Into the Woods

  "No, my school has been real life, no formal courses in anything. Well?"

  "I don't think it's necessary for you to know the answer to that question. Kirby."

  "Okay," he said with a shrug. All I wanted to do is assure you that there is nothing to be afraid of when you give something of yourself to someone."

  The tears that burned at my eyes were coming up too fast for me to stop. "You don't know what you're talking about." I said. "You don't know whom I gave myself to and what I gave and what happened afterward. Just leave me alone." I moaned,

  "All right. Don't get upset. I'm just trying to be like a father to you, concerned. helpful."

  "I don't need your help right now."

  "Okay. When you're ready, I'll be there for you. That's all I want you to know."

  I wiped the tears from my cheeks and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry I made you cry. Grace. That really pains me." "It's all right."

  "I'm sorry," he said again, and leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. He held his lips there just a second longer than I had anticipated, then pulled back slowly and smiled, keeping his face very close to mine. "Forgive me?"

  "It's okay," I said, finding it hard to breathe. His lips were inches from mine.

  "Great."

  He kissed me again, this time smack on my lips, which really took me by surprise.

  "Your problem is just your inexperience. Grace. A beautiful woman is like a beautiful race horse. You only have to find your stride. I can help you do that," he whispered.

  "What? What do you mean?"

  "Just a little thing like how to kiss. I bet you never kissed a man like this," he said, and brought his lips to mine while he held me tightly at the shoulders and pressed his tongue into my mouth. I tried to pull loose, but he held on as if his lips were glued to mine.

  "There," he said. "That was like no other kiss you've had, wasn't it?"

  I just stared at him, breathless, still spinning. He smiled, taking that for his love powers. I'm sure.

  "That day you lost your bathing suit top, I said to myself, 'This is a beautiful young woman who, like a beautiful flower, just has to be brought to blossom,' Why not let me help you do that? You can trust me."

  I kept shaking my head. What was he saying? What was he offering to do?

  "Don't think I haven't noticed how you flirt with me. Grace. That's all right. It's only natural, natural instinct. You have needs you haven't even begun to satisfy."

  "I don't flirt with you."

  "You don't? Well, maybe you're not

  consciously aware of what you do, but you do it." he insisted. He smiled and brought his hands up to my breasts. "How perfect you are. Grace." He leaned toward me. "You're more beautiful than Jackie and will always be." he said. "I know what you want. Let me give it to you."

  "Stop." I said, putting my hands on his chest. I pushed, but he resisted, his face still close.

  ''Go on." he said. "Push me away. Go on." he whispered. his lips closing on mine.

  I started, but my arms seemed to weaken. He kissed me again and then stood up.

  "That's just a taste of what's to come. It's better if you are left in anticipation. It will make it all the more delicious and wonderful."

  He stood there a moment longer and then slowly started away. "'See you later." he said from the door.

  I was unable to find the breath to speak. In a moment he was gone, and I felt the need to embrace myself. Why hadn't I pushed him away harder? Why hadn't I screamed? Why was he so sure I wouldn't tell my mother?

  Had I been flirting with him? I hated myself for what he had awakened inside me.

  .

  If I appeared introverted and withdrawn to people before. I imagine I came off looking

  practically comatose during the next few weeks. I couldn't shake off the veil of guilt that had been thrown over me. I was afraid it was clearly written on my face, and so I avoided Mommy, getting up much earlier than she and Kirby and having breakfast by myself. They were usually off somewhere for lunch and dinner anyway. When they weren't. I made some excuses and had my dinner brought to my suite. I went to sleep earlier and earlier and slept or dozed for hours at a time in the shade by the pool. I felt like a clam slowly closing its shell. Even the brightest days were cloudy to me, and when it rained I enjoyed the wind and the darkness just as someone with a morbid view of life might.

