"The medicine he takes tires him out early," she explained. "He tried hard to stay up for you, but his eyes shut themselves."
"I'll just look in on him," I said and went to the door of his bedroom.
He would always look tiny and fragile in his king-size bed, I mused, but I thought that, at least tonight, he had gone to sleep with healthier color in his face. I made up my mind I would try to spend more time with him and help his recovery along. It would take my mind off my own problems.
I read and listened to the radio in my suite and then I tried to go to sleep, but when I put out the lights and closed my eyes, all I could think about was Tony putting his hands on my naked body, his fingers traveling up and over my breasts, his eyes shut tight, but the eyeballs moving nervously beneath the lids, looking like two tiny round animals searching for a way out.
What would it be like tomorrow?
When I awoke the next morning, I dressed and went quickly to my mother's suite, but she had her bedroom door shut tight. I knocked gently.
"Momma? I have to talk to you this morning," I whispered through the door. I waited, but there was no response. "Momma?" I raised my voice and waited. Still, there was no response. Frustrated, but
determined to speak with her about my experience at the cottage, I opened the door, only to confront an untouched bed. Shocked and surprised, I hurried from her rooms and down to the dining room, where I found Tony reading the
Wall Street Journal
and having his coffee.
"Where's my mother?" I asked. "It doesn't look like she slept in her bed last night."
"She didn't," he said nonchalantly and turned the page. "Well, where was she?" I demanded. He lowered the paper, a look of annoyance on his face. He wasn't annoyed with me; he was annoyed with her.
"She phoned around eleven to tell me that she and her girlfriends had decided to spend the night in Boston. I had to send Miles to her hotel to bring her clothes for today."
"But . . . when is she coming home?"
He shrugged.
"Your guess is as good as mine. Probably better than mine." His eyes cut sharply toward me. Then he nodded toward Curtis, who had been standing in the corner like a statue, and asked him to bring in our breakfast.
I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to go back to the cottage without first talking about it with my mother, but she wasn't here and Tony was anxious to get started.
"Why don't you just put on one of your loose cotton shifts this morning," he suggested. "It will make things easier if you don't wear anything else," he added. "It's very warm today."
Nothing else? No panties, no bra, nothing but my cotton shift? He saw the look on my face.
"Just to be practical," he added. I nodded. After breakfast I went up to my suite and did as he suggested. Contrary to what he had told me, I didn't feel less nervous this morning, even though it was to be my second session. He was just as animated as the day before when we walked through the maze to the cottage, maybe even more so. He set things up quickly and this time did not ease me into it.
"Today we paint," he announced. "Ready?"
I looked at the windows. All had their shades drawn down, but he had opened them a few inches so that there would be a breeze. I looked back at him, his face filled with anticipation. I was tempted to run out of the cottage. My lips began to tremble.
"What's wrong?" he asked, seeing ray concern.
"I just feel ."
"You poor thing. I'm just rushing onward without considering your feelings. I'm sorry, Leigh," he said and took me in his arms. "I know this isn't the easiest thing for you because it's such a new experience, but we did so well together yesterday, I just thought you were over your initial shyness.
"Now just take a deep breath," he said, "and think about the wonderful thing we're doing together, okay?"
I closed my eyes and took the deep breath, but my heart was pounding so, I felt faint. He felt my trembling.
"Here," he said, "you know what? You don't have to stand right away. I can start with you lying on the couch."
"On the couch?"
"Yes. I'll help you. Just keep your eyes closed. Go on," he encouraged. I did so. "Relax. That's it. Easy," he said and I felt his fingers take hold of my loose cotton shift just below the waist. He lifted it slowly, gently. "Raise your arms, please," he whispered. I did so and the shift came up over my head, rising softly, as softly as it would had a delicate and tender breeze been lifting it. I kept my eyes closed even after Tony brought it past my raised hands. He put it aside and then took my shoulders and softly guided me to the couch.
"Lie there. Make yourself comfortable," he said.
I lowered my head to the pillow he had placed against the arm of the couch and opened my eyes. He was standing before me, looking down, smiling.
"Good. See, how easy it will be."
He returned to his easel and began. Time seemed to pass more slowly than it had yesterday. We didn't take a break until lunch. When he announced we would eat lunch, he handed me the sheet I wore yesterday. I clipped and draped it around me. Again, we had sandwiches and wine. Tony talked about some of the exciting marketing ideas he was developing for the portrait dolls. The more he talked, the more relaxed I became. He surprised me though when we returned to the work.
"You don't have to stand. I need a rear view now," he told me.
"What should I do?"
"Just lie down on your stomach," he said. I hesitated. "Go on. I'll take the sheet off you when I'm ready."
