Before he could do something foolish he rose, buried the book the way he'd found it, snapped off her light and went down and turned on the television. All this very abruptly. He sat through three commercials and one act of a show he didn't recognize before going back upstairs and pulling the diary out again. He told himself that this was different, that he was different, that he wasn't out to use anything he read against her.
She had used up so many pages last Fourth of July that he didn't waste time counting them.
“Today was a day of discovery.
“For once we were going to be all together and have a family picnic out at Lake Independence. As usual, Daddy got blind drunk and ruined everything. Mom and I had the picnic all packed when she changed her mind and called Uncle Frank to say we wouldn't be coming. One thing led to another, and Daddy accused Mom of making him the family scapegoat when all he'd had was a couple shots. Ha! He started in on her and I stepped in, so he aimed his attack at me, calling me the usual, only it was worse this time because I was wearing my bathing suit, all ready to take off for the lake. I took it as long as I could, but finally retreated to my room to contemplate Life's Injustices.
“Bobbi called in the late afternoon and said she and Stu were going to Powderhorn to watch fireworks and how would I like to come along with a friend of Stu's. If it hadn't been such a miserable day, I might not have gone. But it was, and I did, and now I'm not sure if I should have.
“His name was Clay Forrester, and when I first met him I'm afraid I made an absolute fool of myself by staring. What a face! What hair! What everything! His eyes were gray and he seemed a little brooding at first, but as the night went on, he smiled more. His eyebrows are not exactly the same. The left one quirks up a little more and gives him a teasing look at times. His chin has the suggestion of a dimple. His hair was the color of autumn leaves—not the reds, not the yellows, but the ones in between, like some maples, maybe.
“When Stu introduced us, Clay was just standing there with his thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets and all he said was Hi and smiled and just like that my heart hit my throat. I wondered if he could tell.
“What happened was insane. I'm not sure if I believe it yet. We walked around Powderhorn with this huge jug of wine, taking turns sipping, and waiting for full dark. I remember that we laughed a lot. Bobbi and Stu were ahead of us, holding hands, and sometimes Clay's shoulder bumped mine and shivers went up my arm. By the time the fireworks started, we were all nearly as high as they were!
“It turned out there were blankets in the truck and pretty soon Bobbi and Stu disappeared with one of them. I remember just the way Clay stood there with the bottle of wine in one hand and the handle of the truck door in the other. He asked if I wanted to sit in the truck and watch the fireworks or use the other blanket. I still can't believe I really answered, 'Let's use the blanket' but I did.
“We sat down under a huge tree with lacy black branches, and Clay pulled the cork out of the wine bottle with his teeth and spit it high in the air and we both laughed. I remember thinking how different it felt, getting drunk, when you were the one doing it instead of watching somebody else.
“He was leaning on one elbow, stretched-out-like on the blanket, resting the bottle on the ground between us when he leaned over and put an arm around my neck and pulled me over to kiss me the first time, and somehow my breast came up against his hand and the neck of that bottle. 'Fireworks,' he whispered in my ear afterward. He put his hand under my hair and held me there, moving the back of his hand and the top of the bottle against me. I guess I said 'Yeah' or something, just to see what'd happen. What happened was that he said “Come here' and put his other arm around me, wine and all, and pulled me over there beside him and stretched out. I went willingly, remembering the names that Daddy had called me that morning, thinking to myself that maybe I'd prove him right.
“Clay took his time. He was some kind of a kisser. I've kissed boys before but this was different. And I've been pulled tight against guys before, but somehow they always were panting and clumsy and overeager and I was repelled. I waited for that to happen again, but it didn't. Instead, when I stretched out beside Clay, he gave me all the time I needed to make up my mind. I had it made up long before he pressed himself against me. I could feel the wine bottle bump against my back, cold through my shirt compared to his tongue, warm in my mouth. Lazy, it was at first, lazy and slow. I remember the feeling of his teeth against my own tongue, and the taste of wine in both of our mouths together. I remember him using his lips to urge me to open my mouth wider, then the feel of his tongue exploring me made me go all barmy and warmy. Funny thing was, while he did it, he loosened his hold on me and I found myself lying there drifting into submission more from his lack of force than the presence of it. At last he nudged himself away and collapsed onto his back with a wrist over his eyes. He was still holding onto the wine bottle with the heel of it against the ground, rocking it back and forth.
