Sleeping Beauty by Judith Michael Page A

quickly and surely while he untied her sash, opened her robe, and ran his hands over her body. Her breasts were growing and he held them, pinching her nipples. “Fourteen,” he murmured with a broad smile. “My favorite age. So lovable. So grown-up.”
    He lay on the bed and Anne bent over him, knowing exactly what he wanted. He never had to tell her anymore. Just by the way he sat or stood or lay down, or put his hands on her shoulders or waist to turn or push or lift her, she knew what to do, and how to do it in the way that pleased him most. He had trained her so well she didn’t even have to think about it. In fact, most of the time her mind was on other things. Some of the time she thought about school. She didn’t like it—she hated being told what to do—but she loved to read and she could forget everything else when she was absorbed in Don Quixote and Moby Dick, Barchester Towers, and Leaves of Grass and everything by Shakespeare. She could recite to herself whole passages from Walt Whitman while doing what Vince wanted her to do; it made her feel she was somebody else, not Anne Chatham doing what she hated.
    She thought about other things, too: movies she saw on television, and a new book she’d bought that told how to name the birds that flew along the lake shore. She identified them when she was in her new secret place, hidden among boulders on the shore near Ethan’s house, where she could curl up and read and write all day with no one discovering her, just as she had in the forest clearing. She especially liked to think about that while her body and mouth and hands went through their practiced motions with Vince; she would think about her own place, and how soon she would be back there, cool and clean and by herself.
    Vince lifted her on top and she straddled him, bendingdown so he could play with her breasts. He rolled the nipples between his fingers, waiting for them to pucker and grow hard. When they stayed soft and flat, he looked at Anne through narrowed eyes. “Feel something,” he demanded. She met his eyes, her face impassive. He kneaded her breasts. “God damn it, feel something when I play with you!”
    She never felt anything.
    â€œTell me how you feel,” he said harshly.
    â€œGood,” Anne replied automatically. “You make me feel good.”
    â€œTell me how much you love me,” he said.
    Anne bent lower until her lips were against his neck. She said something but it was muffled.
    â€œI didn’t hear that,” said Vince. “I want to know how much you love me.”
    â€œMore than anything,” Anne said, repeating lines he had taught her long ago, and if Vince heard the thread of despair in her voice, he gave no sign of it. “More than anyone. You’re so exciting . . .” She moved her hips as she spoke; by now she could do three or four things at once without even thinking, without even missing a beat.
    â€œAnd you wanted me from the beginning,” Vince said. “And made me want you. Go on.”
    â€œAnd I wanted you from the beginning. I made you want me, I led you on, I enticed you, I lured you.”
    And maybe it’s true; otherwise, why would he be here? I’m not sure, because I don’t know what leads a man on, but Vince knows. Maybe I wanted love so much that I enticed him into my bed. Then it wouldn’t be his fault at all.
    â€œNice,” Vince said, and pushed her upright so he could watch her as she moved above him. His eyes closed, his breathing grew faster and louder, his hips moved beneath her. Anne watched him as if he were a long way off, a stranger who had nothing to do with her, and then she looked past him, at a painting on her wall of a beautiful mother and her little girl on a flower-filled terrace golden with sunshine and love.
    After a while, Vince lay still and did not reach for heragain, and Anne knew that was enough for tonight. She sat