SECRET Revealed (9 page)

And just like that, I was having an imaginary fight in my head with my ex-husband, feeling all that old familiar rage, the kind that would have sent me storming back into the bathroom, slamming the door on him, yelling, “Forget it!” to which Julius would have replied, “Solange! Come ooooon. I was just
kidding!
You looked beautiful!”

Screw you, Julius
.

I snapped out of my fight.
Dammit, this is not for Julius, and truth be told, not even for Erik. This is for me!

I tore off my work clothes, selecting the full-length, black sheer negligee, carefully slipping it over my head, surprised at its sturdiness. The gauze tumbled over my legs, the empire waist cinching tightly under my breasts. I could barely look at myself in the mirror, but I forced an appraisal.

Wow. Okay
.

I not only looked sexy, I felt it.

I can do this!

A step closer changed my mind. I could see my nipples press through the material! I covered myself instinctively.

Actually I can’t do this. I can’t just step out there like this
.

I gazed over at the rack, at all the other lovely, sexy things. I thought of Erik, his arms, my fingers running through his hair. I looked at myself again in the mirror. All those years of being single, and a mother, and a
working
mother, and a
hard
-working mother, meant I had lost the ability to just
play
.

There was a gentle knock on the door.

“Solange? Are you okay in there?”

The champagne was warming my skin.

“I’ll be right out.”

I slid my feet into the heeled slippers, counted to five.
Look at you in that black negligee. Are you seriously going to go through with this?
At the last minute, I reached for the bathrobe and threw it on, covering myself up.

Baby steps.

Go! Just go
. Carefully in those heels, I walked to the door and opened it. I could see the light from the setting sun coming through the windows.

“I’m over here, Solange.”

I followed the sound of his voice, the heels making a hollow clacking sound on the wood floors. I peeked around behind the partition and found Erik bent over the top of an elaborate-looking camera mounted on a tripod, different from the small one he had used for the earlier shots. The backdrop was different too, this one dark blue, with large colorful pillows and throws strewn about a sectional that barely rose above the floor.

“Hi,” he said, looking up, his face soft.

“Hi,” I said, barely cracking a smile.

“Make yourself comfortable.”

Clutching the robe, I walked over to the pillows and cleared a space on the sectional, lowering myself like a big chicken settling into a nest. Definitely not sexy.

I was still in my bathrobe when Erik began to take pictures.

He looked over the top of the camera again. “What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing,” I said, looking around at the dark shadows, feeling horribly self-conscious. The sky was the blue of deep dusk.

“This is only my second fantasy.”

“And what about this scenario had you fantasized about?”

I cast back to the day I had filled out my folder on my kitchen table. What had I written about
Courage
? It wasn’t specifically about having sex with a handsome photographer, but I had written something about “watching myself, seeing myself” as a desirable woman.

“It was about being … watched, seen, feeling beautiful,” I said.

“Why’s that hard for you?”

“I don’t know … in my business it can distract as much as it attracts. The more beautiful you are, the less, it seems, you’re taken seriously.”

“I’m certainly taking you very seriously right now,” he said, peering over the camera intently at me.
Click, click
.

“Can I ask you something? Why are
you
doing this?”

“Why would you ask that?” he asked back, half laughing.

“It’s not like you’d have any problem meeting girls.”
There I go. The journalist in me is about to kill the chemistry
.

“No problem meeting girls. They’re everywhere.”
Click
. “On the other hand, I don’t really meet a lot of
women
,” he said, adding, “How about this. Instead of telling you why I’m doing this, let me show you.”

My head swam with that proposition.

“Starting with that bathrobe. Let’s lose it, Solange. And then I want you to just ignore me. And relax back onto the couch.”

Maybe it was how commanding he was, or maybe because the light was dimming and flattering and the puffy sectional so comfortable, but I found myself tugging free of the terry-cloth robe and tossing it to the side. I rested on my side, on an elbow, in that black negligee, my hand on my still-churning stomach.

At first, I didn’t know where to look, how to be. And then … I began to relax. I closed my eyes and lay back against the pillows. After I’d stretched and lounged for a few minutes, he stopped and flopped next to me on the sectional holding the camera. He smelled delicious, a deep citrusy musk. His warm arm brushed against mine as he positioned his viewfinder in front of me, cueing up images.

“I want you to see yourself.”

And there I was, or someone resembling me, now bathed in a gorgeous light; my skin seemed to glow, velvety shadows hugging my curves. Then I saw my dark nipples pressed against the sheer fabric. I covered the viewfinder with my hand, my pulse racing.

“Wow,” I said. “You realize because of my job, you’ll have to destroy these.”

He smiled.

“I wanted you to see what I see when I look at you. Let’s do some more,” he said, springing off the seat next to me.

There was that familiar tug, that ache behind my belly
button. I was becoming aroused. Having the courage to reveal this side of me to someone was turning me on.

“Feeling a bit bolder?”

I nodded.

“Do you want to try something else on? Or take something else off?”

What a choice!

“I’ll … check out that rack again,” I said, unsure if I wanted to delay, or draw this out. What did it matter? I was getting into this.

I practically trotted to the bedroom and flicked through the rack feeling a little more daring. I pulled out a pale pink bra laced with gray ribbons and matching bottoms. The bra gave me the kind of cleavage I normally never flaunted. I threw on a matching gray gauzy wrap over the ensemble, deciding to go barefoot with this outfit. That’s why he didn’t hear me approach the partition, behind which he was now tinkering with filters, adding some kind of scrim over the lightbox.

