Secret Shared

pink tongue flicking my nipples as my partner’s fingers fiercely massaged the knot of my clit in perfect circles, driving me crazy, releasing me, making me come, my orgasm crashing over my body in wave after wave.

“Oh … yes.”

“Hermosa,” the singer murmured.

My partner clutched me tight, his hand cupping me as I shook, then subsided. I felt faint as he kissed my shoulder and gently released me to the floor in a spent pile next to my beautiful dress.

As the band struck up a new tempo, the blonde tugged the singer into a stiff tango silhouette and they danced away from me, into the dark wings of the stage. My partner exited behind them, blowing me a singular kiss, stopping to touch the stage once with his hand, as if in gratitude.

Then he too was gone.

Good lord, what just happened?

I blinked, breathless, hearing the blindfolded band still playing as though to a full house. I felt coated in bliss, warm beneath the spotlight, my red swan dress sleeping next to the singer’s ebony feather mass. Then I saw it, small and round and glinting on the floor of the stage where my partner had placed his hand: my Step Four charm.

Hermosa.

13 CASSIE

MARK DRURY LOOKED like I’d just rolled up a newspaper and hit him on the nose.

“You don’t want to see me anymore?”

After he called twice in three days, I agreed to meet up with him at Washington Square Park after my shift. Despite a sign banning dogs and bikes, the park was a perfect place to bring both on a hot summer’s day.

“It’s not that I don’t want to see you …” I said.

“I thought we had a good time.”

“We did.”

“Then what’s up with you?”

I squinted into the middle distance, keeping my eye on a cocker spaniel puppy nipping at the leg of its owner, thinking that if Mark were a dog, that’s the breed he’d be. Will would be the stalwart chocolate lab over by the sandbox, Tracina the yappy alpha beagle holding court nearby. I’d be the flat-coated retriever under the stand of palms, the one chasing its own tail.

“Mark,” I said. “I think … you’re great.”

“Is it this Will guy?”

My shoulders sank. It was Will. Every time I made strides away from him, one look, one touch, one kiss and I was infected again.

“That’s part of it.” But the other, the part I didn’t want to tell him, was that outside of bed I thought of him as my bratty brother.

Mark placed a tender arm around me.

“Love is hard, Cassie. I know. I’m a musician.”

I almost snorted, but he was so damn endearing. I just accepted the gesture and leaned into him a little.

It had been three days since my interlude with Will in the new restaurant, since he’d pulled me into that kiss. In those three days we had sheepishly avoided each other at work, both of us over-apologizing for every awkward hallway passing, over-thanking each other for every favor of a poured coffee or a hammer handed over. Alone with me briefly in his office during a shift change, Will whispered that he wanted to get two things straight —and that it would be the last time he’d bring up what happened.

“One: I have no regrets for anything I did or said. And two: I still want you to take the job upstairs.”

“Fine,” I said, “I will. I’ll take the job, but the other? That can’t happen again. It’s not fair to me, it’s not fair to Tracina, or the baby.”

In hushed tones, both of us listening for sounds of footsteps coming down the hall, he promised no more drama, no more stolen kisses, no more sneaking around. We even shook on it, the shock of his skin electric as always. And today, looking at Mark’s attractive profile as he sat on the park bench next to me, I realized that since I didn’t have the ability to keep away from someone I really wanted or to be compelled by someone I didn’t want, I needed a man in the middle. I needed a wedge between me and Will, and me and Mark.

But the only other person who tweaked both my mind and body was Jesse, and he was cued up for a final go-around with Dauphine. Unless I could recruit a substitute. And that’s when it struck me like a marvelous bolt of lightning.

“… anyway, look, I’m just gathering adventures too, Cassie, and maybe you’re one of them. But if you’re not into this, that’s cool. No skin off my nose.”

My thoughts drifted. They were both young and brash and lanky. They both had sexy smirks. They both looked good in a white tank top, a rarity for any man other than a ’50s Marlon Brando. But while Jesse had a warmth, a kindness to him, maybe because he was a single dad, Mark was bratty. Jesse had tattoos, though I was still surprised Mark didn’t. I tried to calculate exactly when Dauphine might have her Jesse fantasy. She got back from Buenos Aires in a few days, so it would take place within a month. A wave of nervous energy ran through me. S.E.C.R.E.T. recruits were put through a battery of tests that took weeks. I had to act fast—

Mark snapped his fingers in front of my face.

“Where are you, Cassie?”

“Sorry. I’m here. The dogs … they’re so cute. I got distracted.” I turned to fully face him on the bench. “You know, I liked what you said about gathering adventures. You’re young. That’s precisely what you should be doing. You shouldn’t be tied down to one woman right now, right?”

“I guess,” he said. “But I’m a musician. We like having girlfriends. They ground us while we create.”

“Right.”

The dogs were circling each other, sniffing. I turned to look him in the eye, my mouth set in a determined line.

“So if you’re serious about ‘gathering adventures,’ I think I have one for you. It’s a big one. An incredible one. The kind of adventure you’re not going find anywhere else.”

“Or with anyone else?” he asked, leaning in to kiss me.

I held him off. “This is an adventure you’ll have … with other women. More interesting women than me. Adventurous women. If you are open to it.”

And just like that, a slow smile spread across Mark’s face. Men do have it easier, I thought. He didn’t need a preamble or assurances before taking in my proposition, the same shocking one Matilda had dropped on me, the one I had offered Dauphine a few months ago. He didn’t need to be warmed up, comforted or cajoled. He didn’t need to be gingerly approached. He didn’t have deep psychic obstacles to overcome or social conditioning to fight against. My offer didn’t cause him to question everything he had been taught about his role in the world or his sexuality. When I dangled the possibility of more sex, interesting sex, lots of sex, exactly the way he liked it and the way women liked it, he simply clasped his hands behind his head and said, “You have my attention, Cassie Robichaud. My full attention.”

Matilda wasn’t as easy to convince.

“He has to go through a vigorous screening process, Cassie. That means medical, psychological, physical —”

“He’ll pass,” I said, tearing the label clean off my beer bottle.

“That’s a sign of sexual frustration,” she said matter-of-factly, pointing out my fidgeting.

“So is this request, believe me!”

Our usual meet-up spot, Tracy’s, was quiet for a Friday afternoon. Come to think of it, my shift at the Cafe