I swallowed. “Yes, of course I’ve noticed.”
Smiling, he put one knee on the bed. Alarmed at what I saw briefly before my eyes took flight again, I drew into a tighter knot inside and inched farther away on the bed. “Audrina, you’re shivering. It’s not cold in here. Don’t be frightened. We love each other. I’ve kissed you, embraced you, and a few times I’ve dared a bit more and was quickly reprimanded. There’s more to making love than all that combined.” His low voice sounded worried. “You do know what this is all about, I hope …?”
Yes, I knew. Perhaps too much. I stared toward the windows, sickeningly terrified. The faint and distant sound of thunder filtered into our room. With the approaching electrical storm came a new flood of terror, bringing with it visions of the dark woods overhung with leaden skies. Like it had been in the First Audrina’s room, I felt the ominous threat of what lay ahead.
Rain, oh, please, God, don’t let it rain tonight!
Fraction by fraction he moved closer. I could sense him in every pore. I breathed his special male aroma, felt his nakedness, felt my own vulnerability beneath my nothing nightgown. My skin seemed to wake up and turn into a zillion antennae, each almost invisible hair quivering, warning me to do something and do it quickly. Back, back, I was going back to the rocking chair when it had frightened me, before I learned how to escape the horror of the woods. I felt myself rocking, heard a childish voice singing, saw the spiders spinning, saw the eyes of the stuffed animals glinting, heard the floorboards squeaking. The wind was blowing and soon the lightning would flash and the thunder would crash.
Arden said something sweet. Why couldn’t I hear clearly? “I love you,” I heard him say again, his voice coming to me as if through a dream. My heart thudded so loudly that I hardly heard him above the noise of all that was happening inside of me.
Very close now, Arden turned on his side and tentatively put out his hand to lightly touch my upper arm. His fingertips brushed the left side of my breast. Don’t, don’t, I wanted to yell. I lay there speechless with fright, my eyes so wide they began to ache. My mouth became very dry.
He cleared his throat and moved so his flesh was against mine, hot flesh, bristly with hair. His lips, even hotter and moist, brushed over mine. I shrank into the pillow, trying to choke back a scream. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Have you stopped loving me already, Audrina?”
An excuse came to me from one hole in my memory. Momma saying to Papa she was too tired. “I’m just so tired, Arden. It’s been a long day. My aunt died this morning. Why can’t you just hold me in your arms tonight and tell me you love me over and over again, and then, perhaps, I won’t feel so ashamed.”
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he said lightly, though I sensed his tenseness. “You’re feeling like lots of brides feel, so I’ve been told. Since you’re my first, and I hope my last, I can’t speak from experience.”
I wanted to ask him if I was the first girl he’d taken to bed, but I was afraid he’d say no. I wanted him to be just as inexperienced as I was; then, contrarily, I wanted him to know exactly what to do to make me like what I was sure I would hate. If I really knew he’d waited to have sex with me first, that would prove he loved me enough.
His fingers lightly trailed a pattern up and down my arm as he leaned above me, forcing me to close my eyes. Hadn’t I heard my own mother say that boys were always more ready than girls for sex? Joking with my aunt at the time, with Aunt Mercy Marie, too, as she sat smiling vacuously on the piano.
Now his hands dared more, venturing to fondle my breasts before his fingers arrowed in more specifically. They began to circle round and round my nipples, which were only lightly covered by the thin fabric. I shivered, cringed away and wearily asked, “Have you ever had sex before?”
“Did you have to ask that at a time like this?”
“Is it the wrong thing to ask?”
His sigh sounded exasperated. “There are differences between men and women, some say. Maybe that’s true, and maybe it’s not. A woman can live out her life happily without sex, so I’ve heard said, but a man has a buildup of sperm that has to be released in one way or another. The most pleasurable way is with the woman he loves. Loving is sharing, Audrina. Sharing mutual pleasure, not pain, and not shame, either.”
“Did Billie tell you to say that to me?” I asked hoarsely.
