Rapture's Rendezvous

Maria sobbed harder. She clung to him harder. When he circled his arms around her and climbed atop her once again, she urged him to enter her, knowing that in only that way would he know that he hadn't hurt her. She wanted him. Over and over again this night. For after this night, it would never be possible again. She had to marry Nathan Hawkins. She didn't have any choice in the matter.

“Do you want me to do it again?” Michael asked, smoothing her hair from her face. “Is that truly what you want? Can't you say something? Surely you aren't afraid any longer. Please say something to me. We have shared something beautiful together. Only one other time in my life have I ever shared anything as beautiful.”

Maria still kept her lips sealed. Instead, she moved her body so that he could penetrate inside her to the deepest inner part of herself. She moaned in silent ecstasy as she could feel the pleasures sweeping through her once again. And when his lips sought out a breast, she pushed it upward further into his mouth and cried out as his teeth bore into it.

“I think Ruby has herself a little wench here,” - Michael panted, now working in earnest as his body moved in and out. “God. Your body is so responsive to mine.” He pulled her closer to him, attacking her with both lips and manhood now, until Maria began to ache. But it was a beautiful, delicious ache. One that she would store in her memory storage house for the rest of her life. The hollowness inside her was being filled. Then the painful passion was being spent into flashes of multicolors as her body was wracked with spasms in unison with his own.

Maria wanted to cry out his name. But she kept her silence, waiting to listen to his own words once again. Would … he … ? But this time he didn't speak her name. He just whispered words of love over and over again, until he lay silent atop her, panting.

“Enough for now,” he finally said, moving from the bed. “I don't think Ruby has anything to worry about where you are concerned. In fact, I'm going to ask for you every night from here on out. Maybe tomorrow night you might even let me see you beneath the lights. I would like to see the face on the wench who displays such knowledge of lovemaking.”

Maria closed her eyes, chewing her lower lip. Again she wanted to cry out to him. Confess to him that this had just been a game devised by Ruby. But she couldn't. She knew that Nathan Hawkins's threats were indeed a cruel reality.

“You'll find a reward for your time given to me on the dressing table,” Michael said, then vanished from the room just as quickly as he had appeared, leaving Maria staring blankly toward the closed door, dying a slow death inside. He had paid for her body … as though she was … a whore. …

Tossing over to lie on her stomach, she began to beat her fists against the mattress, sobbing noisily. She had found Michael. . . only to lose him once again. And he had said that he would seek her out even the next night. She knew that this next night, she would probably be lying in another man's arms.

“Oh, how I hate you, Nathan Hawkins,” she hissed between sobs. “How I despise even the thought of your nearness. But you will pay. Yes . .. you will pay.. ..”

Chapter Twelve

Tears wet Maria's cheeks as she moved around the house she had grown to hate. This was the last time she would see it for a while. Her hate for it was still just as great, but it was the Lazzaro home, a home that she had to bid farewell to, along with her Papa and Alberto. She was torn inside, not knowing how to reveal to them the truth of her parting. If they found her gone, she knew that it might even cause her Papa's health to worsen. But if she left word of where she might be found, she couldn't help but believe that Alberto would come gunning for Nathan Hawkins.

She shook her head, grief dimming her eyes. She knew that she would just have to wait until later, after the marriage to Nathan Hawkins was definitely consummated. Then Alberto would have no choice but to accept that his sister was indeed married, and no matter if it was to the evil Nathan Hawkins.

She lifted the skirt of her dress, admiring it. She was Finally able to wear the dress her Aunt Helena had given her. She knew that she had to be almost beautiful in such a dress of bows and ribbons. She then ran her fingers over the swell of her bosom, knowing that the pleats of the bodice emphasized her greatness there even more. But the neck was staid and tall and the sleeves long and puffed, covering most of her flesh, which she was grateful for. She didn't wish for this evil man to be able to gloat over his prize too soon. She would keep her distance, until she would be forced to do otherwise.

“My violin,” she sighed disheartenedly to herself, remembering the long gape down its front. “I guess I shall have to leave it here. It is now broken. I can no longer have it to fill my lonely hours. I shall so miss its whispers as my bow moved across its strings. But one day … I shall have all the money required to get it repaired. Then I will play it both day and night.”

