XI. The Lap of Luxury
When dawn cracked the morning sky she and H.W. packed the contents of the cottage for the movers to load into their truck while Daniel went to work in the fields. A kiss from the young oil prince rewarded her for good hospitality after she broke to serve fresh lemonade to everyone at noon. While the thirsty men guzzled from their glasses, she concentrated on H.W.'s face and ran a comparative study against Daniel's. Close examination attested that her beau must have resembled his mother; his softened features were on the pretty side of handsome and far more delicate than Daniel's harsher, chiseled masculine ones. In the physical aspect they were as different as Paul and Eli were in the internal aspect. Abundant love for the young man flooded from her heart, moving her to stand at his side, slide an arm around his waist and kiss him in adoration on the cheek.
After they were settled and everything arranged the way they wanted, Mary stood in the centre of her bedroom one morning after rising, looking about her and thinking that she must've known then how Daniel felt while surveying his land: she was queen of everything she set eyes upon. The room was her paradise.
Personalisation with every possible womanly touch, her bedroom was all her own, an homage to female delicacy bursting from an exceptionally masculine household like the break of dawn. Daniel ordered her to do as she pleased, sparing no expense for whatever she wanted. Inspired by Victorian era delicacy, she created the private space of her dreams, a perfect place of peace and tranquillity. The ideal symbol that embraced the mood was her favourite flower: the rose. The wallpaper she chose, a soothing pale pink accented with cream stripes, set the rose theme with its pattern of burgundy roses. Thus, everything she picked out for her sanctum contained that glorious floral elegance that she loved and based her decorating on.
Roses were interwoven into the ecru Windsor lacer curtains, flourished on the tea set arranged upon the Chantilly-draped table across the room, sprawled over the fireplace screen, cast in the ironwork of the candelabra, adorned the porcelain carafe at her beside, branded into the music box H.W. had given her for a birthday and engraved in the Waterford crystal vase into which Daniel replenished a fresh cut bouquet every other day. They were stitched into the Oriental rug over the floor, embroidered in the damask quilt on the bed, portrayed on the chest at the foot of that bed. They were featured on the panels of the writing desk, burnt into the velvet of the pillows and sewn into the goose feather throw on the burgundy and cream coloured chair and a half she couldn't wait to curl up in to read by the fire on sleepless nights. The chair itself was a tribute, roses featured in its brocade upholstery.
The men in her indulged her testament to feminine finery with more expensive additions to the room. Gossamer softness was given in laces, silks and muslins by the droves. Sterling silver jewellery – always silver to honour the early mining days of the master of the house – glittered in rose geometries in her jewellery box. The most extravagant gift was the bedroom set of furniture: the bed, the wardrobe, the sitting chair were all manufactured out of rosewood from specs surprisingly dreamt up by Daniel. The bed was the centrepiece of the room, its twisting posts with vines of roses carved deep into them, and the best part was the gorgeous headboard upon which a most breathtaking rose garden was painted. Always the fragrance of rosewater and talcum powder lightly scented this frail paradise so that everyone who had been in it wore that perfume as their own.
During a homecoming visit, mother and Ruth adored her quarters, happy that she got what she deserved. Eli was another story. Stepping inside, he surveyed the room with a severe critical eye unfazed by the airy translucency and quipped: "Since you act like a man during the day, it's nice to see that you recognise your female attributes at night, my sister."
The insinuation was blatant and shocked Mary only because it was said in front of mother. Always envious of her preeminent advantages that he did not have, advantages afforded to her by Daniel's favouritism, Eli couldn't resist the lewd finger pointing. Taking it in stride, she smiled as best as she could and returned, "You would know about female attributes, wouldn't you, brother?"
Not knowing what to make of the response or deciding to feign innocence in ignorance, Eli shut his mouth and kept it shut.
New Year's Eve rang in with an official housewarming bash at the mansion and preparations were undertaken by H.W. and Mary for a party set in the fancy ballroom of the mansion's west wing. Originally she planned to invite the whole town to rub the salt of their convictions into their critical wounds but Daniel clarified that they were unwelcome. The family and intimate friends were allowed but nobody else. Enthralled by the Yuletide spirit of giving, she bargained with him for Eli to be allowed to attend. Hesitating first, Daniel noticed how much it meant for her to have the rebarbative missionary included so he agreed. Hell, it was the holidays, after all.
Eli, who had been in Los Angeles broadcasting a holiday sermon on Christmas, promised to come home and amend his absence by celebrating the coming of the New Year with everyone. With well-trained aplomb, the invite was accepted and he was reunited with his family beneath the tenebrous roof of his enemy. He was greeted at the ballroom door by his littlest sister's warm embrace, returned with an arctic reception.
Mary brushed it off when Ruth and Matthew motioned from across the ballroom. Linking their arms together, she led Eli over to their sister who he had not seen since he'd married her. One of Mary's greatest pleasures was to rub Ruth's gravid tummy, in the final trimester of her pregnancy, in an effort to feel the baby kick. She liked setting H.W.'s hand there too and discuss with him future promises that one day he would be able to touch her tummy, swollen with his baby. For that remark and her translation to everyone of it, he blushed so heatedly that he strolled off with George to speak of another topic.
Sipping from a glass of festive plum wine, Mary's eyes rested on Daniel. Although he sat in a corner discussing what must've been business with Fletcher, the tycoon's assiduous watch barely strayed from her. With a tender smile, she strolled across the room and plopped next to him. Fletcher immediately excused himself from their company in favour of H.W. and George.
"Are you planning to make babies with my son?" she was bluntly questioned.
Laughing she remarked, "No! Maybe. I don't know." A pause, then: "How come you never had any more children?"
He gave her a long look, swallowed a mouthfull of whiskey and replied, "My wife died in childbirth."
"But you never remarried."
"I was a widowed father. There was no time for me to meet other women or have more children. I had to take care of H.W. on my own while running my business."
"Right. I suppose it would've been too difficult." She took his hand, interlocking their fingers. "But H.W. is a man now. And you're still relatively young. Not quite vintage."
Holding up her wine glass to illustrate the metaphor, she finished off the drink, one thought in her head: Just ask me and I'll carry your baby!
Setting the glass on Fletcher's vacated chair, she ran her fingers through his hair and pressed her full lips against his temple in a tender, loitering kiss.
"You work so hard," she crooned in his ear, "and have sacrificed much. You deserve a good woman who would give you more children and many dances."
Before he fully grasped her intent, she was up and pulling him to his feet. All attention gravitated to the centre of the room where she coaxed the irascible oil man into a slow dance, meshing their bodies together at a scandalous proximity as the hired string quartet broke out into a lovely concerto. Nobody took offence, choosing to believe the display sweet, except for Eli who saw clearly through his baby sister's smokescreen and scowled at them with raw, open disapproval. Their dance was short as it flared up the old injury in Daniel's leg but Mary decided his discomfort toward public emotion was the real reason. Stretching up on her toes to reach him, she pressed her lips to his in a not so daughterly kiss then let him return to his chair. New tension smothered the room but she was oblivious to it. When she left the floor to pour another wine at the bar, Eli was right there to comment.