He looked up. I let my hands drop to my sides, allowing the wrap to gape open so he could take me in.

Courage
.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, nodding to indicate that I should take my position on the sectional again.

His eyes never left me as I folded down into the pillows. When he approached the sectional, I rolled onto my back, locking my gaze on his. He stood over me, his camera clicking away.

“Open the robe,” he said, his voice guttural, urgent. “Good. Now move your hands down your body.”

My eyes closed, I let my hands drift over my breasts and down my sides.

“Like that … yes.”

My hands moved across my stomach then stopped at my panties. I opened my eyes and met his gaze again. He was kneeling before me. Reaching out with his free hand, he clasped my fingers and pressed them under my elastic band, urging me to touch myself. I slid my fingers down, astonished at how wet I was.

“Tell me what you feel like,” he said, now nearly straddling me, snapping pictures.

I stretched back, embarrassed, pressing my face into a pillow next to me, and all the while my fingers were moving around under my silk panties.

“I’m … wet,” I mumbled, finally. “Very.”

“Yeah? Show me,” he said, his eyes on my hand.

I hesitated.

“Those pictures. You can’t ever …” I warned.

“They’re yours. Don’t worry. When we’re done, you get every frame. I promise. Remember,
courage
, my love.”

I eased my panties off, pushing them down my thighs, kicking them to the floor. My knees together, I placed my hands inside my thighs and turned my head away again. I just … couldn’t believe I was
doing
this! Marsha would be shocked! Let alone Julius!

Erik positioned himself at the foot of the sectional. As
I spread my legs, he began to click his camera, transfixed. My hands drifted back up. I shrugged off the gray wrap. Then I arched and undid the bra, tossing it over my shoulder. My hands replaced my bra and I found myself squeezing my breasts and writhing, his reaction to this surprisingly turning me on.

“That’s it, Solange. That’s it,” he murmured, inching closer.

I sat up feeling emboldened.

“What about you, Erik?”

He stopped and placed the camera back on the tripod next to us, adjusting the lens to face us, clicking on a button.

“We’re rolling video on this, okay?”

I took a deep breath. Could I do this? Yes. I could. I nodded and he drew his hands away from the camera. He pulled his T-shirt over his head, showing off a smooth, rippled torso.

“Take everything off,” I said, in
my
voice, with words coming from
my
mouth. Courage indeed.

He gave me a wry smile as he undid his jeans, stopping momentarily to fish a condom out of the front pocket, tossing it next to me. For such a large man, his body was lean, compact, smooth. He had a smattering of scars, a dramatic one on a pectoral, just below his rib cage. He noticed me noticing it.

“I was a fencer,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow.

“A shitty one,” he added.

I laughed. Naked, he began a slow crawl up my body. Now he was on all fours above me, his hair falling forward,
and I pressed my whole self deep into the cushion below, shrinking, my nerves now on fire.
Could I go through with this
?

“Touch my scar,” he whispered, taking my hand and bringing it to his warm stomach, now rising and falling with his own quickening breath.

My fingers traced his soft line of hair, following the scar’s jagged ridge of flesh, then trailing it down to his erection, stiff and insistent.

“Oh yeah,” he murmured, closing his eyes.

I gathered him in my hands. The way he winced, his lip curling back, that’s what got me going. He stood up and tugged my ankles down, parting my legs around his knees. His kissed me, his body undulating over mine, both my hands now cupping his erection, caressing more urgently. He took my breasts into his hot, wet mouth and devoured them; this man was hungry for me. Looking down at my body through his disheveled hair, I knew where he was heading and what he wanted to do to me.

He took me by the waist with both hands. He made the moment linger, before sliding them under my ass cheeks, lifting them lightly, reverently, his fingers going from soft to firm as he spread me open to begin his feast. His tongue found my groove, gathering my lips in his, slicking me down. It was shocking and incredible. What is it about a stranger that lets you abandon all your rules and regulations? Or maybe it was
this
particular stranger, all appetite and want.

I moaned, my face pressed sideways into the pillows. The heat radiated through my body, made my skin prickly
with desire. I peeked over my breasts as he stopped and felt around with one hand for the condom packet, the other hand still beneath me, then brought it to his mouth. He ripped it open and slid it on. I squeezed my eyes shut and could feel the head of his erect cock prodding into me, inching in, all the way in, his hands now gripping my hips hard as he began his slow, gorgeous assault on me. I saw nothing else against the black backdrop of my eyelids, but I felt everything … So
this is what it’s like to be fucked hard and well by a beautiful man …

And this is what it looks like …

Later, in the safe confines of my bedroom, popcorn resting in a bowl next to me, the volume on my laptop low, I skipped fast through the stills Erik had taken of me, past the ones of me posing in the lingerie—some that I liked, some that made me wince and slap the screen shut. Then I came upon the naked shots, the ones with my legs spread, my whole body willing, eyes hungry.
Oh my god, look at me!

I screamed into my pillow from joyful mortification.

And then I queued up the video, fast-forwarding to the part where Erik opened my thighs wide, hovering over me for a second to take it all in, his back muscles flinching, the close-up as he dipped to lick and suck my clit, my fingers pushing through his hair, my eyes closed.
Holy Christ, the look on my face!
Pure sexual ecstasy. Here it was: the reason men like to watch.
I
did
look delicious, didn’t I. His head between my thighs, and oh, when he turned me over onto my knees (a not unflattering angle, if I may say), how he fucked me furiously, and how I clenched and stiffened before I came. I was peering at all of this over the top of my sheets, my face lit by the blue screen, my eyes big like saucers.