Chapter 5
CONSCIOUS of the girl's appraisal, Cy drove slowly along the winding dirt road. He eyed her covertly. What the devil was she thinking? She sat so quietly, so placidly, but Cy was sure that a volcano bubbled just beneath the surface. He was about to speak, when she turned to him.
"Did you ever see my castle?" she asked timidly.
Cy dragged himself from the rosy reverie in which he had been dwelling. "Your what?"
She giggled nervously. "My castle. It's on the corner where the road turns away from Pine."
"You mean old Jeffrey's shack? I thought that fell to pieces-"
"Yes, sir. I mean-no, sir. He was my uncle, and I've been using it since he died. I've done over the inside. My brothers helped me with the carpentry and I painted it myself."
"What do you do there?"
"Before I graduated from high school, I used it to study in. No one ever comes around to bother me.
Now I go there sometimes to think, relax and read ... I paint a little, too."
"You do?"
When Maureen smiled, a hot, stinging sensation attacked Cy's throat
"Nothing important. I dabble. If you're not in a hurry, I'd love to show the place to you."
"Great," Cy said with such indubitable conviction that the prickles again attacked Maureen.
"It's right around the curve," the girl said breathlessly. "Take the old timber road."
Cy swung the car into the narrow and overgrown lane, drove straight into the woods for half a mile or so.
The cabin was tucked away under the pines and smothered in gigantic azalea bushes. The path to the door was flanked on either side by perfumed hedges of cape jasmine.
"You cultivated these flowers?"
"I planted them, and I bring up water from the creek. It's hard work, but it keeps me in shape."
Cy Scott let his eyes slip tenderly over Maureen's body. "Oh, yes. I can see that."
The girl blushed furiously and got out of the car. Her breathing was agitated and her eyes star-bright They strode up the path paved with mossy old bricks. The walk was narrow and occasionally their shoulders touched. Both knew that something was being born between them-something warm, wonderful.
Maureen opened the door for Cy and he stepped into the dim room. The shutters were drawn. Maureen lit a thick red candle. The golden light, soft and flickering, made her countenance unbelievably beautiful. A widow's peak of Cimmerian hair accented her oval-shaped face. Her lips were full and soft and her skin clear as glass. Her breasts, firm and exotically tilted, seemed aimed at his heart; her small waist and sloping hips were excitingly curved.
Maureen turned with a fluid movement.
"I put up the wallboard and everything. I painted it, too. Even the murals."
Cy was no art critic, but her murals of Pine Creek struck him as wondrous. Maureen had caught the essence of the luxuriant greenery and small fauna. A kingfisher perched on a low snag and a small blue heron looked longingly at a spot already appropriated by a taller cousin. The water, blue and cold, flowed swiftly by. Cy could almost feel it.
"I'll be damned," he breathed. He studied the paintings closely, then backed away to further examine them.
Maureen stared at him, her eyes so rapt that, without looking at her, Cy felt them and shivered. He started toward a canvas-covered frame leaning against a wall, but Maureen leaped to cut him off. "Please...." Something thick was in her throat. "Please, don't look at that." She swallowed and tossed her head, her silky black hair dancing about her shoulders. "Please, not now. Not yet."
Cy came close to her, close enough to inhale the fragrance of her young, trembling body.
"I won't look at it if you don't want me to," he said.
The timbre of his voice caressed Maureen so intimately that her skin began to sting and burn. Her peaked, upthrust breasts quickened with emotion.
Her hands crept to her face and pressed her cheeks.
Tears started from her eyes and made crystalline trails that caught the soft, golden light. This sight made Cy's breast ache fiercely.
"I don't know what's the matter with me," Maureen whispered. "There's no reason, really, for you not to look. But it's a self-portrait. So much of me went into it-all my pride and vanity and...."
"Your soul," Cy prompted gently.
"I suppose so." Her eyes dropped shyly. "It's a nude, too."
"I'd love to see it," Cy said, deliberately making of his voice a trail of honey.
Slowly the girl stepped away from the frame. "Well, go ahead then. See it." She turned and flung herself on an old couch that stood in a corner.
Reverently Cy lifted the sheet. For a long time, he did not breathe. The image, so alive, so delicately done, leaped at him.
