S.E.C.R.E.T.: An Erotic Novel (24 page)

“You feel amazing,” I said.

“Right back at you … But it’s time for me to go, Cassie. Before I do, open your hand.”

I did so and felt him press a small round coin—my Step Seven charm,
Curiosity
—into my damp palm. It felt more
delicate and fragile when I couldn’t see it, like the slightest squeeze would crush
it.

“Thank you,” I said, my body still vibrating. I listened to him pad away towards the
exit.

Seconds later, he whispered his goodbye.

“Bye,” I said.

After he shut the door quietly behind him, I pulled off the blindfold and looked around
the room. It was stunning, masculine, a big oak desk in the middle and wall-to-wall
books on three sides. The thick sandalwood candles flickered on the table, where a
big bowl of oranges rested. I sat there naked, fingers combing through the hairs of
the plush bearskin rug on which I lay. The fire gradually dwindled.

As I secured my Step Seven charm to my bracelet, I wondered what he had looked like,
my new, mysterious man, the one who had gone just moments before, leaving me sated
and curious, and fully alive to myself.

A
fter my blindfold fantasy, life seemed more vivid. All of my senses were alive. I
paid greater attention to the things and people I used to ignore. As I walked, I’d
let my hands trail the gates in the Garden District, noticing the cornhusks or the
little birds carved into the wrought iron, imagining the artist creating those ornamental
touches. It used to irritate me when our regulars at the Café would take up a table
outside, order one coffee and spend the morning chatting with everyone walking by,
clogging the narrow sidewalk with dogs and bikes. Now I marveled at the early morning
intimacy of Frenchmen Street, how people from different races and ages all convened
around the same table at the Café. I felt lucky to be a part of this community. I
began, in fact, to feel at home.

Instead of just plopping his coffee in front of him, I asked the chatty old man with
the fancy carved walking stick some questions about his life. He told me about a wife
who ran off with his lawyer and the three daughters he
rarely saw. I began to understand that this man’s eccentricities were probably meant
to draw people to him, so he could talk and feel less lonely. And with a little encouragement,
Tim from Michael’s bike shop a few doors down told me some harrowing tales about surviving
the hurricanes, and about some friends who didn’t make it. “Many survived the hurricane
only to die of heartbreak after it,” he said.

And I believed him, knowing that loss and disappointment can create such pain.

New Orleans was experiencing one of the warmest winters on record, so when a volunteer
called to tell me I had won the Revitalization Ball’s raffle for a trip for two to
Whistler, British Columbia, for the weekend, I was excited. I wanted to ski again,
but mostly I needed to feel a real winter on my skin. Though I embraced the South
and was beginning to know the city in my bones, I was a Northern girl at heart.

Before leaving for my trip, I asked Anna to keep Dixie for the week in her apartment
downstairs. I didn’t want to give her access to my place in case she snooped around
and found my fantasy journal, or any other evidence that explained those mysterious
limo rides. When I told Matilda about my prize and that I’d be away, beyond telling
me to have fun and to get in touch when I was back, she didn’t say much.

Will was a little reluctant to give me the time off, but there was always a short
post-holiday lull before Mardi Gras kicked in. I reminded him that this was the perfect
time for me to take vacation days.

“I guess,” he said after I told him. He’d joined me outside
for a quick coffee after the breakfast crowd left. “Are you going alone?”

“I don’t really have anyone I could go with.”

“What about Pierre Castille?” He practically spat out the name.

“Oh, please,” I said, hopefully camouflaging the shudder I felt at hearing “Pierre”
spoken out loud. “That was nothing. In every sense of the word.”

“You cast a spell on him, Cassie. Has he been in touch?” Will made no attempt to hide
his jealousy, which now hovered over our metal patio table like a bit of sullen weather.

“No, Will, he has not. Nor do I expect him to,” I said, meaning it. I ran the hem
of my apron through my fingers, thinking how wildly curious I was about Will’s connection
to Pierre. I finally got up the nerve to ask.

“So, how well do you know Pierre exactly? And why had you never mentioned him before?”

“Holy Cross,” he said, referring to a private school for boys. “I went on scholarship.
His dad pulled some strings to get me in.”

“So you were friends as kids?”

“Best friends. For years. But time and temperament pulled us apart. Then this place
put a nail in the coffin,” he said, pointing to the condominium across the street.
“His father built Castille Development, and the Castilles built that monstrosity.
I fought against it. I lost. Don’t know why it had to be nine stories. Four, maybe
five, but they built a fucking high-rise on Frenchmen. How can city council
allow that but not allow me to have a couple dozen people eating dinner and having
drinks upstairs at Café Rose?”

“Well, there is the matter of the aging beams. And also the sixty-year-old electrical
wiring.”

“I would fix those things, Cassie, I would,” he said, then took a sip of his coffee.

“With the money you were going to donate when you bid on me at the ball?” I said.

He winced at the memory, and I was sorry to have brought it up.

“I was momentarily swept up in the proceedings.” Then, quickly changing the subject,
he added, “I’d take out a loan to do the renos. I might even qualify for an improvement
grant. Or one of those hurricane funds, maybe. I need to figure out a way to earn
more money from this goddamn building.”

I glanced across the street at the nine-story, blond-brick building, thinking that
every time Will looked at it, he probably thought of Pierre.

