Kissing down the side of my neck, he whispered, “We’re just getting started.” Nudging my legs apart, he pulled one of my thighs over the top of his, until our bodies formed an entwined letter S. I felt his hands exploring my back, and then exploring a whole new part of me. At first it was just a finger, painful at first, but the pain quickly subsided and gave way to a wide, delicious fullness. I felt my stomach drop the same thrilling way it did when I skied over the ridge. Then he entered me from behind, not in the way I was expecting. The feeling was intensely, excruciatingly pleasurable. He clutched me hard to keep me close to him.
“Is it okay? Are you okay?” he whispered, tenderly combing my wet hair away from my face and neck.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes. It feels so … it’s a good hurt.”
“I can stop anytime. You sure it feels good?”
I nodded again, because it did, it felt so good, and so intimate, this thing we were doing. I clutched a fistful of the sheets and pulled them to me as the full sensation gave way to a wave of intense pleasure that moved through my whole body. This was something I would never in a million years have thought I’d want to try. But here I was saying “yes, yes, yes” as he inched inside me even deeper and brought his hand around and under me, making me wetter and wetter. I came again, pushing backwards into him, the abandon I felt hard to contain. I needed this kind of release, in this place, in this room, in this bed, with this man who seemed put here to take me through this experience.
“I’m going to come. You’re making me come now,” he said, clutching my center with one hand, bending me farther forward as he bit softly into my shoulder, his other hand caressing my breasts. When he was done, he subsided with the gentlest tug and we both shifted onto our backs, his hand across my stomach, to look at the ornate ceiling that neither of us had noticed until just then.
“That was … intense,” he said.
“I know,” I said, still gasping for air.
I had done something new and it was thrilling, but now I was feeling a bit vulnerable. This man wasn’t from S.E.C.R.E.T. There had been no Step to accept, just a plunge into all-new terrain. Theo must have sensed my shift in mood. “You okay?”
“I am. I just … I’ve never done that in my life. I don’t normally pick up strangers and take them to bed,” I said. Despite the fact that the men from S.E.C.R.E.T. were technically strangers, the women from S.E.C.R.E.T. knew them.
“So what if you did? Where’s the crime in that?”
“I guess I never saw myself as that kind of woman.”
“I see that kind of woman as daring, brave.”
“Really? You see me like that?”
“I do,” he said, gently spooning me in a way that was so tender, it was odd to think we barely knew one another. He pulled a heavy duvet over our bodies and nested it around us.
When I woke six hours later, he was gone. And oddly, I was fine with that. I was so happy to have had those moments with him, and to let them pass without feeling loss. As sweet as he was, I actually wanted to enjoy my last days in Whistler alone. Still, it was nice to read a note he left on the bathroom vanity: Cassie, you are lovely. And I am late for work! But you know where to find me. À bientôt, Theo.
Matilda was admiring my pictures as I yammered on in the coach house about how exciting it had been to hit the slopes again. I told her about the mini-moguls on Blackcomb Mountain, where I spent my last day. Danica came over to us with coffees and cooed over a photo Marcel had taken of Theo and me enjoying our fondue.
“He is keee-yoot,” she said, before ducking away and leaving Matilda and me alone.
When I had told her about Theo, she was delighted. She asked me how we met, what he said, what I said. Then I told her about … what we did.
“Did you enjoy it?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I’d do it again, maybe. With the right partner. Someone I could trust.”
“Cassie, I have something for you,” she said, opening a drawer in the desk and pulling out a small wooden box.
She opened the box. The Step Eight charm looked dazzling against its black velvet background.
“But, I thought Theo was just some random guy, not a participant.”
“It doesn’t matter if he was part of our society or not.”
“I don’t understand.”
“This Step is Bravery, which is different from courage because bravery requires you take risks without overthinking things. Bravery says, ‘Go for it.’ So, whether or not Theo is part of S.E.C.R.E.T. is irrelevant. You’ve earned this charm.”