I did as he asked. He set up another canvas and then he came to the couch. First, he stroked my hair.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Good. Then let's begin again," he said and reached under my chin to unclip the sheet. He lifted it from me and stood looking down. "Perfect," he muttered, almost inaudibly. He returned to his easel and worked. Hours seemed to go by before he groaned as he had yesterday.
"Not right," he said. "Just not right." I looked at him. He was staring at me, his fingers pinching his chin. Then he approached me. "Just relax." He brought the palm of his hand to the small of my back. He ran it up to my neck and then back down, only not stopping where he started, but going over my buttocks. He lingered there, pressing his fingers softly into me. Then he stood up, sighed, and returned to his canvas.
He worked with a new frenzy. Touching me truly inspired him. This time when he stopped for the day, he looked exhausted. He seemed barely able to speak.
"We're finished for today," he declared. I put on my cotton shift and joined him at the easel. Once again, I thought he had captured my likeness well, but the body he had drawn and painted was more my mother's than my own. He saw my look of surprise.
"It's how I see you," he explained. "It's how you are on the tips of my fingers." The look in his eyes made my heart flutter. He kissed me on the forehead and said, "You're wonderful. You could turn anyone into an artist."
I didn't know what to say. His words
embarrassed and flattered me at the same time, but having him hold his eyes on me so intently made me quiver. Finally, he gathered his things together and we left the cottage. I followed him through the maze, through the long shadows and corridors. My body was in such turmoil, caught in the midst of a storm of feelings. When we finally came out of the maze, I felt as if I had left a dream world and reentered reality.
I hurried into the house and up to my suite, not even stopping to see if my mother had returned from Boston. I had to close the doors quickly and catch my breath. My body still tingled with the memory of Tony's fingers running over me, turning me into the woman he wanted me to be.
I heard my mother coming up the stairs to her suite. She was laughing and talking quite excitedly to one of our maids. I hurried
-
to my door just as she went by.
"Momma," I called. She turned quickly. "Oh, Leigh. I was just talking to Tony about you downstairs. He said everything was going wonderfully. I'm so happy. Give me a minute to shower and change and then come to my suite so I can tell you all about this wonderful play I saw in Boston and this fabulous hotel my friends and I stayed in. It was luxury beyond luxury," she said and swept on toward her suite.
"Momma," I cried, stopping her. "I want to talk to you now."
"Now?" She shook her head at me. "Really, Leigh, you must give me a little time to myself so I can make myself presentable again. You know how I despise traveling."
"But Mamma . . ."
"I'll let you know when I'm ready. It won't be long," she promised and went on before I could offer any further protest.
But it was nearly two hours before she finally did send for me. She had showered and dressed and done her hair and makeup first because two of Tony's business friends were coming to dinner with their wives.
"Now what's so urgent?" she asked as I came into her bedroom. She was at her vanity table making some finishing touches on her hair and looked at me in her mirror.
"It's about my modeling for the portrait doll," I said. She seemed not to be listening. I waited as she played with some loose strands. Finally, she turned to me.
"What?"
"I can't go on with this, Momma," I said and started to cry. She jumped up and went to her door to close it quickly.
"What is it? You can't do this now, make a scene. You want one of the servants to hear you? And our guests will be arriving any moment for dinner. What's wrong?" she exclaimed, her voice frantic.
"Oh Momma, it was hard enough to stand naked in front of Tony while he drew me, but when he touched me . . ."
"Touched you? What are you talking about, Leigh? Stop sniveling like a child and talk sensibly."
I wiped my eyes quickly and sat on the bed facing her. Then I quickly explained what Tony had been doing and why he said he was doing it. She listened attentively, her face barely changing expression. All that she really did was narrow her eyes some and pull her mouth in slightly at the corners.
"Is that all?" she asked when I was finished. She returned to her vanity table.
"All? Isn't it enough?" I cried.
"But he hasn't done anything to you, has he? You said yourself he tried to make you comfortable each time. He sounds very considerate to me," she said and started to turn back to the mirror.
"But Momma, does he have to touch me to paint me and create the model?"
"It's understandable," she said. "I once read about this blind man who sculpted beautiful things using only his sense of touch."
"But Tony isn't blind!" I protested.
"Nevertheless, he's only trying to enhance his senses," she said and put on her lipstick. "What you're doing is wonderful . . . for both of you. He seems so involved, so pleased. To tell you the truth, Leigh," she said turning back to me, "before he got involved with this project, I thought he was going to drive me mad. He was at my door night and day, demanding my attention. I never realized how possessive he was and how much he needed to be occupied. A man like Tony could exhaust one woman to death!" she declared. Then she smiled. "Just think about the doll and what it will mean. Everyone will be talking about them and about you."
"Momma, I have been thinking about the doll and the pictures Tony has painted."
"So?"
"They're . . . they're not right."