“I’ll miss you, Cassie.”

I couldn’t believe I’d heard what I just heard. “It’s just four days.”

“I didn’t know you skied.”

“It’s been a while. Ten years,” I said, reminded that my old skiwear was probably
horribly out of date. “You ever ski?”

“Nope. Southern boy born and bred. I’m still amazed by snow, when we get it. Take
pictures, will you?” he asked. Then adopting the deepest of Southern accents, he added,
“ ’Cause I ain’t never seen no big mountains ’afore in my
en
-tire life!”

Staring up at Whistler Mountain three weeks later, centering it through a viewfinder
for a photograph, I had to admit I’d never seen a mountain this big either. In Michigan
we skied on hills—high ones, steep ones, but hills nonetheless. They had names like
Mount Brighton and Mount Holly, but they weren’t full-on mountains. Not like this.
Despite the fact that it was a clear day, I couldn’t even see the top, and yet for
January it wasn’t nearly as cold here in British Columbia as Michigan winters could
get. In fact, I began to curse my brand-new baby-blue one-piece suit because I had
to unzip the jacket and let it collapse around my waist to get some relief from the
heat generated by the beating sun. I was sure I looked like an oddly colored tulip
with wilted petals. My white toque and white mitts soon became dotted with coffee
and hot chocolate because it took a day and a half of pacing at the foot of the mountain
before I got the nerve to take the chair to the top.

I’d spent some time in Canada, in Windsor, Ontario, in particular, because the drinking
age was lower than Michigan’s and I was dating Scott, a man who drank a lot even before
I married him. I remember for a while trying to keep up with him, but I just didn’t
like the effects of all that alcohol on my body. Still, it was the hallmark of our
courtship that everything Scott did and liked, I would find myself doing and liking
as well. He drove Fords, and so a Focus was my first car. He liked Thai food, so I
became
a fan myself. Scott was an avid skier, so I became one too. But skiing was about the
only thing he introduced me to that I actually liked and eventually became pretty
good at.

At first we skied together, Scott never more in his element than when he was telling
or showing me how to do something. But I was a willing partner,
so
wanting it to work, for us to bond and click, that I risked breaking my neck on moguls
after only three days of lessons. I was a natural, something that pleased Scott at
first and then slowly began to bother him. Eventually, while I’d hit the slopes in
the morning, Scott would stay back and keep a couch warm in front of the fire and
a brandy ready for when I returned. Skiing alone, I felt a sense of independence and
the thrill that comes from courting adrenaline rushes. I loved going fast and the
feel of my thigh muscles working hard in the cold. But this newfound hobby was short-lived.
Once Scott saw that I was actually enjoying myself, and sometimes even drawing a bit
of male attention my way, we stopped skiing altogether.

Now, trudging through Whistler’s crowded main square in my new ski outfit, I felt
some bad déjà vu, but also some good. Before Scott got sicker, I had to admit some
of our happiest days as a couple were spent on those weekend trips to the Upper Peninsula.
Maybe this is what it felt like to begin forgiving Scott, to let go of my resentment
towards him and his selfish decisions, the ones that had left me a widow at twenty-nine.
I hoped so. I was done blaming him for my aloneness, done feeling sad about it. And
on days like
today, when the sun was bright and the snow was sparkling, I could even say I loved
my life more because it was finally, completely my own. I looked up at the mountain.
I would never take this kind of beauty for granted, even if I lived here and saw this
every single day. It wasn’t just gratitude that flooded my heart at that moment, but
unadulterated joy.

“Here, let me take a picture of you in front of the mountain.”

I was startled by the voice and the hand, which before I could protest was wrapping
around my camera.

“Whoa!” I said, pulling it away. It took me a couple of seconds to take in the young
man with a dimple in his left cheek, and the shaggy brown hair peeking out from under
his black toque. I detected a slight French accent.

“I wasn’t trying to take it,” he said, his palms open to me in surrender. Then he
smiled, his teeth bright white against his sun-kissed face. “I thought you’d like
to be in the picture. My name is Theo.”

“Hi,” I said, cautiously offering a hand, the other one still holding my camera out
of his reach. He couldn’t have been more than thirty years old. But this was a face
that basked in sun and wind all day. The sexy wrinkles around brown eyes gave him
a patina of maturity despite his youth. “Cassie.”

“And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I work here. I’m a ski instructor.”

Hmm. I had been alone for two days, and I’d enjoyed those days a lot. But here was
this gorgeous man in front of
me. In all likelihood he was one of Matilda’s. I decided to cut to the chase.

“So you work here, in Whistler? Or are you one of the … 
you know …
?”

He cocked his head at my question.

“One of the … you-know-
whats
? … One of the … 
men
?”

He glanced around the crowded village square, a confused look on his face. “Well,
I am … a
man
,” he said, clearly drawing a blank.

It occurred to me then that he could be just a guy, a random guy, someone very cute
who happened to come up to talk to me, someone with no relation to S.E.C.R.E.T. at
all. This seemed less impossible to imagine, and I smiled at that thought.

“Okay,” I said. “Now
I’m
sorry. And I didn’t mean to assume you were a camera thief.” I was participating
in the Canadian pastime of apologizing to strangers, something referred to in my guidebook.