"Is consuming so much alcohol yet another thing the almighty Daniel Plainview has taught you?" he asked.
"Leave me alone, Eli. I'm trying to have a good time. There's no sin in that. And if there is, might I remind you that you're here in the hell's den of your own free will too. Remember free will? It's what God gave us to make our own choices."
"I'm just pointing out to you that your dance number was a shameless spectacle. You put on a better show than I do."
"It's the holidays, give it a rest."
"It's the holidays celebrating our Lord's birthday."
"That's Christmas," she corrected with venom, "this is New Year's Eve."
"It's still a part of the cele—"
"If you only came here to sour our mood then you can leave. If having a good time is evil, then you're right here with us, aren't you?"
"You were making love to him right in front of us."
"It was an innocent dance. Maybe it's that I'm a woman who's enjoying herself that really bothers you. You see what you want to see."
"What did H.W. see? A beloved daughter sharing a sweet moment with her father figure or his girlfriend engaged in a tawdry entanglement with his father?"
"Why are you so hellbent on pointing accusatory fingers at everyone else? Are you hiding something? You're as obsessed with Daniel as I am!"
The preacher's calm composure cracked.
"You're sixteen-years-old, Mary. Still underage. I'm not saying you can't consent with a sound adult mind but I know many affluent politicians who would call his participation in an affair with you statutory rape."
Aghast with horror, she cried, "You wouldn't!"
He smirked and she wanted to slap it right off his face.
"Quiet, Mary. Rage is unbecoming of you. A law was passed to protect naïve young girls who don't know any better against dirty old men who want to take sexual advantage of them. It's illegal for him to touch you, dear sister; his doing so would make him a predator. A worse one than is already known. I can't prove any of his other crimes but the whole town can back me on this one. My political friends can tie up his business concerns and render it impossible for him to make any money. At the worst, he would be locked away in a prison cell for the rest of his life. Do you know what they would do to a convicted sex offender in prison? Especially a rich one who would no doubt try to buy his way out?" He had the audacity to reach out and toy with an errant strand of her hair. "Little Mary Sunday: Daniel Plainview's illegal tender. Does he call you his sweet Mary because he's already tasted how ripe you are for his picking?"
Filled with blinding rage, she threw her wine in his face then smacked him as hard as she could across the cheek with her open hand.
"Happy New Year, brother," she spat through clenched teeth. "Now get the hell out of my house."
Eli complied with a grin as Mary rushed into the arms of a concerned H.W. who, along with everyone else, questioned her about what happened. Yet she didn't answer because she couldn't stop laughing at the realisation that the wine had permanently stained Eli's expensive white shirt.
How credible her brother's indirect threat was she didn't know. But there must've been some plausibility to it considering he must've met a myriad of important people quite capable of realising Daniel's imprisonment. Out of terror that he would be snatched away from her because of a petty cruelty, she stayed away from him for as long as she could, crying incessantly within the confines of her room and convincing herself that everything would be fine if she kept her thoughts and actions pure.
Unfair! Whenever she was near the oil man her lust was irresistible yet she managed to stay her distance for the most part should anyone join Eli in his correct impression. Keeping apart from Daniel was torment, even though she knew she probably didn't need to as those who witnessed her dance were apt to hold her secret, likely already written off as too much to drink. But she refused to take that risk so a new plan was concocted. Nobody would suspect anything if she focused all of her attention on H.W. whenever Daniel was near.
Keep your hands off of him and nobody will suspect a thing!
The plan proved more difficult than she imagined, however. Symptoms of her affections for Daniel were brandished to everyone around them. Was it seen in their glances? Was it heard in their tone of voice? Was it in the old blush of her cheek that had returned? Perhaps all would be well if they never so much as touched in public. Surely nobody would suspect if they weren't even in the same room, especially not alone in the same room.
But it was nearly impossible to escape him. They still needed interaction and close proximity to run their business. They still lived under the same roof. Paranoia tortured the young woman. Division in her heart between father and son brought her to a precipice where she was no longer sure that Eli had been altogether wrong when he indicted her as a whore for the Plainviews. Her uncontested love for them both was inexpressible. Her esteem for Daniel as champion and father figure mixed with profound love not only because he eased the turbulent Sunday homestead but because she enamoured him as a person. The single biggest impact on her life had been made by him, an honour that did not even extend to Paul for all of his worldliness and kindness. Life was greatly enriched for her because of Daniel; what she learnt from him was more valuable than what she could have learnt from any of Paul's books, for his lessons were on life. But the one disturbing aspect was how she had fetishised her father figure image of him to a perverse level: the perfect man who possessed all the qualities she wanted not only in a father but in a mate. Denial of the ineluctable truth could no longer be denied, proven by her endless dirty thoughts of Daniel. She wanted him so desperately as a lover she'd do anything to achieve it.
On the flip side was H.W., the lifelong friend who'd grown up alongside her. Charitable and industrious, the younger Plainview had the mind of a businessman yet was found wanting of the crass, unrelenting nature of the father. It was as if all the good in Daniel had been extracted to form the son. Neither man forfeited the angelic personas she'd invented for them through the years: H.W. the sweet cherub, Daniel the warrior seraph. In their combination was the best of both worlds. Demure and void of venomous asperity that genetically made up the father, it was H.W.'s soft-spoken compassion that attracted her to him, influenced her to fall in love with him and caused her want to make him her own. Stuck pitilessly in the middle, Mary's greediness did not want to choose between the pair, nor could she. She was content to live with and have them both in any and every way possible. If that made her a whore then she decided to be the harlot and bear the stoning of Eli's rebuke.
Much to the uproarious outrage of devout Little Boston, her latitudinarian lifestyle had graduated exponentially when the indecent Plainviews took Mary with them to live at the opulent mansion. All understood her relationship with H.W. and that, as bad as it appeared when she relocated to the cottage with them, it was excusable under the pretext that Abel's consumption was contagious. But for the young woman to take residence with the men in the mansion there was no redress and turned her into a pariah, shunned as unfit and too unchristian for their society.
Mary met their contempt with unbothered indifference. She never ventured into town without either H.W. or Daniel at her side, and though she and H.W. managed to uphold their gentility with neutral politeness and no complaints, Daniel was kind to their faces but berated them hatefully under his breath. Mary knew his disturbing constant diet of whiskey played a part in these outbursts. Yet something sweet underscored his mumbled invective: he valiantly growled that they'd better never cause his sweet Mary harm. Whether he was drunk or not she felt the safest with him.
While these things happened in public, more interesting things began to take shape inside the mansion. Occasionally H.W. paid nocturnal visits for nothing but a quick I love you and a peck on the cheek or to stay with her untill she fell asleep. Twice he even slipped into bed with her and fell asleep, entangled in each other's arms in a prophetic sign of things to come. His intentions were always chaste and never verged toward molestation. It satisfied him to just simply be with her.
