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We didn’t even turn our heads to watch the giant die. I kept on beating on his face and chest with my fists, which were raw and bleeding and beginning to weaken and hurt. Appearing so wild now, completely out of himself, Arden ruthlessly threw his weight flat down on me again, almost burying me in the soft and mushy ground. My arching back again tried to throw him off, but I was tiring. He cursed as I’d never heard him curse before, then lunged to crush his lips down on mine. I turned my head to the right, then the left, then right again, but try as I would, I couldn’t escape the brutal kiss that bruised my lips and caused my teeth to bite down into the tender flesh inside my mouth.
Then his ravishing hand was inside my torn blouse, unfastening my front-hook bra. Seeing his animal lust made me want to kill him. I writhed, twisted, turned and screamed as his hands ripped off my blouse and bra and threw them both away. In the end, every conflict between a man and woman came down to this. I hated him! Hated him with such a passion I wanted to kill him.
Even as I fought him, something just as ravenous as what had hold of him betrayed me and caught fire. I fought on, but between my blows I responded to his kisses, parting my lips even as my fists stopped flailing, and my arms suddenly grabbed him and drew his head down to mine. I bit his lip, daring him to draw away, but he kept on with that kiss until I, too, was kissing back, stroking him, loving and hating him, ripping off his wet clothes, too, until we were both naked on the grave of my dead sister.
In his arms, on that grave, while the storm beat into a wild crescendo, I surrendered to the greatest passion of my life. Not sweet, tender loving as it had been that one time, but brutal passion that devoured and demanded. Gasping and panting, I came back to reality time and time again to find myself jerking with one orgasm after another. Then he rolled off and came at me in a different way, making me into the animal he seemed. His hands reached beneath me and cupped my swollen breasts. He moaned.
Then it was over and we were both locked in each other’s embrace. Even so, we kept kissing, and I returned kiss for kiss, as if we hadn’t had enough and would do it all over again and never stop until we were both dead.
On shimmering hot waves of smoldering desire to do it all over again, out here in the storm when the world could end any second and no sin would matter, I drifted back to being me. Furious to find I’d lost again. I hadn’t meant to surrender.
“I won’t leave this place until I see her body,” I said as I rose to my feet and began to pull on my sopping wet, filthy, torn clothing … like hers, just like hers …
“If that’s what you want and need to convince you,” he said in an angry way, “I’ll run back to the house and get a shovel—but wait until I’m back!”
“All right. But run fast.”
Zipping his trousers as he ran off, Arden soon disappeared into the day that had turned into night. Perhaps it was six o’clock and twilight should have had the sky full of vibrant colors, but the night was black as tar, and the storm raged on full force, and I didn’t seek any shelter, just fell flat on the ground and cried.
In what seemed only a few minutes, Arden was back. He yelled at me to get out of the way, then put his foot on the spade and savagely shoveled down into the soggy earth. He heaved and panted as he threw out shovelfuls of dirt. Then he was gasping, “This ground is only six feet above sea level. The law insists on a concrete burial vault … so I should be hitting it soon.”
The rain had me almost blind. I crawled closer to where I could look down and see her vault. On and on Arden dug, until there was water in the deep hole. On my knees on the very edge, the mud began to slide. I yelped and grabbed for something to cling to as I slipped, unable to stop my momentum. Arden yelled, “Get back!” just as I fell on top of him and both of us slid down into her empty grave.
Bleakly I stared down into his eyes. “Arden … does this mean I really am the First, the Best Audrina?”
Sorrow was in his deep voice. “Yes, darling.” He threw out the shovel and embraced me. “Your father didn’t lie. He told you the truth.”
All the strength I’d felt before vanished. I went limp in his arms, drowning in the realization that it had been me who had been gang-raped when I was nine years old, and my entire family—Momma, Papa, Aunt Ellsbeth and even Vera—had connived to deceive me. What did they think I was, a weakling who couldn’t cope? Putting me in that damned rocking chair to gain peace and contentment, to find that special something they had called her “gift” when all along it had been me? I was the First, the Best Audrina, and to this grave they’d brought me, and forced me to put flowers into the urn that was really mine. Oh, God, they were the ones who were crazy!
Somehow Arden managed to hoist me out of the grave first, then he scrambled out of the hole. He wanted to carry me back to the house, but that would show Papa and Vera, again, that I just wasn’t strong enough. Devastated and wrung out, still I managed to walk beside Arden as the rain pasted our clothes to our bodies, our hair to our heads. Like war victims, we stumbled blindly forward, making that long trek back to that house of deceit. By the time we reached there, the rain had washed us both free of mud.
Once we were inside the house, Arden hurried me into the downstairs powder room and dried my hair. He stripped off my wet clothes as I stood there shivering, my teeth chattering, goose bumps rising up on my arms. He rubbed me down with a fresh towel before he pressed his face between my thighs. I jumped with the electrical thrill of his kiss put there—why hadn’t he kissed me there before?
“You’ve never allowed me to do anything like this,” he said as he took a white terry cloth robe from the linen closet and held it for my arms to slip into. His lips brushed over my shoulder before he pulled the robe on more snugly. “Don’t pull away from
me again. Scream and yell and fight back, but don’t freeze me out. I don’t know how to cope with you when you go silent and cold. Tonight when you fought and screamed, it seemed to me you were fully alive, and for the first time you had control of your life, and even if you thought you went down in defeat, you were the victor. You have made me see how wonderful our lives could have been, and how wonderful our lives will be from now on.”
I couldn’t decide anything now. I had to find Papa and confront him. I had so many questions. I’d force him to answer if I had to. I pulled from Arden’s embrace. “I need to see Papa, and then we’ll talk about us.”
Impatiently I waited for Arden to dry his hair and change from his wet clothes into a robe similar to mine, and then, with him beside me, I went to find Papa.
Papa’s Story
In the hallways the lamps threw shadows on the walls as Arden and I walked up the stairs to take us up to the attic and into the cupola … and even before we were halfway up the spiraling iron stairs, I heard Sylvia’s voice as she tried to talk to Papa.
“Aud … dreen … na …?”
“I don’t know where she is,” said Papa, as if beside himself. “That’s why I came up here. From this vantage point you can look for miles and miles … but I can’t see a damned thing!”
“I’m here, Papa,” I said as I came through the opening in the floor and stood again on the Turkey rug. Quickly he closed the window to keep out the wind and rain that had the wind chimes beating frantically.
My huge Papa looked exhausted, too weary to face all the questions I had to ask.
“What did you do to me? Why did you lie to me? Papa, we dug into her grave—it’s empty!”
Sagging, he slumped to the floor where his great head bowed low. “I did what I thought was best.”
How could he know what was best for me? He was a man. How could any man know what it felt like to be a woman or girl, used and defiled.