I plucked the charm from the box, turned it over in my hand and then clicked it into place on my bracelet. I gave my wrist a shake and admired the twinkling charms. So was Theo a random stranger drawn to me naturally? Or was he involved in S.E.C.R.E.T? I couldn’t figure it out. But perhaps Matilda was right: it didn’t matter.
“I’ll allow myself to believe I attracted Theo,” I said, “Though I still have my doubts.”
“Good, Cassie. No more being a wallflower. You, my dear, have blossomed.”
For the weeks leading up to Mardi Gras, the whole city of New Orleans takes on the spirit of a bride making last-minute preparations for her big day. No matter that the festivities take place this year, and next year, and every year, each Mardi Gras feels like the last, best one.
When I first moved here, I was fascinated by the krewes, the groups, some ancient, some modern, that put on the balls and built the floats for Mardi Gras parades. Mostly, I wondered why you’d spend so much of your spare time sewing costumes and gluing sequins. But after living here for a few years I began to understand the fatalistic nature of the average New Orleanian. People in this city tend to live and love vividly for today.
Even if I had wanted to join a krewe, many of the older ones—with names like Proteus, Rex and Bacchus—were downright impossible to get into, unless your bloodline was that of Bayou royalty. But nearing the end of my time with S.E.C.R.E.T., I began to feel that strong tug to belong to someone or something—which is, after all, the only antidote to loneliness. I was starting to see that melancholy isn’t romantic. It’s just a prettier word for depression.
In the month before Mardi Gras, I couldn’t walk down a street in Marigny or Tremé, let alone the French Quarter, without envying those sewing circles gathered on a porch, hand-stitching sparkly costumes and securing sequins to elaborate masks or sky-high feathered headdresses. Other nights, I’d take a run through the Warehouse District and spot, through a crack in a door, spray-painters in masks putting the finishing touches on a vivid float. My heart would skip a beat and I was able to let in a little joy.
But there was one event that struck my heart with sheer, unadulterated terror: the annual Les Filles de Frenchmen Revue, a Mardi Gras burlesque show featuring the women who worked at the bars and restaurants in Marigny. It was considered a sexy way for our neighborhood to celebrate, and every year Tracina, one of the lead organizers, perfunctorily asked if I wanted to participate. Every year I said no. Unequivocally no. Will allowed Les Filles to use the second floor of the Café to rehearse their dances, never failing to mention that if twenty girls can stomp around upstairs without falling through the ancient floorboards, surely twenty customers quietly sitting and eating wouldn’t pose any danger either.
This year, not only did Tracina fail to ask me to participate, she also bowed out of the revue herself, citing family obligations. Will told me her brother’s condition was getting more complicated to deal with as he hit adolescence, something I tried then to keep in mind whenever I was on the cusp of criticizing her.
I was surprised when Will put the gears to me about joining Les Filles.
“Come on, Cassie. Who’s going to represent Café Rose at the Revue?”
“Dell. She has really nice legs,” I said, avoiding eye contact with him while wiping down the coffee station.
“But—”
“No. That’s my final answer.” I dumped the tray of empty milk cart
ons into the trash to punctuate my decision.
“Coward,” Will teased.
“I’ll have you know, Mr. Foret, that I’ve done a few things this year that would set your teeth chattering. It just so happens that I know the limits of my courage. And that means not shaking my tits at a crowd of drunk men.”
The night of the Revue, I was closing the Café for Tracina for the second time that week. At eight o’clock sharp, while turning over the chairs to do the mopping, I heard the dancers upstairs practicing one last time—a dozen graceful ponies set loose above my head. I could hear each “Fille” perform her individual routine for the group to raucous laughter, hooting and whistling. Those familiar feelings of loneliness and inferiority returned to me then, along with the thought that I’d be ridiculed if I ever attempted such a thing. At thirty-five, almost thirty-six, I’d be the oldest dancer next to Steamboat Betty and Kit DeMarco. Kit was a bartender from the Spotted Cat, who at forty-one could still pull off a blue pixie hair-do and denim cutoffs. Steamboat Betty manned the antique cigarette booth at Snug Harbor and performed every year wearing the same burlesque outfit she claimed to have worn for thirty-six years in a row, never failing to boast that it still—sort of—fit her. Plus, there was no way I could dance next to Angela Rejean, a statuesque Haitian goddess who worked as a hostess at Maison and was a jazz singer on the side. Her body was so perfect that it made being jealous kind of pointless.
