Chapter 6
She awoke in the darkened room, aware that something terrifying which lay in wait for her just under the thin veneer of her daily life had been temporarily laid to rest in the deep, dreamless sleep that followed physical release. She was alone in the big bed. Richard had risen and dressed without waking her, as usual, and now she was alone. For the first time in her life, being alone was frightening. Whatever it was that she had to face-what was it, something had happened ... during the night ... she knew she didn't want to think about it, but it pushed dangerously close to her waking consciousness and she squirmed fitfully under the soft satin coverlet.
When she heard the sound of tires crunching on the gravel driveway, she realized that Richard hadn't left yet. Impulsively, she hopped from the bed and ran toward the window. She pulled the drapes aside, letting the bright morning sun fall on her wan face and tousled hair. She leaned out. Richard was just emerging from the house. Abel stood at the car door, waiting for him.
"Richard!"
He looked up, surprised. He did not smile to see her. I must look a fright, she thought. Didn't get much beauty sleep. But he always loves it when I wake early enough to call down to him. Or ... he used to. The look on his face now as he crooked his neck to look up at her was not the delight of the young ardent lover-husband who used to throw kisses to his bride every morning. He's getting older, she thought. His hair is thinning. He looks almost annoyed ... do I look older, too?
Abel was grinning up at her.
Panic, undefined, had brought her running to the window, and now she felt confused and wondered why she had reached out to Richard. Could he save her? But ... from what? What had happened to her, the cool and self-controlled, confident Catharine ... but she couldn't let him go, she couldn't retreat back into her dark sanctuary where something horrible waited...
"I was just thinking," she called down. "It would be so pleasant if I came into town and we had lunch together."
He must surely have been remembering, too, the early days of their marriage when they had this exchange almost every morning. He used to thrill to see her, his golden lady in the tower, he called her then. They would laugh and call silly endearments back and forth, despite the ogling and eavesdropping of Abel and the loutish boys who always seemed to be hanging around, working in the gardens or trimming the shrubs.
He stood for a moment, clearly anxious to be off. Then, finally, he smiled up at her. He looked tired. That was it. He was just tired.
"One sharp, at the hotel," he said.
She nodded and pulled her head back inside, away from Abel's stare and the sight of Richard turning away from her.
Lisa came in with the breakfast tray and the day's fresh roses.
"Good morning, Lisa."
"Morning."
Catharine slid back into bed and Lisa propped the tray over her knees.
"I'll be having lunch out today, Lisa. With my husband. We'll have our usual Wednesday dinner. No guests."
"I heard."
Lisa pulled the drapes open, and the warm sunlight filled the room with the bright anticipation of a new day. Catharine sighed with relief as her vague apprehensive memories of something awful dimmed and faded away in the reality of her sunny room. I'm glad Richard talked me into changing the house, she thought, determined to be positive and cheerful. It's much nicer, the yellow-flowered upholstery and the beveled mirrors reflecting sunshine, instead of my own old dark wood and that old-fashioned ornate carved mirror ... the panic started to rise deep inside her body, and she quickly turned to the mail.
Lisa was in the bathroom, straightening and cleaning and running Catharine's morning bath. It was familiar, comforting, real. Must have been a nightmare, that's all, she told herself, trying to concentrate on the bills and circulars and invitations.
Habit turned her eyes toward the tall silver bud vase on the tray. Its polished sides reflected a slightly distorted image. Automatically, Catharine pushed back a wisp of loose hair as she looked at herself in the gleaming silver. The memory of an image, reaching through the mirror, touching her with monstrous, gorgeous fingers swept through her, shuddering her whole body. But she couldn't take her wildly staring eyes from the vase. Something in the mirror, in the attic...
She sat staring, unable to move for a long moment. The horror slowly crept through her as she remembered green flesh, hot and cold at once as it touched her, and herself aching, begging, wanting it...
Catharine leaped from the bed, upsetting the tray. Coffee spilled in a black spreading pool over the pale yellow satin, but Catharine ignored it as she ran across the room to the little liquor cabinet. She poured herself a stiff glass-full of brandy. Her body shuddered uncontrollably as she swallowed the burning fire in a single gulp. Far, far away, she heard Lisa leave the bathroom by the hall door.
Catharine poured another glass of the brandy and took it with her to her writing desk. She sat down and picked up the telephone.
"Operator, will you get me a travel agency, I think it's called Olympia, in Gloucester. I don't have the number."
Waiting impatiently, she twisted the long white cord in her shaking fingers, and sipped at her drink.
"Olympia Tours, Mr. Morley speaking."
"Good morning," Catharine said. Her voice was under control as she concentrated on the one real thing she could grasp-she had to get out of this house. Whatever it was that had gone bad was right here, in her own home, and now she must leave here. Only for a little while, to get off to a neutral place, to try to understand, she promised herself.