His too eager lips burned the hollow of my throat before he murmured, “Yes. Before we left the cottage, she took me aside and told me to be very tender and slow with you tonight. She didn’t have to tell me that. I would have been anyway. I want to do everything right. Give me a chance, Audrina. Maybe it won’t be as terrible as you’re thinking it will be.”
“Why are you saying that? Why do you think I’m thinking it will be terrible?”
His half-laugh was tight and small. “It’s pretty obvious. You’re like a violin with wires tuned so tight I can almost pluck your nerve endings and hear them twang. But it was you who came running to me today, wasn’t it? You did throw yourself into my arms and say, ‘Let’s get married,’ didn’t you? You wanted to elope today—not tomorrow or next week. So isn’t it natural that I’d think that at last you were ready to accept me as your lover?”
I hadn’t thought. I’d just acted. Escape from Papa had been all that mattered. “Arden, you didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?”
“Am I the first?”
“All right, if you have to know. There have been other girls, but none that I loved as I love you. Since I decided you were going to be the one I’d marry, I have not touched another girl.”
“Who was the first girl?”
“Never mind,” he said with his face pressed between my breasts and his hand exploring beneath my gown. I didn’t stop him from doing what he wanted to. I clung to my pain. He didn’t love me enough. He’d had others, perhaps a hundred. And he’d always acted like I was his one and only girl. How deceitful, like Papa.
“You’re so beautiful, so soft and sweet. Your skin is so smooth,” he murmured, his breath coming faster, as if all that he did to me was all he needed, and nothing I did or didn’t do mattered at all. His hand was now beneath my bodice, cupping my breast, kneading it, molding it to the shape of his hand as his lips came down hard on mine. I’d been kissed by him many times before, but not like this.
Panic put me back in the rocking chair, made me a child again and terrified of that playroom where awful things came inside and filled me with shame. The lightning flashed and made my nerves jump so that I bucked upwards. Arden took that for beginning passion, for his lust sizzled more and the shoestring straps of my nightie broke as he pulled it down, baring my breasts for his lips and tongue to play with. I arched my neck and forced my head back into the pillow as I bit down on my lower lip to keep from screaming. I squeezed my eyes together and tried to endure the humiliation of everything he did. Inside I was sobbing, just like when they’d ripped off the First Audrina’s pretty new dress and torn off her silk underclothes.
Crying, I was crying, and he didn’t hear me or see my tears. My eyes popped open when next the thunder clapped. The lightning lit up the room enough for me to see his handsome face just above mine, rapt looking, out of himself with the euphoria he was experiencing.
All this touching, caressing, kissing was giving him pleasure while it gave me terror. I felt cheated, angry, ready to hurt him with my screams when he tugged off my nightgown and threw it away like a rag. They’d done that!
His hands were all over me, finding everything but what he seemed to be seeking. I hated where he had his hand and was glad when he swore to himself as his fingers worked madly. Then he sighed and rolled on top of me, and I felt his hardness.
Oh! The rocking chair, I was in it again, rocking to and fro. I saw the woods, heard the obscene words shouted, heard the laughter.
But it was too late. I felt him jabbing deep into me, thick and hot and slippery wet. I fought to free myself, buc
king, kicking, scratching. I clawed deep into the skin of his back, raked at his naked buttocks, but he didn’t stop. He kept on jabbing, causing the same kind of shame, the same kind of pain as they had caused her. His face … was that Arden’s boyish face with his hair plastered to his forehead, his eyes bulging as he stared before he turned and ran? No, no, Arden hadn’t been born then. He was just another like them, that was all. All men alike … all alike, alike … like …
Blurrily I was drifting, losing sense of reality. Aunt Ellsbeth had been right when she said I was too sensitive. I should never have led Arden on and allowed him to believe I could be the perfect wife.
I couldn’t be any kind of wife at all.
His hot ejaculations came then. Scream, scream, but the thunder overhead muffled my cries. Nobody heard, not even him. I tasted my own blood on my lips from the bite of my teeth that tried to cut off my screams. Only Arden who loved me. This was the way physical love had to be … and one more last heaving thrust nearly ripped me apart … then, spinning off, all terror and shame faded. Blackness mercifully took me, and I felt nothing, nothing at all.
