Petals on the Wind (Dollanganger 2)

t touch me there, not since you were a little baby and Mommy nursed you for a short while."

"Did you slap me then?" He looked so worried. "No, of course not. Babies are meant to suckle their mother's breasts--and I would never slap you for touching there--so if you want to try me, go ahead and touch." His small hand reached out tentatively while he watched my face to see if I'd be shocked. Oh, how fast the young learned all the taboos! And when he'd touched and God's lightning hadn't struck him down, he smiled, very relieved. "Oh, it's just a soft place." He'd made a pleasant discovery, and around my neck he threw his arms. "I love you too, Mommy. 'Cause you love me even when I'm bad."

"I'll always love you, Jory. And if you're bad sometimes, I'll try and understand." Yes, I was not going to be like my grandmother--nor my mother. I was going to be the perfect mother, and someday he'd have a father too. How was it that little children, such young ones, would already be talking of sin and being slapped for only touching? Was it because it was too high here, too near God's eyes? So that everyone lived under his spell, living afraid, acting righteous, while they committed every sin in the book? Honor thy father and thy mother. Do unto others as thou wouldst have done unto you. An eye for an eye.

Yes . . . an eye for an eye--that's why I was here.

I stopped to buy stamps before I reached my cottage, and left Jory dozing on the front seat. He was in the post office, which was no larger than my living room, buying stamps too. Charmingly he smiled at me, as if nothing untoward had happened between us the night before. He even had the nerve to follow me to my car so he could ask how I liked the roses. "Not your kind of roses," I snapped, then got primly into my car and slammed the door in his face. I left him staring after me without a smile--in fact, he looked rather miserable.

At five-thirty a special-delivery man brought a small package to our front door. It was certified so I had to sign for it. Inside a larger box was another box, and inside of that was a velvet jewelry case which I quickly opened while Jory watched, all eyes. On black velvet lay a single rose comprised of many diamonds. Also a card with a note that read, "Perhaps this kind of rose is more to your liking." I put the thing away as a trifle bought with her money, so it wasn't really from him--no more than the real roses.

He had the nerve to come that night at seventhirty just as he'd said he would. Nevertheless, I readily let him in, then led him silently to the dining table with no to-do about cocktails or other niceties. The table was set even more elaborately than the night before. I'd hauled out some boxes and done some unpacking, and on the table were my best lace mats and covered silver serving dishes. Neither of us had as yet spoken. All his forgive-me roses I'd gathered together and they were in the box near his plate. On his empty plate was the jeweler's velvet container with the diamond rose brooch inside. I sat to watch his expression as he put the jewelry box aside casually, and just as casually moved the flower box out of his way. He then took from his breast pocket a folded note that he handed to me. He'd written in a bold hand:

I love you for reasons that have no beginning and no ending. I loved you even before I knew you, so that my love is without reason or design. Tell me to go and I will. But know first, if you turn me away, I will remember all my life that love that should have been ours, and when I'm stretched out cold, I will but love you better after death.

I glanced upward to meet his eyes squarely for the first time since he'd entered. "Your poetry, it somehow has a familiar ring, with a bit of

strangeness."

"I composed it only a few minutes ago--how could it sound familiar?" He reached for the domed silver lid, ostensibly hiding the Beef Wellington underneath. "I warned you I was an attorney, not a poet--so that accounts for the strangeness. Poetry was not my best subject in school."

"Obviously." I was very interested in his expression. "Elizabeth Barrett Browning is sweet, but not your type."

"I did my best," he said with a wicked grin, meeting my eyes and challenging me before his gaze lowered to stare at the huge platter that held one hot dog and a small dab of cold canned beans. The disbelief in his eyes, his utter offended shock gave me so much satisfaction I almost liked him

"You are now gazing upon Jory's favorite menu," I said, gloating. "It is exactly what he and.! ate tonight for dinner, and since it was good enough for us, I thought it was good enough for you, so I saved some. Since I've already eaten, all of that is yours alone, and you may help yourself."