“He said something like 'Whew, you're good at that.' Did I say “So are you' or not? I don't remember. I only know I felt all loose and woozy, and by then my heart was pounding between my legs and both of us were breathing so hard you could hear it above the boom of the fireworks.
“I think it was me who said I needed more wine, and I think it was him who said he needed less. Anyway, we both laughed then and when the wine bottle was corked up again and not hindering him, he pulled me over half on top of him and this time the kisses were harder and hotter and wetter and both of our bodies were doing a lot of talking. He rolled me onto my back, lying half across me and I remember thinking how secure it felt to have somebody hold me that way. It seemed to take away the hurt of the awful things Daddy was always yelling at me. It was like coming home ought to feel, or like Christmas, or like all the best scenes from all the best movies all rolled into one. He flattened me with the length of his body and began moving, moving, moving against my hips, kissing me all over my face. Once he broke away and groaned, “Oh, God,' but I wouldn't let him go. I pulled him back on top of me and made him not stop. Maybe if I hadn't done that, things would have eased up a little. But by that time I didn't want them to ease up.
“'Hey, listen, I think we're both a little drunk,' he finally said, and rolled off of me. But I found the wine bottle and said, 'Not yet.' Then I took a mouthful of wine and leaned over and kissed him and when his mouth opened, I let the wine drizzle into it. He took the bottle and sat up and filled his mouth, pushed me onto my back again and did what I'd just done to him. The wine was warm from the inside of his mouth. When I swallowed it, he bathed my lips with his tongue, running it over them like a mother cat washes her kitten. And before I knew what was happening, he ran his tongue down my jaw and laced his fingers through my hair and forced my head back. Then I felt the neck of the bottle against my own neck and the cool trickle of the wine as he poured it in the hollow of my arched throat.
“Crazy! I thought. We're crazy! But I felt like my pores were alive for the first time ever while he lapped the wine from my neck, then he moved up to continue kissing me under my jaw, intentionally touching me nowhere else, I think.
“I remember the pulsing happening in my body in places where I wished he'd pour the wine and cool me off. But I knew pouring the wine wouldn't really cool me off, and anyway, I didn't want to be cooled. When his tongue left me again, my hand groped for the wine bottle and he played along, letting me take my turn at drinking from him. I made him lie on his side and we were both giggling terribly while I tried to pour wine into his ear and he said, 'What are you doing?' and I said, “Deafening you' and he said, “What?' and I said, “Deafening you!' and he said, 'What?' again, louder and louder and we were laughing and I was taking wine from his ear with the tip of my tongue. Only most of it had gone running down behind it and into the soft hair at the back of his neck and I followed it and we laughed and laughed.
“When it was his turn again, he teased me by pretending to consider for a long, long time, and fin
ally he rolled me onto my stomach and said, 'Pick your hips up off the blanket a little.' I did and felt him pull my shirttails out of my jeans. Next I felt the wine run into the hollow of my spine before he slipped his arm under me and held me up a little while taking the wine off my back. And always we were laughing, laughing, even when he lay down on top of me and started kissing the back of my neck, using his hips from behind to tease me, while I pleaded breathlessness with his weight on top of me that way.
“My turn next, and there was only one place I could think of—if you could call it thinking by that time, my mind was so fuzzy. We were kissing when I pushed him onto his back again. Then I sat up and boldly unbuttoned his shirt and—like he'd done to me—pulled it out of his jeans. I poured my turn into the shallow valley between his ribs, and tried to lap it up before it ran down to his stomach, but of course I couldn't and we started giggling foolishly, getting hotter all the time, avoiding the final confrontation with this silliness we'd somehow cooked up together. I've read about different kinds of foreplay before, but this one beat anything I'd ever read about.