The voice on the other end of the phone gave her a focus. Outside this house, people were going about their normal businesses and she would be among them. Out of the Garden of Eden, away from the snake that had intruded there somehow...
"Can I help you?" the calm, friendly man asked.
"Oh, yes, yes, you can. My name is Burgess, Mrs. Catharine Burgess. I believe my husband made reservations through your agency for flights to Paris..."
"Just a moment, Mrs. Burgess, let me check ... would you hold the line a moment, please."
"Yes, certainly."
Garden of Eden, that's a lot of crap, she told herself. She took a large swallow of brandy. This house hasn't been any Garden of Eden since ... she tried not to think of her wedding day, of a scene she had seen in a famous painting where God expelled Eve from Paradise because she had dared to taste some fruit from the Tree of Knowledge ... you must really be going around the bend, she told herself sharply. Stop it. (Where had Adam been in that painting?)
One wrinkle and you start losing your mind. Over the hill. Crazy, insane, hallucinations and...
It's not a wrinkle. It's just a little hint of a line-
"Yes, Mrs. Burgess, I have the tickets right here. Two first-class round trip flights to Paris, open. Would you like to make your reservation at this time?"
"Yes, please. Just one, immediately, if you can. I will be going on ahead, on the first flight you can arrange. My husband will follow later. How soon can I leave?"
"Let me check with our computer, Mrs. Burgess ... let me see ... no, nothing tomorrow ... I'll have to check with Boston and get back to you. I see that the flights are all booked for tomorrow. Possibly Friday? This is the height of the tourist season, you know."
Catharine closed her eyes. She could keep busy, stay out of the house. She had clothes to buy, things to do ... but the nights would be long and the temptation of the attic was so strong, even now, in the sun-filled morning, she longed for hands that knew how to touch her, green hands that glittered with jewels ... waiting for her. They were waiting for her. Suddenly, she knew it for certain.
"Mrs. Burgess?"
"Yes, Mr. Morley. Please see what you can do. How soon will you know?"
"I'll get on to Boston right away. I'll be able to confirm something for you by this afternoon. That's first class, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Well, shouldn't be too difficult. I'll call you with a confirmation by five o'clock today. We'll probably get you on a flight for Friday, Saturday at the latest."
"You have my number."
"Oh, yes. I have all the information, I believe."
"Thank you, Mr. Morley. Thank you very much. Good-bye."
She pressed the cutoff button and immediately dialed another number.
"Eugene? Can you take me this morning? Yes, I know it's early, I'm surprised at being up, myself. You're a darling. See you then. I'll be on time, I promise."
She finished the drink and set the empty glass down on the desk. In a few minutes, she was soaking in her tub, determinedly thinking of Notre Dame Cathedral and the Louvre Museum and the Eiffel Tower, and other ordinary things.
"How thrilling," Eugene said. "All by yourself in Paris-I wish I could hide in your Gucci bag just to see all the heads turning when they see you!"
"I'm going there to see things, not to be seen," she said, laughing.
"Norman would never let me go off alone like that, not in a million years," Lilly said from the next chair. Her words weren't too clear because of the caramel she was munching on, but her meaning was obvious.
"If she wanted to do anything like that she wouldn't have to go as far as Paris to have the opportunity,"
Karen Makepeace contributed. She wasn't having a dye job today, just a touchup.
Catharine was staring straight ahead into Eugene's mirror, but there was nothing here to be frightened of. She saw herself cool and collected, a woman everyone else envied. She gave herself up to the comforting touch of his hands and his brush as he blew her hair dry.
She was prompt meeting Richard, which surprised and pleased him. Their lunch was pleasant enough, filled with details of her trip, and plans to meet at the Ritz in Paris. He didn't seem to mind her decision to leave at once, or to question it. They ate the hotel's Wednesday special, bluefish and baked clams, with shortcake for dessert. It wasn't the way she liked it. She made a private decision to cut out all desserts from now on, but she didn't mention it to Richard. It was time she started to watch her figure, and from that vigil not even French pastry would distract her.
In the car on the way home, she began to make efficient lists in her neat handwriting. Cancel the couturier appointments. Go through closets to select which clothes and accessories to pack. How many pairs of black shoes would she need? Remember to put unneeded jewels in the vault. Get passport from Richard's secretary, who always kept it up to date even though it had never been used before now. Spend time with Jennifer.
"You goin' away, Miss Catharine?" Abel asked from the front seat.
"Only for a few weeks."
"We'll miss you, ma'am."
"Will you, Abel?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"But you and Lisa will take good care of Jennifer, won't you?"
"Oh, yes, Miss Catharine. You can be sure of that."
"And her father will still be here, for a while."
Abel didn't answer. His knowing look seemed sly, but she decided it was only the angle of the rear-view mirror.
When she arrived at the house, she was still feeling efficient and calm. She made her phone calls, checking them off her list one by one.
