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“That’s medieval,” she said. “Millions of men are homosexuals. It’s not that big a deal.”
He came out of the chair so suddenly she thought he was going to hit her. “You know nothing about it! Nothing! Michel is a Savagar.” He stalked across the room, his frenetic movements scaring her. “Such obscenity is unthinkable for a Savagar. It is your mother’s blood. I should never have married her. She was the one mistake of my life, and I have never been able to recover from it. Her neglect perverted Michel. If you had not been born, she would have been a proper mother to him.”
The liquor was talking. This wasn’t her father. She had to get away before she heard anything more. She turned to the door, but he was already beside her.
“You do not know me well at all.” He ran his hand up her arm. “I think we must talk now. I’ve attempted to be patient, but it’s been long enough.”
She tried to step away, but he didn’t let her go. “Tomorrow,” she said. “When you’re sober.”
“I am not dru
nk. Merely melancholy.” He put his hands on her neck and ran his thumb gently over her ear. “You should have seen your mother when she was even younger than you are now. So full of optimism…So passionate. And as self-centered as a child. I have plans for you, chérie. Plans that I made when you were sixteen, the day I first saw you.”
“What kind of plans?”
“You’re frightened. Lie on Michel’s bed and let me rub your back so we can talk.”
She didn’t want to lie on Michel’s bed. She wanted to go to her room and lock the door and pull the covers over her head.
“Come, chérie. I’ve upset you. Let me make it better.” He smiled so warmly her tension eased. He missed Michel tonight, that was all. And she was jealous, as usual, still trying to forget her brother existed. He steered her toward the bed.
She lay down on the bare mattress and folded her hands under her cheek. The bed sagged as he sat beside her and began rubbing her back through the thin material of her robe. “I’ve waited patiently for you, chérie. I’ve given you two years. I’ve let you fall in love. I’ve let you and your mother smear the Savagar name with your vulgar career.”
She stiffened. “What do you—”
“Shhh. I’m talking now, chérie, and you must listen. The night I saw you lean over the coffin to kiss your grandmother’s lips, I knew a great injustice had been done. You were everything my son should have been, but you were too attached to your mother. Even last month, you would tolerate no criticism of her. I had to give you time to see for yourself who she truly is so your false sentimentality wouldn’t stand between us. It’s been a painful lesson, but a necessary one. Now you know how she really feels about you. And now you’re finally ready to take your place beside me.”
She turned over onto her back and looked up at him. “I don’t know what you mean. Take my place beside you?”
He curled his hands around her shoulders and massaged them. His eyelids were half closed, almost sleepy. She wanted to leave before something terrible happened. She looked up at the parachute. It hung limp and yellowed above her.
“You belong with me, chérie. At my side. You belong with me in a way your mother never did.” He slipped his fingers just inside the open collar of her robe. “I am going to shape you into a magnificent woman. I have such wonderful plans for you.” His hands dipped lower, pushing open the neck of the robe…moved lower again.
“Alexi!” She reached up and caught his wrists.
He smiled so gently she was embarrassed at what she’d thought he was going to do.
“It is right, chérie, for us to be together. Do you not see it every time you look at yourself? Can’t you see your mother’s unfaithfulness whenever you look in the mirror?”
Unfaithfulness? For a moment she couldn’t think what the word meant.
“It’s time for you to know the truth. Give up the fantasy, enfant. Give it up. The truth will be much better.”
“No…”
“You’re not my daughter, chérie. Surely you’ve felt that. Your mother was pregnant when I married her.”
The beast had come back. The great, ugly beast who wanted to chew her into pieces. “I don’t believe you. You’re lying to me.”
“You are the bastard of Errol Flynn, my oldest enemy.”
It was a joke. She even tried to smile to show him she was a good sport. But the smile died, and the painted clouds on the ceiling blurred as she remembered Johnny Guy talking about Belinda and Errol Flynn and the Garden of Allah.
Alexi leaned over and pressed his cheek to hers. “Do not cry, enfant. It’s better this way. Don’t you see?”
The clouds swam before her, and the beast nibbled at her flesh, taking tiny bites that weren’t big enough to do the job right. He touched her lightly through her robe.
“So beautiful. Small and delicate, not plump like your mother’s.”
