Olivia (Logan 5)

He helped me up the stairs.

"It's rare you're ever in need of anyone's help, Olivia. I should cherish this moment," he said.

I laughed at that. I laughed at everything: Samuel's surprised face, my room, the adjoining door, the image of myself in the mirror as I swayed. I struggled to reach back and undo the clip on my dress, but I couldn't maneuver my fingers very well and that seemed hysterically funny as well

"Let me continue to be of assistance, Madam," Samuel said. I plopped down on my bed and let him undress me with the lights still on. All the while I kept my eyes closed and hummed the last melody I heard at the wedding, the melody Nelson and I had danced to. Samuel's laughter seemed distant.

"Aren't you something?" he declared. "I never dreamed I'd see Olivia Gordon Logan in this state."

When I was naked Samuel stood away from me for a moment and then he knelt down and leaned over to kiss my breasts and move his lips gently down my stomach. I remember thinking this could have been my and Nelson's wedding night, and if it had been, this was very much how I would feel.

Yes, I thought when Samuel touched me in my most private places and brought his lips to every sensitive and soft part of my body, take me as I've never been taken before. Let me throw all caution out the window and be as reckless and as wild as Belinda.

My submissive manner aroused Samuel as he had never been aroused with me up until this moment. That night I felt he ravished me. As he would say, we made love until we were both exhausted. For the first time since our marriage, Samuel fell asleep beside me in my bed and was there when I awoke in the morning.

I rose with a start when my eyes opened and found him snuggled beside me.

"What are you doing?" I cried and sat up.

"What?"

"Why didn't you go to sleep in your own bed?"

"What?"

"Stop saying what," I snapped. I ran my hand through my hair, trying to remember things. Had I made a fool of myself at the wedding? How much of our lovemaking last night was dreamed and how much actually happened? My head felt as if there were steel balls rolling around inside, clinking against each other, each knock like thunder. I moaned, hating myself for permitting this to happen.

Samuel rose, stretched and yawned.

"You were something last night, Olivia," he said.

"Stop it."

"Stop it? You were. I had to take you home, you know.

Don't worry. No one was angry about it. Nelson was amused, matter of fact."

"Oh was he? I'm glad everyone had a good laugh at my expense," I said.

I marched into the bathroom and took a shower as cold as I could stand it. When I emerged, Samuel had returned to his room and was already asleep in his own bed. I closed the adjoining door and sat at my vanity table, gazing at my unmade bed, the sheets rumpled, the blanket twisted from a night of frenzied passion.

I enjoyed it, I admitted to myself, but only because I had fantasized another man beside me.

It would always be this way, I thought, and felt the hot tears come into my eyes.

Love is cruel, I decided. The pain it brings outweighs the happiness. I'd rather be incapable of love. That way, I would be safe and no one, no man could ever hurt me.

In the days that followed, there was some talk about my behavior at the wedding, but nothing compared to the gossip that continued to build around Belinda's actions in and around Provincetown. Twice, I was called by the Provincetown police because she had drunk too much at an area pub and caused a scene when the proprietors refused to serve her and her friends any more beer. Once, I had to go to the police station and get her. She claimed it was always someone else's fault or else she was being picked on because her father was a wealthy man.

I tried to shield Daddy from some of it, but after a while, I thought it might be better if he knew more. It might make him take a firmer hand with her. We had the same conversation so often, I could have recorded it and simply played it back.

"If you don't send her to a school or find her something substantial to do, Daddy, she's just going to get into more and more trouble. Don't give her any allowance."

"I'll do something," he promised. "I'll make some calls, see if I can get her into a good school."

Maybe he did make one or two calls, but if he didn't succeed on the first or second try, he would put it aside, and if he did find something that might work, Belinda threw one of her tantrums and turned it down. She was always promising him she would improve or find something or someone. For a few months, she was going with the son of one of the more successful restaurant owners in Provincetown and it looked like they might get serious enough to plan marriage, but just like the other times, Belinda grew bored with him and betrayed him openly. He broke up with her and hopes for a stable relationship went with him.

I wanted to do something more, take firmer action myself, but Daddy's energy and interest in our business continued to dwindle. He did his own drinking every night to put himself to sleep and he continued to take less and less care of himself. I found myself taking on more responsibility and having less time to spend on myself and my family.