I would be lying if I said I did not think of Jonathan during this time. He was my first lover, after all. Still, I tried to kill the love I felt for him by remembering the bad moments between us, the times he wounded me to the quick. The times I’d heard that he’d taken up with a new girl. Standing next to him on the hill as we looked down on Sophia’s funeral, knowing he was thinking of her. Kissing Evangeline in front of the entire congregation mere moments after I’d given him news of my pregnancy. I tried to see my love for Jonathan as a malady, a fever burning up my heart and brain, and these wrenching memories were the purgative, the cure.
And the attentions of my new lover would be my restorative. Comparing my experiences with the two men, it seemed that the act with Jonathan filled me with such happiness that I felt I would die. At those times, I was barely aware of my body, I could have floated to the ceiling in his arms. It was sublime. With Adair, it was all sensation, a neediness for flesh and the power to have that hunger satisfied. At the time, I wasn’t afraid of this newfound hunger Adair had created in me. I delighted in it, and Adair, instead of judging me indulgent and sluttish, seemed pleased that he brought this out in me.
Adair confirmed as much one evening in his bed, lighting up the hookah after an acrobatic session. “I judge that you have a natural disposition for the business of pleasure,” he said, grinning obscenely. “I’d daresay you
He wasn’t inclined to explain any more to me at the time, but I found out the next night when Dona slipped into the bedroom with us. And Tilde the night after that. When I objected, protesting that I was too self-conscious to enjoy myself in front of the others, I was given a blindfold. The next morning, when I glanced at Tilde shyly as we passed on the stairs, still dazzled by the pleasure she had given me in bed, she growled, “It was only a performance, you stupid cuny,” and trotted away, dispelling any doubt that it had been anything more. I suppose I was naive, but the pleasures of the flesh were new to me, the sensations overwhelming. I would become numb to all of it, and numb to what it did to my soul, soon enough.
It was not long after this that a most notable event occurred, though I didn’t gather its significance at the time. It started with a lecture on astronomy and navigational arts that we attended at Harvard College. Science was a bit of a fad in that day and sometimes the colleges would host public lectures. These were places to be seen as much as any party, a way to show that even though you were a socialite you still had a bit of brain, so Adair made it a point to attend. The lecture that day was of little interest to me, so I sat at Adair’s side and borrowed his opera glasses to scan the audience. There were many faces I’d seen before even if I couldn’t remember their names, and just as I was thinking the outing was a waste of time, I spied Tilde chatting up a man on the far side of the auditorium. I could see only a quarter profile of his face, and mostly my view was of his back, but I could tell he had a striking physique.
I handed the opera glasses to Adair. “It looks like Tilde has found herself a new man,” I whispered and nodded in her direction.
“Hmm, I believe you’re right,” he said, peering through the glasses. “She is a born hunter, that Tilde.”
It was common to meet up with other socialites after the lectures at a nearby public house. Adair had no patience that afternoon for the small talk over coffee and beer, however, and watched the door. Before long, Tilde came in on the arm of the young man we’d seen at the college. He was quite dashing, with a beautiful face (a trifle on the delicate side), a sharp little nose, a cleft in his chin, and glorious blond curls. He looked all the younger on Tilde’s sophisticated arm, and while Tilde could hardly be mistaken for his mother, the disparity in their ages was hard to miss.
They joined us at our table and Adair spent the whole time peppering him with questions. Was he a student at Harvard? (Yes.) Did he have family in Boston? (No, he’d come from Philadelphia and had no family in this area.) What was he studying? (He had a passion for science, but his parents wished him to continue the family business, which was law.) How old was he? (Twenty.) At this last answer, Adair frowned as though displeased, a quizzical response to so straightforward an answer. Then Adair invited the young man to dine with us that evening at the mansion.
I will be blunt: the cook may have served a saddle of lamb, but it was clear that the flaxen-haired young man was the main course. Adair continued to ask him all sorts of personal questions (Any close friends here at college? A fiancee?) and when the young man became nonplussed, Alejandro would jump in and distract everyone around the table with self-deprecating stories and jokes. More wine than usual flowed, particularly into the young man’s glass, and then after dinner the men were given snifters of cognac, and we all repaired to the game room. At the end of an evening of faro, Adair claimed we could not send the young man back to his rooms at the college in such a state-he would be reprimanded for drunkenness if caught by the tutors-and insisted he stay with us for the night. By that time the young scholar was almost unable to stand without assistance, so he was hardly in a position to refuse.
Adair had a footman help him up the stairs while we gathered outside Adair’s bedchamber like jackals preening before dividing up the night’s kill. In the end, Adair decided he and I would enjoy the young man’s company and dismissed the others. Drunk as he was, he stripped gamely when commanded and followed me eagerly into bed. Here is the curious part: as the boy stripped, Adair watched him closely, not with enjoyment (as I had expected) but with a clinical eye. It wasn’t until then that we learned the young man had a club foot; it wasn’t terribly misshapen and he had a specially made boot that helped him walk without much of a limp. But upon noticing it, Adair seemed visibly deflated.
Adair sat in a chair and watched as the young man swived me. I saw, over the boy’s shoulder, disappointment on Adair’s face, a detachment toward our guest that he fought to overcome. In the end, Adair took off his clothes and joined us, surprising the young man with his attentions, which were nevertheless accepted (he didn’t resist in any case, though he did yelp a little when Adair got rough with him). And the three of us slept together, our guest relegated to the foot of the bed, succumbing to the effects of alcohol and the usual result of a man’s amorous effusions.
The next morning, after the young man was sent off in a carriage, Adair and Tilde had heated words behind closed doors. Alejandro and I sat in the breakfast room and listened-or tried not to-over tea.
“What is that about?” I asked, nodding in the direction of the muffled argument.
“Adair has given us standing orders to be on the lookout for attractive men, but only the most attractive. We are to bring them to his attention. What can I say, Adair enjoys a pretty face. But he is only interested in perfection, you see? And I understand the man Tilde brought to Adair was less than perfect?”
“He had a club foot.” I didn’t see how that made any difference; his face was exquisite.
Alejandro shrugged. “Ah-there you go.” He busied himself buttering a heel of bread and said no more, leaving me to stir my tea and wonder about Adair’s strange obsessions. The thing was, he’d swived that boy as though it was punishment for disappointing him somehow. It made me uneasy to think about it.
I leaned across the table and clasped Alejandro’s hand. “Remember the conversation we had a few weeks ago, about my friend? My handsome friend? Promise me, Alejandro, you will not tell Adair about him.”
“Do you think I would do that to you?” he said, hurt. I know now that his offense was all pretend. He was a good actor, Alejandro was. We all had to be around Adair, but this was Alejandro’s role in the group, to be the one to lull the distressed or uncertain, to assuage and calm the victim so she doesn’t see the blow coming. At the time, I thought of him as the good one whereas Tilde and Dona were evil and bitter, the deceivers, but I see now they each had a role to play.
But at the time, I believed him.
TWENTY-EIGHT