Morning light wakened me. Sylvia was slouched in the corner of our bedroom playing with her prisms, her nightgown riding up to her hips. With her vacant eyes looking at nothing, her lips parted and drooling, she crouched there as limp as a rag.
My husband rolled over, came awake and reached for my breasts as if they belonged to him. He kissed them first, then my lips. “Darling, I love you so much.” More kisses he rained on my face, my neck, all over my naked body, and Sylvia was there, though I’m sure he didn’t see her. “At first you seemed so tight, so scared. Then, all of a sudden, you seized hold of me and eagerly surrendered. Oh, Audrina, I was hoping you’d be like that.”
What was he saying? How could I believe his words when his eyes were pleading the way they were? Yet, I allowed him to fake his satisfaction, realizing that he’d had some, while I’d had nothing but pain, shame and humiliation. And far, far back in my perforated memory was the scent of blood, of damp earth and wet leaves … and Audrina was stumbling home, trying to hold the shreds of an expensive dress together to cover her nudity.
Part 3
Home Again
As we drove up our long curving drive, I saw Papa standing on the front porch, as if he’d known in advance this was our day to come home.
He towered there, a formidable giant, wearing a spanking new white suit, white shoes, with a bright blue shirt and a white tie with silver and blue diagonal stripes.
I quivered and looked at Arden, whose eyes met mine with a great deal of apprehension. What would Papa do?
With one hand I clung to Arden’s arm, my other held Sylvia’s, as all three of us slowly ascended the steps to the front porch. All the time Papa’s fiery gaze clashed with mine, silently accusing me of betraying him, failing him. Then, done with me, he turned those dark, piercing eyes on Arden as if to weigh him and his strength as an opponent. Papa smiled warmly and thrust out his huge hand for my new husband to shake. “Well,” he said genially, “how nice to see all of you again.” He pumped Arden’s hand up and down. Endlessly, it seemed.
I was proud to see Arden didn’t wince. To squeeze too firmly in a friendly handshake was Papa’s way of determining a man’s physical strength and emotional character. He knew his powerful grip hurt, and a man who grimaced was crossed off his list and labeled “weak.”
Turning to me then, he said, “You have disappointed me deeply.” Casually he patted Sylvia on the top of her head, as if she were some pesty puppy. Three times he kissed my cheeks, one, then the other, but at the same time he managed to reach behind me to pinch my bottom so hard I wanted to cry out. This kind of pinch was meant to test a woman’s endurance, and her reactions were noted, labeled, filed.
Let him label me as he would. “Don’t you ever pinch me like that again,” I said fiercely. “That hurts, and I don’t like it. I have never liked it—and neither did my mother or my aunt.”
“My, what a saucy bit of baggage you’ve become in four days,” he said with a wide, mocking grin. Then he reached to playfully pat my cheek, and it felt like a slap. “You didn’t need to elope, my sweetheart,” he said in a soft, loving purr. “It would have been my pleasure, my joy, to walk you down the center aisle and see you wearing your mother’s beautiful wedding gown.”
Just when I thought nothing he did could ever surprise me, he caught me off guard. “Arden, I’ve been talking to your mother about you, and she tells me you’ve had some difficulty finding the kind of position you want with a good architectural firm. I admire you for not accepting a thirdrate job in a second-rate firm. So until you find the kind of position you really want, why not accept a junior account executive position with my brokerage firm? Audrina can help teach you the ropes so you can pass the exam, and, of course, I’ll do what I can to help. Though she knows almost as much as I do.”
This wasn’t what I wanted. Yet, as I glanced at Arden, I saw he was very relieved. This offer would solve a lot of problems. Now we’d have an income and could rent a small apartment in the city, far from Whitefern. Arden appeared very grateful and glanced at me as if I’d overex-aggerated Papa’s desire to keep me all for himself.
How like Papa to take a situation he disliked and turn it around to his advantage. Good-looking young account executives were much in demand, and Arden was smart and good with math.
