline did?” I blurted out.
“Yes. Pauline completed all ten steps of S.E.C.R.E.T., and now is living in the world, fully, sexually alive.”
“Ten?”
“Well, technically there are nine fantasies. The tenth Step is a decision. You can either stay in S.E.C.R.E.T. for one year, recruiting other women like you, training fantasy participants, or helping other members facilitate fantasies. Or you can decide to bring your sexual knowledge into your own world, perhaps into a loving relationship.”
Over Matilda’s right shoulder through the courtyard window, I could see more women of various ages, colors and sizes filing by twos and threes through the gate. I could hear them entering the lobby, laughing and chatting.
“Is that the Committee?”
“Yes. Shall we join them?”
“Wait. This is all moving a little too fast. I need to ask: if I say yes, what exactly happens then?”
“Everything you want. Nothing you don’t,” she replied. “Yes or no, Cassie. It really is that simple.”
My body was all in, but my mind finally freed itself from its temporary restraints and unleashed its doubts.
“But I don’t even know you! I don’t know who you are, who those women are. And I’m supposed to sit here and tell you my deepest, most private sex fantasies? And I don’t even know that I have any, let alone nine, since I’ve only ever slept with one man, my whole life, ever. So how can I say yes or no to any of this?”
Matilda remained placid through my little rant, the way a good mother will stay present during a toddler’s tantrum. Nothing I said could turn my body around and take it home now, and I knew it. So did she. My poor mind was losing this fight.
“Yes or no, Cassie,” Matilda said again.
I looked around the room, at the bookshelf behind me, the antique windows facing the courtyard, the wall of hedges, then back to Matilda’s kind face. I needed to be touched. I needed to let a man loose on my body before it died a slow and lonely death. This felt like something that had to be done to me. With me.
“Yes.”
She gently clapped her hands once.
“I’m so glad. Oh, and it’s supposed to be fun, Cassie. It will be fun!”
With that, Matilda removed a small booklet from her desk drawer and slid it in front of me. It had the same burgundy cover as Pauline’s journal, only it was longer and thinner, like a checkbook.
“I am going to leave you alone so you can fill out this brief questionnaire. It will give us a sense of what you’re looking for, of what you … like. And where you’re at. You will write down specific fantasies later. But this is a start. Take fifteen minutes. Just be honest. I’ll come get you when you’re done. The Committee is assembling. Tea? Coffee?”
“Tea would be nice,” I said, feeling very tired.
“Cassie, fear is the only thing that stands between you and your real life. Remember that.”
After she left, I was so jittery that I couldn’t even look at the booklet. I got up and walked over to a bookshelf at the back of the office. What I thought was a set of encyclopedias turned out to be bound copies of The Complete Kama Sutra, The Joy of Sex, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, My Secret Garden, The Happy Hooker, Fanny Hill, and the Story of O, some of the books I used to find at the homes where I babysat when I was a teenager, books I’d scan and that would leave me confused as I was driven home by the parents late at night. They were bound in the same burgundy leather as the booklet and journal, the titles embossed in gold. I ran a finger across them, took a deep breath, and then went back to my seat.
I sat down and opened the booklet.
What you have in your hands is completely confidential. Your answers are for you and for the Committee only. No one else will see your responses. For S.E.C.R.E.T. to help you, we must know more about you. Be thorough, be honest, be fearless. Please begin:
What followed was a list of questions, with space between each for the answers. The questions made me dizzy wi
th their specificity. Just as I tested the pen, there was a soft knock at the door.
“Come in?”
Danica’s black bob peered around the door. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said. “Matilda said you wanted some tea?”
“Oh, thanks.”
She entered and gently placed a silver tea set in front of me.
“Danica, have you done this? This thing?”
She smiled a big smile.
“Nope. See?” she said, holding up her bare wrist. “No bracelet for me. That’s how you know. Matilda says I may never need to join if I play my cards right from the start with my boyfriend. Plus, you have to be, like, old—over thirty. But I think it’s really cool,” she added, every inch the twenty-one-or-two-year-old she probably was. “Just answer honestly, Cassie. Everything after that will be easy. That’s what Matilda always says.”
Then she turned and walked out, closing the door behind her and leaving me alone again with the questionnaire and my racing mind. You can do this, Cassie. And so I began.
1. How many lovers have you had? Who is your ideal lover physically? Please specify height, weight, hair color, penis size and any other physical preferences.
2. Can you reach orgasm through vaginal sex?
3. Do you enjoy oral sex (getting)? Do you enjoy oral sex (giving)? Explain.
4. How often do you masturbate? Preferred method?
5. Have you ever had a one-night stand?
6. Do you tend to make the first move when you are attracted to someone?
7. Have you had sex with a woman, or with more than one partner at the same time? Explain.
8. Have you had anal sex? Did you enjoy it? If not, why not?
9. What type of birth control do you use?
10. What do you consider your personal erogenous zones?
11. What are your thoughts on pornography?
And on and on and on. Do you enjoy sex on your period? Dirty talk? S&M? Bondage? Lights on or off? … This was what I had been most afraid of: feeling over my head. It was like those awful dreams of surprise quizzes that I was plagued by after I left university. I had had exactly one sex partner. I had no idea about penis preference, and anal sex was an exotic, remote idea, up there with tattooing my face and shoplifting. But I had to answer honestly. What’s the worst thing that could happen? That they would discover my complete sexual ineptitude and usher me to the door? Thinking about that made the rest of the exercise seem ludicrously fun. After all, what did I have to lose? After all, wasn’t I here because of my sexual inexperience?
S.E.C.R.E.T.: An Erotic Novel Page 4