“Next it was his turn, and suddenly the giggling stopped. He unbuttoned my blouse in the flashes from the fireworks, and without uttering a word, poured wine in my navel, and ever so slowly pushed the cork into the bottle and threw it far away onto the grass someplace. He leaned over and no sooner had I felt his tongue on my stomach than he got both arms around my hips some way, and we rolled back and forth with his face against my stomach, and one of his hands swept up and down from the small of my back to the back of my thighs, and I knew what would happen if I didn't stop him, so I reached down to pull at his shoulders, but he rolled over and pinned the bottom half of me down, kissing his way around the waist of my jeans. Then he tried to open the snap with his teeth. Finally I managed to make him come up and join me, stretched out again. But my blouse was opened and he had my bra off before his lips got to mine. Again we were flattened against each other and his skin felt so good against mine. He ground himself against me and I ground right back. He raised his knee and pressed it high between my legs and I clung to him, to the very, very good and right feeling of being close that way to another human being.
“He had a way of moving his hands over my breasts that made me forget all the names Daddy had ever called me, that made me feel utterly right to lie there beneath his touch, letting his knee ride hard and high between my thighs, letting him pull one of my legs over his hip until we were as close to joined as it's possible to be when you're both still wearing jeans.
“Once he whispered, 'Hey, listen, are you sure you want to do this?' and something about him not usually doing this with strangers and I think I stopped his words with my mouth and then his hand plunged down into the back of my jeans and I gave him every permission with the movement of my body. Names Daddy had called me came teasing, but somehow they didn't apply. I wanted that closeness, needed it like nothing I had ever needed in my life. And when Clay zipped down my zipper and tucked the backs of his fingers against my bare skin, I sucked in my stomach to make it easier for him. His hand moved down and I closed my eyes and lay there pretending that at last somebody loved me. Who was I at that minute? Was I some heroine from a forgotten childhood film or was I myself, the me that had gone without affection all her life? I think maybe I was a little of each, for I knew a treasured feeling that could only happen in the movies. At least, I'd always believed it only happened in the movies, yet here it was, happening to me. I felt like all nineteen years of my life had been pointed to this moment, to this man who was showing me that there was more than hate in this world, there was love too. He called me Cat then. 'Ah, Cat,' he said, 'you feel good' and I was sure that he could feel me throbbing, touching the inside of me that way, and I wanted to say to him that I'd never felt that way before, not ever, not even close. But I didn't. I only closed my eyes and let everything in me swim toward his touch until my body thrust against his hand of its own accord, and I knew my mouth hung slack but could not seem to close it. I seemed to forget how to kiss even, but lay there beneath his kiss nearly unaware of it, for its adequacy seemed to pale compared to the sensations that wanted completion in the lower half of my body. And the wine led my hands to search his hard hips, feeling them pull away, giving me consent, freedom, space.
“The heat of him was a surprise and I felt awkward and graceful, both at once, knowing this was what I was expected to do, yet unsure of how to go about it. At my touch he grunted, pressed closer against my hand, moved sinuously. 'Go ahead, Cat,' he said in my ear and his breath on my neck was equally as hot as the beating of his blood through denim.
“I did it, in slow motion, I think, fearing with every opening tooth of his zipper that somehow my father would know what I was doing. Then I put him from my mind. No, that's not true. I didn't have to put him from it, because thoughts of him and everything else fled when I touched Clay Forrester for the first time. Whatever I had expected, I had not expected such heat. Neither had I expected the silkiness. But he was both hot and silky and I had enough sanity about me to marvel at the fluid way he could move, his thrust and ebb making me feel the experienced one holding his flesh in my hands, when I feared being naive and inexpert.
