Petals on the Wind

by V. C. Andrews

  "Catherine! Hurry, hurry, come!"

  What was he talking about? I was there beneath him, doing what I could. Come where? He was slippery and wet with sweat. My legs were raised and clutched about his waist and I could feel the terrible effort of his restraint as he kept telling me to come, come, come! Then he groaned and gave up.

  Hot juices spurted forth to warm up my insides pleasantly five or six times, and then it was over, all over, and he was pulling out. And I hadn't reached any mountain high, or heard bells ringing, or felt myself exploding--not as he had. It was all over his face, relaxed and at peace now, vaguely smeared with joy. How easy for men, I thought, while I still wanted more. There I was on the verge of Fourth-of-July fireworks and it was all over. All over but for his sleepy hands that roamed over my body, exploring all hills and crevices before he fell asleep. Now his heavy leg was thrown over mine I was left staring up at the ceiling with tears in my eyes. Good-bye, Christopher Doll-- now you are set free.

  Sunlight through the window wakened me early. Paul was propped up on an elbow gazing dreamily down at me. "You are so beautiful, so young, so desirable. You aren't sorry, are you? I hope you don't wish now you had done it differently?"

  I snuggled closer against his bare skin. "Explain one thing, please. Why did you keep asking me to come?" He roared with laughter.

  "Catherine, my love," he finally managed. "I nearly killed myself trying to hold back until you could climax. And now you lie there with those big innocent blue eyes and ask what I meant! I thought those dancing playmates of yours had explained everything to you. Don't tell me there is one subject you haven't read about in a book!"

  "Well, there was a book I found in Momma's nighttable drawer. . . . But I just looked at the photographs. I never read the text, though Chris did, but then he stole more often to her bedroom suite than I did."

  He cleared his throat. "I could tell you what I meant by what I said, but demonstrating would be more fun. Really, you don't have the least idea?"

  "Yes," I said defensively, "of course I do. I'm supposed to feel stunned by lightning bolts so I stiffen out and go unconscious and then I'm split wide apart into atoms that float around in space and then gather together and sizzle me with tingles so I can float back to reality with dream-stars in my eyes--like you had."

  "Catherine, don't make me love you too much." He sounded serious, as if I'd hurt him if he did.

  "I'll try to love you the way you want."

  "I'll shave first," he said, throwing back the covers and making ready to get up.

  I reached to pull him back. "I like the way you look now, so dark and dangerous."

  Eagerly I surrendered to all Paul's desires. We developed delicate ways of keeping our trysts secret from Henny. On Henny's day off I washed the bed linens that were duplicates of the ones soiled that I hid away until they could be washed. Carrie could have been in another world she was so unobservant. But when Chris was home we had to be more discreet and not even look at each other, lest we betray ourselves. I felt strange with Chris now, like I'd betrayed him

  I didn't know how long the rapture between Paul and me would last. I longed for passion undying, for ecstasy everlasting. Yet my suspicious self guessed nothing as glorious as what Paul and I had could go on indefinitely. He would soon tire of me, a child whose mental capacities couldn't compete with his, and he'd go back to his old ways--maybe with Thelma Murkel. Maybe Thelma Murkel had gone with him to that medical convention, though I was wise enough not to question him ever about what he did when I wasn't with him. I wanted to give him everything Julia had denied, and give gladly with no recriminations when we parted.

  But in the moment of our flaming obsession with each other I felt so large, so generous, and I gloated in our selfless abandonment. And I think the grandmother with her talk of evil and sin had made it ten times more exciting because it was so very, very wicked.

  And then again I'd flounder, not wanting Chris to think I was wicked. Oh, it mattered so much to me what Chris would think. Please, God, let Chris know why I'm doing this. And I do love Paul, I do!

  After Thanksgiving Chris still had a few days of vacation, and while we were at the dinner table with Henny hovering nearby, Paul asked all of us what we wanted for Christmas. This would be our third Christmas with Paul. In late January I'd be graduating from high school. I didn't have much time to go, for my next step, I hoped, would be New York.

