all these years? Now that he had it, she hated him for it. It was no longer her home, where she had to pinch, save and organize to keep it going, but his home, where the scratching of the pen on the checkbook solved everything.
Well, this new home would be hers. She had forced it out of Max. It terrified her a little when she realized what an extreme kind of home it was going to be—so modern. But she had insisted and got her demand. That was what counted. All the years of scrimping and iron control of life (because if you let go one instant only, it would drown you) had left her with this: victory was the realization that war was endless. When the world surrendered, you turned to your family for the next battle. It wasn’t good, but what could she do? The real struggle with Elly would begin now. The girl must be given a sense of her own value, of dignity. She was clearly too attractive to men.
Her thoughts floated off into a horrified fantasy of Elly being kissed and people watching. She pressed her hand over her eyes and destroyed the image in a blur of shifting colors and tried to relax enough to fall asleep. Beside her Max had fallen asleep, suffused with a deep feeling of well-being, troubled for only a moment before the darkness became thick and opaque by the thought that Rose was being far too smug about Lang. Well, she wasn’t paying him. The disturbing idea faded into sleep.
Her cheek hot and flushed against the cool pillow, Elly was remembering the way Lang had clasped and unclasped his hands and the strength that had been implied in the movement. This was the man who was to create her new home. She stifled a giggle, remembering how close she came to having to play the piano for him. How ridiculous! But of course her parents couldn’t know the kinship she felt with him. Nor, for that matter, could Lang. They might as well have forced her to build something for him with a set of colored blocks.
She stretched her long, slender brown legs to the end of the bed and threw her arms over her head, cracking her elbow joints deliciously, wondering for a second if she was still growing. The thought was marked as silly and dismissed. Then almost at the same time, but close enough to create an ambiguity as to which occurred first, she saw Lang’s strong, bone-ridged face, saw again the clenching movement of his great hands and felt, beginning first at the insides of her thighs, then spreading to her stomach and finally bathing her breast, a languor and a sensuousness that made her shut her eyes and hold them tightly closed. Then the visions began—Lang resting his face on her breast, and then the hands, big enough for each one to encompass a breast, opening her blouse …
Her hand (she was trying not to, but with no great effort—resistance was a token to the idea of her mother) was at the inside of her thigh, the other one loosening the trousers of her pajamas. This was how beautiful it could be to be really alone and yet not to be alone. The hand on her flesh was not the hand undoing her clothes. She was so many people now—herself, Lang, Jerry Wilson and his fumbling in the car after the dance. Although she was told so often, only now did she know she was beautiful. This was how it would feel if Lang were really there rather than existing only on the surface of her closed eyelids.
She trembled and lay still, submerged in a wash of feeling. Life is real, she thought. I’m truly alive (as sometimes she might doubt, perhaps at two in the afternoon with the bright sun everywhere, darkening, by comparison, herself and her existence); anything is alive that is wet with life, unsatisfied. Still breathing a little heavily she slept, and soon after, sleep measured her breath, less prodigal of her energy than she herself was.
The way she was staring at me! John Lang was thinking as he drew a deep lungful of smoke from his cigarette, careful to drop none of the ashes on the green-striped pajamas his wife, Lorraine, had
Well, this new home would be hers. She had forced it out of Max. It terrified her a little when she realized what an extreme kind of home it was going to be—so modern. But she had insisted and got her demand. That was what counted. All the years of scrimping and iron control of life (because if you let go one instant only, it would drown you) had left her with this: victory was the realization that war was endless. When the world surrendered, you turned to your family for the next battle. It wasn’t good, but what could she do? The real struggle with Elly would begin now. The girl must be given a sense of her own value, of dignity. She was clearly too attractive to men.
Her thoughts floated off into a horrified fantasy of Elly being kissed and people watching. She pressed her hand over her eyes and destroyed the image in a blur of shifting colors and tried to relax enough to fall asleep. Beside her Max had fallen asleep, suffused with a deep feeling of well-being, troubled for only a moment before the darkness became thick and opaque by the thought that Rose was being far too smug about Lang. Well, she wasn’t paying him. The disturbing idea faded into sleep.
Her cheek hot and flushed against the cool pillow, Elly was remembering the way Lang had clasped and unclasped his hands and the strength that had been implied in the movement. This was the man who was to create her new home. She stifled a giggle, remembering how close she came to having to play the piano for him. How ridiculous! But of course her parents couldn’t know the kinship she felt with him. Nor, for that matter, could Lang. They might as well have forced her to build something for him with a set of colored blocks.
She stretched her long, slender brown legs to the end of the bed and threw her arms over her head, cracking her elbow joints deliciously, wondering for a second if she was still growing. The thought was marked as silly and dismissed. Then almost at the same time, but close enough to create an ambiguity as to which occurred first, she saw Lang’s strong, bone-ridged face, saw again the clenching movement of his great hands and felt, beginning first at the insides of her thighs, then spreading to her stomach and finally bathing her breast, a languor and a sensuousness that made her shut her eyes and hold them tightly closed. Then the visions began—Lang resting his face on her breast, and then the hands, big enough for each one to encompass a breast, opening her blouse …
Her hand (she was trying not to, but with no great effort—resistance was a token to the idea of her mother) was at the inside of her thigh, the other one loosening the trousers of her pajamas. This was how beautiful it could be to be really alone and yet not to be alone. The hand on her flesh was not the hand undoing her clothes. She was so many people now—herself, Lang, Jerry Wilson and his fumbling in the car after the dance. Although she was told so often, only now did she know she was beautiful. This was how it would feel if Lang were really there rather than existing only on the surface of her closed eyelids.
She trembled and lay still, submerged in a wash of feeling. Life is real, she thought. I’m truly alive (as sometimes she might doubt, perhaps at two in the afternoon with the bright sun everywhere, darkening, by comparison, herself and her existence); anything is alive that is wet with life, unsatisfied. Still breathing a little heavily she slept, and soon after, sleep measured her breath, less prodigal of her energy than she herself was.
The way she was staring at me! John Lang was thinking as he drew a deep lungful of smoke from his cigarette, careful to drop none of the ashes on the green-striped pajamas his wife, Lorraine, had
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