One morning Daniel noticed him exiting her room, as Mary discovered the hard way after hearing him mutter a snide comment reprimanding their secrecy. From that time forward she caught Daniel expelling trenchant threats against H.W. whenever George wasn't in the room to relay the words. Hoping to mollify the patriarch's jealousy without trouble coming to either man from the one-sided cutthroat rivalry, she waited for H.W. to venture into town on an errand then sauntered into Daniel's office and requested his audience.
"You don't need to be upset over H.W.'s courtship of me, Daniel," she told him in frankness.
He gaped at her, half amused, half astonished by her directness, trying to size up the issue.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he deadpanned, rearranging the paperwork in front of him.
It was a telltale sign of his agitation, another trick she was taught by him.
"Let's not toy with each other any longer, Daniel. You're the world to me, that's never been a secret. I suppose it's safe for me to guess it's mutual. Your actions speak what you refuse to say."
"You're the daughter I've never had."
"Not just a daughter you've never had. We mean so much more to each other. We are bound together with an ineffable attraction that I swear H.W. must be as blind as he is deaf to not see."
"What you are insinuating is very dangerous for us."
"Yes, but life, like business, is a risk."
Ready to demonstrate what she meant, she audaciously seated herself on his lap and wasted no time in recommencing where the chaste kiss left off during their walk. Practise she acquired with H.W. equipped her with experience in the art of kissing. No longer inept, she used her tongue to tease him into returning the kiss and this time did not sacrifice what she wanted from him but instead aggressively pursued it. When he cupped her face gently and at last gave her what she had waited almost her whole life for, her body was electrified by a tingling, triumphant frisson. His hands roamed down her back, grasped her pert rear end in his palms and squeezed lasciviously.
"Don't stop!" she demanded hotly in his ear as he nuzzled and kissed her neck. "I've waited so long for this!"
At that moment the momentous spell broke and the half-drunk Daniel abjured, holding her away from him.
"Mary, Mary, stop. Stop, sweetheart. I can't go through with this. This is inappropriate. You're not even eighteen yet."
"Almost."
She pushed against his restraint but he held her fast, reiterating in a firmer tone, "You're not eighteen. Untill you reach the legal age of consent…"
"What then? Will you make a woman of me? Don't insult me with denial, Daniel, the tension between us is suffocating."
Abstinent tension hung thick between them, as if she'd stepped into a monastery fully nude. He was holding something back from her, she could tell by his reactions.
"You have H.W…."
"And I want you too. The three of us already live together and the town thinks us degenerates. But they're wrong. We're all in love…"
"You are my daughter, Mary."
"Yet I am not. The forbidden idea that I am makes it more appealing. You watched me pleasure myself the last night at the cottage. I caught you. I thought of you while I did it. I still do it with you in mind. What's between us isn't wrong and to hell with the convictions of others! They never mattered before so why should they matter now?"
He hesitated to speak, crafting his words with extreme care as he stared at her with a wealth of love reflected in his eyes.
"Mary, listen to me. You have H.W. who loves you very much and you cannot mean to do this. You are young, confused by your admiration for someone who snatched you from a horrible life. You aren't even legal, Mary, what are you thinking? What I may want is meaningless right now."
"Fine," she said curtly. "But I know you better. You always take what you want. Eventually. When you come around, you know where to find me."
Wounded, she was draught cold as she deferentially rose from his lap and exited the room, swearing she overheard a distinct mumbling of Not untill you're eighteen under his breath.
Things were exceedingly uncomfortable between the father figure and surrogate daughter thereafter as Pyrrhic insecurities cached away inside her bubbled up in torment. Was it possible that she misread the way he gazed at her and defended her honour? Here was empirical proof that Daniel was no scofflaw set out to peculate everyone of everything they had when the one thing she had to offer was her rejected virginity. They were wrong about him after all. He was a laudable man who corrected her wrong firmly, discreetly and sparingly. How she could have misjudged his fatherly intentions she did not know but was ashamed. No solid evidence was ever given that he was interested in her for anything other than a daughter. Every try to amend her unseemly insinuation failed. Desperation to speak to him, apologise, to have everything return to as it was rended her conscience. Reaching that goal was more unlikely as the days passed and her adopted father distanced himself further. He made himself scarce each time she was near, leaving the room whenever she appeared in it. Their evening walks were discontinued and Mary feared that her hero had disowned her for her depravity and promiscuous conduct. What conversation they had was kept at a bare minimum and this time H.W. noticed.
What's been going on between you and my father? he signed one night during dinner after Daniel forwent joining them in the dining room to eat in his office. There's something wrong, I can sense it.
I made a suggestion he wasn't fond of, she returned. He wanted something his way and I argued against him. You know how he is in matters of business. He told me I am too young to know better.
H.W. smiled and Mary mirrored his relief with her own but for a very different reason.
That's my father. The great Daniel Plainview. Too stubborn to listen to anyone else's opinions. Not even yours. Not even mine.
Her second smile was weaker but she nodded. No walk with Daniel scheduled, she settled on taking one with H.W. down to the beach. It was late spring again but the breeze was chilled when brought in from the ocean, coercing the budding lovers to snuggle for shared warmth. Time alone with H.W. was refreshing opposed to the icy reception from the master of Plainview manor. H.W. made her forget Daniel for a while, a welcome lapse of memory as he caressed and kissed her. Bittersweet it was when they parted for the night but after she fell asleep all dreams of Daniel were expelled and in their wake was her wedding night with H.W. and a new happily-ever-after.
The dissent between her and Daniel reached its third wearisome month in June. Inestimable damage was clearly done by her rash contretemps; he was water through her fingers that she lost in her desperation to hold onto. A more direct approach was required, she decided, if things were ever to be fixed.
Father's Day was an ideal outlet to patch up the hole that her kiss had punched through their relationship. The morning occupied her with preparations for a harmless gift from the heart: a lunch out in the garden that displayed all of her signature personal touches. The servants were evicted from the kitchen so that she could work without the taint of outside opinion. H.W., who had been searching for her throughout the mansion, finally found her adding the finishes and packing things in a picnic basket.
What's this? he asked before stealing a piece of cold pheasant.
She gently, playfully slapped his offending hand, then replied: It's for your father as a Father's Day gift. Things haven't been well between us for quite some time and I hope to repair whatever wrong I've committed.
Can I come?
No. Sorry, this must be one-on-one.
Those her last words, she walked out of the kitchen, handed the basket of food to a maid, instructed her to set up the picnic and made a bee-line toward the office. Entering the room much like she had the last time, she found him finalising a new acquisition with Fletcher. The creak and subsequent echo of the shutting door drew their attention from the paperwork to her.
"Daniel, it's a holiday," she reasoned straight away. "Why don't you two put the work away and you and I can have one of those walks we used to take? It's long overdue."
Daniel's stoic expression was unreadable but Mary was determined to keep her own face as blank as a professional gambler. Part of her game was to act like it didn't mean as much to her as it did.
"Is today a holiday?" he asked her. She couldn't tell if he was serious.
"It's Father's Day. I have something special for you."
"Is that right?"
"Yes."
"But I'm not your father."
"Yes, you are," she dauntlessly argued. "You've always been my father."
