Read Online Sleeping Beauty by Judith Michael - Free Book Online Page A

birthday, everything changed. It was a warm fall, warmer than anyone could remember, and everyone felt strange, as if the seasons had been turned inside out. In late October the trees flamed red and gold and bronze; beds of asters, salvia, chrysanthemums, and dahlias surrounded the homes of Lake Forest with white and yellow and a deep burgundy that reminded Anne of the wine they drank at Sunday dinners; and the sun blazed day after day from a sky streaked with thin clouds that made thin purple and jade shadows on the lake. Anne hurt from the beauty; she ached with wanting it in every part of her life. She wanted beautiful days and wonderful friends and exciting work that made her feel useful andtriumphant. She wanted to feel good about herself. She wanted to be free of Vince.
    That fall she had begun her second year in high school, and she found that she no longer knew how to talk to the girls in her classes. Suddenly it seemed they were all talking about dates and parties and petting; they giggled about how wet their underpants got when they were excited; they groaned about how gross the boys were when they started panting like puppies and trying to crawl all over them; they all said they were virgins, and after every weekend they tried to find out who wasn’t anymore. Anne stayed away. This is how prostitutes feel, she thought: tired and bored and knowing too much. And old.
    Her body was changing, but she could not take pleasure in it. Her breasts were becoming full and firm, her knees and elbows had lost their knobby look, and she seemed taller, with a slim waist and narrow hips. Vince said he missed her lean boniness, but still he liked staring at her nude body; he said it was due to him; he had made her a woman. She hated him when he said that.
    She hated him most of the time that fall, and it reached a peak on Halloween. Rita and Marian had taken the young children out for trick or treat, and the house was quiet except when the doorbell rang. Anne heard it every few minutes when children came to their door, and she imagined groups of them in their costumes, waiting and giggling together until the maid came and handed out the packets of candy kept in a wicker basket in the front hall. I wish I was young again, Anne thought. I wish I could be a little kid and go trick-or-treating.
    â€œThis is our trick-or-treat night,” Vince said with a grin when he came in. Anne looked puzzled. “You’re turning tricks for me,” he said. She had never heard that before. “And you have your bag of treats to keep me happy. To keep both of us happy.” He sat on the edge of the bed and motioned to Anne to kneel in front of him. “Where else would I want to be on trick and treat night?”
    Anne felt like screaming. She wanted to smash his smiling face. She thought of biting him until he cried and begged formercy. But he wouldn’t; he’d kill her. She clenched her fists as she knelt in front of him, and took him in her mouth and stroked his thighs. She was more afraid of him than she had been in months because he seemed invulnerable.
    He was always very pleased with himself, but lately he had preened with new successes. He had been in charge of building a group of three office towers near O’Hare airport, and he had done it brilliantly. Everyone said so, even Ethan. And soon after the three buildings were completely rented, Ethan had announced he was putting Vince in charge of Tamarack, the little town he had been developing for twenty years without any formal plan. Now he would turn it over to Vince. When the announcement was made, it seemed that everyone in the family, even those who had been cool to Vince, admired and deferred to him, as if, Anne thought, he’d suddenly become the crown prince. And that made him especially terrifying because she felt weak and unimportant beside him. He was the prince of the family and she was just a commoner. And so was her father, she thought; or at