  I spoke up and told Paul what I wanted for Christmas. I wanted to go to Foxworth Hall. Chris's eyes widened and Carrie began to cry. "No!" said Chris firmly. "We will not open healed wounds!"

  "My wounds are not healed!" I stated just as firmly. "They will never be healed until justice is done!"

  Foxworth Hall, from the Outside

  . The minute the words left my mouth he shouted, "No! Why can't you let bygones be bygones?"

  "Because I am not like you, Christopher! You like to pretend that Cory didn't die of arsenic poisoning, but of pneumonia, because you feel more comfortable with that! Yet you were the one who convinced me she was the one who did it! So why can't we go up there and see for ourselves if any hospital has a record of Cory's death?"

  "Cory could have died of pneumonia. He had all the symptoms." How lamely he said that, knowing full well he was protecting her.

  "Now wait a minute," said Paul who had kept quiet, and spoke only when he saw the fire blazing from my eyes. "If Cathy feels she must do this thing, why not, Chris? Though if your mother admitted Cory to a hospital under a false name it won't be easy to check up:

  "She had a fake name put on his tombstone too," said Chris, giving me a long, hateful look. Paul gave that some thought, wondering aloud how we could find a grave when we didn't know the name. I believed I had all the answers. If she registered Cory in a hospital for treatment under a certain name, then naturally she'd use the same name when he was buried. "And Paul, since you're a doctor you can gain entry to all the hospital records, right?"

  "You really want to do this?" he asked "It's sure to bring back a lot of unhappy memories and, like Chris just said, open up healed wounds."

  "My wounds are not healed, and will never be healed! I want to put flowers on Cory's grave I think it will comfort Carrie to know where he's buried, then we can visit him from time to time. Chris, you don't have to go if you are so dead set against it!"

  What I wanted Paul tried to deliver, despite Chris's opposition. Chris did travel with us to Charlottesville, riding in the back seat with Carrie. Paul went inside several hospitals and charmed the nurses into giving him the records he wanted. He looked and I looked while Carrie and Chris stayed outside. Not one eight-year-old boy had died of pneumonia two years ago in late October! Not only that, the cemeteries didn't have a record of a child his age being buried! Still stubbornly determined, I had to trek through all the cemeteries, feeling Momma might have lied and put Dollanganger on his headstone after all. Carrie cried, for Cory was supposed to be in heaven, not in the ground lightly frosted with a recent snowfall.

  Fruitless, time-consuming, unrewarding waste! As far as the world was concerned, no male child of eight years had died in the months of October and November 1960! Chris insisted we go back to Paul's. He tried to persuade me that I didn't really want to see Foxworth Hall.

  I whirled to glare at Chris. "I do want to go there! We do have time! Why come this far and turn back without seeing that house? At least once in the daylight, on the outside--why not?"

  It was Paul who reasoned with Chris by telling him I needed to see the house. "And to be honest, Chris, I'd like to see it myself."

  Brooding sullenly in the back seat beside Carrie, Chris relented. Carrie cried as Paul headed his car toward the climbing mountain roads that Momma and her husband must have traversed thousands of times. Paul stopped at a gas station to ask directions to Foxworth Hall. Easily we could have guided Paul to Foxworth Hall, if we knew where the train tracks were and could find the mail depot that was a stop-off point.

 
"Beautiful country," said Paul as he drove. Eventually we did come upon that grand house that sat all alone on a mountainside. "That's the one!" I cried, terribly excited. It was huge as a hotel, with double wings that jutted out front and back from the long main stem constructed of pink brick with black shutters at all the windows. The black slate roof was so sharply pitched it looked scary--how had we ever dared to walk up there? I counted the eight chimneys, the four sets of dormer windows in the attic.

  "Look over there, Paul," I directed, pointing out the two windows on the northern wing where we had been held prisoners for so long, waiting endlessly for our grandfather to die.