"I can't believe that, Leigh. I know Tony's a fine artist; I've seen some of the things he's done."
"I'm not saying he's not a fine artist, Momma. He has drawn my face well and the picture really looks like me, but . . ."
"But? But what? You're not making any sense and we have to get ourselves ready for dinner," she said, her face twisting with anger.
"The rest of me doesn't look like me. It looks like you!" I cried. She stared at me a moment. Relief rushed like a wave over me. Finally she understood why I was so upset. But suddenly, she smiled.
"That's wonderful," she declared. "Absolutely marvelous."
"What?"
"How clever. He's combining both of us into this wonderful new work of art. Why, I guess it was to be expected--the man is completely obsessed with me. He has me on his mind night and day," she said playing with her hair. Then she turned back to me. "You must not blame him for it, Leigh. He simply can't help it.
"Now you can understand why I run away sometimes, why I need relief, why he must be distracted by one thing or another. It's so difficult for a woman when a man literally worships the ground she walks upon." She sighed. "Sometimes, I long for him to be more like your father."
She looked at her diamond watch. "You're not going to dinner dressed like that, are you? Put something more formal on tonight. These people are very wealthy and important. I'd like you to make a good impression." She looked at herself in the mirror again.
"Then you think everything is all right?" I asked her.
"Everything? Oh, yes, of course. Don't be a baby about this, Leigh. It's not going to be that much longer before Tony is finished and hopefully on to other things that will consume his energies just as much." She paused, looked at me a moment, and then got up and went to her jewelry box to choose her rings.
I rose slowly from the bed and started out. When I looked back, I saw her shaking her head at her first choice. She had already put our conversation to sleep.
Perhaps my mother did say something to Tony about our discussion, because when we returned to the cottage the next day, he refrained from touching me. In fact he became more and more intense about his work, at times giving me the feeling he wasn't actually looking at me; he was looking at some image in his mind and simply staring in my direction. We spoke little until we broke for lunch and even then, he was distracted, getting up often to check something on the canvas and then returning to the table.
He spent almost half a day on my feet and hands, studying and measuring, often muttering to himself as he contemplated his drawings. One afternoon, I grew bored and actually fell asleep for a few minutes. If he had noticed, he said nothing. ly the end of the first week, he had drawn and painted me from all angles.
Every night at dinner the work was the main topic of conversation, even when we had guests; although I noticed Tony and my mother left out the fact that I was posing in the nude.
I didn't complain again to my mother about posing, but I couldn't help wishing it would all soon come to an end. Then at the beginning of the second week, Tony announced he would start the actual sculpting and create the model for the doll. Since the paintings were completed I wondered why he needed me.
"Now we get to three-dimensional work," he explained. "I need you more than ever."
He put the paintings up on a row of easels for reference and began what he promised would be the final stages of the process.
I didn't understand what he meant until he began his work. Then it all started again. Those times he had touched my body to enhance his ability to draw and to paint were nothing compared to what he was doing now. It seemed he stopped every five or ten minutes after he began to work with the clay so he could come to me to feel me or, as he said,
"experience me artistically."
He would hold my head in his hands and stand there, his eyes closed, his head back, and then he would rush back to his table to form the clay. He traced the lines in my face, lingered over my ears and gently pressed the tips of his fingers against my closed eyes. When I looked into his face while he was doing some of this, I saw an intensity and concentration that both amazed and frightened me because his face was flushed and his eyes were maddeningly wide.
The doll's figure began to rise out of the mound of clay on the table just the way he had described Venus rising out of the sea. I watched it taking shape and anticipated his every touch. After he finished my shoulders, he returned to trace my raised collarbone, his fingers moving softly across my body. He confirmed every inch of the way down my torso before bringing himself to outline it in the mold.
When he reached my breasts, I stiffened. He stood before me, his eyes closed again.
"Easy," he whispered. "It's working. My fingers are carrying you from here to the sculpture and drawing you out of it, just as I hoped they would."
He cupped and traced my bosom, keeping his fingers on me for what seemed longer than ever. I couldn't keep myself from trembling again, but if he felt it, he didn't acknowledge it. Finally, he lifted his hands from me and returned to his sculpting. On and on it went, following the same procedure. Every time he returned to my body, I felt as if were sinking into a pool of soft, warm clay myself, rather than rising out of it.
Toward the end of our session, he was on his knees, tracing the small of my stomach, running the palms of his hands over my thighs again and again, stroking me as if I were made of clay and he was reshaping me. I wanted to protest, to question, to end it, but I was afraid that whatever I did would only prolong the process, so I kept my eyes closed and endured.
Finally, he told me to put on my clothes.
"I just want to make some finishing touches and we will call it a day," he said.
After I dressed, I looked at the sculpture. Just like in the drawings, there was strong resemblance to my face, but the doll's figure was more like my mother's.