Maureen, in a lush woodland, was picking a tiny violet. She had squatted, her thighs and hips curved with breath-taking reality. She sat on one slim foot, the left. The other was bent in a ninety-degree angle. Her breasts were alert and firmly pointed and on her face was a look of rapturous repose. She was intent on the fragile flower nestled in her long fingers.
For another five minutes, Cy stared in fixed admiration at the magnificent painting. Then he dropped the cover and turned to her. She lay at full length on the couch, her head buried in her arms, her black hair spread fanwise. Her dress, pulled up high, revealed her satiny thighs. Her calves, in long, sweeping harmony with the rest of her body, rested one on the other.
Cy sat down beside her and put a gentle hand on one shoulder. An uncontrollable shudder went through her. She thrust herself around to face him.
"It's a lovely, moving composition," he said of the oil. "You're not just a good painter-you're unbelievably gifted."
"You don't think it's a horrible revelation of me? A vain, arrogant thing to do?"
"I most assuredly do not. You were being true to the model."
Maureen sat up. She draped an arm along the back of the couch. "Mr. Cy," she whispered, "I wouldn't fool you. I'm about to come to pieces."
He put a hand to her chin. "So am I," he confessed. To her, his voice seemed the golden music of trumpets. She swayed toward him. "Would you-I mean, could you...?"
Cy's mouth found the soft fruit of hers. She went as slack as a wet rag and her head lolled back, her eyes blank and unseeing.
Then the eyes took on new light and sought his. "You did it ... you kissed me!"
"Yes. Are you sorry?"
"Oh, no. I couldn't take it," the girl whispered. "Something broke inside and I was going out of my mind." A wild, runaway convulsion possessed her briefly. She clung to him, her long nails cutting his flesh. "I can't think ... I can't feel anything but this terribly wonderful thing that has happened-is happening." She gulped for air, her face brushing his chest. Then a silvery little laugh rippled from her mouth.
"What is it?" he asked huskily. .
"My dress. It's slipping down."
Cy looked. Her legs and knees, drawn up, were permitting the soft material of Maureen's yellow dress gradually to draw toward her waist. The hem caught against the fine hairs dusting her thighs, then jerked loose and traveled again a quarter of an inch. It was a fascinating thing to watch and Cy hardly breathed as Maureen's thighs were born into the fairy light of the candle.
The girl watched, her eyes wide and staring. "I'm a grown girl now. I ought to cover myself."
"Don't you dare," Cy said, clutching her tighter. "It's like watching divinity undress."
A smothered gurgle sounded and her return clutch was strong.
The dress slipped all the way down and lusciously rounded thighs lay revealed. They shimmered like shafts of tawny ivory. White panties encompassed her lower anatomy. With a moan of unendurable want, the girl twisted and slid completely free. Now, from the waist down, she was his.
Slowly, reverently, Cy dropped his hand to the beckoning flesh. With a shuddering sigh, she moved to accommodate his caress. A smothered cry forced its way past her lips. Insane with desire, they covered his.
Then in response to his fondling fingers, her body went into a spasm. Tears poured from her eyes and she sobbed wretchedly.
Moments later, control was established again. She kissed him and dropped her hand over his, pressing it hard. She drew back for a moment and gazed deeply into his eyes. "Why don't I mind you seeing me naked? If anyone else did, I'd die." Her lips mingled with his in a brief kiss. Then she took a deep breath and stroked him gently. Laughter trickled from her throat. "I've lived and died a hundred times this afternoon. I'm so alive now." She slid from his embrace and stood up. "I've got to bathe."
Cy drew her into an embrace. "Don't go," he whispered.
"I must. I've worked all day and I feel gritty. Let me come to you so clean that I won't even think of being ashamed."
He smiled. "All right. Do you have a bathroom?"
"Yes." Her teeth gleamed in a smile, "Pine Creek. Pure, soft water. Cold, but fresh and wonderful."
He caught her face in his hands. "May I watch you?"
Unexpectedly, shyness reclaimed her. "When we know each other better, maybe." She pressed herself against him. "Maybe there will even come a day when I'll let you bathe me-and I'll bathe you-" She dropped her head to his chest. "Here I am taking possession of you," she said in a smothered voice. "I speak of the future as if it were assured."
