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

The ones who’ve vexed you, and who’ve left you with lingering thoughts of them. Those
men.”
“Who? Which ones? They’re here?” I almost yelled.
Matilda clapped a hand over my mouth. The cold dread pooling in my gut was quickly
replaced by nausea.
She gave me a look. “Well, obviously you know who one of them is.”
“Pierre?”
My heart leapt at his name. Matilda nodded, a little too somberly, I thought.
“Who else?”
“Who else had you swooning?”
I ashed back to tattooed esh, a white tank top lifted to expose a rippled
stomach … the way he laid me across that metal table … I closed my eyes and
swallowed.
“Jesse.”
I was sure I’d never see either of them again, hence my ability to behave with such
abandon. Knowing they’d be in the audience, I was certain I’d freeze.
“But do Pierre and Jesse know about each other? And am I supposed to pick one of
them and reject the other? I don’t know if I’m comfortable with this, Matilda. In fact, I
know I’m not. I can’t go through with this. I can’t.”
“Listen to me. They don’t know about each other. All they know is they’ve been invited
to a legendary burlesque show along with the rest of the community. They have no idea
you’re performing. And they won’t know it’s you onstage.”
“How are they not going to know it’s me?”
She reached into her purse and pulled out a Veronica Lake–style platinum blond wig.
She spun it around on her fist.
“First, you’re going to be wearing this,” she said. Reaching back into the bag, she
added, “And one of these.” She pulled out a sleek, black cat’s-eye Mardi Gras mask.
“Remember, Cassie. You’re playing a part,” she said, speaking slowly and deliberately
while expertly fastening the wig over my hair. “You can be nervous up there. The old
Cassie might have thought she’s not worthy of the attention, or that she’s not beautiful
or sexy enough to pull it o. But the woman wearing this wig and this mask would
never think that. And the men watching her would never believe it. Because she knows
not only that she can captivate a man, but also that she’s got the whole room in the
palm of her hand. There,” she said, carefully placing the mask over my eyes and
stretching the elastic around the back of my head and releasing it.
“Gorgeous. Now, go be this woman!”
What woman was she talking about? I wondered—until moments later I smacked into
her in the backstage mirror.
The girls were gathered in front of it, making last-minute adjustments to their
costumes, hair and makeup. I stood among them, equal to them, I thought, no better or
worse, just someone taking joy in my body. Just then, Steamboat Betty muscled her way
to the front of the pack to aggressively adjust her breasts in her bodice.
“The girls are restless tonight,” she said, probably not referring to Les Filles de