Carol sat stiff at the table, like a child who's been told to behave.
Her head was held high, and she brought her food delicately and tastefully to her mouth. Harry watched her openly, but made no attempt to eat his own dinner. Phillip bent his head over his plate as he often bent over the painting he fastidiously studied. Harry sat across from Carol thinking disjointedly "…she is my sister … Phillip is somehow above both of us…"
But he felt a curious hate, as if she had made the entire deception, the whole masquerade of Phillip as a squire. That somehow she had offered Phillip a disguise and protection that Harry never could have.
That Phillip and Carol were meshed together.
And where the hell did that leave Harry? Somewhere at the end of the table being a brusque fool who stared and refused to eat. He was an outsider, mainly because they were too much for him. They were a black lacework of intricacy, and he was a rough green thread that looped through the pattern. But he always remained vulgar and somehow outside of it.
Yes, there was even something immaculate about their incest. It left Carol the eternal virgin. She would never really give herself to a man, only to Phillip. And that was some mysterious kind of breast-feeding.
Something Harry couldn't figure out, would never figure out. He just sat there, feeling the anger in his body, watching Phillip wipe the plate clean with a piece of French bread after each course, as Carol sat there like his rebuked child.
"You've really gotten a kick out of life, haven't you Phillip?" he finally said.
"I intend to continue having a 'kick,'" Phillip said, holding the word up like a dirty sock. "That's what I'm trying to impress on you Harry.
Life can be lived very effortlessly, very pleasantly."
"I believe in making an effort," Harry said. His knuckles were white on the edge of the white table cloth. "I don't want to make it in your swamp, Phillip. That's not for me." He turned to Carol. "It disgusts me."
"Harry," Carol spoke in a cool voice, "doesn't like swamps, Phillip.
He prefers jungles. Harry is a kind of Superman, a Tarzan. He likes to swing from tree to tree and pound his chest."
"I see you've inherited your father's wit," Harry said, bitter and dry.
"Phillip's given you everything he has. You're a very lucky girl, Carol."
"Yes," she agreed, "Phillip has given me many things. I've had the most generous daddy a girl can have."
"Let's not throw the paternal dignity around too much," Phillip said, seemingly disinterested at the cruel banter, as if he had told Harry the story and was disappointed in the unnecessary reverberations.
"The younger generation," he murmured, "is considerably more neurotic than mine. You take everything so dramatically. Everything must be a crisis. The only crisis I respect is the one Cezanne created in the nineteenth century. Now Harry, don't you feel unimportant, like some Boy Scout next to that?"
Carol laughed the way Phillip often laughed, turning her head slightly to the side and not opening her mouth. "That's perfect, Phillip, exactly the word. Harry is all confused and indignant. He thinks it's disgusting that you got to my cunt first."
Her boldness sounded hollow, like dying words. "It's not that Harry particularly covets my cunt. It's just an idea he has, something about people in the same family shouldn't touch. Harry, you're a hero, but you're so old-fashioned. There's really nothing for you to do in this world. You missed the Crusades."
Harry pushed his chair back and got up from the table. "I think you've both educated me enough," he said coldly. "Fresh air might undo some of it."
Carol sat still, as though stunned. He was the first man to know of her and Phillip, and the first to matter. And he was going to leave, giving her a dead look over his shoulder. She thought desperately, Phillip, help me. Don't let him despise me. Help me.
Phillip put his napkin next to his plate. "I think we should all have coffee first," he suggested. "That will make us all feel a bit more normal." The last word echoed in the dining room, and he hastily added, "I always find scenes banal. Have some coffee Harry, and we'll try to be civilized."
Harry felt the spider wrap another liquid thread around him. He clung helplessly to the web. Carol had not a said a word, had not seconded Phillip's suggestion. She looked beautiful, really beautiful tonight. The long white gown left her curved shoulders bare, the skin on her breasts and arms and shoulders looker powder soft, and he could smell the spicy perfume that emanated from her. He was sure the odor came from her flesh. Looking at her, he wanted to bury his face in her arms, or hair, or fluffy cunt and breathe deeply. Her profile was marble, chiseled from an inner tension and pain that made her extraordinary. He hated her and wanted to ram his cock into her, to despise her, to rape 'Daddy's little girl' out of her virgin pussy.
Phillip watched his eyes and said, "You look really lovely tonight, Carol. I like the piece with that dress. Sets if off nicely."
"I thought you never wore jewels," Harry said, trying to be calm as well. He was going to be calm until he invaded the marble statue.
Carol sat quietly. What were they doing to her now? What was this round-robin of hate? Suddenly, for the first time, she thought they shouldn't have pricks. They shouldn't have anything but smooth round hairless flesh, like I have. They don't want their pricks. They interfere with the cruelty. With the way he'd like to hate me without ever touching me.
Her mind became a jumble of heat and fear, until it suddenly crystallized and Harry's meaningless words got through to her. She was ready to be meaningless too.
"Do you like it?" She fingered the heavy pendant around her neck.
"I know you have a feeling for such things. It belonged to my mother."
She finished, and got up from the table to lead them to the library.