After completing my shut-down duties, I headed upstairs to hand the keys to Kit, who had offered to lock up after they were done. The review didn’t start until after 10 p.m. The girls would rehearse up until the last minute, and in the meantime, I wanted to go home and shower off the day. I had hoped to see Will at the show, but earlier in the day, when I asked him if he and Tracina were going to attend the event, he had shrugged noncommittally.
At the top of the stairs, I stepped past a new girl, with blond corkscrew curls, sitting cross-legged on the floor holding a hand-mirror. She was applying false eyelashes with expert precision. I couldn’t tell if her hair was a wig or real, but it was mesmerizing. A dozen more girls in various stages of undress were sitting or standing about, all getting ready for the big night, coats piled on the old mattress Will kept on the floor and sometimes slept on. Besides the mattress, the only other furniture up here was a broken wooden chair, which I’d sometimes find Will straddling, lost in thought, his chin resting on the back. The Café was a big empty space, perfect for a temporary rehearsal room. We closed early, were only a few doors down from the Blue Nile, which was hosting the event this year, and the bathroom upstairs was brand-new, though still lacking a door. Several women, one topless, were craning around the bathroom mirror, taking turns applying stage makeup. Curling irons and hair straighteners were plugged in everywhere. Bright costumes, feather boas and masks added festivity to the usually dull, gray room.
I found Kit, in a strapless bra and stockings, tapping out a dance sequence, her costume hanging on the exposed brick wall like a piece of art. She had had it specially made, a white lace bodice on a black satin backdrop, with scalloped pink trim around the sweetheart-cut front-piece. The laces up the back were pink too. I reached out to touch it, but shuddered when my fingers brushed the satin, memories of being blindfolded returning to me in a hot rush. I could never pull off what Kit and the rest of the girls were about to do in front of a room full of people—not without a blindfold.
“Hey, Cass. Make sure you thank Will for letting us stay after closing. I’ll get the keys back to you at the Blue Nile,” she said, not missing a beat with her feet. “You’re coming tonight, right?”
“I never miss it.”
“You should dance with us one year, Cassie,” yelled Angela from the cluster of girls crowding the washroom.
I felt flattered by her attention, but said, “I’d make a total fool of myself.”
“You’re supposed to make a fool of yourself. That’s what makes it sexy,” she crooned.
The other women laughed and nodded while Kit gave me a little shake of her behind. “Do dykes normally dress like this?” Kit asked me teasingly.
When she came out a couple of years ago, the only person who was surprised was Will. “Typical hetero,” Tracina had said, rolling her eyes at him. “Just because she dresses sexy, you think it’s all for male attention.”
Kit had begun dressing sexier after she came out and got a steady girlfriend. And tonight she had drawn a mole by her mouth and was wearing false eyelashes and the reddest shade of lipstick I’d ever seen. She’d grown the blue pixie cutout into a longer, very attractive shag. Still, her exaggerated girlishness contrasted with her trademark cowboy boots and the black terry-cloth sweatbands that she always wore around both wrists.
“Maybe I’ll join you guys next year, Kit,” I said, kind of meaning it.
“Promise?”
“No.” I laughed.
I wished the girls luck and ducked down the stairs, but at the bottom, I realized that I had forgotten to hand Kit the keys! As I turned to run back up, I smashed headlong into Kit herself, who was heading down, probably having had the same realization. Instead of bouncing off me, she completely lost her footing and slid down the last five steps, landing butt first on the hard tile floor. Luckily, I was wearing sneakers.
“Kit!”
“Jesus crap,” she groaned, rolling over onto her side.
“Are you okay?”
“I think I broke my ass!”
I clambered down the remaining steps to her. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry! Let me help you!”
By then Angela, in four-inch stilettos, was making her way carefully down, a bright pink boa draped over her shoulders and wrapped around her wrists.