Playing a facetious game, he retaliated, "Business doesn't stop for holidays, my sweet."
It had been the first time he'd referred to her as his sweet in the awkward months after the kiss.
"It's Sunday. The Sabbath. The day of rest. You need a break to live. Otherwise what is the point in a life unlived?"
There was a silent pause as they weighed their options.
Fletcher, who wore his exhaustion barefaced, told Daniel, "Seems like you've got an angel watching out for your well-being."
Mary loved Fletcher for reversing her personal sequitor for the oil man to describe her. The innocent switch did not go unrecognised by Daniel who looked her dead in the eye and nodded.
"Indeed it does," he concurred, sticking the pen he held back into the blotter. "I don't know if it's wise for us to…"
"Fresh air will do you good rather than keeping holed up inside a dank room," Mary rationalised further.
"Go ahead, Daniel," urged Fletcher. "We should quit so you could enjoy your day. I know you look forward to your time with her."
The young woman smiled inside at her unwitting ally.
Daniel stared at his surrogate daughter with an appreciative gleam for her sly manipulation to corner him where she wanted him. A consensual nod later, he exited the room at her side, grabbing his jacket from the coat rack at the door. For a few grueling minutes, they walked through the mansion corridors, her hands fidgeting at her sides. Nothing was said between them untill they were out of the house and she was leading him toward the picnic spread.
"What's this?" he asked with an amused twinkle in his eyes when they rested on the waiting picnic. "Is this what you've taken me away from my work for?"
"Are you sorry?" she asked, inserting her hand into his.
"We'll see," he replied with a teasing smile.
"I wanted it to be a surprise."
"And a wonderfull surprise it is. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
"Well, then. Shall we eat? I'm starving now that I see your delicious surprise."
Things still did not go as Mary had intended. The picnic was consumed in almost dead silence with sporadic interruptions of praise for her culinary skills between mouthfuls.
This is horrible! she complained in her head. This can't go on much longer!
"I didn't intend for this to happen," Mary broke the ice. "This awkwardness is my fault. If you want me to move out…"
"I could never ask you to leave. H.W. loves you and so do I. I won't deny it. It would be an injustice to deny it but you got it all wrong, sweet Mary. I love you as a daughter and I know if you search your heart you will find you love me as a father and nothing more. It's perfectly understandable for an innocent heart to get confused when it feels indebted to someone. Maybe you feel that you owe me something for my years of protection and guidance but you don't. I just want you to be happy."
"Then why have you been evading me?"
"To give you time and space so that you could think and reinforce your bond with H.W. without me in the way."
"You can't ever be in the way, whatever gave you the idea that you were?"
"I didn't get to where I am today with poor perception, my sweet."
"No, I suppose not." Another pause parted them with the amicable promise of a veil concealing a new bride. "Will you stop avoiding me now? I dislike being in your absence."
"I think we can work something out."
"Good. I still need you as much as I need air to breathe."
"Is that so?"
"Very much so."
"Then we can't have you suffocating now, can we?"
The girl was pleased to feel her dainty, sweaty hand swallowed by his huge dry one and it was like old times anew. When she stuffed a large swollen strawberry in his mouth, he drew her against him. Laughing, she used her thumb to wipe off the juice dribbling from the corner of his mouth before virtuously kissing him there.
In the coming days, their walks resumed with great joy expressed by Mary who bounced everywhere with a nymph's mischievous delight. The picture of domestic stability, she was the doting Plainview amoret who elected to cook, clean and care for them. The effort was appreciated but Daniel griped that he did not instruct her in the oil business to stay home and be a hausfrau. Paying him no mind, she retorted that she enjoyed her feminine governance, that Daniel had eradicated the obligation but preserved the choice for her. Thus, she arranged a second picnic luncheon for the three of them on the beach the following Saturday afternoon. When Daniel raised the accursed flask to his lips she confiscated it from him, demanding that he wasn't to swallow a drop untill at least after the picnic. He complied, winning a gratefull hug from her.
The next few months were spent in an identical fashion, a beatific dullness quite different from the days in the pasture before Paul left to Signal Hill many years ago. It was a routine Mary carried out with ecstatic diligence. To satisfy Daniel's dreams of grooming a savvy businesswoman out of her, she assisted in the office and out in the fields when the oil man wanted to show her something particular or test her practical education with questions about how she would solve a problem or perform a task. It was his way to boast the abilities and knowledge of his sui generic female pupil to the roughnecks; being validated by someone she admired was all she'd ever wanted and it boosted her confidence exponentially.
Desperate to steer her away from the path her misogynistic previous life had ingrained in her, he surprised her with a secret trip one morning. In the dark about their destination, she was giddy during the drive. Hiding her anticipation from him, she burnt it off by fidgeting her toes inside her shoes and her fingers at her sides. When the car was parked on a tract of farmland just beyond Little Boston's town limits, her anxiety turned into curiosity.
"Why are we here?" she asked with interest.
"You've always wanted to go with me on one of my business negotiations," he reminded. "Here's your chance. This is the Singer ranch. Their tract will be our next acquisition and you'll get a practical business lesson."
Smiling, she nodded, thankfull for the opportunity. Singer's greeting of them at the door showed that their arrival had been expected. The men shook hands and, to her unquestionable shock, Daniel introduced her as his business associate. Associate! Not secretary, not even apprentice. Associate! A title reserved for H.W. and Fletcher, one implicit for men alone. It spoke volumes of the esteem Daniel held for her although Singer glanced at her with ghastly scepticism. Daniel's opinion was the only one that mattered and she'd earned his respect fair and square. Filled with a peacock's pride, she clasped Singer's hand in an acceptance she never imagined possible for a woman.
She felt at home sitting beside Daniel at the Singer tables, Singer and his two sons completing the assembly. Just like in her former home, the matriarch and the young daughter were dismissed. The girl, no more than eleven, hesitated, making unwavering eye contact with Mary. Inside those glistening eyes was a familiar plea to let her stay. The look wounded Mary, who tried to communicate her empathy for once being in her shoes until an angel saved her but it was useless. It was not her place to demand the girl stay. If she spoke up against her dismissal, it could cost Daniel the lease. Singer shooed the girl from the room but Mary sent out a phantom hand to stop her with a grasp on the shoulder. The will ghost could not grasp what was tangible and the dismissed girl slipped away.
Exclusion from men's business hurt, for there was never a greater feeling of accomplishment as when a woman gained acceptance into the prestigious boy's club. Mary knew she was a pioneer in this and, thus, the Plainview household was harmonised once again.
Untill her eighteenth birthday came at last. No other event in Little Boston had ever been more anticipated beside Ruth's wedding and the initial spudding-in ceremony and, as those two celebrations had been, was an all-day affair. Whatever your heart desires, Daniel proclaimed, and allowed her to invite everyone, the roughnecks and townspeople included, to the mansion for the once-in-a-lifetime bash. Not even H.W.'s eighteenth had been such a large jubilation, which she enjoyed joking with him about, and in turn being dubbed by her sweetheart as Daddy's Little Girl. The prospector made a fair attempt to be sociable during the party but by mid-morning his forbearance dissolved and he absconded back into the privacy of his office. Within the half hour, Mary of course missed him, parted company with her heavily pregnant sister and went looking there first, finding him at his desk in the centre of swirling blue cigarette smoke.
