Hot juices spurted forth to warm up my insides pleasantly five or six times, and then it was over, all over, and he was pulling out. And I hadn't reached any mountain high, or heard bells ringing, or felt myself exploding--not as he had. It was all over his face, relaxed and at peace now, vaguely smeared with joy. How easy for men, I thought, while I still wanted more. There I was on the verge of Fourth-of-July fireworks and it was all over. All over but for his sleepy hands that roamed over my body, exploring all hills and crevices before he fell asleep. Now his heavy leg was thrown over mine I was left staring up at the ceiling with tears in my eyes. Good-bye, Christopher Doll-- now you are set free.
Sunlight through the window wakened me early. Paul was propped up on an elbow gazing dreamily down at me. "You are so beautiful, so young, so desirable. You aren't sorry, are you? I hope you don't wish now you had done it differently?"
I snuggled closer against his bare skin. "Explain one thing, please. Why did you keep asking me to come?" He roared with laughter.
"Catherine, my love," he finally managed. "I nearly killed myself trying to hold back until you could climax. And now you lie there with those big innocent blue eyes and ask what I meant! I thought those dancing playmates of yours had explained everything to you. Don't tell me there is one subject you haven't read about in a book!"
"Well, there was a book I found in Momma's nighttable drawer. . . . But I just looked at the photographs. I never read the text, though Chris did, but then he stole more often to her bedroom suite than I did."
He cleared his throat. "I could tell you what I meant by what I said, but demonstrating would be more fun. Really, you don't have the least idea?"
"Yes," I said defensively, "of course I do. I'm supposed to feel stunned by lightning bolts so I stiffen out and go unconscious and then I'm split wide apart into atoms that float around in space and then gather together and sizzle me with tingles so I can float back to reality with dream-stars in my eyes--like you had."
"Catherine, don't make me love you too much." He sounded serious, as if I'd hurt him if he did.
"I'll try to love you the way you want."
"I'll shave first," he said, throwing back the covers and making ready to get up.
I reached to pull him back. "I like the way you look now, so dark and dangerous."
Eagerly I surrendered to all Paul's desires. We developed delicate ways of keeping our trysts secret from Henny. On Henny's day off I washed the bed linens that were duplicates of the ones soiled that I hid away until they could be washed. Carrie could have been in another world she was so unobservant. But when Chris was home we had to be more discreet and not even look at each other, lest we betray ourselves. I felt strange with Chris now, like I'd betrayed him
I didn't know how long the rapture between Paul and me would last. I longed for passion undying, for ecstasy everlasting. Yet my suspicious self guessed nothing as glorious as what Paul and I had could go on indefinitely. He would soon tire of me, a child whose mental capacities couldn't compete with his, and he'd go back to his old ways--maybe with Thelma Murkel. Maybe Thelma Murkel had gone with him to that medical convention, though I was wise enough not to question him ever about what he did when I wasn't with him. I wanted to give him everything Julia had denied, and give gladly with no recriminations when we parted.
But in the moment of our flaming obsession with each other I felt so large, so generous, and I gloated in our selfless abandonment. And I think the grandmother with her talk of evil and sin had made it ten times more exciting because it was so very, very wicked.
And then again I'd flounder, not wanting Chris to think I was wicked. Oh, it mattered so much to me what Chris would think. Please, God, let Chris know why I'm doing this. And I do love Paul, I do!
After Thanksgiving Chris still had a few days of vacation, and while we were at the dinner table with Henny hovering nearby, Paul asked all of us what we wanted for Christmas. This would be our third Christmas with Paul. In late January I'd be graduating from high school. I didn't have much time to go, for my next step, I hoped, would be New York.
I spoke up and told Paul what I wanted for Christmas. I wanted to go to Foxworth Hall. Chris's eyes widened and Carrie began to cry. "No!" said Chris firmly. "We will not open healed wounds!"
"My wounds are not healed!" I stated just as firmly. "They will never be healed until justice is done!"
Foxworth Hall, from the Outside
. The minute the words left my mouth he shouted, "No! Why can't you let bygones be bygones?"
"Because I am not like you, Christopher! You like to pretend that Cory didn't die of arsenic poisoning, but of pneumonia, because you feel more comfortable with that! Yet you were the one who convinced me she was the one who did it! So why can't we go up there and see for ourselves if any hospital has a record of Cory's death?"
"Cory could have died of pneumonia. He had all the symptoms." How lamely he said that, knowing full well he was protecting her.
"Now wait a minute," said Paul who had kept quiet, and spoke only when he saw the fire blazing from my eyes. "If Cathy feels she must do this thing, why not, Chris? Though if your mother admitted Cory to a hospital under a false name it won't be easy to check up:
"She had a fake name put on his tombstone too," said Chris, giving me a long, hateful look. Paul gave that some thought, wondering aloud how we could find a grave when we didn't know the name. I believed I had all the answers. If she registered Cory in a hospital for treatment under a certain name, then naturally she'd use the same name when he was buried. "And Paul, since you're a doctor you can gain entry to all the hospital records, right?"
"You really want to do this?" he asked "It's sure to bring back a lot of unhappy memories and, like Chris just said, open up healed wounds."
"My wounds are not healed, and will never be healed! I want to put flowers on Cory's grave I think it will comfort Carrie to know where he's buried, then we can visit him from time to time. Chris, you don't have to go if you are so dead set against it!"
What I wanted Paul tried to deliver, despite Chris's opposition. Chris did travel with us to Charlottesville, riding in the back seat with Carrie. Paul went inside several hospitals and charmed the nurses into giving him the records he wanted. He looked and I looked while Carrie and Chris stayed outside. Not one eight-year-old boy had died of pneumonia two years ago in late October! Not only that, the cemeteries didn't have a record of a child his age being buried! Still stubbornly determined, I had to trek through all the cemeteries, feeling Momma might have lied and put Dollanganger on his headstone after all. Carrie cried, for Cory was supposed to be in heaven, not in the ground lightly frosted with a recent snowfall.
Fruitless, time-consuming, unrewarding waste! As far as the world was concerned, no male child of eight years had died in the months of October and November 1960! Chris insisted we go back to Paul's. He tried to persuade me that I didn't really want to see Foxworth Hall.
I whirled to glare at Chris. "I do want to go there! We do have time! Why come this far and turn back without seeing that house? At least once in the daylight, on the outside--why not?"
It was Paul who reasoned with Chris by telling him I needed to see the house. "And to be honest, Chris, I'd like to see it myself."