"I won't need you for a few days now," he said, looking away from me. "I'm going to do the fine work from my drawings and paintings and then have you back for one final session to confirm everything. All right?" His eyes cut quickly to my face, then away again just as quickly.
I nodded. The day had left me strained, tense and exhausted. I felt confused, torn between a yearning for something I couldn't describe and a desire to get away from the cottage and never return there.
Tony had been right that I would grow adept at moving through the maze. Now I ran down its green corridors and around the turns, bursting out of the maze on the other side, feeling as if I had just escaped from a madman. I rushed to the house. As I hurried to the stairway, Momma came out of the music room, one of her lady friends beside her.
"Leigh, how did it go today?"
I looked at her and shook my head, unable to speak, afraid that if I began, I would burst into tears and embarrass her. She saw the expression on my face and followed her question with her thin, silvery laugh. It chased me up the stairway to my room where I threw off my clothing quickly and ran a warm bath. I didn't feel relaxed and clean again until I had been soaking in it for at least fifteen minutes. I was almost asleep in the water when I heard my mother come in. She came to the doorway of my bathroom.
"What is wrong with you, acting like that in front of Mrs. Wainscoat," she raved, pacing frantically before me, throwing her hands up in the air. "You don't know what kind of a gossip that woman is."
For once I ignored her hysterics. "Oh Momma, it was worse than ever today. Tony . . . had his hands all over me, everywhere!" I cried. She shook her head and I could see she wasn't listening. WHAT would it take to get her to listen--to hear my cries for help? "Whatever he had to do to the clay, he did to me-- pressing, touching . . . for minutes at a time."
Momma only fumed. "He just told me he's nearly finished and he won't be needing you but one more time," she said. "Is that true?"
"Yes, but . . ."
"Then
stop
crying like a baby. You did it and I'm sure it will be wonderful.
"Anyway," she went on, "I didn't come up here because of that. You had a phone call today and you have a date tomorrow. Your father has returned. He wants to have lunch with you in Boston."
"Daddy's back?" Oh, thank Heaven, I thought. Thank Heaven. Now there will be someone to listen to me and help me. Daddy was home.
I was so excited the next morning that I took extra-special care in dressing and then preened before the mirror for a guilty moment. I looked in the glass, surprised at my similarity to my mother. Was that the cause of Tony's behavior--was it my fault all along? I felt shame at the thought for a while; then I decided that whatever was the true cause, I couldn't be to blame. Tony was an adult--and he was my stepfather!
I brushed my hair down, stroking it until it shone, and tied it back with a pink ribbon the way Daddy liked it. I put on just a suggestion of lipstick and chose a light blue skirt and blouse, both in a beautiful, airy fabric. I put on the pearl earrings Daddy had brought back for me from the Caribbean.
When I gazed at myself in the mirror, I hoped I would look more grown-up to him. It was important, for I wanted to tell him everything that had happened and especially tell him about my posing for the portrait doll. I had secret hopes that he would ask me to come with him now, get me a tutor perhaps, and take me on one of his trips. If I could only show him that I was old enough to be more on my own. He would understand my need to get away from Momma and Tony. The only thing I regretted was I would be away from little Troy, but I had to do it. I just had to.
When we drove away from Farthy and passed under the great archway, my heart pitter-pattered in anticipation. What would Daddy look like? Would he still have his full beard? I couldn't wait to inhale his after-shave and smell the aroma of his pipe, to have him embrace me and hold me against his tweed jacket while he rained kisses on my hair arid forehead. I wanted and needed to see him so much, I never once thought about the truth about him. Nothing seemed further from my thoughts than the knowledge he was not really my father.
When we reached the hotel I asked the hotel receptionist to let Daddy know I was here. I was going to run into Daddy's arms and hold him as tightly as I could the moment he came downstairs. I stood waiting, watching the indicator that told what floor each elevator was presently on. I saw one moving down five, four, three, two . . . the doors opened and Daddy stepped out, but I didn't run to him as I had planned.
He was holding a woman's hand. She was a thin woman with gray and black hair cut just below her ears, and she was very tall, as tall as my father. She wore a dark blue cardigan suit and thick-heeled shoes. Daddy smiled at me, but he didn't release the woman's hand. She smiled too and they both began walking toward me. I waited, my heart pounding. This had to be the woman he had written about in the letters, the woman he said made him happy, Mildred Pierce.
"Leigh," Daddy said, finally holding his arms out to me. I embraced him, but I didn't hold on to him. Instead, I stepped back quickly and looked at Mildred Pierce more closely. Unlike Momma, she had pale skin, a hard, bony face and deep, dark eyes. Her thin lips looked as if they would snap like rubber bands when she smiled and stretched them. Daddy kept his hands on my shoulders.