Spend more time with Jennifer. She glanced out at the lovely afternoon, and decided to take her daughter for a ride. She put on her slim tan jodhpurs and boots, blue silk shirt and riding hat, and picked up the crop from its hook inside her sporting-wear closet. She went downstairs and out through the side door onto the sunporch, crossed the wide lawn and strode down to the stables.
Nicky, the groom, was shoeing Jennifer's mare. "Is my daughter around?" she asked him pleasantly.
"Her horse threw a shoe, ma'am, as you see. I think Miss Jenny went to have a swim while I'm fixing it." Nicky looked at Catharine without troubling to disguise his appreciation. He actually licked his lips every time he saw her, his insolent eyes roamed at their own leisurely pace up and down and around her body. Her hand tightened on the riding crop. How she'd love to show him who was mistress here! To rip off the faded work shirt from his proud shoulder, exposing his sunburned muscular arms and his broad chest to her whip. Drag him into the dark musty earth-and-animal-smelling stable, grapple with him and throw him to the dirt, force him to strip off all his clothes, to stop hiding behind his ill-fitting pretense at decency, and show him up for what he really was-an animal, rutting and snorting like all the other animals-expose his private places and make him grow large and lustful out of respect for her until he exploded.
If she had the strength, she would do it. If she weren't so well brought up, she would bring him down. If her daughter were not always hanging around the stables. If...
But she had sworn to herself that such fantasies were forbidden from now on. She had come too dangerously close to madness last night. Don't think of last night. Think of the Eiffel Tower-no, not that. Too phallic. She giggled to herself, and young Nicky thought he had pleased her in some way. He grinned back, admiring the way her boobs stuck right up there through the imagine material of her outfit.
"Please saddle Big Red for me, right away," she said haughtily.
That's okay, Nicky was thinking, mentally smacking his lips as he went to get her saddle. I like her that way. I'd like to get her down on the stable floor, right in the dirt, and really rub her snotty beautiful nose in it. In me, he guffawed silently. Before he threw her custom-made saddle over the big roan, he kissed it with his mouth wide open, running his tongue across the exact spot where the magnificent snatch of Madam Supercunt would be rubbing itself. He sniffed and licked and could hardly wait till she got back from her ride and the saddle would be all warm and smelly from her and it would be jackoff time for Nicky again, right into the old saddle, whack! There you are, my imagine lady, how do you like the way I've oiled up the leather for you, how do you like jogging along in a nice fast trot with Nicky's come making it good and smooth for you ... but that was later. For now, he tongued the place where she would be sitting, and rubbed the spot dry with the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt before leading the horse out into the sun.
But she was nowhere to be seen. He tied Big Red to the corral post and went back-to work on the little mare.
Catharine had strolled up the hill to the pool, where Jennifer was floating on her back, practicing spitting water straight up into the air through her pursed lips. She was bare-ass naked.
"Jennifer!"
"Hi, Mommy. Look, I'm a fountain!"
"You're too old to run around naked, Jennifer."
"Not running around, I'm swimming. And there's nobody here, anyway."
"Anyone could come this way, anyone at all." Catharine's thoughts were on the groom a few hundred yards away. She knew a horny young boy when she saw one. If Nicky ever saw Jennifer like this, Catharine would really have to raise welts on him. And that's no fantasy, either, she told herself.
"Jennifer, I want you to come out of the water now and put on a bathing suit."
"Fountains don't wear bathing suits, Mommy. Anyway, you used to think it was cute."
"You're not a baby any more."
Her own words reverberated back through years, mingling with another voice, her daddy saying the very same thing to her. But they weren't in the sunshine ... it was night ... that night...
Catharine suddenly felt dizzy. She sank down onto one of the poolside chairs. She watched her daughter climb out of the pool, her smooth tan skin shaking off the blue water drops like diamonds in her path as she walked to the poolhouse. So firm and straight, her back and legs were perfection, her little shoulders beginning to fill out around the collarbone. She even had the beginning of little swellings beneath her flat baby nipples. Jennifer ran past Catharine with the grace of a water sprite, laughing. Catharine couldn't be sure, as the little girl flashed by her, whether the pale shadow was tiny silken hairs between her legs, or a trick of her imagination.
Maybe I should take her with me to Europe, she thought suddenly.
Maybe it's not wise to leave her here alone with only Abel and Lisa.
And Richard.
In a twinkling, Jennifer came out of the pool-house dressed in a bikini that made her look younger than ever, flat where she would one day be curved. Catharine saw her and smiled at the straight little body. She's only a baby, still. Of course she'll be all right, she'll be fine.
"How come you're dressed for riding, Mommy?"
"I was hoping you and I could have a nice long canter this afternoon."
"Oh," Jennifer thought it over. Then, running for a long low dive off the side, she shouted, "No, thanks!" and splashed her mother's immaculate silk blouse with chlorine that would stain if she didn't take it off immediately.
