The top of her head was on a level with his shoulders, and his eyes as
he looked down at her were gentle with masculine awe of pregnancy
'You're a damn fine woman, Anna. And I'm sure you're going to make a
fine baby.
'Sean!' She remembered how his name had come up her throat like an
involuntary exclamation of pain. The fierce forward surge that had
flattened her body against his, arching to send her hips forward
searchingfbr his manhood. The coarse electric feeling of his hair in
her hands as she pulled his face down and the taste of his mouth opened
warm and moist.
'Are you mad! ' As he tried to break away from her, her arms locked
around his body and her face pressed to his chest.
'I love you. Please, Sean, please. Just let me hold you, that's all.
I just want to hold you. ' 'Get away from me! 'And she felt herself
thrown roughly on to the couch beside the fireplace.
'You're Garry's wife and you'll soon be the mother of his child.
Keep your hot little body for him. ' And his face thrust forward,
close to hers. 'I don't want you. I could no more touch you than I
could go with my own mother. You're Garrys wife.
If ever again you look at another man I'll kill you. I'll kill you
with my bare hands. ' Love congealing instantly, transformed to hatred
by his words Her fingernails raking across his cheek so the blood slid
down into his beard, and he caught her wrists. Holding her while she
struggled and screamed at him.
'You swine, you dirty, dirty swine. Garry's wife you say.
Garry's baby you say! Now hear the truth. What I have within me you
put there. It's yours-not Garry's! ' Then he was backing away from
her. 'You're lying. It can't be. ' Following him now, speaking those
cruel words softly. 'You remember how we said good-bye when you went
to war? You remember that night in the wagon? ' 'Leave me, leave me
alone. I've got to think. I didn't know.
And he was gone. She heard the door of his study slam, and she stood
in the centre of the floor while the storm surf of her anger abated and
exposed the black reefs of hatred beneath.
Then she was alone in her bedroom, standing before the mirror-making
her oath.
'I hate him. There's one thing I can take from him. Garry belongs to
me now. Mine, not his. I will take that away from him. ' The pins
pulled from her hair, so it tumbled to her shoulders.
Her fingers tangling it into confusion. Teeth closing on her own lips
so she could taste the blood.
'Oh God, I hate him, ' she whispered through the pain. Tearing open
the blouse of her dress, watching in the mirror the great pink bosses
of her nipples already darkening with the promise of fruition
'I hate him. ' Pantaloons torn and discarded, bowls of face powder and
cosmetics swept from the dressing-table to burst and fill the room with
the pungent reek of joerfitme.
The lying alone in the darkening room. Waiting for Garry to come.
Now she turned away from the window and looked down at Garry,
triumphantly, knowing he could never escape again.