"Don't deprive me of your presence, my dearest," she pressed. "Not on my birthday."
"Your special birthday no less."
"Yes, my special birthday."
"A special birthday requires a special gift, don't you think?"
She smiled impishly and said, "I suppose it would."
"And you will have one but now is not the right time."
Mary wrinkled her nose, flummoxed.
"How can it not be the right time?"
One of their trademark silences put the conversation at a standstill while they exchanged amorous longing through their mutually held gazes. Before she was conscious of his doing so, he slid across the desk a white box tied with a pink ribbon that was a replica of the one he'd given her when she was seven.
"What's this?" she inquired lightly. "A birthday gift for me?"
"Open it."
Smiling, she daintily plucked at the ribbon, yanking the knot of the bow loose then free before eagerly raising the lid and tissue paper inside with the exhilaration of the child she once was. But the woman she'd become lifted what was in the box with astonished, gaping eyes. Another white garment lay inside but it was one quite different from the original. Soft and delicate, it was made of white chiffon, a scandalous article that was bad form for a man to buy for a young woman he raised as his own daughter.
"Daniel!" she sighed breathlessly. "I can't accept this! It's exquisite and so…so sexy!"
"Consider it an updated version of its predecessor. To celebrate your womanhood."
"I don't know what to say…"
"Say you won't wear it for H.W. and that you'll wear it to bed tonight."
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she nodded then agreed, "Yes, of course. Tonight. And most nights hereafter."
"Put it away now and I'll have it placed in your room for later."
She reluctantly did as told, asking, "What do you suppose H.W. would say if he ever found me in it?"
"I've been sitting here alone, thinking about things. How things change so quickly before you realise it."
The barefaced dismissal of her question did not surprise her but she knew him well enough to wait patiently for him to answer in his own time.
"Please, sit down," he recommended, motioning to the chair on the opposite side of his desk. "Have a celebratory drink with me."
Raised under the belief that whiskey was evil rather than a cure-all elixir, there was irony in how she was hesitant to drink but more than willing to remain alone in the room with the undisputed love of her life, a man old enough to be her father and was. A portion of the vile drink was poured from its quarter-empty bottle into two glasses and she was handed one which she accepted and sipped from surreptitiously. The taste got the better of her as she grimaced then choked, noting with dismay that the man she wanted to impress observed her reaction, entertained by her weak tolerance level.
"How can you drink this?" she sputtered.
"It's an acquired taste." He leant back in his chair and watched her attempt another sip with identical results.
"I suppose it isn't my taste," she declared, shoving the glass away from her.
"The more you drink, the better it tastes."
"Yes, I bet it does. So are you going to confide in me what you were thinking about?"
"You. When we first met, you were seven years old. That was eleven years ago. You were a little girl racing around my legs chasing H.W. and now you've grown into the most beautifull woman I've ever set eyes on. A perfect lady capable of holding her own against men. You are the daughter I never had. You make me proud."
She glowed as bright as a bonfire.
"And to think, my father expected me to be a dross creature wasting her life away in the bed and at the hearth of a woman-hating twin of himself."
"And look where you are today."
"Look where I am today. I was always a froward spirit."
They shared a smile.
"Everyone is strong when they are young, my sweet, but life can break the strongest inevitably. Take care that never happens to you."
"How can it when I have Gibralter as an example to follow? You performed a miracle in me. My most treasured moment was when I first set my eyes upon you."
The flattery locked their eyes in a solemn, sentimental moment that thickened the atmosphere between them. Absorbed in her romanticism of him, her eyes were glassy with fantasy. Age was the distance that had always parted them, now closing in.
"They don't deserve to be here after all of their conniving ways," he grumbled, gesturing in the direction of the lively party. "I don't care about their problem with me. It's what they say and do to you…"
"I don't care a bit about them," she interrupted with a blasé grin. "Let them come with their knives hidden behind their backs. They're going to hate me any way. So let them hate me with a smile."
He sized up what she had just said and gave an agreeable nod of approval. She was always a firecracker in her wit. Thinking it wise, he switched topics.
"Tonight I leave the conversation to you, my sweet Mary. I'm certain there are things you've always wanted to know about me. Maybe you couldn't ask because you were too intimidated by bullies. But you're a powerfull woman now, afraid of nothing. Let the truth be a gift. As an adult maybe you now can handle the answers to those questions you've always wanted to ask me."
Intrigued by the discursive fluctuations of the conversation, Mary raised an epistemic brow and questioned, "Is there something you want to get off your chest, Daniel?"
"If you only knew…"
"You've said that to me before so tell me then, if the truth be my gift."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything."
Gazing at her, completely besotted, he reached into a desk drawer and presented her with the folded piece of paper.
"What's this?" she inquired, opening it to discover the note she'd written years ago thanking him for the other white dress he had purchased for the spudding-in ceremony. "How did you come across this?"
"From the pocket of one of your dresses, taken out by the laundress. She thought it might be something important and gave it to me. I didn't know what it was but when I read it, it was more than just something important. It was priceless. I've kept it with me every day for the last eleven years and whenever I reached a low or breaking point I took it out and read it."
Every drop of blood in her body rushed up to her face, turning it the old customary crimson. In passing it back to him, their hands touched; his, rough and calloused, caressing her soft one. For a short moment, she lost her breath. Then, regaining her composure, she stated with a maudlin lump in her throat, "Then I'm happy you found it since it means so much to you."
"It means everything to me."
He carefully refolded the note and placed it back in its secret spot as if it was a precious gem.
Taking a deep breath, she asked a question that had always wanted asking:
"Did you ever hear from Paul again? You received that one letter and I wrote back but got no further correspondence that I know of. That isn't like him."
"I gave you all I had. The letters stopped coming. I never had the courage to tell you. I assumed something very bad happened. But I don't know and I am so sorry for never telling you. It was wrong of me. I know he meant a great deal to you."
The news was a heartbreaking truth to Mary who wondered if the negative energy from her bad thoughts long ago had circled back to penalise her beloved Paul with an ill fate. Ignoring how Daniel referred to her cherished brother in the past tense, she sighed and blinked back tears. There was a dreaded feeling inside her that this was only a preview of what was to come out of this game. The glum subject wanted another quick change and her thoughts companioned with the letter were a fitting segue.
"Remember the time you told me I was worthy of the Plainview name?" she began, reaching far back into her own memory. "That was around the time Henry disappeared, wasn't it?"
Daniel's face darkened and he steeled himself for what pended at mention of Henry's name. For a fleeting moment it was evident the thought crossed his mind that he bit off more than he could chew.
"I believe it was," he responded, eyes never leaving her and waiting for the inevitable.
"You gave me that letter from Paul and you spoke of a sibling's worth. Remember?"
"Yes."