Catharine waited until her daughter's dripping wet golden head bobbed up to the surface. "Would you rather I came in swimming with you?" she asked.
"No ... that's okay."
Catharine turned away slowly, and walked to the house. Abel was leaning over a flower bed, weeding. He lifted his perspiring face as she passed him.
"Abel, would you do me a favor? Please call down to the stables and tell Nicky I've changed my mind about riding this afternoon."
"Too hot," Abel agreed, and he got to his feet with some effort. He watched her until she had slammed the screen door behind her. Then he went to the shed, called the stable boy on the house phone, and took his ladder from its storage place. He dragged it quietly across the yard to the far side of the house, a place sheltered by the twin elms. He placed the ladder where he always did, and climbed slowly to the eave that ran along the top of the second floor. With well-practiced steps, he made his way to his private peephole alongside the drainpipe that looked right into Miss Catharine's private bathroom. The duct was just big enough for him to see everything, but hidden from her view by the weird clock with those statues of fish ladies on it. He had installed the clock himself, and the peephole, too.
He thought sure she'd be heading for a bath, but today he waited quite a while, staring into the empty tub and gleaming mirrors all around. He finally realized that his treat was not to be. Slowly, he returned to the ground between the house and the sheltering elms, and dragged the ladder back to the shed. When his sister Lisa came out to give him some iced tea, he was back on his knees in the peony bed as if he'd never left.
Catharine threw her riding clothes on the chaise lounge and stepped into a simple cotton robe with a zipped front. She picked up the house phone and spoke to Lisa.
"I've left my clothes on the chaise in my room, Lisa, would you come and get them in a few minutes? Jennifer accidentally splashed me, and I'm afraid they'll stain ... thank you, Lisa. Oh, and another thing. I'm going up to the attic, to check on some things I might want to take with me ... please see that I'm not disturbed ... fine."
She hung up the phone and looked at herself calmly in the dressing table mirror. Calm, cool, collected, contented Catharine. Nothing to be afraid of.
She mounted the attic steps with an odd feeling of excitement, an anticipation she had not felt since she was a very young girl, coming home from a party to find her daddy waiting up for her, wanting to hear every detail of how she had shone at the ball. He would have cocoa ready, and the two of them would sit in the big kitchen, all alone, the only ones awake in the house, and her daddy's eyes would be proud as she told him of her triumphs, of dancing every dance and what the boys had whispered in her ear.
The attic was streaked with afternoon sunlight. The deep silence enveloped her. She moved past the old things, touching here and there as she wound her way through the clutter of memories. The velvet couch, the chintz-upholstered chairs, the carved mahogany hall table, the grandfather clock, her daddy's desk, the painted bookcase, the filigreed Japanese screen, the glass-fronted sideboard, lamps and Oriental carpets and vases and cartons of books...
In her own corner, her daddy's chair and her oval mirror. Her nice little flowered-print cotton robe looked wrong, an intrusion in the mellow surroundings of childhood. Her hand went to the neckline and began to slide the zipper down. The thing fell in a heap and she kicked it away, out of sight. She stood naked. The light fell on her like an illuminated masterpiece whose incredible glow made the viewer reach out to touch the flesh. "Hello," she said softly.
She saw her reflected mouth moving, and heard her own word, but the rest was silence.
"See ... you're just a mirror, and you hung in my bedroom when I was growing up. I know you very well."
She reached out her hand. Her pink nails touched the hard cold glass. She laughed, and threw her head back. She shook her hair free of its ribbon. Her confidence returned in a flood of familiarity. Nothing could happen to her here, nothing bad. These were her daddy's things all around her, and she was her daddy's princess.
The other Catharine, her reflection, reached out a finger, too. They touched, flesh on glass. Her image laughed with her and looked back with the same delight.
"Catharine, you are delicious!" both Catharines said simultaneously.
Their expressions changed to serious contemplatation. "Yes, I am, I really am. Mirrors are my friends. This is my mirror, it is me, me. I'm still beautiful, as lovely as ever, yes I am ... I am."
She whirled before her mirror like a child, laughing. But when she came to a stop, it seemed to her that the other Catharine, the one in the mirror, had not moved. It had stood still, watching her. She stuck her sexy tongue out at it, defiant and happy.
"I can have anything I want. I can do and have whatever I want. It's always been that way."
"Yes, because you're so beautiful, Catharine. I love to look at you," the mirror image said.
"I'll show you something," Catharine confided, and reached out to her dressing table. She looked away for a moment, but when she looked back, the reflection was still there, watching her with the same reassuring smile, the same sparkling eyes. Catharine poured some oil from the little flagon, and slowly rubbed it over her bare skin, watching her other self do the same. They both glistened and glowed in the diffused threads of sunlight that danced across the attic to rest on her. "Will you come to me?"
Coquettishly, Catharine turned her back to the mirror, covering her front with inadequate hands. Her laugh was almost a giggle as she looked over her shoulder at herself. Her hands moved slowly around and over the swell of her oiled hips, to finger her opening from behind.