“Yes, Arden,” he expounded, putting a friendly, fatherly arm over my husband’s shoulders, “my daughter can teach you the fundamentals, and the technical side, too.” His voice was smooth, easy, relaxed. “She is almost as knowledgeable as I am, and perhaps even better since the market is not a science but an art. Audrina has a stranglehold on sensitivity and intuition—right, Audrina?” He gave me another smile of great charm. Then, while Arden wasn’t looking, he quickly reached to pinch my bottom again, even harder. He smiled, and when Arden glanced our way again, Papa was hugging me lovingly.
“Now,” he continued, “I have another wonderful surprise for you.” He beamed at both of us. “I’ve taken the liberty of moving your mother out of that miserable little cottage. She is now established upstairs in the best rooms we have.” His polished smile shone again. “That is, the best next to my own.”
It hurt to see Arden so grateful when he should have known better. Perhaps all men were more or less alike and understood each other very well. I raged inside that Papa was still controlling my life, even though I was married.
Cozily established in what had been my aunt’s rooms, made grand in a useless effort to please her, was Billie, dressed like a stage star in a fancy lace dress that should have been seen only at a garden party.
Her bright eyes glowing, she gushed, “He stormed over to my place about an hour after you drove away and raged at me for encouraging the two of you to elope. I didn’t say a word until he calmed down. Then I think he really looked at me for the first time. He told me I was beautiful. I was wearing my shorts, too, with those damned stumps sticking out, and he didn’t seem to care. Darlin’, you just don’t know what that did for my ego.”
Papa was clever, so clever. I should have expected he’d find a way to defeat me. Now he had my mother-in-law on his side.
“Then he said we should make the best of a situation that couldn’t be changed, and that wonderful man invited me to come and live here, and share your lives and his. Wasn’t that gracious of him?”
Of course it was. I glanced around at the room I thought should be a shrine to my aunt’s memory and ached inside … and yet, what good were shrines when Billie was so grateful? And Aunt Ellsbeth had never appreciated anything done to make her rooms pretty. Certainly if anyone deserved rooms like these, it was Billie.
“Audrina, you never told me your father is so kind, understanding and charming. Somehow you always made him seem insensitive, conniving and abusive.”
How could I tell her Papa’s good looks and contrived charms were his stocks-in-trade? He use
d them all on women, young, middle-aged and old. Ninety percent of his clients were wealthy older women who totally depended on his advice, and the other ten percent were wealthy men too old to have good judgment of their own.
“Audrina, darlin’,” Billie went on, holding me against her full, firm breasts, “your father is such a dear. So sweet and concerned about everyone’s welfare. A man like Damian Adare could never be cruel. I’m sure you misunderstood if you think he mistreated you.”
Papa had followed us upstairs, and until she said this, I hadn’t seen him leaning gracefully against the door frame, taking all of this in. He spoke to Arden in the sudden silence. “My daughter has been raving about you since she was seven years old. God knows I never thought puppy love would last. Why, I loved a dozen girls or more by the time I was ten, and two hundred before I married Audrina’s mother.”
Arden smiled, appearing embarrassed, and soon he was thanking Papa for offering him a job when no one else had—and a decent salary for someone with absolutely no training as a broker.
And so again Papa had won. Aunt Ellsbeth was dead. She had not saved me any more than she’d saved herself. Only Papa was free to time and time again hurt those he claimed to love most.
Soon Papa was talking seriously to me and Arden about giving him a grandson. “I’ve always wanted a son,” he said while looking directly into my eyes. It hurt, really hurt to hear him say that, when he’d always claimed I was enough to please him. He must have seen my pain, for he smiled, as if I’d been tested and he found me still faithful. “Second to a daughter, I wanted a son, that is. A grandson will do just fine, since I already have two daughters.”
I didn’t want a baby yet, not when just being Arden’s wife was traumatic enough. Bit by painful bit I was learning how to cope with those nightly acts of love that seemed atrocious to me and wonderful to him. I even learned to fake pleasure so he stopped looking so anxious and allowed himself to believe that I was now enjoying sex just as much as he did.