"What happened to Henry, Daniel? I know your relationship with him took a bitter wrong turn and that you were very close beforehand. I also am familiar with your combustible temper. Did you do something to him?"
"What if I told you that he just went away?"
"I'd remind you that you promised to deliver the truth as a gift, however serrated it be."
The eidetic memory of Daniel's indelible attack on Eli in the mud pit chilled her body in the stifling heat. The last thing she wanted was to incur that virulent wrath upon herself, although she did not believe her father figure would ever do so much as raise a hand to her.
"You would hate me if I told you," he warned, suddenly and aberrantly unable to look at her.
"You said that before, too, and I can honestly say that I will never hate my angel."
"Your angel is a figment of your imagination, Mary. It's time to let it go."
Tired of his desultory avoidance of a straight explanation, she ordered, "Tell me. And perhaps you won't need to rely on that cursed flask so heavily."
A raw nerve was struck in him by those words; his precious whiskey acted as a requital nepenthe for his guilty conscience: the great heathen alchemist who turned solid earth into liquid black gold and traded decent probity for unscrupulous selfishness.
He sighed, half growling as he considered how best to formulate his response to the woman whose lifetime majority he had spent training to be his match. Seizing the opportunity, she reached over to make contact with the hand he wrapped around his glass, stroking his strong, dexterous fingers with her thumb.
"Henry was a liar," he began. "He was some transient with nobody to account for him. He wasn't who he said he was. He was someone else. I don't know who because I never bothered to ask but he wasn't my real brother."
"How do you know?"
"All of that sharp cleverness and carefull observation I taught you. Whatever-his-name-was couldn't outsmart me."
Lines of soundless tears streamed down Mary's face as she pursued, "What did you do to him, Daniel?"
"You know what I did, Mary. You always suspected and you were right. I got rid of him. I will spare you the details."
"No. You said I'm adult enough to know. I want to know. I need to hear you say it to me."
His eyes pierced her with the rancor of a proud man; a Luciferian peacock who had been played a fool and was too vain to admit it.
"I put a bullet in his skull and buried him in the muck out in the desert," he did not disavow. "Is that what you wanted to hear? Does it make you feel better?"
The former lacunae that had once been unspoken spilt before her, the unformed words twisted beasts that bit into and impaired her. Her mind went numb and the beasts named Reality and Truth gnawed away untill nothing was left of her. They killed who she once was, who she once thought he was, then spewed out the bones to reflesh into a new Mary, one wiser of the incorrigible actions of her eminent angel and his prelapsarian days. Dislodged from the chimerical beliefs that had glued together her faith in his goodness down their acquainted years, she was wrecked by the misery of knowing but refused to be defeated by it.
"Yes, it does. Doesn't it for you?"
"It depends. Do you hate me?"
Time suspended and the question compared to a punch in the gut from a professional boxer. All the ignoble deeds he'd been accused of cast unspeakable dread over her. None of it mattered when the finger was first pointed but with the worst thing imagined verified as truth her eyes had been forced open. In this birthday peccavi, her angel's confession was for killing a man, just as some of the rumours had implied. How many more were true? Where was she supposed to go from here? A vulnerable wildflower uprooted from a safe valley, she was now at the mercy of the irascible oil man.
But here was the enigmatic part: she still loved him unconditionally. He entered her life when nobody was there for her and no direct evil was ever done to her personally. If he was a monster then he was benevolent to those who loved him. In her head she gathered strength and courage by recital of the one word she knew described her throughout her life: resilient. Deciding quickly that her inviolable love remained undamaged, she shook her head.
"No. Told you. I could never hate my angel. But today, perhaps, I am a little more afraid of you."
"That wasn't my intention. You pushed for an answer. It isn't my fault you didn't like what you heard."
"No, it isn't. But thank you for coming clean with me."
Her hand still clutching his as if her life depended on keeping his in a known visible place, she cleared the tears from her face with the other. Disappointed by the hurtfull discovery, she sincerely meant her words. Risking the indomitable relationship which had been forged between them through their years of association, he had disclosed a sordid detail from his past, testifying against himself in her court. At her discretion was she to pass judgement, finding herself perhaps too willing to grant pardon.
"Come here," he softly commanded.
But much to his dismay his protégé wavered to obey yet she needed to ask the gruesome question that had crossed her mind.
"Did you murder Paul? Is that why he hasn't written? Did you take his information and do away with him like rubbish?"
A light of hope was snuffed out of his eyes.
"No. I never touched Paul. Paul is a good man, Mary. He protected you when he was here. He was smart enough to outwit Eli and come to me. Out of his risk he earned a profit and the chance for a better life and at the same time was responsible enough to request that I take over his protection of you. I like few people and respect even fewer but Paul is one of the elite who I both like and respect. I would go so far as to say I admire him, being so young and bright. You remind me of him so much that I can't help but to believe a strike against him is one against you. I love you too much to cause such a detriment to you."
She stared at him, through him, for a flicker of proof that he was being honest. None of his habitual markers of dishonesty were telling on him: no severity in the eyes, no clenched jaw, no fidgeting fingers. The tension eased out of her muscles.
"Come here, my sweet," he cozened with a gesture.
She faltered but caved when he turned his palm over, interlaced their fingers and gently tugged her toward him. Steering her around the desk, he sat her on his lap and she leant in against him, resting her head upon his shoulder. Her free hand touched his magnificent jaw line; she liked the feel of his muscles as they worked to finish the whiskey in the glass.
"Ruth is gigantic, isn't she?" she started as if the previous conversation never happened. "She's passed her due date. I would've understood if she didn't come but she said she wouldn't have missed this day for the world." There was a brief pause then out of the blue, "What's your middle name?"
"Excuse me?" he responded, taken aback by the random and sudden switch of topic.
"The truth is my gift. I'm curious about you. Indulge me. My middle name is Evelyn."
"Mary Evelyn Sunday. Pretty name. Suits you."
"What's yours now? Tell me! Don't procrastinate!"
"Caldecot."
"What? Pardon me?"
"My middle name. It's Caldecot."
Her robust laughter, fuelled by the whiskey and relieved tension, rang and echoed in the room like a church bell.
"Caldecot!" she repeated, winded from laughing. Then seeing his simmering temper, "Don't be angry with me! That will be the Christian name of my firstborn son."
"That would be a great honour to me," he muttered then kissed her forehead tenderly.
After several protracted minutes, he suggested, "Maybe we should go and cut that cake. H.W. is sure to have missed you by now."
Correcting her posture, she peered straight into his vibrant emerald eyes, brightened by the flame of his harrowing assertion.
"I just have one more question," she apprised.
"Oh? And what might that be?"
She bit back the temptation to ask her original inquiry about the whore. For fear that her petrified heart could not bear that particular truth, she quickly invented another instead.
"At the baptism, after the holy water was poured over your head. You shook Eli's hand and muttered in his ear. He was terrified like I've never seen him before. What did you say to him?"
Eyes in a piercing lock, he bent forward to whisper the answer in her ear. Satisfied, she nodded then rose, helping him up afterwards and together rejoined the guests for the cake cutting ceremony.
