Daughter of Darkness (28 page)

He reached for my hand, and I walked with him to the front door. He smiled again, opened it, and stood back for me to enter. Yesterday, I thought, I had been determined to stay away from him, and today I was entering a house to be alone with him. Had I lost my senses or gained them? I knew I should have been more frightened, more nervous, and certainly more reluctant, but I walked in quickly, and he entered and closed the door behind us.

“It’s a comfortable old house,” he said, gazing around the entryway. “It’s probably only about an
eighteen-hundred-square-foot ranch, but in this neighborhood, it’s worth about three, maybe four million.”

I looked at the living room. It was half the size of ours, and the furnishings looked as if they came from a department-store sale. I could just hear Daddy disdainfully calling the decor “Imitation Tasteless.” To him, most modern furniture lacked class, style, and a sense of history. “A house without any antiques is a house without any soul,” he would say. “Heritage is the life blood of character.”

Buddy took my hand again, and we entered the living room to sit on the small brown sofa. The pillows were worn so thin we sank quickly and both laughed.

“It’s like sitting on marshmallow,” he said. “So, you got into trouble at school. First time?”

“Yes.”

“Was it my fault?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, and he looked surprised.

“When I called?”

“No, not then. That’s what gave me the idea.”

“You mean you… let me understand. Are you saying you deliberately got yourself suspended?”

I nodded.

“Why?”

“To see you,” I said.

“But… why couldn’t we see each other later or even tomorrow or, better yet, this weekend?”

“I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to see each other again,” I said.

He recoiled. “Huh? You’re not making any sense. I thought it was your sister who was wild and crazy.”

“She’s more than that, Buddy. She’s dangerous. You keep your promise to me and stay away from her.”

“Dangerous? How could she be dangerous, unless sex is poisonous?”

“Just take my word for it. She’s dangerous.”

He stared with a half-smile of incredulity on his face. “What’s happening here?” he asked. “Are you and your sister playing some sort of game with me?”

“No, no, absolutely not.”

“I remember how the two of you teased the guys at Dante’s,” he continued, the suspicion lingering. “You’re kidding me, aren’t you? I mean about deliberately getting suspended just so you’d have an opportunity now to see me?”

“No. I’m telling you the truth. I… my father is very strict about my socializing.”

“Huh? Wait a minute. Your father is strict about your socializing, but he let you and your sister go to Dante’s?” He shook his head. “You’re not making any sense now, Lorelei. In fact, you’re scaring me a little. You sound wacky.”

“I know,” I said. “I don’t mean to sound that way.”

He laughed. “C’mon,” he said, leaning toward me and bringing his lips close to mine again.

“Wait,” I said. “Let me explain. The night you saw me at Dante’s really was the first night I was ever out without my father.”

He studied my face to see if I was kidding him, and then he sat back. “You certainly didn’t act like any girl out for the first time, at least any girl I’ve ever met or seen,” he said.

“I had a good instructor that night,” I said.

He squinted. “And who was that?”

“My sister,” I said.

“Well, why was your father so lenient with her and not with you?”

“It’s complicated,” I said. I paused. Every word I uttered now had to be well thought out first. “I’m adopted.”

“Adopted? You didn’t tell me that. You told me your mother had died.”

“That’s why I was adopted. I don’t reveal that. I don’t like the effect it has on other girls and boys.”

“Oh.” He thought a moment and then smiled. “I didn’t think you and your sister looked that much alike, but now that you’ve mentioned it, why does your being adopted make any difference in the way your father treats you as compared with Ava?”

“There were promises made,” I said. I thought that was safe and somewhat logical even though a bit cryptic.

“Oh, so your father did know your mother?”

“Yes, he knew her.”

“Well, what about your real father, then? Where was he at the time?”

“I don’t know.”

He nodded. “I see. This is a little complicated.” He was thoughtful again.

I hated making all this up, but I saw no other way. “I’m all right with it. I love my father very much, and he’s very devoted to me, to all of us.”

“That’s good. Maybe if your father met me, he would see I’m a decent guy and—”

“No,” I said, perhaps too quickly and vehemently.
“No,” I added softly. “Not yet. For now, I’d like to keep everything as it is.”

“Okay. Whatever you say. I’ll do whatever you want, as long as I can be with you, Lorelei. Besides,” he said, smiling again, “we’re wasting precious time.”

He leaned in to kiss me again. His lips moved off mine, to my cheeks, my chin, and my neck. Any girl doing this for the first time had to feel anxious and even a little afraid. She wouldn’t want to seem cold and awkward, so innocent and unsophisticated that she would make a fool of herself. I was sure that just as I was caught in an emotional tug of war for my own special reasons, any girl would be pulled in opposite directions.

One half of her would want to test her own passions, discover whatever wonderful surprises her body had waiting for her. She could read about it, imagine herself as a character in a romance novel or in a movie, but to feel a boy’s lips actually on hers, moving over her body, his hands touching her in places never touched by anyone other than herself, in short, to enter her private space, her private places, and stir whatever wonderful part of her had been in waiting since she first felt she had stepped into maturity, was impossible to dismiss or belittle. Could a girl really ever be a woman without bringing all that to life?

But there was also that second part of a girl, the part that resisted, that pulled her back, that system of alarms her parents, her teachers, and other adults planted in her mind and heart, those warnings that told her not to go too far, not to surrender herself too quickly and risk losing all those years of joy that lay ahead. How confusing it was to think that something that brought her so
much pleasure, made her feel so much like the woman she was meant to be, could at the same time destroy a significant part of her, steal away her most precious years, those years before she had to be sensible and responsible. Surely, a part of life was meant to be carefree. The laughter was different then. Even the air she breathed seemed different. Mornings and nights were certainly different. She felt immortal, capable of doing anything, going anywhere. All of that was at risk.