  While Paul stared at those two windows, I looked up at the dormer windows of the attic and saw that the fallen slat from one of the black shutters had been replaced. There wasn't a scorch mark anywhere or signs of a fire. The house hadn't burned! God hadn't sent an errant breeze to blow the candle flame until it caught a dangling paper flower on fire. God wasn't going to punish our mother or the grandmother, not for anything!

  All of a sudden Carrie let out a loud howl. "I want Momma!" she screamed. "Cathy, Chris, that's where we used to live with Cory! Let's go inside! I want Momma, please let me see my real momma!"

  It was frightful the way she cried and pleaded. How could she remember the house? It had been dark the night we arrived, with the twins so sleepy they couldn't have seen anything. The morning we stole away it was before dawn and we'd left by the back door. What was it that told Carrie this was our prison of yesteryears? Then I knew. It was the houses lower down the street. We were at the end of the cul-de-sac and up much higher. We'd often peeked out the windows of our locked room and gazed down on all the fine houses. Forbidden to look out of the windows--and yet we dared, on occasion.

  What had been accomplished by our long journey? Nothing, nothing at all except more proof that our mother was a liar beyond belief. I mulled it over, day after day, even when I was perched on one of the built-in shower seats as Paul lathered my hair and carefully began to wash it. The long length couldn't be piled on top and screwed around or I'd never get out the tangles. He did it the way I'd taught him, working the soapy lather from scalp to ends, and when it was over, he'd dry it, brush it free of tangles and all around me it would fall like a silken shawl to cover my nakedness, like Eve must have covered hers.

  "Paul," I asked, my eyes downcast, "it's not sinful what we're doing, is it? I keep thinking of the grandmother and all her talk of evil. Tell me that love makes this all right."

  "Open your eyes, Cathy," he said softly, using a washcloth to wipe away the suds before I did. "Look at what you see--a naked man, the way God planned him to be." When I'd looked, he tilted my face upwards and then lifted me so he could hold me close. Holding me in his tight embrace, he began to talk, and every word he said told me our love was beautiful and right.

  I couldn't speak. Silently I cried inside, for so easily I could have ended up the prude the

  grandmother wanted to make of me.

  Like a young child I allowed him to dry me off and brush my hair, and do what he would with his kisses and caresses, until the embers always ready between us caught fire and he picked me up and carried me to his bed.

  When our passion was sated, I lay in the circle of his arms and thought of all I could do. Things that would have shocked me as a child. Things that once I would have considered terribly gross, ugly, for I had thought then only of the acts and not of the feelings of giving. How strange that people were born so sensual and had to be stifled for so many years. I recalled the first time his tongue had touched me there and the electrifying jolt I'd felt.

  Oh, I could kiss Paul everywhere and feel no shame, for loving him was better than smelling roses on a sunny summer day, better than dancing to beautiful music with the best of all partners.

  That was what loving Paul was like for me when I was seventeen and he was forty-two.

  He had restored me and made me whole, and deeper down I shoved the remorse I felt for Cory.

  There was hope for Chris, he was alive.

  There was hope for Carrie, that she could grow and find love too.

  And maybe, if things turned out right--there was hope for me too.

  Toward the Top

  . Julian didn't fly down as often as he used to, and his mother and father complained about this. When he did come, he danced better than ever, but not once did I see him glance my way. I had the suspicion though, he did plenty of looking when he knew I couldn't see him I was getting better, more disciplined, more controlled . . . and I worked. Oh, how I worked!

  From the very first I'd been included in the professional group of the Rosencoff Ballet Company, but only as a member of the corps de ballet. This Christmas we were to alternate performances of The Nutcracker and Cinderella.

  Long after the others had gone home I had the dance studio all to myself on a Friday afternoon, and I was lost in the world of the Sugarplum Fairy, intent upon giving this role something different, when suddenly Julian was dancing with me. He was like my shadow, doing what I did, even pirouetting, making a mockery of what I did.

  He frowned, then grabbed up a towel to dry his face and hair. I wiggled my toes and started toward the dressing room. I was going out to dinner with Paul that evening.

  "Cathy, hold up!" he called. "I know you don't like me--"

  "I don't."