"I like that," she breathed. "No one has ever touched me there. Would you?"
She took her hand away and raised it to her mouth. Her reflection sucked thoughtfully on her finger.
"Yes, Catharine. I'll do anything you want ... anything. I love to watch you."
The reflection reinserted the wet finger. She smiled out at Catharine with deep pleasure as she moved it slowly inside of her.
"Is that good? Am I good to you?"
Catharine's eyes closed as she savored the expanding sensation. Almost faint from the experience of a new delight, she turned slowly and looked at the mirror with heavy-lidded eyes. The reflection raised her arms out toward Catharine.
"If you'll come to me, Catharine, I promise you pleasures you've never imagined. I know what you need, I know how to give you everything you deserve and have always longed for. I can satisfy you...."
Catharine's arms fell limply to her sides. She stood looking at herself in wonder.
"I'm Catharine Johnston, do you see?" she whispered. "And I can have anything ... I can...."
"And you shall," the reflection promised. "If you come to me ... only me."
Catharine's thick lashes closed over her visionary self. Her hands moved slowly up to her stiff hard nipples. Without knowing she did so, she took a step toward the mirror.
The reflection stood absolutely still.
Violet eyes wide open, it watched the mesmerized Catharine approaching. The smile in the mirror image was full and fraught with lascivious triumph; its nipples were enlarged and the color of bursting wild dark berries; the tongue that slid through the soft lips was a flashing silver blade; the flesh around the eyes was sunken and dark. The eyes turned from violet to dank animal green ablaze with passion. Both bodies gleamed and glistened and the oiled flesh seemed to sizzle.
Catharine stopped at the edge of the mirror. Her eyes opened slowly. She could barely speak. She was aching with desire.
"I am Catharine..." she said in a throaty moan. "I am ... I ... I ... I..."
She leaned into the reflection, half-swooning.
Mouth opened onto mouth as the reflection caught Catharine in its embrace.
An electrifying shock charged Catharine with life-vibrating, vivid, wide-awake, demanding life. Her eyes were wide and alert now. She was suddenly in a different place. Was it the beauty salon-she heard a gabble of women's voices in the background. Brilliant light filled the space. The walls were mirrors, but jagged and fractured so that her image was broken and distorted everywhere she looked. But there were the familiar plastic chairs, the chrome hair dryers, the little wheeled makeup tables. Where was Eugene? She looked around, frantically, confused. One mirror, off in the distance, seemed to be unbroken. She saw that it had an oval frame. Deep inside it, she seemed to see her quiet attic room, but the mirror was so far away, the room was too long. And someone was holding her in an embrace so that she couldn't get away.
She struggled free of the arms that held her, trying to focus on the face with its strange garish makeup. Familiar. A woman. Why was she, Catharine, in this freakish place, embracing-yes, kissing-a woman?
"Don't you know me, Catharine?" It was Karen Makepeace's voice, but there was something odd about it. It was stripped of its civilized veneer. "Since we were children, I've always worshipped you," Karen was saying. "You know that, Catharine. You're above everyone."
It was the same message that Catharine had always gotten from Karen, but here it took on a literalness that frightened her. No, no, we must have rules, we must have manners and never, never tell the truth, she pleaded silently. Her words wouldn't come out. She began to shake her head, but the new Karen moved in on her, the lip stick painted mouth kissing and the darting tongue licking, down the length of Catharine's naked body until, weakened by the sensation, Catharine was lying limply on the floor beyond the mirror.
"We've been waiting so long for you, Catharine. Everyone wants you. We know how to pleasure you here. Trust me."
Catharine wanted to struggle, but Karen's elaborately painted green eyes held her own in a drowning pool which sucked her down. Her friend's blood-red mouth covered every inch of Catharine's sensitive skin with murmured endearments and moist loving kisses, tongue-caresses and little moans of pleasure. Catharine shivered and surrendered.
She allowed Karen to anoint her, first with her mouth and then with precious-smelling lotions, and she watched intently as Karen attended to her own body with the same scented aphrodisiacs. And then, Catharine was no longer the passive one. Seized with hunger and need, half-conscious in her overwhelming passion, she drove herself onto Karen's flesh, thigh against thigh, breasts pressed tightly into breasts, moist slippery skins rubbing and blending into one. Catharine sucked greedily at Karen's big tits, burying her face in the smothering softness of them. As she moved downward on her friend's sweet-smelling belly, she felt Karen begin to slide out from her embrace, away from her.
And suddenly, Catharine was alone, writhing on the hard cold floor.
"I'm late," Karen's voice shouted from a distance, warped and remote. " 'Bye for now ... sorry ... trust me ... I always envied you, Catharine ... I always adored you, worshipped you ... I'm late...."
The voice trailed away.
