Erotique: Carrie

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Normally Carrie is a very responsible person…but she still likes to walk the line every now and then. That’s when Carrie visits Erotique, a private club where members don costumes and use false names to explore their secret fantasies. For Carrie, it’s a chance for the suburban mom to feel like a sex goddess—especially when a certain masked man is waiting for her…

I wrap a silk scarf around my neck and button my coat all the way to the top. Then I leave the bedroom and, in black stocking feet, go down the hall to the kids’ room. Erin and Josie are tucked up under the covers, listening intently while Mel, the sitter, reads a Winnie the Pooh story.

Dropping kisses on my daughters’ foreheads, I inhale their freshly washed sweetness. “Lights out when Mel finishes this one. Right, girls?”

They wrinkle up their noses in protest and I glance over at the diminutive college student sitting cross-legged in a chair. In her pink Juicy sweats, shiny black hair pulled into a ponytail, she doesn’t look all that much older than my seven-and nine-year-old kids.

She grins. “I hear you, Carrie. I’ve got a paper for English Lit that’s due Monday so I need to put in a few hours’ work. It’s okay if I use the computer in the family room?”

“Of course.”

Mel, who lives across the street, is the ideal

babysitter. She loves the girls and, despite her youthful appearance, is totally disciplined and reliable.

Sometimes, on these special Saturday nights, I feel almost as if she, at nineteen, is the adult and I, who’ll be thirty-five next month, the wild and crazy teen.

But, hey, I know myself, and self-knowledge is a sign of maturity, isn’t it? I am a responsible person. It’s just that being responsible all the time gets to be a little dull. There’s a side of me that craves excitement.

I’d never do anything really unsafe, but I do, on occasion, like walking the line.

And that’s what I’m doing now.

Tonight I’m going to Erotique. It’s a private club, a three-story building behind an unmarked door off an alley. I’d tell you which alley, but members are sworn to secrecy. Once inside that black door, we wear masks and costumes, use false names.

Silly? I don’t think so. Let’s be honest. Doesn’t each one of us have a secret urge, every now and then, to become someone else? To play X-rated games? To explore parts of our personality that normally we keep hidden away?

Why repress that urge, feel frustrated? Isn’t it healthier to let it come out and play? I honestly feel my life is more balanced, and I’m happier and more fulfilled since I joined Erotique. Hmm. Who needs therapy when you can join a sex club?

The doorbell rings. My cab has arrived. I gather up my very expensive shoes and hurry downstairs.

Stepping into the shoes and out the front door, I feel as if I’m beginning the transformation from suburban mom to erotic temptress. Once I slip into the backseat of the cab, I carry on with the process, applying dramatic makeup that’s completely unlike the subtle kind I normally wear. Makeup that makes my smoky gray eyes look enormous and sultry, my full lips pouty and sensual.

Then I pull the pins out of my hair, let it slide free and brush it to a sheen. At home and work, I confine my hair in a neat twist, practical and out of the way. But when I visit Erotique—which I do every six to eight weeks, always on a Saturday night—I let my hair down. Figuratively and literally.

My hair, by the way, is gorgeous. No, I’m not being vain, merely accurate. It’s glossy as a raven’s wing, but not a pure indigo; it’s on the brown side of black. Like the deepest shade of mink. It’s neither wavy nor straight, but somewhere in between. Unconfined, it falls halfway down my back, shimmering like a succession of tiny midnight ripples against the shore.

Men love it. They want to bury their faces in it, grip it in their hands, feel it tumble across their bellies and caress their cocks.

When I visit Erotique, I wear tops with low necklines, front and back. My hair caresses the upper curves of my breasts, and I know men imagine brushing it away, replacing it with their fingers. The same with my back. They want to part the curtain of hair, find the naked skin beneath.

For a suburban mom to feel like a sex goddess is heady stuff. I revel in every minute of it. Just feeling the silky brush of my hair across my cheek as I open my purse to take out my wallet fuels my anticipation.

My cab has arrived at that unmarked door. After paying, I secure my lacy black mask in place. It conceals enough of my face that, together with my flowing hair, exaggerated eye makeup and lipstick that’s seductress red rather than my usual subdued coral, not even a neighbor or acquaintance would recognize me. Not that any of them are likely to know about this club, but still I prefer to play it safe.

The alley is maintained and guarded by Erotique staff, and now it’s deserted but for the tuxedo-clad bruiser at the door. A sharp autumn wind blasts through, but despite the chill I stand there a moment, savoring the promise of what is to come. My body is aroused, nerve endings buzzing. I am a cat in heat, on the prowl, and I know satisfaction waits behind that nondescript door. What I don’t know is what form it will take tonight.