“When I used to imagine making love, I always thought it must be awkward and clumsy. First times are bound to be, I thought. But it wasn't. Instead, it was easy and as graceful as any dance. When he came into me, he called me Cat again, plunging deep while little of the discomfort I'd been led to expect happened. I learned that my body had had some hidden knowledge all along that my mind had not, for it undulated and surprised me and pleased Clay (I think) and it really was like the ballet, each movement so in tune with the other. It was effortless and natural and rhythmic, and would be beautiful to watch, I thought later. But when we were soaring everything came clear, and I suddenly knew why I was doing it. I was doing it to get even with Daddy, and maybe even Mom.
“In the middle of it all, my muscles suddenly lost motion and I only clung to Clay and let him finish without me. I wanted to cry out loud, 'Why didn't you love me? Why didn't you hug me? Why did you make me do this? You see, it's not so hard to touch, to be tender. Look, a total stranger can show me all this, why couldn't you? I didn't want much, just a smile, a hug, a kiss sometime to know you approved of me.' I wanted to cry then but made myself not. And maybe I hung onto Clay too tight, but that's all. I'll show them! I'll show them all!”
The room was a circle of dark around the lightblot shining over the cluttered tabletop. The words on the page became hazy and Clay's hand shook as he replaced the diary where he'd found it. He propped his elbows on the typewriter and pressed his lips against his folded hands. His eyes closed. He tried to gulp down the lump in his throat but it stubbornly remained. He dropped his face into his palms, picturing a father reading that from his daughter. Further, he tried to conceive of a father so devoid of emotion as to fail to respond to such a cry for love. His mind wandered back to the evening he'd first learned that Catherine expected his child. Vividly he recalled her stubborn refusal to ask anything of him, and for the first time he thought he understood. He thought he understood, too, why she had done such a convincing job during the wedding and reception. I'll show them! I'll show them all! He felt a new and oppressive weight of responsibility that he'd not known until now. He recalled her aversion to being touched, her defensiveness, and realized why it was so necessary for her to build such a barrier around herself. He pictured her face the few times he'd seen it genuinely happy, knowing now the reasons for her quicksilver changes and why she had been striving so hard to remain independent of him.
His elbows hurt. He realized he'd been sitting for a long time with them digging into the sharp edges of the typewriter. He opened his eyes and the light hurt them. Listlessly he rose and turned off the lamp, wandered into the bedroom and fell on the bed. He lay there with his mind reeling and groping, waiting for her return.
Clay heard her come in, sat up, wondering how t
o treat her, an odd sensation, for now his concern was with her, not with himself. When he came downstairs, she was sitting with her coat still on, her head laid back against the davenport, eyelids closed but quivering.
“Hi,” he said, stopping way across the room from her.
“Hi,” she said, without opening her eyes.
“Something wrong?” The lamplight shone on her wind-strewn hair. She hugged her coat very tightly around herself and turned the collar up around her jaw.
“The baby died.”
Without another word he crossed the room, sat down on the arm of the davenport and put a hand on top of her hair. She allowed it but said nothing, showed no signs of the heartbreak and fear that bubbled inside her. He moved his hand, rubbing in warm circles upon her hair, then smoothing it down in wordless communion with her. She swallowed convulsively. He wanted desperately to kneel down before her and bury his head in her lap and press his face to her stomach. Instead, he only whispered, “I'm sorry.”
“They said its l-lungs were underdeveloped, that wh-when a baby comes early there's always a ch-chance of . . .” But her sentence went unfinished. Her eyes opened wider than normal, focused on the ceiling and he waited for only a single sob, but it never came. He tightened his fingers gently on the back of her neck—an invitation to avail herself of him in whatever way she needed. He could tell how she needed to be held and comforted but she overcame it and sprang up, away from his touch, jerking her coat off almost angrily.
He stopped the coat while it drooped yet over her shoulder blades, grasping her upper arms from behind, expecting her to yank free of his touch. But she didn't. Her head sagged forward as if her neck had suddenly gone limp.