There, I thought, now he shall be forced to pay positive attention to me. Damien will worry, will come to realize what I mean to him, and he will write my family back home and they will be shamed for sending me to this awful, suffocating, primitive country. Mean-spirited and juvenile though it was, I couldn't help but feel it, and! hoped the physician would diagnose me with an ailment that would garner sympathy yet would not kill, maim, or disfigure me. An inflammation of the lungs would do quite nicely.
But when the man took his leave, and spoke to my husband in the hall, Damien returned with something of a smile on his face.
Damien's smiles were never genuine, never loving or affectionate or wondrous. They were charming, insolent, coaxing, provocative, sly, and haughty. The one he gave me then was sly.
"Why, Marie, I had no idea you were such an accomplished actress."
I cannot adequately express to you how apprehensive this made me feel, how his one short sentence robbed me of all hope, smugness, childish savant, and filled me with fear.
"Whatever do you mean?" I sank back into my bedding.
"The doctor tells me you are enceinte. Were you planning to tell me anytime soon?"
"What? " A baby ? I'd had no notion that I was expecting, none whatsoever. "Is he certain?"
Damien nodded, stopping at the foot of the bed with his arms across his chest. "Yes, he is certain. Are you saying you didn't know?"
"No. How would I know? I've felt nothing… oh, my." I put my hands on my cheeks. A baby. I was truly overjoyed at the thought. "Is he absolutely certain?"
"He is certain. And I think this is the most emotion I have ever seen you express. It would seem you are pleased, yes ? "
"Yes," I whispered, too excited at the prospect of a baby, my baby, to give much thought to his insulting words. I touched my flat stomach. A child would fill my long days, would give me companionship and a sense of purpose, create a vessel for all the love I had to give.
Damien came around the side of the bed. He smoothed my ruined coiffure, destroyed by the faint and the humidity. I looked up at him, cautious, yet unable to prevent a smile of satisfaction. I was a good wife. I had conceived within a few months of our marriage and he could surely not find fault with that.
"The baby should arrive in January or February."
"That is a long time to wait," I said.
Damien laughed and leaned over and kissed my forehead, a soft quick press of his lips. "It will be here before you know it. And in case you are wondering, I am pleased too."
My heart swelled with pleasure, gratitude, and excitement, as my husband caressed my cheek, my lips.
It was, in retrospect, perhaps the purest moment of happiness in my marriage.
When Friday rolled around and Marley's frantic phone calls resulted in no news of Lizzie back home in Cincinnati, she donned the black bikini she had bought the day before. Black was supposed to be slimming, but her thighs didn't seem to realize that, so she had also bought a ridiculously long tan raincoat to toss over the bathing suit.
Extra clothes, in case the theme had changed and she could cover the stupid bikini, were shoved into her beach bag along with a mask. She was wearing sandals with the bikini and trench. She'd drawn the line at heels, and had stuck to flat leather sandals.
Feeling like a cross between a Bond girl and a psychiatric patient, Marley got in her rental car and drove to Rosa de Montana to attend her very first, and please, God, very last, sex party.
Chapter Five
It was a flawed plan from the beginning.
The only thing that propelled Marley forward was the need to find her sister. She didn't want to let the opportunity slip by, and she would recognize her sister and her sister's voice under any circumstances, she was positive. Attending this so-called party might be her only opportunity to find Lizzie and drag her inconsiderate butt home.
But what Marley knew about flirtation, seduction, and swinging could fit on the head of a pin—and there would still be room to spare. She knew she was going to have to lie low, hang in the shadows so no one would notice how completely uncomfortable she was baring any flesh from neck to knee.
She sort of figured Damien would spot her. After all, she'd be the only one sweating and whimpering. Or to rephrase that, she'd be the only sweating and whimpering from fear and nerves as opposed to ecstasy. It was expected she'd stand out. She was a first grade teacher with mud brown hair and a stubborn thirty pounds that refused to disappear no matter how many carbs she cut. She had nary a tattoo anywhere, and sensible sandals. It wasn't going to be easy.
What she didn't expect was that Damien would be on to her less than five minutes after she walked in the door.
Parking the car down the drive, she had gone up the steps of the big house, simple black mask on, and had stopped to compose herself. There were twenty cars already parked out front, and she could hear voices, music coming from the house. She wasn't sure she could do this. Her heart was racing and she had perspiration in icky places.
"Going in?" a voice asked from behind.
Marley turned around, both terrified and relieved. "I was thinking about it," she said to the man who was bounding up the steps in his cheesy pirate outfit.
There were no lights on the porch, and only two torches illuminating the impromptu parking lot, so she could only see the man's outline, his white shirt, his eye patch. He was on the short side, thin, very unthreatening in appearance. He moved until he was standing next to her and she could see him smiling in reassurance.
"Your first time?"
"Yes."
"Come on. You can go in with me." He opened the front door, and with a hand lightly on the small of her back, he urged her forward. "Remember, only do what you want to do. But it's about having fun, so what you want, take as much as you can handle."
Marley's brain was too terrified to fully understand even what he was saying. She just nodded and walked into the house, pausing in the foyer and taking in her surroundings. The house was lit by candlelight, and the flames danced on the faded wallpaper, over the worn Aubusson carpets, and softened the tears in the blue fabric of a pair of Louis XIV chairs sitting silently on either side of a French occasional table. The smell was a mix of the old musty, stale air, and the newer scents of candles burning and a vase full of flowers. The latter struggled to freshen the house, which the pervasive odor of rot still clung to.
There was a lack of symmetry to the rooms on either side of the foyer, their doorways not aligned, as if each salon was declaring she was elegant all on her own, and chose not to mirror the other. Well worn, but well preserved, proud and slightly haughty—just like its owner—the Creole mansion fascinated Marley.