Catharine screamed, "Karen! Karen! Come back! Come back!" but there was no answer.
Far, far off, she heard other voices, almost familiar, calling to her. "He's waiting for you ... you're late again ... you must dress, Catharine ... the guests are here ... hurry...."
A man was calling to her, who was it? Not Richard.
Suddenly, Catharine found herself standing in a lush green garden. She was wearing her favorite party dress, the one that her daddy had taken her to Boston to have made for her sixteenth birthday party. It was her first really grown-up dress. She looked down at herself. Where was her mirror ... but she was in the garden. A crown of fresh daisies sat on the top of her golden hair. She reached up to touch it, and smiled with delight. Her daddy had ordered a dozen crowns that day, kept fresh in the greenhouse, so that no matter how late she danced, or with how many boys, she would always have a fresh, impeccable wreath for her head.
Manicured hedges rose around Catharine, high over her head. In the center of the hedgerows stood a long table, elaborately set for a great feast.
There were platters heaped high with lobsters, crabmeat, salmon, roast duckling, chicken, partridges, turkeys, guinea hens, roast beef, legs of lamb, pork, spare ribs, chops, and skewered veal birds. There were overflowing bowls of ripe fruits, silver vessels rimmed with nuts and olives, and heaps of fresh vegetables everywhere. Bottles of red and white and rose" wine were cooling in silver buckets of ice, and flaming red poppies, roses, and garlands of daisies and asphodels flowed out of baskets onto the table. Here and there were huge apothecary jars filled with many-colored capsules and pills, evidently part of the feast.
In the center, lying almost the entire length of the table, was a lush naked woman, lying on her stomach with her firm round ass bouncing happily in the air. She was laughing and wriggling her fingers and toes happily as the guests gorged themselves on food and amused themselves with her body.
The diners seemed familiar to Catharine, but their faces were changed. It was as if they had left aside their masks of normal decency, and showed themselves raw, decadent, obscene.
Arthur and Janet Manchester sat opposite each other, stuffing their drooling mouths with roast chicken and frequent handfuls of pills, and slurping red wine until it ran down their chins. They were having an argument, which didn't slow them down from their attention to the food and to the centerpiece, who turned her head this way and that to listen to them. From time to time, Arthur or Janet would stuff a chicken leg or a stuffed egg into the woman's laughing mouth, and once they both leaned forward to kiss the centerpiece, who stuck out her tongue at them.
Farther down the table, Lilly Sanford and Ann Birmingham gossiped amiably between large gluttonous mouthfuls of food. Ann spilled some wine on the white thighs of the centerpiece, who wriggled sensuously in the sticky wetness.
At the foot of the table, Eugene sat alone. He was studying the raised buttocks of the centerpiece as if trying to decide on a hair style. He held the blow-dryer in one hand, and with the other he stuffed food into his mouth in great indelicate fistfuls.
Her daddy's chair, which had become her throne, stood at the head of the table. The grandfather clock was set upon it, but its hands were missing.
Catharine moved tentatively toward the grotesque banquet, knowing that it was a dream and yet feeling the indescribable certainty that it was not. No one seemed aware of her presence. She stopped behind Janet and Arthur Manchester.
"The provinces are the place for her. She sucks, you know, or that is, she'd like to if she could," Janet
Manchester was saying, with an angry scowl on her face. Plum juice dribbled from the corner of her mouth.
"I wouldn't spit it out," her husband said.
"She'd sit beautifully-on your face," Janet said with a horrible laugh.
"Exactly what I had in mind, my dear. I'll buy into that at any price."
His angry wife reached down the table and grabbed at the overhanging breast of the live centerpiece with one hand, while her other brought a dripping rib of beef to her insatiable mouth. As Catharine came closer, she saw that Arthur had been shoving gobs of caviar into his mouth and there were little black specks of fish eggs between all his teeth and stuck in the corners of his lips.
She backed away, down to the foot of the table and dear Eugene, who looked from this distance as if he were deciding whether to jam that dryer up the centerpiece's ass or his own. She stopped midway to listen to Lilly and Ann. They were popping capsules and tearing partridge wings apart with their teeth as they jabbered.
"I'm fattening myself up just for her," Lilly said. "She'd love my tongue up her cunt, and she could gobble on me forever and never get tired."
"I'd wait for her forever," Ann agreed.
"You're not as meaty as I am. Catharine will love it once she tries it."
"She glows, she positively glows," Ann said, licking the bloody juices from a rare leg of lamb. "I could light her fire," she grinned. The blood dripped off her tongue.
Lilly looked down the table. "Do you agree, Eugene?" she shouted through her fat greasy lips.
Eugene was probing the openings in the centerpiece's ass, tasting and testing critically. He looked up with a rapturous smile on his face, and reported, "Immaculate folds ... stunning crease ... enchanting slit ... fantastic cleft ... gorgeous cunt, love ... wish I had it."