Kit lay perfectly still. “Don’t move me, Ange. Oh. This isn’t good. It’s not my ass. It’s my tailbone.”
“Oh dear!” Angela cried, crouching over her. “Can you sit up? Can you feel your legs? Are you seeing double? Who am I? Who is the president? Should I call an ambulance?”
Without waiting for a reply, Angela made her unsteady way to the kitchen phone. I watched Kit attempt to right herself, wince, and lay back down.
“Cassie,” she whispered.
I crawled closer. “What is it, Kit?”
“Cassie … this floor … is really dirty.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” I said. I was about to take her hand to console her, when I noticed her fall had caused one of her wristbands to shift, exposing a portion of a shiny gold bracelet—a S.E.C.R.E.T. bracelet! Covered in charms!
A look passed between us.
“What the—?”
“My ass is just fine, Cassie. And one more thing,” Kit whispered, crooking her finger to bring me closer. I leaned towards her lipsticked mouth. “Do you … accept your final Step?”
“Do I what? With you? I mean, you’re adorable and everything, Kit, but—”
A smile played across her lips as she sat up. “Relax, I’m not a participant. But I have been asked to nudge you forward. You’re almost there, girl. Now’s not the time to back down. Not when it’s about to get really fun!”
When we heard Angela returning from the kitchen, Kit collapsed back to the floor, fake-groaning all over again.
“This is a problem,” Angela said, hands on her hips.
“I know. I mean, who will dance in my place?” Kit asked, an arm dramatically flung over her eyes. “Who can we get on such short notice?”
“I don’t know,” said Angela.
Was she in on this too?
“I mean, who do we know who’s free tonight? And cute? And could totally fit into my costume?” Kit asked.
“Hard to say,” said Angela, never taking her mischievous eyes off me.
I’d known Kit for years, but I thought she’d always been like this: confident, dynamic, strong. To be in S.E.C.R.E.T., she must have gone through a time of great fear and self-doubt. Yet she showed no sign of that now. Then there was Angela, a stunning example of physical perfection if t
here ever was one. Yet knowing what I knew about S.E.C.R.E.T and how they pick participants, why was I still so surprised to find that when the pink boa slipped off her arms, Angela was wearing a bracelet too?
“All righty, then,” said Angela, extending her hand to help me up from where I was crouched next to Kit. “Upstairs with you, missy. We have some new steps to learn.”
“But … your bracelets? Are you two—?”
“There’ll be lots of time for questions later. Now we dance!” she said, snapping her fingers like a flamenco dancer.
“Speaking of which, where’s your bracelet?” Kit asked, brushing the dirt off her skin. She was still in her strapless bra and underwear, causing a few stray pedestrians to stop and peer into the front window of Café Rose.
“In my purse,” I said.
“Well, that’s the first thing you’re putting on. My costume is second.”
I gulped.
Angela turned me around and launched me back upstairs. When she announced to the rest of the girls that I would be taking Kit’s place in the Revue, I expected disappointment or impatience. After all, I would bring the quality of the choreography to a grinding halt. Instead they all clapped and whistled, and positioned me in a line, then helpfully and slowly modeled the first few steps of the routine. Kit, her back miraculously healed, became the ad hoc choreographer, snapping and counting in her bra and underwear. It was like the sleepover I had never been invited to, but with lingerie. When I messed up, no one scolded; they all laughed and made me feel like being an amateur would endear me to the crowd regardless of whether I would hinder their performance. Truth was, their generosity, genuine support and encouragement for this terrifying thing I was about to do brought tears to my eyes, which I was careful to stanch lest I smear my six layers of mascara Angela eventually applied. It took away some of the terror. Some.
Two hours later, one spent learning the group’s routine and the other spent with Angela helping me come up with my own, I was backstage at the Blue Nile as the crowd of mostly men streamed in and gathered around the tippy tables in front. Between bouts of practicing, and deeply panicking, I got help from one of the girls in applying the final touches, pressing on a fake mole, adjusting my stay-up fishnets. Finally, Angela stood before me, Kit’s burlesque outfit, white lace on black, draping from her fingers, the long pink ties trailing to the floor.
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