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"Now we get to three-dimensional work," he explained. "I need you more than ever."
He put the paintings up on a row of easels for reference and began what he promised would be the final stages of the process.
I didn't understand what he meant until he began his work. Then it all started again. Those times he had touched my body to enhance his ability to draw and to paint were nothing compared to what he was doing now. It seemed he stopped every five or ten minutes after he began to work with the clay so he could come to me to feel me or, as he said,
"experience me artistically."
He would hold my head in his hands and stand there, his eyes closed, his head back, and then he would rush back to his table to form the clay. He traced the lines in my face, lingered over my ears and gently pressed the tips of his fingers against my closed eyes. When I looked into his face while he was doing some of this, I saw an intensity and concentration that both amazed and frightened me because his face was flushed and his eyes were maddeningly wide.
The doll's figure began to rise out of the mound of clay on the table just the way he had described Venus rising out of the sea. I watched it taking shape and anticipated his every touch. After he finished my shoulders, he returned to trace my raised collarbone, his fingers moving softly across my body. He confirmed every inch of the way down my torso before bringing himself to outline it in the mold.
When he reached my breasts, I stiffened. He stood before me, his eyes closed again.
"Easy," he whispered. "It's working. My fingers are carrying you from here to the sculpture and drawing you out of it, just as I hoped they would."
He cupped and traced my bosom, keeping his fingers on me for what seemed longer than ever. I couldn't keep myself from trembling again, but if he felt it, he didn't acknowledge it. Finally, he lifted his hands from me and returned to his sculpting. On and on it went, following the same procedure. Every time he returned to my body, I felt as if were sinking into a pool of soft, warm clay myself, rather than rising out of it.
Toward the end of our session, he was on his knees, tracing the small of my stomach, running the palms of his hands over my thighs again and again, stroking me as if I were made of clay and he was reshaping me. I wanted to protest, to question, to end it, but I was afraid that whatever I did would only prolong the process, so I kept my eyes closed and endured.
Finally, he told me to put on my clothes.
"I just want to make some finishing touches and we will call it a day," he said.
After I dressed, I looked at the sculpture. Just like in the drawings, there was strong resemblance to my face, but the doll's figure was more like my mother's.
"I won't need you for a few days now," he said, looking away from me. "I'm going to do the fine work from my drawings and paintings and then have you back for one final session to confirm everything. All right?" His eyes cut quickly to my face, then away again just as quickly.
I nodded. The day had left me strained, tense and exhausted. I felt confused, torn between a yearning for something I couldn't describe and a desire to get away from the cottage and never return there.
Tony had been right that I would grow adept at moving through the maze. Now I ran down its green corridors and around the turns, bursting out of the maze on the other side, feeling as if I had just escaped from a madman. I rushed to the house. As I hurried to the stairway, Momma came out of the music room, one of her lady friends beside her.
"Leigh, how did it go today?"
I looked at her and shook my head, unable to speak, afraid that if I began, I would burst into tears and embarrass her. She saw the expression on my face and followed her question with her thin, silvery laugh. It chased me up the stairway to my room where I threw off my clothing quickly and ran a warm bath. I didn't feel relaxed and clean again until I had been soaking in it for at least fifteen minutes. I was almost asleep in the water when I heard my mother come in. She came to the doorway of my bathroom.
"What is wrong with you, acting like that in front of Mrs. Wainscoat," she raved, pacing frantically before me, throwing her hands up in the air. "You don't know what kind of a gossip that woman is."
For once I ignored her hysterics. "Oh Momma, it was worse than ever today. Tony . . . had his hands all over me, everywhere!" I cried. She shook her head and I could see she wasn't listening. WHAT would it take to get her to listen--to hear my cries for help? "Whatever he had to do to the clay, he did to me-- pressing, touching . . . for minutes at a time."
Momma only fumed. "He just told me he's nearly finished and he won't be needing you but one more time," she said. "Is that true?"
"Yes, but . . ."
"Then stop crying like a baby. You did it and I'm sure it will be wonderful.
"Anyway," she went on, "I didn't come up here because of that. You had a phone call today and you have a date tomorrow. Your father has returned. He wants to have lunch with you in Boston."
"Daddy's back?" Oh, thank Heaven, I thought. Thank Heaven. Now there will be someone to listen to me and help me. Daddy was home.
I was so excited the next morning that I took extra-special care in dressing and then preened before the mirror for a guilty moment. I looked in the glass, surprised at my similarity to my mother. Was that the cause of Tony's behavior--was it my fault all along? I felt shame at the thought for a while; then I decided that whatever was the true cause, I couldn't be to blame. Tony was an adult--and he was my stepfather!
I brushed my hair down, stroking it until it shone, and tied it back with a pink ribbon the way Daddy liked it. I put on just a suggestion of lipstick and chose a light blue skirt and blouse, both in a beautiful, airy fabric. I put on the pearl earrings Daddy had brought back for me from the Caribbean.
When I gazed at myself in the mirror, I hoped I would look more grown-up to him. It was important, for I wanted to tell him everything that had happened and especially tell him about my posing for the portrait doll. I had secret hopes that he would ask me to come with him now, get me a tutor perhaps, and take me on one of his trips. If I could only show him that I was old enough to be more on my own. He would understand my need to get away from Momma and Tony. The only thing I regretted was I would be away from little Troy, but I had to do it. I just had to.
When we drove away from Farthy and passed under the great archway, my heart pitter-pattered in anticipation. What would Daddy look like? Would he still have his full beard? I couldn't wait to inhale his after-shave and smell the aroma of his pipe, to have him embrace me and hold me against his tweed jacket while he rained kisses on my hair arid forehead. I wanted
and needed to see him so much, I never once thought about the truth about him. Nothing seemed further from my thoughts than the knowledge he was not really my father.
