Read Online Quiet Dell: A Novel by Jayne Anne Phillips - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jayne Anne Phillips
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Love is . . . inarguable. Passion is a capability with which one is born, or not. Passion can destroy, yes, but it seeks and must have. That is its nature. You know my experience. Yet Heinrich’s father was my soul’s companion, and gave me the son I love. We maintained our home and our regard for one another. He was tortured by his own needs. Would I torture him as well? I cared for him too deeply. And he adored me. I did not encourage him to hate himself for needs he could not deny.”
Asta clinched Lavinia’s small hand in her own. “Lavinia, you must listen. I will not allow or condone Heinrich’s need for Dora.”
They were silent. The tea, untouched, was cold.
Lavinia allowed no more discussion of Heinrich’s infidelity. She spoke to her son in confidence, divulged no further opinion, and told the children their father was on a business trip. Heinrich disappeared for nearly a week. He came back on the Saturday of a snowstorm, never addressing Asta, and took Hart to the park on the pony. The animal was grown shaggy in his thick winter pelt andlong mane, and neighed clouds into the air, feasting on apples that Heinrich pulled from his pockets as he led them down the street.
They were gone for what seemed hours. The snow today reminds her of that day. How heavily it fell, coating every branch and blade! And then Heinrich returned and came upstairs to their bedroom while Lavinia supervised the help, and dinner for the children. He would stay, he told her; his heart was torn but he would not leave his family; he was no longer an artist; an artist who did not work was not an artist; he was a manager, both here in their workshop enterprise and at Metropolitan Insurance and Casualty; he had let Dora go, he had lost her; she had berated him for his lack of nerve and forsaken him.
Anna flew to him and fell on her knees before him and kissed his hands and stopped his mouth, doing with him and to him all the things that he liked her to do, even those things that she often refused him. He took her again and again, wild with sorrow, and forced her response, first with anger, as though he would drive himself through her loins to the base of her spine and into her throat, and then with tears, holding her where she bruised most easily, sucking and biting at her, turning her, pushing into her slowly, hot and wet and searing, for his unnatural pleasure that was her sacrifice. He’d whispered, in past encounters petitioned or commanded, that women who’d had children must give their men this secrecy, this tight resistant embrace that prevented childbirth yet offered complete possession; she must only open and be taken. He pulled her against him to stand as men stand, bending her forward until she held her own ankles; she urged him deeper, her gown fallen about her as he pushed it from her. They could not talk of this but it was what he most desired.
She washed him as they lay on the tile of the lavatory, sponges and warm soapy water, her hands and her mouth, until he turned her and began again, bracing them both against the hard porcelain edge of the tub. She was not herself to him thus, faceless, bent and spread to receive him. He held her weight completely in his arms, his fingers against her pubis as he fit himself slowly,urgently, inside her privacy, squeezing her mind completely from her. Silent, he worked for his paralyzed shudder of release, sustained even as he softened within her and carried her, like his own appendage, to the bed to lay against her, pressing tight into her, pulsing in some state of unconscious appetite until he slowly withdrew. She knew he wanted to sleep, holding her so, but she crept from him to pour a bath. She lay on towels beside the tub, utilizing the slender wand, the red tubing attached to the enamel pitcher she kept hidden in the bathroom cabinet. Numb and shamed, she positioned the pitcher above her in the basin, imagining the pour of water filling her, wanting the unbearable pressure
Asta clinched Lavinia’s small hand in her own. “Lavinia, you must listen. I will not allow or condone Heinrich’s need for Dora.”
They were silent. The tea, untouched, was cold.
Lavinia allowed no more discussion of Heinrich’s infidelity. She spoke to her son in confidence, divulged no further opinion, and told the children their father was on a business trip. Heinrich disappeared for nearly a week. He came back on the Saturday of a snowstorm, never addressing Asta, and took Hart to the park on the pony. The animal was grown shaggy in his thick winter pelt andlong mane, and neighed clouds into the air, feasting on apples that Heinrich pulled from his pockets as he led them down the street.
They were gone for what seemed hours. The snow today reminds her of that day. How heavily it fell, coating every branch and blade! And then Heinrich returned and came upstairs to their bedroom while Lavinia supervised the help, and dinner for the children. He would stay, he told her; his heart was torn but he would not leave his family; he was no longer an artist; an artist who did not work was not an artist; he was a manager, both here in their workshop enterprise and at Metropolitan Insurance and Casualty; he had let Dora go, he had lost her; she had berated him for his lack of nerve and forsaken him.
Anna flew to him and fell on her knees before him and kissed his hands and stopped his mouth, doing with him and to him all the things that he liked her to do, even those things that she often refused him. He took her again and again, wild with sorrow, and forced her response, first with anger, as though he would drive himself through her loins to the base of her spine and into her throat, and then with tears, holding her where she bruised most easily, sucking and biting at her, turning her, pushing into her slowly, hot and wet and searing, for his unnatural pleasure that was her sacrifice. He’d whispered, in past encounters petitioned or commanded, that women who’d had children must give their men this secrecy, this tight resistant embrace that prevented childbirth yet offered complete possession; she must only open and be taken. He pulled her against him to stand as men stand, bending her forward until she held her own ankles; she urged him deeper, her gown fallen about her as he pushed it from her. They could not talk of this but it was what he most desired.
She washed him as they lay on the tile of the lavatory, sponges and warm soapy water, her hands and her mouth, until he turned her and began again, bracing them both against the hard porcelain edge of the tub. She was not herself to him thus, faceless, bent and spread to receive him. He held her weight completely in his arms, his fingers against her pubis as he fit himself slowly,urgently, inside her privacy, squeezing her mind completely from her. Silent, he worked for his paralyzed shudder of release, sustained even as he softened within her and carried her, like his own appendage, to the bed to lay against her, pressing tight into her, pulsing in some state of unconscious appetite until he slowly withdrew. She knew he wanted to sleep, holding her so, but she crept from him to pour a bath. She lay on towels beside the tub, utilizing the slender wand, the red tubing attached to the enamel pitcher she kept hidden in the bathroom cabinet. Numb and shamed, she positioned the pitcher above her in the basin, imagining the pour of water filling her, wanting the unbearable pressure
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