Scowling, he flashed me a burning, hard look, then savagely bit down into the hot dog which I'm sure had grown cold as the beans. But he gobbled down everything and drank his glass of milk, and for dessert I handed him a box of animal crackers. First he stared at the box in another expression of dumbfounded amazement, then ripped it open, seized up a lion and snapped off the head in one bite.

Only when he'd eaten every animal cracker and then picked up each crumb did he take the trouble to look at me with so much disapproval I should have shrunken to ant size. "I take it you are one of those despicable liberated women who refuses to do anything to please a man!"

"Wrong. I am liberated only with some men. Others I can worship, adore and wait on like a slave."

"You made me do what I did!" he objected strongly. "Do you think I planned it that way? I wanted us to find our relationship on an equal basis. Why did you wear that kind of dress?"

"It's the kind all chauvinist men prefer!"

"I am not a chauvinist--and I hate that kind of dress!"

"You like what I've got on better?" I sat up straighter to give him a better view of the old nappy sweater I had on. With it I wore faded blue jeans, with dirty sneakers on my feet, and my hair was skinned back and fastened in a granny's knot. Deliberately I'd pulled long strands free so they hung loose about my face, slovenly fringes to make me look more appealing. And no makeup prettied my face. He was dressed to kill.

"At least you look honest and ready to let me do the pursuing. If there is one thing I despise, it's women who come on strong, like you did last night. I expected better from you than that kind of sleazy dress that showed everything to take the thrill from discovering for myself." He knitted his brows and mumbled, "From a damned harlot's red dress to blue jeans. In the course of one day, she changes into a teenybopper."

"It was rose-colored, not red! And besides, Bart, strong men like you always adore weak and passive stupid women, because basically you're meek yourself and afraid of an aggressive woman!"

"I am not weak or meek or anything but a man who likes to feel a man, not to be used for your own purposes. And as for passive women I despise them as much as I do aggressive ones. I just don't like the feeling of being the victim of a huntress leading me into a trap. What the hell are you trying to do to me? Why dislike me so much? I sent you roses, diamonds, imitation poetry, and you can't even comb your hair and take the shine from your nose."

"You are looking at the natural me, and now that you've seen, you can leave." I got up and walked to the front door and swung it open. "We are wrong for each other. Go back to your wife. She can have you, for I don't want you."

He came quickly, as if to obey, then seized me in his arms and kicked the door closed. "I love you, God knows why I do, but it seems I've always loved you."

I stared up in his face, disbelieving him, even as he took the pins from my hair and let it spill down. Out of long habit I tossed it about so it fluffed out and arranged itself, and smiling a little he tilted my face to his. "May I kiss your natural lips? They are very beautiful lips." Without waiting for permission he brushed his lips gently over mine. Oh--the shivery sensation of such a feathery kiss! Why didn't all men know that was the right way to start? What woman wanted to be eaten alive, choked by a thrusting tongue? Not me, I wanted to be played like a violin, strummed pianissimo, in largo timing, fingered into legato, and let it grow into crescendo. Deliciously I wanted to head toward the ecstatic heights that could only happen for me when the right words were spoken and the right kind of kisses given before his hands came into play. If he'd done for me only a little last night, this night he used all the skills he had. This time he took me to the stars where we both exploded, still holding tight to each other, and doomed to do it again, and then again.

He was hairy all over. Julian had been hairless but for one thatch that grew in a thin line up to his navel. And Julian had never kissed my feet that smelled of roses from a long perfumed bath before I put on old work clothes. Toe by toe he mouthed before he started working upward. I felt the grandmother watching, blazing her hard, gray eyes to put us both in hell. I turned off my mind, shut her out, and gave in to my senses and to this man who was now treating me like a lover.

But he didn't love me, I knew that. Bart was using me as a substitute for his wife, and when she came back I'd never see him again. I knew it, knew it, but still I took and I gave until we fell asleep in each other's arms.

When I slept, I dreamed. Julian was in the silver music box my father had given me when I was six. Round and round he spun, his face ever turning toward me, accusing me with his jet eyes, and then he grew a mustache and was Paul, who only looked sad. I ran fast to set him free from death in a music box turned into a coffin--and then it was Chris inside, his eyes closed, his hands folded one over the other on his chest .. . dead, dead. Chris!