Taking one last, lingering look, she could envision her Papa sitting slouched in his favorite chair. As of late, his eyes had become so empty … sad. . ..

She rushed out the front door, stifling a sob, looking off into the distance, seeing the house she was headed toward. She could understand why Nathan Hawkins hadn't sent for her. His having come in person once to her house had been enough for him. She knew that he had his own reasons for using his representatives to do his dirty business for him. She w

as just relieved that he hadn't sent a representative this day. That would have added humiliation upon humiliation, to have boarded a carriage with one of those characterless men.

The sun streamed down onto Maria, making her lift her chin upward, loving the warmth on her face. She ran her fingers through her hair, lifting it from her shoulders, letting the wind whistle through and around it. Her freedom was now to be only short-lived. To be married to Nathan Hawkins would be even worse than the prison life of Hawkinsville, except that now, she still had to believe that she could use the Hawkins name and wealth. Wouldn't that be a way of breaking the bonds for most of the Italians? Her pulse raced, thinking about all the possibilities.

Hurrying along, waving to first one Italian, then another, Maria knew that this would be the last time she would be addressing them as Maria Lazzaro. She would soon be Mrs. Nathan Hawkins. She repeated the name over and over again in her mind, trying to find something about it that sounded right. Maria Hawkins. Soon she would be Maria Hawkins.

Then her thoughts traveled to another name. Maria . . . Hopper. .. .

She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. Oh, God, how she wished to be heading for Michael's house, to soon become his bride. She swallowed back the urge to cry, remembering being in his arms only the previous night. When he had spoken her name while making love, she had then known that he loved her still, just as she loved him. But now? Now she knew the possibilities of never seeing him again.

The wind continued to whip her hair upward from, her shoulders. To her, it seemed that Illinois wasn't only a state filled with great seas of grasses, but also of great winds. But she loved the wind. If she closed her eyes, she could envision it to be Michael's fingers rippling through her hair, lifting it, as he so often had done. Her passion for him soared at this moment. She would now always think of him when the winds blew. A passion in the wind. . . .

She stepped up onto the iron bridge, stopping to take one last look at the Italian community she was leaving behind. She could see smoke spiraling upward from most of the chimneys, and she knew that most of the women were heating wash water on their stoves, ready to begin their hard day of labor, with no hope for the future of having anything any different.

Some children were playing in the streets, kicking at the coal dust, making it fly upward to settle in gray-blacks on their tattered, worn clothes. Something clutched at Maria's heart, as she wished for so much more for her people. Then she turned and moved into the thigh-high Indian grass, pushing her way through it, smelling its freshness as it continued to blow in the wind. As before, it was like an ocean, dipping and swaying gently, its wine-colored tips edging the sky of blue, resembling an oil painting of magnificence.

Maria's eyes traveled around her, seeing once again the grove of trees that hid Ruby's house so well behind it. A cloud of starlings rose upward from the trees and moved in quivering blacks into the distant sky, and then Maria caught sight of a lone elk cruising in the depths of the brush that surrounded the towering oaks

Lifting the skirt of her dress, Maria moved onward, seeing Nathan Hawkins's house getting closer. Its magnificence was almost overpowering. It stood two stories high, its many windows resembling eyes, watching Maria's approach. She swallowed hard, then stumbled as she came upon a sudden clearing revealing a freshly graveled road that separated this field of grass in two.

Stepping onto the road, Maria stopped and stared down its full width, first one way, then another. She had just discovered the road that led not only to Nathan Hawkins's house, but almost to Ruby's.

Now Maria knew why she hadn't seen any traces of a road next to Ruby's house. The road stopped abruptly where Ruby's fence began. But on one far side, the side Maria had not been on, a traveled path of muddy ruts sank deeply into the ground.

“So this is how Michael and all those who visit Ruby's arrive? Not over the iron bridge, but on a road that passes right in front of Nathan Hawkins's house,” Maria said aloud, holding the skirt of herdress down as the wind continued to lift and pull at it. She set her jaw firmly. “I guess Nathan can't own the roads as he does everything else around here,” she said further, turning, making her way down the road, again heading for her new way of life … a marriage she already despised. “Knowing this makes me have a bit of hope,” she said further. “If he can't own the roads, surely there must be a way to keep him from owning my people.”