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

I shut the book again. It was wrong to read this. It was so raw. This was none of my
business. I had to stop.
After one more Step. Then I’d stop. Then I would most definitely put this book away.
I opened it randomly to the middle, ashing forward, I assumed, through pages of sexy
words:
Wow. First o, it was weird! I won’t lie. But yet it had this incredible lling eect. That’s
the only way to describe it. Like I had it all inside me. Like I couldn’t go any further and
then I found I could. I didn’t care how loud I was being. His hands were working me over
all the while. It felt so incredible! Thank God the Mansion is soundproof, or so I’m told. It
must be; otherwise everyone would know what was happening in each of these rooms. But
I’ll tell you, the best sensation came from the other guy, Olivier, who lay beneath me, my
lovely dark-haired stranger with a full arm of tattoos, who was sucking on my …
I snapped the book closed. Okay, I had to stop. This was too much. Two men? At once?
I looked to the top of the page. This was Step Five: Fearlessness. I was shocked that I felt
damp between the legs. I didn’t normally read erotic stu, and when I came across
pornography by accident, I rarely found it arousing. But this? This was all about desire. I
wanted to read the whole thing, but no, I wouldn’t. I held the book shut tight in my lap.
She didn’t seem the type, Pauline, with her short hair and her clean looks. But what’s
“the type”? What’s the furthest I’d ever gone with a man? The riskiest? A giggly handjob
in a movie theater in high school with a boy I dated when Scott and I were on a “break.”
I’d given blowjobs. Maybe not well, and not always to completion. Sexually speaking, I
was sorely inexperienced. Dixie had rolled onto her back in a posture that was
appropriately lewd.
“Oh, kitty, you’ve probably had more fun in the streets than I’ve had in my bedroom.”
I had to put the notebook away. To read any more of it would be to violate Pauline’s
privacy irrevocably, and to drive myself to distraction. I got up and almost angrily
shoved the book deep into the drawer of the telephone table by my front door. After ten
minutes, I moved it to a pocket of an old ski jacket I had brought from Michigan and left
hanging in the back of the closet. Still, the book called for me. Then I put it in the
broiler beneath the gas stove. But what if the pilot light ignited it?
I decided to put the notebook in my purse so I wouldn’t forget to bring it to work the
next day, in case Pauline came back to retrieve it. Oh God, what if she thinks I read it?
But how could I not? Well, at least I didn’t read all of it, I thought, taking the notebook
out of my purse and finally locking it in the trunk of my car.
Two days later, after the lunch rush died down, the door chimes signaled the arrival of
Pauline. My stomach lurched, like she was coming to arrest me. This time she wasn’t
with her sexy man but with a beautiful older woman, perhaps fty or a well-preserved
sixty with red wavy hair, wearing a pale coral tunic. They were both a little grim-faced
as they made their way to an empty table by the window. I smoothed down my T-shirt
and steeled myself as I approached the table. Try not to look at her too long. Try to appear