Sitting in the deep chair in the study, Carol looked casually around her and said, "Daddy has one of these rooms everywhere he goes."
"Well not quite everywhere," Phillip answered her gently. He was talking like an old man, the illustrious head of a distinguished, but modest family. "But I've asked you once, and I repeat, let's not talk about Daddy. Especially after such a delightful dinner. I'm tired. You both make me feel like a bent old patriarch. I'd better go to bed early tonight. Anyway, I have a frightening amount of back-cataloguing to get done tomorrow. I hope you don't mind too much, Harry." He was being the perfect father, polite to the stumbling suitor. "Perhaps you and Carol will take a drive. It's stopped raining, I believe. Carol can show you a little of the country here."
He looked at Carol promptingly. Remember your manners; be nice to our guest. She was relaxed now, self-assured and polite. She replied, "I would like some air. How about it, Harry?"
They were winning. He would get the cunt and they would win.
The fair-haired beauty could be had without the Golden Fleece.
Shaken out of his jungle, Harry looked at her a moment before speaking, and then said, "All right, Princess, show me the kingdom."
They sped along the road in a white Jaguar, the top down and the wind fresh on Carol's hair. "How romantic," he thought sarcastically, as he watched her hands, slim and competent on the wheel. She had thrown a cloak over the gown, looking regal and untouchable.
"You're strange," he said finally.
Carol smiled and said lightly, driving gaily away from the darkened estate, "That's the nicest thing you've said to me since we met."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I mean for once you've noticed me, instead of looking at me like so much equipment."
Harry laughed. All right, for a change he'd play it her way. "Oh, come on, you know there are those who 'also serve.'"
"Do I?" she asked softly.
"Are you serious? Phillip would be paralyzed without you."
"And you?" She looked straight ahead, driving fast and expertly.
"I work with Phillip."
"You mean you were working with Phillip. It's all over, you know."
"Because of you?" he asked bluntly. "We'll get over that."
She glared at the road, more insulted by his calm than his ugliness at dinner. "Phillip isn't a pig, that's why. Phillip wants to live, for life, for pleasure. He isn't some stupid little boy playing Indian and creeping into other people's windows." She added abstractly, "It's all over."
"You could be wrong," he warned. "It's not so easy to drop off, just like that. You get hooked. It's like some kind of drug habit." He stopped, unwilling to reveal himself to her, making the obvious effort Anonymous The Pleasure Thieves Page 92
not to unburden himself. "And what would you do for excitement, daughter of Phillip?"
"Don't be funny," she said mildly, her face stiffening, contradicting the tone. "He's not like that. Things don't use him, he uses things."
"Like you."
"Don't misunderstand," she said sharply. "Don't draw some convenient portrait about how Phillip's plundered and ruined me. It's not that way. It's never really been that way."
She started suddenly, surprisingly, to cry. Harry felt furious desire for her. Then the feeling changed to sympathy and curiosity.
"I want Phillip. I've always wanted Phillip, since I was a little girl.
To be near him, to listen to him, to love him…"
"Well, you have him," Harry said coldly.
"He's not enough now." She was revealing herself now, telling him what he knew, but had never admitted.
"How did you get into this?"
She tried to respond on his terms. Yes, he wanted form, contours, as much as Phillip. She spoke quietly and sincerely. "Like father, like daughter, you know, that sort of thing. We just naturally like the same things."
"Phillip?"
"Phillip loves me."
"Then why has he let you get involved in everything. Pushing that jewelry can be dangerous, little girl."
"I made him let me. I fought for it. Years ago, when other little girls were discovering the birds and bees, I discovered that my daddy was a jewel thief. Do you know what? I loved the idea … I loved it."
Harry watched her intently as she added, "I overheard a conversation."
"That must have been an interesting scene, when he found out,"
Harry said, looking away from her intent face.
"I didn't tell him until years later, as a matter of fact," she explained pensively.
"But weren't you at school when all this was going on?"
"Yes, I had to go to school," she said softly. "Schools I hated, filled with people who bored me unforgivably." She paused a second, and continued, "When I didn't see Phillip, nothing seemed right."
"Were you with him much?"
"No, not very much then. During vacations I would be left here with the servants. Sometimes he would be here, and those were wonderful times. He would read to me, or explain paintings, talk to me about traveling together when I grew up. Then he would be gone, as quickly as he'd arrived, and I was alone again.
"I started to work myself, on the magazine, that career girl's nightmare, instead of running away or going to schools forever … to be near Phillip I guess. Anyway, he couldn't shake me, so he decided to use me."
Harry watched the side of her face as she spoke. He waited, waited for the rest that she would have to tell him tonight. Waited for the secret he could sense was burning inside her.
"It's really worked out rather well, wouldn't you say … as smooth as a perfect…" Her face became suddenly tense, but somehow beautiful.
She wanted him to take her in his arms, to comfort the rest of the terrible story out of her. He waited still beside her, and Carol realized that it was more important for her to tell the story than for Harry to hear it. Also she knew that his objectivity, his distance enabled her to go on.
She had revealed her secret to no one but Phillip, who was a part of her, and the dirty little man in the tenement shop. Harry was outside all this, she knew.