"Is it dry?" Ann asked.
"Is it wet?" Lilly shouted at the same moment.
"You'll have to wait till I'm finished. I'll blow you out first." He brandished his dryer, about to begin, but first he stopped for a long drink of champagne. It dribbled from the neck of the upturned bottle onto his usually impeccable shirt front.
Catharine looked away. She saw Nicky the stable boy approach the table. He grinned lewdly at the centerpiece's head, jabbed his dirty fingers into her mouth and began to examine her teeth. She spit at him and he swallowed it, licking his lips. Then he ran prancing around to the foot. He tickled the naked foot as he pretended to shoe it.
"I need a good licking," he grinned, taking up a whole lobster and sucking its openings for the buttery juice. "I'm naughty ... she doesn't like the way I look at her. Her mouth needs something I've got ... she looks hot to me ... she-likes the way I smell. I'm naughty."
The whole table had begun to tip dangerously as the guests became louder and more frantic. They all jabbered together, jamming food and fingers into every opening, their own and those of the centerpiece. They sucked greedily on her neck and shoulders and breasts, and poked into her ass-hole and her cunt and her mouth and her ears. They slurped and spilled and fondled and fingered and elbowed and rubbed and guzzled and nuzzled and swallowed and belched and never seemed to get enough.
Catharine was weak from conflicting desires. She wanted desperately to join them, to be part of the free, uninhibited lust and for once, to feast herself on the bodies of others, to allow all those admirers of hers to touch her-me, me, me! But she felt disgusted, revolted, and sick at the sight of them. They were all talking about her, Catharine, and she needed to hear every word. But she was Catharine, special and elegant and above all this low vile behavior. They were decadent, degraded, disgusting, delicious, desiring, desirable ... she sank down onto the grass to catch her breath.
Under the table, two creatures were crawling on hands and knees, lifting skirts and opening flies indiscriminately, servicing the diners with slurping greedy tongues. It was Abel and Lisa. They didn't see her, either.
No one had noticed her.
Arthur Manchester rose from the table unsteadily, holding a huge goblet of deep red wine. He moved down the table, sliding his free hand over the well-greased skin of the centerpiece, until he reached the foot. Ann Birmingham's mouth, curled voluptuously around the toes of the centerpiece, opened to include Arthur's fingers. She paused in her sloppy sucking only to rip giant bites from a ripe watermelon, returning to the toe-sucking with renewed rapture.
"Can't get enough," she murmured. "Fill me up ... can't get enough ... fill me up ... can't get..."
Arthur pulled his fingers from deep inside her mouth and ran them along the side of her straining face, into her hair. He twirled them leisurely in slow rolling strokes, tangling the silky strands with glints from his diamond rings, while he leaned his head down close to the centerpiece to see what Eugene was doing.
Concentrating hard, with that look of ardent concern that Catharine had always assumed was reserved only for herself, Eugene was inserting vegetables into the ass-hole of the laughing, wriggling voluptuary. He would slowly move each piece in, then out, then deeper in again, and then remove it and lean forward to sample the taste. Carrots, cucumbers, iced celery stalks, plump tomatoes, frilled radishes, handfuls of little green peas, broccoli with thick hard stems and full rounded tops, stuffed olives both green and jumbo colossal blacks, scallions and leeks, soft warm squashes, hard firm zucchinis, tickly asparagus and bold hearts of lettuce-all went deep into the fleshy pink passageway, moistened with Roquefort dressing, dipped with care and then removed and tasted by the elegant Eugene, who sampled and appraised each insertion expertly.
"A precious path ... wonderful way ... deeply deep ... wildly wet ... very, very ... oh, how very ... blazing, burning ... clinging, turning ... but needs more shucking, basting, plucking ... inside and outside, perfect for sucking...."
"I say there, don't hog and maul," Arthur said petulantly. "There's forever, after all."
Generously, Eugene began to hand the dipped and tasted vegetables to Arthur, who sucked noisily on them to get the subtle taste of the centerpiece with its sauce of vegetables and dressing and hairdresser's mouth.
Eugene's graceful hands.were rudely shoved away from the centerpiece's lucious center by fat jeweled fingers. Lilly was holding a quarter-pound stick of melting butter, which had coated her rings and greased her hands until they slithered like overfed snakes reaching for another live meal. She slid the butter into the opening, droning in a kind of delirium.
"In and out ... in and out ... in and out ... I'll take all I can get and stuff more up yet ... in and out ... in and out ... I'll take all I can get and stuff more up yet ... fat, fat, butter fat ... in and out ... in and out...."
The butter was all gone, used up. Lilly's spell was only interrupted, not broken. She reached across the buttocks to tear a leg from a browned and succulent pheasant and moved up along the table to Janet Manchester, who was ardently stuffing her own left breast into the centerpiece's open mouth.
"How do you do?" Janet said. "Her mouth is just fine. All hotty and wet. Are you having a good time?"