Outside, Daniel socialised exclusively with his tight inner circle consisting of Mary, H.W., mother, Ruth, Matthew, George and Fletcher. If others approached, he made himself inaccessible with an intimidating frown that kept them moving. Mary easily read his thoughts although the others, including H.W., appeared unable to. These people revolted him; they badmouthed him and his children but were happy to come to his home, eat his food and falsely seek his fellowship and swear false fealty to their indisputable ruler. Reproachable as they were, Mary was the ideal hostess, waiting on the guests and speaking with them as if there were never any two-faced discrepancies. Tonight only were they exculpated of their gossip and insinuations; that was her birthday gift to them.
Yet the majority of her time was spent with her family and boyfriend, as Daniel made certain of; he reminded her with mild criticism that she was the guest of honour and the hired servants should be who tended to everyone's needs. After giving him a whimsical laugh, she administered a quick kiss to his grizzled cheek before skipping off for extra cake. The party stretched on untill midnight when the last of the guests straggled home and the birthday girl bid good night to her family with parting kisses and hugs.
Her energy and optimism were so depleted that the ever-attentive H.W. carried her upstairs to her bedroom in the fashion of the hero in a pulp romance and tucked her into bed with a tender kiss. The chiffon negligee was forgotten at the late hour untill she noticed the white square of a box practically aglow in the darkness on her bed. H.W. had shoved it to the foot of the bed in a casual shrug of indifference. Helpless with fatigue, she didn't change into the negligee as she had promised nor did she change out of her party dress but instead remained where H.W. put her and drifted asleep.
At one of night's ungodly hours, her sleep was disturbed when the bedroom door creaked open. Peeping at her night caller through tired, blurry eyes, she found a dark form encroaching upon the bed. She smiled, thinking it was H.W. sneaking in to spend the remnants of her birthday night nestled beside her with her in his arms and switched positions to make room.
"Mary?" Her body lost its will to function. Her visitor was not her cloying boyfriend. "Mary, are you awake?"
"Daniel? What's wrong? What are you doing in here?"
"I've come to see you in my birthday gift."
"Now? It's the middle of the night."
"I asked you to wear it tonight and since it's fit only for nocturnal use at what other time will I be able to see it on you?"
"You're right. But I'm not wearing it."
"Why not?"
He sounded both wounded and offended and the pang of his disappointment stung her.
"I was exhausted. "H.W. tucked me in and I drifted away before even realising it."
"Put it on."
"Now?"
"Now."
Blinking sleep from her eyes, she stared at him as if he would empathetically feel her boneless weariness and change his mind. But he was relentless in all of his pursuits and never took rejection well so he didn't and she retrieved the box from the far corner of the bed. What Daniel Plainview wanted, Daniel Plainview always got.
"Don't peek," she demanded gently.
"I won't," he assured, turning his back to her.
Stunned and flattered by the unorthodox behaviour he'd shown all day coupled with the bizarre solicitation, the young woman hurried to don the fragile garment to end any more displeasure he may have felt. Dread rained upon her when she noticed that the top half of the gown exposed her breasts and an immediate glance down showed that the frail fabric was more transparent than she'd expected. Modesty was nonexistent in this garment.
"Daniel?" He started to turn around but was stopped by her frantic shriek: "No! Don't turn around! You can't see me in this!"
"Why not?"
"It's indecent! It bares every inch of my body!"
She wanted to say more but hit an abrupt stop. Was she hearing what she thought she was hearing? She was! Daniel was laughing at her…and he was turning around.
"That's the idea, my sweet. Did you think I didn't know that when I bought it? It's supposed to celebrate your womanhood."
"By exploiting it?" Livid, she covered the important parts of her anatomy with her arms and hands but he gently uncovered them again for review from his appreciative eyes.
"No," he corrected, "by accentuating it."
An attempt on her part to withdraw was thwarted when he secured her in place, his leering eyes running over the whole length of her like a pagan god at his virgin sacrifice over a sacrifice, murmuring a single word beneath his breath over and over again: "Beautifull."
Several awkward silent minutes of tense, heavy breathing passed before he told her: "I have one last gift for you."
"I thought your truthfull answers earlier were my gift," she huffed.
"I said they were a gift. I never said it was the special gift I wanted to give."
"Special gift? What else is it, then, if it isn't this dress?"
"More truth."
"Can't it wait untill morning?"
"It's waited long enough. May I sit with you?"
She affirmed that he could and, as he sat on the edge of the bed with his legs over the side, she positioned herself behind him on her knees and slung her arms around him, pressing against his back. To her, it was a palliative to be hidden from his acquisitive sight. Indeterminate quiet shrouded the room but it was one shared with her Daniel, thereby one not terrible.
"I locked the door so we won't be disturbed," he guaranteed.
"Good idea. I'm hoping your gift is to let me sleep in your arms because I'm so sleepy…"
Reaching behind him, his arm wrapped around her waist and brought her tighter against him. In the eleven years that they'd known each other neither age nor time softened his lithe, sinuous body. Nestling close, she pleasured in the salty musk of his flesh, the stale tobacco in the threads of his clothing, the eternal underlying traces of oil that made up his chemistry. In her opinion, he smelt wondrous tonight, as if fresh from the bath. Clean hygiene was unimportant to her when it came to Daniel. His scent was always terribly masculine and tapped into a primal part of her that drove her mad.
"I need to know something."
"Know what?" her voice, scratchy from sleep, etched out in the brief silence.
"If what you said to me during our discussion was true. Can you look passed my crime to love me?"
Disbelief roused her to straighten her posture and give him a direct and serious stare in the eye. Deep in thought, her brow furrowed and she leant over untill she was as close as she could be without touching him.
"I love you so much," she whispered, barely brushing the whorls in the shell of his ear with her lips. "Nothing will ever change that. I'm still here and here I will always be. For you." Then, in roguish play, added, "Where's my gift?"
Never minding possible discovery of his improper visit, he had the freedom to laugh at what he knew that she did not. Father should not be in the bedroom late at night with daughter and his son, her boyfriend, would not be happy to know.
"I've spoiled you rotten, my sweet," he returned. "My gift to you is your heart's desire."
"What does that mean?"
Preferring action over words, he gently cupped her face then moved in for a kiss. Mary's heart revived to a maniacal thud like a bird against her ribcage and her body slackened into putty as Daniel deepened the kiss, using his tongue better than an amateur H.W. used his. Off guard, she was a quick surrender to him. An ache formed in her groin and the rest of her body tingled, suddenly awake and alive. But the wonderfull amatory sensations were ruined when, in just the wrong way, his thick, bristly moustache raked against her delicate flesh. She immediately drew back, protesting.
"I'm sorry," he apologised, mistaking her response for rejection.
"No, no! I want to! Your moustache is prickly, that's all!"
"Then that means I'll have to kiss you elsewhere."
"Elsewhere?" she gulped.
His hand brushed back the flaxen hair from her shoulder, caressed her upper arm then brazenly cradled her breast in his palm, brushing the pad of his thumb over her diamond-hard nipple.
"This gown is comely but doesn't compare to what it covers. Let's rid your beautifull body of it."