  Mommy was unusually distracted with social activities during this time, even for her. Somehow she had wormed her way onto a committee for a major charity event to be held at the Breakers hotel. and that led to another and another event. The truth was. most of the women who went to the meetings, went to socialize and not really to do work. Mommy, on the other hand, was eager to get her hands on real activities. She accepted as many of the real

  responsibilities as she was given. She would be glad to research and visit with different providers, write letters, do mailings. It became quite clear to me they were merely taking advantage of her. but like someone absorbed by one of those cult religions, she became a devotee of the charity events. Her name would be included on the list of organizers printed on the invitations, and for her that was an

  accomplishment.

  Every time I saw Kirby he smiled, but in a way so different from the smile he used to have. It was as though he and I shared a very intimate secret we kept from Mommy. I had no reason to feel this way. I told myself, but it didn't stop me from feeling it. and I was terrified that Mommy would see the exchange between us one day and wonder why. For now, however, she was as absent from my life as I had been from hers.

  Eventually she even began to neglect Kirby. By month's end I saw they were doing more and more things separately. He was off on trips supposedly to find out about this investment or that. I noticed that a number of things took him to Las Vegas. too. A part of me was happy about this. Whatever activities he was involved in kept him from approaching me. It had been nearly two months since we had last gone sailing together, for example, not that I would have gone if he asked now.

  Actually I was rarely in the mood to do anything physical. whether it was with him or not. My reading suffered as well because my eyes would drift from the page. and I would focus on something off in the distance and fall into a kind of trance, not realizing I was doing so until I blinked, looked at my watch, and saw I had let nearly twenty minutes drift away.

  And then a strange thing happened. I began to have great difficulty falling asleep at night. Some nights I would lie there and stare at the ceiling waiting for my eyes to close and stay closed. I didn't sleep, but often, as in a dream, the faces of the people I had known since Daddy's death appeared like pictures projected on the wall. There was Autumn Sullivan, her face writhing with anxiety because of what the girls had revealed about her abortion. There was Augustus Brewster almost struck dumb by his grandmother's passing, and there was poor Randy struggling to get out his words. Winston seemed forever in a dark corner, watching me, smiling softly. Suddenly there was the light of morning sweeping him away with the shadows. and I hadn't bought a single hour of sleep.

  It made me lethargic most of the day, Vaguely I understood that something very serious was

  happening to me. It was as if my identity, my selfawareness, was dissipating, thinning out until I was translucent. People would soon see right through me. and I would totally disappear just the way Augustus Brewster used to predict he would, and no one would even notice. I blamed it all on my insomnia.

  One night when Mommy was out at one of her meetings and Kirby was off doing whatever things he was into those days, I snuck into their suite and rifled through Mommy's medicine cabinet to find her sleeping pills. I knew she often relied on them. I hated taking any pills at all, but I was at a point of near madness from the many sleepless nights and decided I had no choice.

  I took one and went to bed. It made me doze and even drift off for a few hours. but I woke in the middle of the night and remained awake again, the same faces parading on the walls of
darkness around me until the sun's rays burned through and around the curtains.

  Encouraged by the few hours I had achieved, however. I took two pills the following night and slept longer. After that I began to rely on the pills more and more and eventually sent one of our servants to the pharmacy. The prescription permitted one more refill. I didn't tell Mommy about it, of course. Now I had my own.

  Sleep became an avenue of delightful escape. I loved wrapping my blanket around myself and drifting into the haze. There were no simples, no hard memories to confront, no decisions to make. In sleep I was truly free and undisturbed. I felt no guilt, no insecurity. I needed no defenses,

  Vaguely I knew my appearance was changing. I woke and didn't bother to brush my hair. Sometimes I didn't shower, either. I never put on makeup, not even a little lipstick anymore. I wore the same dress for days. Mommy noticed my hair and remarked about it, but she was so absorbed in her charity and social events she didn't see much more, which confirmed my mad suspicion that I was truly slowly disappearing.

  I wasn't sure whether Kirby noticed or not or, to be even more accurate, cared or not Something was occupying his mind and his time, too, these days. He was in and out without so much as saying hello to me. I thought perhaps he was disgusted with me or with what I had let him do and had chosen to ignore me.