  He grinned wickedly, leaning forward to stare into my eyes. His lips brushed my cheek as I cringed away, then he had me pinioned in his arms, with his palms flat against the wall to prevent my running away. "You know what, I think you should be the one to dance Clara, or Cinderella." He tickled under my chin, then kissed near my ear. "If you're nice to me I could see to it that you dance both lead roles."

  I ducked and ran. "Come off it, Julian!" I flared. "Your favors would demand a price. . . and you don't interest me."

  Ten minutes later I had showered and dressed and was ready to leave the building when Julian showed up in his street clothes. "Cathy, seriously, I think you're ready for New York now. Marisha thinks so too. ' His smile was wry, as if his mother's opinion wasn't as worthy as his own. "No strings attached. Not unless someday you decide you want strings"

  Now I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. I did get chosen for both the roles for the Rosencoff performances. I thought the other girls would be jealous and resentful, but instead they applauded when it was announced. We all worked well together, making it one merry, hectic time. Then came my debut as Cinderella!

  Julian didn't even knock before he entered the girl's dressing room to survey me in my costume of rags and tatters. "Stop being so damned nervous. They're only people out there. You don't think I'd come back here to dance with a girl who wasn't sensational, do you?"

  As we stood in the wings his arm stayed about my shoulders, lending me confidence as we both counted toward my cue to go on. His part didn't come until much later. I couldn't see Paul, Chris, Carrie or Henny out in the darkened audience. I trembled more as the footlights dimmed and the overture was played, and then the curtain rose. My mounting anxiety disappeared and took all my insecurity along with it, as some astonishing kinesthetic memory took over and I allowed the music to control and direct me. I wasn't Cathy, or Catherine, or anybody but Cinderella! I swept ashes from the hearth and enviously watched two hateful stepsisters prepare for the ball, feeling love and romance would never come into my life.

  If I made mistakes, if my technique wasn't perfect, I didn't know it. I was in love with the dance, with performing before a large audience, with being young and pretty, and most of all I was in love with life and all it had to offer outside of Foxworth Hall.

  Red, yellow and pink roses came to fill my arms. I thrilled when the audience rose to give us a standing ovation. Three times I handed Julian a rose of a different color; each time our eyes met and clung. See, his were saying to me mutely, we do create magic together! We are the perfect dancing partners!

  He cornered me again duri
ng the buffet party. "Now you've had a taste of what it's like," he said softly and persuasively, his dark eyes pleading. "Can you give up the applause? Can you keep on staying here, in a hick town, when New York is waiting for you? Cathy, as a team we'll be sensational! We look so right together. I dance with you better than I dance with any other ballerina. Oh, Cathy, you and I could reach the top so much sooner together. I swear to take good care of you. I'll look out for you and never let you feel lonely."

  "I don't know," I said miserably, though I was lit up inside. "I have to finish high school first--but do you really think I'm good enough? Up there they expect the best.,

  "You are the best! Trust me, believe in me. Madame Zolta's company isn't the largest, or top rank, but she's got what it takes to make our company rate as high as the larger and older ones--once she has a couple of fantastic dancers like us!"

  I asked what Madame Zolta was like. Somehow that made him confident I'd already agreed and, laughing first, he managed to plant a kiss on my lips. "You're going to adore Madame Zolta! She's Russian and the sweetest, kindest, most gentle little old lady you ever met. She'll be like your mother. [Good God!] She knows everything there is about dance. She's our doctor sometimes, our psychologist; whatever we need, she's it. Life in New York is like living on Mars compared to here, another world, a better world. In no time at all you'll love it. I'll take you to famous restaurants where you'll eat food such as you've never tasted before. I'll introduce you to movie stars, TV celebrities, actors, actresses, authors."

  I tried to resist him by fastening my eyes on Chris, Carrie and Paul, but Julian moved so he blocked out my view. All I could see was him. "It's the kind of life you were born for, Cathy," and this time he sounded sincere and deeply earnest. "Why have you studied and put yourself through so much torture, if not for success? Can you achieve the kind of fame you want here?"