And it wasn’t simply solved by taking a birth-control pill or having any other protection. They weren’t perfect, and besides, even with that, a girl was giving up what Ava had called “the mystery of you.” Even if it was cool and defiant to be intimate with any boy or man a girl was with, at the end of the day, she made something special into something ordinary. In her rush to be her own woman, she might have given away the one thing that made her so.

I had spent many hours thinking about all of this and especially listening to other girls talk about it in school. Most thought I wasn’t paying any attention to them, that I didn’t care what they had to say, but I very much did. Where else would I learn about it? My older sister had a different agenda, a different goal and objective for sex, and although that was going to be mine as well, I was, after all, the daughter who asked too many questions, thought about too many things. Ava didn’t care one iota what other girls thought or felt about themselves and sex. She had made that clear to me many times. But I did. Was that another thing that made me different, dangerously different?

All of this raced through my mind as Buddy’s kisses became more passionate, his breathing hotter and faster, and my own heart began pounding. I heard his tender expressions of love, his promises and admiration for me. The sound of his voice and all that he was saying did embellish the excitement raging inside me. Yes, I wanted him to touch me, to turn up the heat inside me, to drive me to the point when I would demand more and more from him, causing him to have that sweet and passionate desperation that made him whimper with desire.

Sex, I discovered, could also fill you with agony, an agony that intensified until you surrendered to it. Although I wasn’t quite there, I could feel that he was. I could hear it in his now more desperate-sounding pleas for me to accept him, to be more compliant, more willing.

He began to undress me.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “So beautiful you bring tears of joy into my eyes.”

When he began to undress himself, Ava’s furious warnings began to echo in my head:
You’ll be of no use to Daddy. He’ll hate you. You won’t be part of our family anymore.

I couldn’t help but think of Daddy’s loving caresses, his soft kisses. Buddy thought my moans were moans of pleasure, but they were moans of fear and sorrow. And then, just as he was lowering his head to kiss my stomach and move down even lower, I looked past him and thought I saw Mrs. Fennel’s face in the living-room window. She was glaring at me with those fiery eyes. I screamed and pushed him away.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as I rushed to dress.

“I can’t do this, not now.”

He looked devastated. “I didn’t mean… I couldn’t help myself, but I really love you, Lorelei. Thoughts of you have taken over my brain. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I hear other people talking, but I don’t hear their words or make any sense of them, or anything for that matter. It’s as if you’ve possessed me, only I’m not complaining. I love that I’m possessed by you.”

“It’s all happening a little too fast,” I said. “Don’t be angry.”

“Oh, I can’t ever be angry at you.”

“Don’t say that so fast, either,” I told him. I continued to dress.

“Are you upset with me? I just thought… I mean, since you agreed to meet here, that…”

“No, it’s not your fault. I guess I’m just too nervous about what’s happened. I did want to be with you, Buddy. I do. Maybe I’ll be able to meet you again tomorrow,” I offered. “We’ll see.”

“Isn’t there any way that I can get your father to feel better about your being with me, so I can take you out on a real date?”

“Maybe later. Let me think about it,” I said, hoping that would satisfy him.

He looked at his watch. “You still have a little time, don’t you? Let’s just talk, then. Tell me more about yourself. What happened to your real mother?”

“Cancer,” I said. How convenient and all-encompassing that word could be.

“Oh, sure. Well, what about your current father?
Where’s his wife? How was he able to adopt you if he didn’t have a wife?” he asked.

“His sister lives with us,” I said. “She’s been… she’s been our mother.”

“That’s weird. Your father never married?”

“Yes, he did. His wife died.”

“Oh. And so he didn’t give you back afterward, since his sister was there?”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Something like that? Funny way to put it.”

“It’s not something I question, Buddy. Imagine asking ‘Why did you keep me?’”

“Yeah, I see your point. You said you have a younger sister. So he legally adopted her, too?”

“Yes.”

“So, Ava is the daughter your father had with his wife before she died?”

“Yes.”

I looked at my watch. “I had better go. If I’m not home when Ava returns with my younger sister…”

“Okay,” he said, rising. “Should I call you tonight?”

“I’ll call you,” I said. “It’s very important that Ava not know about us, Buddy.”

“You do make her sound dangerous. What is she, some kind of psychotic?”

“She’s… a very jealous person. She can be very mean, yes, and she would do something to get me into big trouble.”

He nodded and walked me out. We stood by my car for a moment. He just looked at me.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re so full of mystery and contradictions. I’m frustrated, but I’m also even more attracted to you.” He pretended to look around. “You sure we’re not on some kind of reality show here?”

“Hardly,” I said, laughing. He was so cute, his passion for me so obvious. I leaned in and kissed him. He kept his eyes closed after I pulled back.

“I want to savor every kiss,” he said. “Pack it tightly into my memory so I’ll be able to relive it while I’m away from you. Suffering, I might add.”

I got into my car.

“You’ll call me later? You promise?”

“Let’s not turn everything into a promise,” I said. “Too much opportunity for disappointment.”

“Hey… that’s deep. You are a woman of mystery. Okay, I’ll keep my cell phone in the pocket next to my heart.”

I smiled, started the car, and backed out of the driveway. He stood watching me. I waved and drove off. In my rearview mirror, I could see him still watching me, like someone who wanted to memorize every moment.

I knew that I did.

15
 
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