With that, she took a handful of pills from a crystal bowl and stuffed them into Lilly's open mouth. Lilly swallowed and grinned. Her huge bosom heaved and swelled, and her tight gown could contain them no longer. Lilly tore at the front of her blouse. With bountiful abundance, her plump tits poured from the opening, spilling over like the Great Falls at flood time.
Janet eyed them hungrily as she tickled her own nipples, pressing them hard against the face of the centerpiece.
"You can have some of this," Lilly offered generously. "They can't hide any more ... take all you can get and stuff more up yet ... take all you can get and stuff more up yet ... take all you can get..." She seemed to be back in her trance-like state as Janet leaned over to begin licking all around the vast heaving mountains and peaks of moving flesh. Lilly, still murmuring her litany, began to gnaw on the pink claw meat of a king crab as Janet ravaged her ample offerings.
One by one the gluttons were moving away from the table. Their actions shifted from the centerpiece to each other. Under the table, having no one left to service, Abel was buggering his sister Lisa, while she lazily chewed on a rack of lamb.
Catharine moved toward the table. Only Eugene still sat there, masturbating with the hand-blower up his rectum and his thin red cock jerking in and out of Arthur Manchester's mouth. Catharine walked around the writhing bodies to the head of the table where her daddy's empty chair oversaw the proceedings, the handless grandfather clock adding to its dignity.
The naked centerpiece lay quietly, sprawled across the remains of the feast. Her yellow hair hung matted and tangled, hiding her face. Catharine, curious, touched the head, which turned to look at her, laughing lustily.
It was herself.
Catharine Johnston Burgess. Her replica-reflection-image-other self smiled ambiguously after her laughter died down. She pointed to the empty throne chair. Her voice was Catharine's own, but strangely remote, as though it traveled on the wind over great distances.
"He wants you. You know that."
Catharine shook her head, not wanting to understand. But she did.
She forced herself to look away from the grotesque, rutting image of herself, and followed her pointing hand to the chair. The clock was gone. Her daddy sat there now.
"Daddy..." she cried. "Daddy, it's me!"
He did not seem to hear her. He was wearing the riding clothes in which he had posed for his portrait. He was neither smiling nor frowning. He looked past her down the length of the table, and then he stood up and seemed to fade back, without taking a step, away from her, back into the faint mist beyond the hedges. She tried to call out to him, but nothing came from her burning throat.
He looked back, just once. He didn't see her. She tried to call him, desperately, but no sound would come. The word choked in her throat and tears poured from her aching eyes. Her daddy disappeared slowly, slowly, behind the hedge. He was gone.
Catharine found strength from somewhere, and she ran after him. Her dress was partly opened-when had she changed again into her white party dress?and the ringlets atop her head bounced as she ran. The garden seemed different. The maze of hedges hid him. Every turn seemed wrong. She couldn't find her way out. He was gone.
At last she came to the break in the hedge. She ran breathlessly through to the pool area. But she stopped abruptly, frozen by what she saw.
All the guests were there, standing formally around the pool and chatting in low polite voices. They were dressed as she had first seen them at the feast. They were sipping cocktails. In the center of the swimming pool, her daddy was standing alone, unseen or unnoticed by the others. The water was filling the pool, slowly rising around him. It had reached his chest. His vacant eyes never blinked. They stared straight ahead.
Catharine moved to the edge of the pool. She was aware that the guests were pointing at her, talking about her. But her daddy didn't seem to know she was there. She still could not find her voice.
"I do believe she belongs. To the manor born, you know," Eugene was saying.
In her polite party voice, Lilly answered him. "Oh, my, yes indeed. She has an appetite, you know. Good stuff, if I may say so."
"Her flesh responds strongly, don't you agree?" Ann was saying. "It won't be long now."
The water reached her daddy's neck, inched up to his ears and covered his mouth. She tried to scream, to bring their attention to the awfulness, the tragedy that was about to happen. No words came. The party guests sipped their drinks, stared at her, and spoke their civilized gibberish as though she were not there.
"She's slipping away slowly," Arthur Manchester said. "He'll have her juices in a wink."
"Shhh ... look at her ... ahhh..."
The others hushed, finally, as Catharine knelt near the pool and watched her daddy's head disappear under the rising water. In the silence, she saw only her own watery reflection, still and green.
The green eyes peered back at her from the depths of the still, ominous water. They were not her own.
The smooth surface of the pool was broken by arms that reached up to touch her. The green slimy fingers entwined themselves in her golden hair as she knelt there, paralyzed. Everyone was hushed and watching. Slowly the arms pulled her down, down into the water.
The daisies from her hair floated on the surface. No other motion disturbed the still pool.
Under the water, Catharine struggled for her life. She could not free herself from the terrible grip of the demon who pulled her down. A sigh drifted from her mouth in a long, lazy series of bubbles that floated upward through the green, still water far above her head.