  Then one night, the time being so blurred in my memory, he came to my suite. I was already in bed, captured within the powers of the pills, slumbering like someone in hibernation. What was real and what was part of my dream world were indistinguishable. I heard a knock, but in my mind the knock was within a dream. It was Daddy. He had come to my bedroom in Norfolk.

  "Are you awake?" I heard.

  "Yes," I said eagerly. I could feel the deep, happy smile carving its way into my face.

  In my memory there was a full moon. and I had forgotten to close the curtains. The room was so bright with its illumination it looked as if it was an fire.

  "Hey," he said. "How are you doing?"

  "I'm fine. I'm glad you're here," I said.

  I felt him sit on the bed, and then I felt his hand wipe the strands of hair from my cheeks.

  "I've been thinking about you a lot. I'm sorry I haven't been around much these days, but that didn't mean you weren't in my thoughts. I wanted to give more time to you. I feel terrible about filling your heart with expectation and then not fulfilling my promise.'

  "I know you do, but it's all right," I said, still smiling, my eyes still closed.

  "I don't want you to feel alone or last, Grace." Grace? Why doesn't he call me Sailor Girl?

  "You're missing a lot in your life. You're wasting the best years. You can't continue to live this way, shut up inside. As I tried to show you before, you've got to learn to let yourself feel, experience. grow. Whoever has tried to be with you was just wrong or didn't know what he was doing or, even worse, was simply too selfish. The best lover is one who gives as much as he or she gets."

  I felt the blanket sliding down my shoulder until it was at my waist.

  "Sleeping in the nude these days? Or did you just forget to put an a nightie?" he asked, and laughed.

  "I must have forgotten," I said.

  His fingers traced down from the back of my neck, down over my spine, moving the blanket farther until it was around the middle of my legs, just under the inside of my knees. His hand moved as softly as a breeze over my tush, as he used to call it.

  "How's that feel?" he asked.

  "Nice."

  "Yes, it is nice." he said, and then surprised me by kissing me there.

  "You're so soft," he said. "so special."

  I smiled. Any minute he was going to say "Sailor Girl." I was sure of it. It was coming.

  His hands moved down my legs to my feet. He massaged them gently, and I moaned with pleasure.

  "Like that? I learned that in the Orient," he said. Yes, I thought, he's been all over the world.

  "There are places an your feet that affect places on the rest of your body. Nice. huh?"

  "Yes," I said.

  His fingers traveled back up between my legs and surprised me by touching me in my most private place. I jumped, and he said, "Easy, relax. You've got to learn to relax, otherwise you'll never enjoy. There now. easy." I felt myself soften, and then an electric sensation of pleasure shot up through the small of my stomach to my breasts.

  His lips were moving over me again. Gently but firmly he turned me on my side and cupped my breast, his thumb sliding over my nipple. His mouth was soon there, and his tongue. and I moaned again and let myself fall backward.

  Feeling him naked and then his firm sex was the most shocking thing. This wasn't Daddy. I wasn't Sailor Girl, I struggled to open my eves, but the lids seemed to be sewn shut. Just as I started to protest, his mouth was over mine, his tongue pressing onto mine.

  "You're as sweet as I imagined you would be," he said. His hands went under my thighs, and he lifted me to fit himself into me. I gasped and shook my head and started to claw my way up out of the pit of darkness, but he was pressing harder and harder, driving me back. I started to sob. At least I thought I did. I heard what sounded like sobs, but no tears emerged from my heavy eyelids, Soon I was as helpless as a rag doll, moving as he wanted me to move, my meager resistance dwindling. I moaned and then heard him cry out with pleasure as he spurted inside me. Far a long moment we were frozen together, paused as if on some video picture. Then he retreated, his heavy breathing at my ear because he was right beside me.

  I sank into my bed and waited for the storm of mixed emotions and feelings to subside. That took me down deeper and deeper into the dark well again. and I had no idea how much time went by.