"It is," he said. "Now take your bath."
After a while she returned, swathed in a batik sarong-She was a cream-and-tan houri, a dream girl of classic proportions-and in moments she would all be his, Cy told himself ecstatically. His heart pumped. Blood boiled in his veins, filling him with heat and need. Maureen came into his arms and clung while his lips made a feast of hers. His hand discovered secrets.
When they parted for breath, she smiled mistily at him. But her fingers were clutching him convulsively.
"Please," she begged. "Please ... Oh, how wonderful you are. Kiss me. Love me."
"Yes," he replied huskily and drew her into an embrace. He felt a viscid tide of shame flow over him at the ecstatic bubble of laughter that welled from her being. She had placed him on a pinnacle. Her exaltation knew no bounds. The girl's adoration frightened Cy. He felt he deserved none of it.
Her lips were impassioned flowers and her clean mouth a honeyed well. She sucked in a deep breath and the sarong slipped, revealing one golden breast. The glorious joy of seeing the look in his eyes made her tremble.
Cy crushed her to him. She clung weakly, wrenching sighs coming from her throat. She was velvety, smooth and melting. "Bring the candle," Cy said in a strained voice.
The girl took it from the table and together they walked into the back room. She went eagerly into his arms, asking, "Why do you want light?"
"So I can see you. It would be sacrilegious to hide the body of a goddess."
A blush rose in her cheeks, and she laughed softly.
Then Cy made a move to undress, but she stopped him. "Please-let me."
She removed his clothing with a gentle touch, working with such rapturous devotion that again Cy felt shame. They embraced and the shock of his skin against her made tears start. Her kiss was so utterly wanton and hungry that he felt consumed. At last she relaxed and took a deep, stuttering breath.
He lifted her to the bed and lay for a moment beside her. Then with a moan that was half supplication, half apology, he abandoned himself to his manhood, turning his body to enfold hers.
He was tender and careful. The blaze of pain that preceded fulfillment was a brief thing, and did not frighten her. Then the heritage of Eve took over and her movements became subtle and yet amazingly brazen. The storm smote them together as the universe floundered. Everything was atilt and the song in her throat was nothing Cy had ever heard....
It was a sorely confused Cy who drove slowly back toward Scottland, his father's plantation. Usually immune from emotional entanglements, tough in temperament and calm when others were losing their heads, he was unprepared for this new feeling.
Maureen loomed large in his life. What should he do? He had tried to tell her of what he wanted, what he contemplated, but she had closed his mouth with her own. Then he had stopped trying to talk and she had had her say.
"We can't change the world and its people in our lifetime. We're on the spot. I can't have you, Cy, and we both know it. We could go away from here and try to make it work somewhere else, but that's a pipe dream. You couldn't leave Scottland and I'd be the greatest fool alive to try to entice you away. Two lives would go down the drain. In thinking of the future ... I'm glad to have what I can without becoming ill about what I can't."
"It's still not right," Cy had argued doggedly. "You deserve more than a clandestine affair."
"Please let me have something to say about that our viewpoints are different. Compare what I had yesterday to what I have today. I am far richer."
"How old are you?" Cy had asked bluntly, shaken by the maturity of her philosophy. "Is it true you're only seventeen?"
The soft dark eyes had met his, had narrowed with laughter. "I'm going on eighteen."
Cy had jumped and stared at her hard. "My God," he had breathed, "I can't believe it."
"Why ... Because I have a mind?"
"No, because you have such a fine mind. It would be silly to use the term precocious. That would leave too much untold."
Maureen's responding smile had been warm and inviting. The woman in her had sought the man in him. In an instant, he had accepted the challenge. Another nirvana had been visited, leaving them dank with sweat and trembling from the emotional forces unleashed.
Later Cy had returned to the subject, but she had again proved stubborn.
Now Cy sighed. What should he do about the girl? What should he do about himself?
For a long time after Cy's departure, Maureen lay supine and stared up at the ceiling. She relived the evening, scene after scene returning to her mind. Cy Scott was a white man and that a white man should be attracted to her was a compliment not even Maureen could ignore. The realization that she could still thrill thinking of Buck annoyed her to tears.