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

They always say that the rst step is the hardest. That rst surrender, the rst time you
say: Yes, I accept that I need help. I can’t do this alone. Scott struggled with that when
he gave up drinking. He hated the idea that he had to accept help from anything or
anyone. So he fought it, whatever it was. Yet, here I was in full surrender. I had stopped
fighting. I had accepted help from a strange group of women.
Then I walked into a room bathed in candlelight, wearing only a towel. I let that towel
drop around my ankles, and I bared myself. I trusted this process, this man, this
S.E.C.R.E.T. group. But everything that had happened occurred in my home, in my
living room, and though it was my body, I gave it over only temporarily to a complete
stranger. As I recounted this a week later to a rapt Matilda, I couldn’t help but feel I was
talking about my experience as if it had happened to another person, someone I knew
very well but who had aspects I was only just beginning to understand.
I told Matilda I had felt safe, that what we did was erotic, and I was beyond compelled
to complete the fantasy. And for a one-time thing, I had to admit I had felt wanted,
desired, which of course makes any woman feel ecstatic.
“So, yes. I was … transformed, I guess,” I said, burying my burning red face in my
hands, suppressing a giggle. A few weeks ago, I had had no one to talk to, unless you
counted Will. Now, here I was sharing intimate secrets with a woman I could no longer
call a stranger. In fact, I had to admit she was becoming my friend.
During the weeks that followed my first fantasy, I was as busy as I had ever been. I even
took on a couple of night shifts so Tracina and Will could go on dates. When I waved
goodbye to them one of those nights, I couldn’t detect an ounce of jealousy or bitterness
in my bones. Well, maybe a droplet of jealousy, but no bitterness. No longing. No
detectable sadness. I had made a vow to be nicer to Tracina, to try to see what Will saw
in her. Maybe we’d become friends, too, I thought, and Will could make another attempt
to set me up with someone—after I’d completed my Steps, of course. At that moment,
while I was thinking about double dating, Dell caught me whistling in the walk-in
fridge. I sometimes stood in there for a few minutes to cool down, all the while
pretending to look for something.
“What are you so happy about, girl?” she asked, lisping through her missing tooth.
“Life, Dell. It’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“Not always, no.”
“I think it’s pretty grand,” I said.
“Well, goody for you,” she said as I headed back to the dining area. I left her scooping
out ice cream for a small birthday gathering of bankers.
My couple, my favorite fawning duo, hadn’t returned since the night Pauline dropped
her journal. But thoughts of their caresses were now replaced by lightning ashbacks,