"You see," her voice was tight as taut rubber again, "it's not that Phillip has perverted me, has made me into some kind of slave. He's made my life possible. Without him, I wouldn't have wanted to live."
Then her voice lost its emotion and became flat, like a bored instructor giving a familiar lecture.
"When I was thirteen, I had diphtheria. The doctors, as usual, didn't know if I could live. But Phillip knew, because Phillip cared. Mother was dead then, and he sat vigil at my bed. He didn't," her words cracked and parted, "he didn't touch me then."
Harry watched the marble shoulders. The pain on her face was reaching him, deeply, from some place far back before his childhood.
He felt the heavy beating of his heart, and knew that in a sense Carol had more courage than he – and that he could not speak now. She continued.
"One of the capital results of diphtheria is often a loss of hair. Well, I was a democratic child, so I lost my hair. All of it, do you understand? I was not a beautiful sight for Phillip to read to and caress, me lying there white and smooth and silent as an egg. Of course, I didn't realize then. The fever raged and I knew nothing. The doctors, however, were afraid the hair would never grow back. But as you can see," – again the pebbles were behind her words – "as you can see, it did. But not all of it." She started to cry again. "Not all of it. Not the most important part. Not the woman's enchanted forest. Do you understand? Am I clear, or shall I spell it out for you? Not my pubic hairs. My cunt stayed white and smooth, like my belly."
Why wouldn't he move? She felt an agony of isolation. Why wouldn't he touch her and say it was all right, and that she was still a woman and beautiful? Because he didn't think so; because he thought now that she was something of a freak, some ugly little assistant that Phillip the magician dragged around the world with him.
"Phillip didn't care," she accused. "Phillip still thought I was wonderful." It was the wail of a frightened child, not the cool Carol, of cool Femme. "He could have me as if I were seven years old. And a father never wants his daughter to grow up, to grow older. That part of me remained a child, except inside. And once he was inside, Phillip didn't care if I was his daughter or son or the gas heater. I'm the same inside, Harry, maybe hotter to compensate for the lie of my cunt. But I'm the same as any woman." Her sobs relaxed her and finally silenced her. She rested her head on the white leather seat and closed her eyes.
She was the Sleeping Beauty for Harry. He looked pensively at her, afraid to awaken her, not sure that the long sleep wasn't the best part of her life. But he was puzzled and still confused.
"Baby." He finally caressed her arm. "Baby, I don't understand. I had you, remember? I had you, and it didn't matter. I didn't notice.
You're bugging yourself and your cunt didn't look any different to me…"
"That wasn't my cunt you felt. Those weren't my soft comforting pussy hairs you rested on. That was my little masquerade, my twentieth century costume."
She turned fully and held his eyes. "It was a wig, a blond patch of hair, the kind vain men wear on their heads. It's a great thing, looks like a dead mouse when you hold it in your hand, but like sweet bristling hair on the cunt."
She pounded the shoulder that would not hold her head. "It's particularly good for lovers. They can take it to bed with them, drape it over a rare chunk of meat or a milk bottle and have a ball. You see,"
she shouted into the quiet dark night, "Phillip is the only man who would have me. Phillip saves my life every time he fucks me."
Harry reached out to hold her close, to transfuse her fear into his body. He felt so empty, like a god sent to wander on the earth and hear these stories, these hidden nightmares.
"Carol, baby." He let her cling to his chest. "Carol, why are you torturing yourself? We can make it both ways; we can have a ball."
We! He spoke of them as two things that equaled one. "Baby, we can fuck and pretend you're Little Orphan Annie, all naked and beautiful and untouched. Or you can put it on, or hold it in your hand, or stick it over your mouth. Baby there's a thousand ways to make it, and we can find a way. There's always a way. Phillip should have taught you that.
It'll be crazy. I can have a little girl or have you hot and hairy."
She sobbed, hearing the words she'd waited so long for, hearing them echo around them in the still night. She was already hot between her thighs from hearing that he wanted her. She wanted to leave the car and stretch out in the black night and let him fuck her into nothing. She was out of the nightmare, entering the dream.
He lifted the long white gown and moved up along her thighs and hips until he reached the immature pussy. He pressed his palm flat down on the exposed flesh, and felt the hot inner liquids. "Cry, baby,"
he consoled. "Cry into Harry's hand." And she let the passion that had been Phillip's trickle onto his open palm. "It feels wonderful. You feel wonderful to me." He felt the pain pouring into his hand, and watched her face clearing and growing calm and beautiful and passionate in the subtle moonlight.
He released the rod pressing out of his pants. His prick came up urgent to be devoured by the starving cunt. He lifted the billowing skirt up to her hips, and she threw her head back. He buried his head in her lap, kissing her thighs and belly and then the smooth vaginal lips. He narrowed his tongue into the running slit and chewed until she screamed, "I want you to fuck me!"
He lifted her high into the air, and sat her hard on the throbbing cock.
She sank over him, her cunt opening and absorbing him like a giant mouth. She moved up and down on the stiff, maddening, soothing bone. He clung to her hips and pulled her down after each free thrust.
Her head was high in the cool, secret evening, and they fucked until the dawn defined the surrounding trees.