I plucked it out of her palm and swallowed it with some water.
“Is Daddy all right?”
She turned off my light.
“Is he?” I cried out.
“Yes,” she said, and left me in the dark. I gazed at my closed bedroom window. She hadn’t seen it or didn’t care right now, but there was a splatter of blood on the glass. I turned my back to it and closed my eyes. I pressed on my eyelids to keep them from springing open. It was still too terrifying.
There was no one in the room, no one to hear me, but I asked anyway.
“What just happened?”
9
Nightmare
When I awoke, I just lay there looking up at the ceiling. I wanted everything that had happened last night simply to be a nightmare. As with any nightmare, it would linger a while, but it would soon dissipate like smoke and even be hard to recall. I would go to school and see Mark winking at me in the hallway, pretending to be suffering because of my rejecting him, and later find him passing me a note full of additional personal references. I would laugh at it. I would continue to obey Daddy and keep Mark at bay, of course, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy the game, the tantalizing and dangerous game that, despite all the restrictions, filled my day with some excitement.
I would tell no one about the nightmare, because that would only keep it alive. I didn’t want to see those images ever resurrected, but it wasn’t easy to push them aside. He had looked so gallant, exciting, and romantic to me. His voice had been softer, his lips so inviting. And when he put his hands on my waist and began to lift me out of the window, I felt myself softening, losing all forms of resistance, and eager to be taken.
Every sexual impulse that had tantalized me and drawn me toward a deeper longing and desire had come alive and was now full blown, screaming to be acknowledged and served. I so wanted to be a slave to my sex and let it, like some invisible strong hand, seize my spine and whip me about until it had shaken any and all restraint from my body, reluctance pouring out of every cell until I was completely lost in Mark’s kiss.
Surely, no young woman was ever mesmerized more quickly and then more willing to give herself completely. A look across a room, a glance with an accompanying sexy smile, a kiss blown through pursed lips, a soft whisper caressing her ear, sent a tingling from her breasts to her thighs and made her weak and hungry for love, but none of that came close to the power of Mark’s voice, Mark’s magnetic eyes.
I wanted him in me, part of me, absorbing and controlling me. I wanted him to put me on like a glove and hold me against his chest and heart for as long as he liked. No warnings, no lessons in prudence, could withstand the onslaught of wave after wave of his sex growing harder and deeper inside me. And not once during all of this did I think I was losing anything of myself. Not once did I feel the slightest abuse or imagine the slightest regret. I am where I was meant to be, longed to be, I thought. Take me. Take me now.
I was lost in the fantasy for a few moments, but happily lost. It filled me with warmth. I felt as if I were snuggling in my large comforter, even though I had begun to roll it away. I thought about remaining in bed longer, but then I turned slightly and saw the blood on the window again. It was as if a rock had been thrown through it, the shattering shards flying all about. Cold air came charging in behind it, pouring over my warm, sensual thoughts and feelings, drowning them, extinguishing them the way a fireman’s hose would extinguish a fire.
I heard my door opening. Mrs. Fennel stood there looking in at me.
“Still in bed? Your father is waiting for you in the living room,” she said. There was nothing in her voice to indicate anger or sadness.
“Is everyone else up?”
“Dressed and waiting,” she said, and left.
I got out of bed quickly, went into the bathroom to rinse my face in cold water, and then barely ran a brush through my hair before hurrying to slip on a pair of panties, get into my jeans, and throw on a school sweatshirt while sliding my feet into a pair of sandals. I stepped into the hallway and paused, realizing how very quiet it was. Usually, by this time, I would hear Marla talking or some sounds coming from the kitchen. I practically ran toward the living room. When I entered, I found Ava sitting on the sofa with Marla. Mrs. Fennel was in Daddy’s favorite chair, and he was standing with his arms folded, gazing out the window, his back to everyone. Rarely was Mrs. Fennel there with us when we sat with Daddy. Daddy turned when I entered. They all looked quite glum.
“I’m sorry, Daddy. I didn’t mean to oversleep, but I didn’t sleep that well, and…”
Ava groaned at my frantic explanation.
“Just sit, Lorelei,” Daddy said, nodding at the sofa. Marla moved over a little to make more room for me. I looked up at him with anticipation. Mrs. Fennel was staring ahead as if she were lost forever in a trailing thought. She didn’t blink. Not a muscle moved in her face. For a moment, I thought her face was shattering and crumbling away.
“All right now,” Daddy continued, stepping closer to us. “Ava knows most of what I am going to tell you about all this. Normally, I would wait with both of you until your times had come, but…”
“But this is the first time we’ve been attacked at hom
e,” Mrs. Fennel added, looking impatient.
“Exactly,” Daddy said. “He was quite emboldened.”
“It’s her fault,” Ava muttered, nodding in my direction. “She must not have ended it sharply and firmly enough.”
“We don’t have time for that right now,” Daddy snapped at her. “And anyway, last night can’t be her fault if she didn’t know what to watch for, can it, Ava? Can it?”
“No. I guess not,” she said, but she didn’t look as if she believed it.