L. Marie Adeline- S.E.C.R.E.T

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 ngers brushed the satin, memories of being
blindfolded returning to me in a hot rush. I could never pull o 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 o me, she completely lost her footing and slid down the last ve 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?