  Before morning I felt him at me again, his lips everywhere on my body, gently nibbling around my breasts and then moving to the small of my stomach. My arms were like lead, my fingers stiff. He was in me a second time, turning and twisting me to make himself comfortable. I felt the heat, the wetness, and then the retreat.

  I don't think I uttered a sound. When the morning light finally woke me I was alone. For a long moment I lay there wondering if I had dreamed it all. I quickly realized I hadn't. Panic kept me from moving a muscle. It was as if I expected to see him standing there beside the bed any moment,

  Instead I heard the muffled sounds of the servants. I heard a phone ring. I heard footsteps, and then all was relatively quiet. I finally rose and went into the shower. I made it as hot as I could stand and washed myself so vigorously my skin was as red as it would be had I developed an allergic rash. I found something different to wear, and then I went out and down to the dining room. I could hear Mommy on the telephone in the den and paused to look in at her. She glanced at me.

  "Oh. Grace, you're up. I have to take a ride to Boca Raton to meet a new caterer. Would you like to come along`' Kirby hates these things, and he's off somewhere anyway."

  I just stared at her for a moment and then walked on to the dining room.

  "Grace!" she screamed. She came after me and pulled at my arm to turn me around. 'What's wrong with you? You look at me, but you don't reply?"

  'Breakfast." I said. "It's time for breakfast."

  "Time for breakfast? It's nearly two in the afternoon. You mean to say you didn't have breakfast yet? You've slept in this long? Even I get up before this for breakfast. Grace."

  She continued to stare at me. "Aren't you feeling well?"

  I smiled at her. That's an interesting question, I thought. Am I feeling well? I'll think about it.

  I continued to the dining room and took my usual seat at the table. Mommy came to the door and looked in at me for a moment, and then she shook her head and returned to her office and her phone.

  The maid came and began to bring me my breakfast. I ate quietly, slowly, desperately trying to remember something. There was something I had to remember. What was it? Something that had happened. I told myself. Think, think.

  Nothing came to mind, and finally I gave up and went outs
ide. I lay on a lounge and looked up at the sky, watching the slow movement of the clouds from south to north. Occasionally a sea gull flew into my line of vision. I followed its glide until it disappeared, and then I gazed out at the ocean and watched the ships slide along the horizon. They looked so tiny and toylike. Maybe this was a makebelieve world after all. Maybe I'm asleep now when I think I'm awake.

  An old Japanese poem came to my mind: "A man sat under a tree and dreamed he was a butterfly. Or was it a butterfly who dreamed he was a man?"

  When are we really awake? When are we really asleep?

  "Grace," I heard off in the distance. "Grace, look who's home. Come on, honey."

  I sat up and gazed around. "Grace."

  I turned. Mommy was beckoning to me from the rear patio. "Come here." she was calling.

  I stood up. Someone was coming up behind her. "Daddy?" I muttered.

  I saw him step alongside her. He took off his hat. and then he saluted. Two fingers.

  Daddy?

  "Daddy!" I cried, and I ran as hard and as fast as I could back to the rear loggia.

  Only when I got there no one was there. Not even Mommy.

  My legs seemed to sail out from under me.

  18

  Subterfuge

  .

  When I opened my eves I was looking up at

  Mommy, and I was in my room lying in my bed. Jakks, our butler, was standing at the foot of the bed. looking very concerned through his gray eyes and bushy eyebrows.

  "Thanks far your help. Jakks." Mommy said. "She'll be fine. I'm sure." She put her hand over my forehead and handed me a glass of water. -Go on, drink some water, Grace."

  "If you need me, I'll be right downstairs. Mrs. Scott." Jakks said.

  "Thank you Go on. Grace, take the glass and

  drink some water. C'mon, sit up. I don't understand

  this emotional hysteria. What's wrong with you? You

  don't seem to have any fever, and your color is good." I took the glass from her and sipped same

  water. -Am I awake?" I asked her.

  "No, you're in Never-never Land. What is going

  on with you, Grace? You're worse than ever, and just