The moment disembodied her and she reacted on nothing more than pure instinct. Unable to speak, she nodded, forgetting that she'd donned the gown only minutes ago. With urgent struggling by both, Mary peeled out of the sheer negligee untill she was bared for his hungry, discriminating eyes.
"Flawless," he complimented. "Mother Nature's best work."
"Thank you," she squeaked, lying back and covering her breasts and nether region as best she could with her arms again. Exposing herself to him in reality was far different than doing so in fantasy. The dusky pink of shame brushed over her body but thank heaven the darkness of the room cloaked it from him.
"Don't do that," he murmured, banishing her hands so that she was exhibited for him again. "Never be ashamed of your body."
Years of moral programming compelled her to disagree: "But Dan—"
"Never, my sweet Mary."
She nodded, speechless with expectancy.
"Have you ever gone this far with H.W.?"
"No."
"How far have you gone?"
"Just kissing. A few nights he's come in but all we do is hold each other."
"Where does he kiss you?"
"On the lips."
"Nowhere else?"
She shook her head, giggling nervously, "Where else is there to kiss?"
"When a man and a woman are in love," he told her, "they kiss everywhere on the body. You've always wanted me to kiss you so tonight you get your wish."
Her throat went dry and her pulse quickened. Hovering over her, he gently pressed his lips against hers again but did not linger there to protect her feminine skin from his coarseness. She lay as still as a corpse, heavily breathing as if struggling against a weight on her chest her proof of life. Arms pinioned at the wrists above her head by one of his large engulfing hands, she was petrified and immobile as he kissed down her neck and shoulder. The contemplation that he was drunk and so incoherent that he wouldn't remember his actions shed real disappointment on this long-awaited event but the idea was thwarted when she realised that she neither smelt alcohol on his breath or skin. Was it possible he'd drunk in moderation in anticipation of giving this gift of experience to her tonight? She prayed the answer was yes because she did not want this elysian encounter to melt into regret come morning. The impact would be too costly upon the most sacred relationship she'd ever had with anyone.
Such thoughts evaporated when his mouth enclosed over the nipple of one of her small breasts, manipulating and toying with it in the same way he'd done with her tongue during their kiss. A throaty moan escaped her as he suckled her virgin flesh, staking his irrefutable claim on every inch of her. Equal time was spent on the second breast, she jutting her upper half forward to grant full access. Abandoning her breasts, his affections traveled lower in favour of her concave stomach clenched tighter with suspense. Laving his gentle tongue over then into the well of her navel, he inspired a ticklish laugh out of her. Then he pulled away to meaningfully gaze down at her, penetrating her with his searing, otherworldly eyes.
Those famous unearthly eyes never broke from hers even when her knees were parted, exposing her to him in the intimate way that was supposed to be reserved exclusively for a future husband. Stripped of dignity, she failed to close her legs when he forced them apart again. Her newly freed hands tried to again conceal her private parts in modest futility but he moved quickly to place them on her knees.
"When a man wants to make love to the woman he cares about, this is how he kisses her," he told her.
Her breath expired while she intently watched him lower his head between her thighs and, though he had yet to touch her, the heat of his presence radiated against her flesh. Kissing the tender inner and uppermost muscles of her legs, he secured her hips in place but the purpose in doing so didn't prevent her from reacting. Sibilate words were forsaken, replaced by sonorous groans of immediate rapture that had her writhing when his lips met the lips of her most intimate parts in a lewd mimicry of how he kissed her mouth. When his probing tongue stroked against that unbelievably sensitive spot she first discovered years ago on the night in the cottage, she took the Lord's name in vain for the first time in her life. Manual pleasure by her fingers was incomparable to how he pleasured her with his tongue. The warm, wet sensation was nondescript and she responded in ways impossible to contain. A virgin's degradation at hearing the lewd sucking sounds escalated her reticence and, in shame, she tried to draw the blanket up but he stopped her, forcing her to endure the humility and his long simmered lust. His assertiveness had her twisting and gasping in suspiring and irrepressible desire that at last was unleashed. Contorting her body and raising her hips, her back arched and fingers and heels sank into the mattress with unadulterated lust. Most of her life had been spent waiting for this but it was exponentially worth the wait! Her inexperienced thighs unintentionally closed but he was quick to separate them again, skillfully pinning them down at the knees, rendering her completely vulnerable to his hungry ministration. Panting in quick succession as her body tensed and toes spread, the mounted tension piqued; taking full advantage of deaf ears, he lapped at her untill her shrieking passion rolled uninhibited through the echoing mansion and, quivering and convulsing, she begged for clemency. Even as she yanked his hair he persisted, never breaking the gratification he provided her but becoming more unremitting. When it at last ebbed away, her enervated body went rag doll limp and he rose up to survey the aftermath of what he'd done to her.
"Oh my God!" she whimpered, eyes gaping wide.
"My sweet Mary truly tastes sweet," he declared with a ravening smile.
"I don't think I can move after that!"
Silence claimed them as they absorbed the magnitude of what had happened, the consequences it would bring and where it would subsequently take them.
"We've crossed the bridge unnatural for father and daughter to cross together," she accredited. "We are lovers now. There is no going back from it."
"Did it make you happy?"
Her mind dizzied as he distracted her by briefly latching on to her closest nipple again.
"Beyond reason," she breathed, trying to ignore his caress over her inner thigh.
"Good. For now, that's the only thing that matters."
Draping her legs over his shoulders, he set to work on her a second time, able to open her wider in her lessened coyness. Just as arduous and passionate as before, Mary muttered succinct phrases of encouragement amid moans and cries of his name. For a second or two she fleetingly recalled Eli's story of the prostitute and couldn't help but wonder if he'd done this very thing to her should the tale prove true. A surge of ecstatic sensation arched her back again, thwarting any other thoughts on the subject. Her body's sensitivity was heightened from her first orgasm and Daniel's efforts were as indefatigable in erotic labours as in his profession. Maddened with carnal euphoria, she attained a disembodiment as if her soul drifted above her body.
She imagined how she must've looked to angels enviously spying from above: devoid of a stitch of clothing, vacant of modesty, flat on her back, legs open wide for their fallen brethren between her quaking thighs. From wherever his soul now resided, father screamed the word whore at her; she grinned mischievously and writhed for her lover as she drew him nearer against her, moaning his name loud enough for father to clearly hear so there would be no mistaken identity.
When release came again and fatigue left her boneless and trying to recapture her breath, she realised that he intended on continuing. With exhausted, quivering muscles, she pushed back on his forehead, begging him with a raspy voice to stop because she couldn't handle any more, a revelation that placated him. Always the domineering antagonist, it was no surprise that he was satisfied with his absolute triumph over her. He rose from the bed like a warrior surveying a land he'd recently conquered, linked with her momentously by their gazes as he moved away, back into the dark toward the door.
"Happy birthday, my sweet Mary," he exclaimed then prudently slipped from the room.
The new evolution in her sexual awakening agitated her and she tossed restlessly for the last half of the night. But it was the happiest birthday of her life.