The Summer Wives_A Novel Read online

  The sun beats against their skin, side by side. The salt water laps against their legs and stings the pores of Bianca’s skin.

  “Bianca, perhaps—”

  “Your father,” she bursts out. “What was he like?”

  Hugh reaches for the glass of special recipe gin, which rests next to his right thigh, sweating copiously into the stone. “Don’t ask. You don’t need to know about these things.”

  “Tell me. I want to know. I want to know everything about you.”

  “You already know everything that matters. We’re linked, Bianca, linked by fate and by your beautiful brown eyes. These little details are too small for your notice.”

  “Nothing’s too small. If it matters to you, it matters to me.”

  “Believe me, little one—”

  “Believe me,” she says fiercely, “I can take anything, anything at all if it belongs to you. We are made from the same soul, you said it yourself.”

  He finishes the drink and hurls the glass into the boxwoods, where it disappears without a sound. Bianca stares at the tiny, startled leaves, the dark scar where the glass burst through. Hugh’s fingers dig into her palm, making her eyes sting with tears.

  He begins in a casual voice.

  “He was a drunkard, a philanderer. Used to beat my mother, from time to time, when she raised any objections. A scoundrel of a businessman, I’m told, though that’s just hearsay, so you can decide for yourself if it’s true. He never let me near the company. Sold it last year—took it public, I mean, sold off most of the shares on the stock market—just so I couldn’t ever get my hands on the keys of power. I guess he knew what was coming. He saw all these doctors, took all these pills, but a fellow’s got to know when his time’s running out.” Hugh pauses to kick a little water with his long, strong legs. “When I was young, he used to take out his belt and whip me for any little thing, any excuse to lay out his rage on some innocent hide that couldn’t hit back. He shot my dog dead when I was nine, because it made a mess on the stairs. That’s what he was like.”

  “Oh, Hugh, I’m so sorry—”

  “I’m glad he’s dead.” Hugh drops her hand and scrambles to his feet. “I saw his body lying there in the grass last night, and I thought, I hope to God he’s dead, I hope to God they can’t save him.” By now he’s weeping, his shoulders are heaving, his breath comes in terrible spasms. “Do you know what he said to me, before he died? His last words? He said, Go take that pretty face of yours and find some girl to fuck. That’s all you’re good for, isn’t it? Drinking and fucking.”

  Bianca jumps up and puts her arms around his waist and lays her head on his shaking chest. “It’s all right, Hugh, it’s all right, he was wrong, it’s all right.”

  “But that’s it. He wasn’t wrong. God forever damn the bastard, he was dead right. I’m a cad, Bianca, a drunkard and a cad. I’m no good at business. I’m no good for anything.”

  Bianca, who suspects but isn’t quite sure what this word fucking means, still insists, “No, no. There’s so much more to you, you’re an artist, you’re a dreamer, you’re a thousand times better than him. It’s all right, you can cry, come, Hugh, you can be sad and angry both, it’s all right.”

  He wraps his arms around her and weeps into her hair, and she’s so happy, absorbing his tears and his grief, Bianca alone among all women, that she knows she ought to cross herself. But her arms are otherwise occupied, holding Hugh with all her might, his bare skin beneath her palms, his scent laying itself upon her, his precious bones and sinews cradled by hers. After a while, he pulls back and tilts her chin up with his finger and starts to kiss her, slowly.

  3.

  In all the hours they have spent together, Hugh Fisher and Bianca Medeiro, they have never kissed on the mouth, and this is because of Abigail Dumont.

  “I’m engaged to be married, little one,” he told her sadly, the first time they met alone, as twilight settled over the cliffs to the west of Greyfriars. “The wedding’s set for Labor Day. Do you mind?”

  “Of course not,” she replied. “I don’t even know you, do I?”

  “But we can be friends, can’t we? I feel as if you and I can be friends. Lifelong friends. Tell each other things we can’t tell other people. Everyone needs a friend like that, a friend you can sit with and be silent together and just understand each other. Made from the same soul. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Good, then. I think you’ll find I’m an excellent friend. If there’s anything you need, just come to me. And if anyone tries to hurt you, Bianca, anyone at all, why, he’ll have me to answer to.”

  She hadn’t replied to that because her heart was so full, all words and even thoughts were crowded out. She only leaned her head against his shoulder, tentatively, amazed at her own boldness, and he curled his arm about her and laid his hand on her hair, and with his other hand took her fingers and laced them together with his fingers, there upon his lap. They sat like this for many minutes, perhaps even an hour, and watched the sunset without saying a single word. At last he lifted their linked hands and kissed the seam where they joined, and said he would drive her back into the village now. She said no, because someone would see, and so they walked instead, all the way down the hill, and said goodbye where West Cliff Road met Hemlock Street. He always said goodbye the same way, kissing the palm of her right hand, and she always closed her fist and ran down the street to the general store and the room she shared with her cousin Francisca on the third floor, knowing he kept watch until the darkness took her back, until the light in the window winked out.

  So it went all through the month of June; not every night, but three or four times a week. She knew when to slip out the door because he would find a way to get her a note of some kind, hidden by mysterious means among the soup cans in the store or tucked into the book she was reading and once even inside the pocket of her pinafore apron. She thrilled to those clandestine messages, written in beautiful purple-black lettering, those signs of his cleverness and his all-powerful ways, and his regard for her and her reputation most of all. Because of course her aunt and uncle and cousins would not understand. They would think he was taking advantage of her, that she was giving herself sinfully to Hugh Fisher, that there was something sordid and unclean in these meetings.

  But Bianca knew otherwise. She believed in the purity of their love because he never kissed her on the lips, not once, nor touched her in any way that was not reverent and guiltless.

  And she believed something else. She believed one day, when their love grew strong enough to overcome the demands of his family and his social station, he would renounce Miss Dumont and declare himself to Bianca, by word and deed. He would seal this promise with his lips. Then they would be married, and consummate their vows as God ordained. In her deepest heart, Bianca knew this to be true, and she prayed to God on her knees all June that this day would arrive soon, before the yearning inside her blood grew too clamorous to hold in check.

  4.

  And now it’s July and he’s kissing her at last, his mouth on her mouth. He finally understands how much he loves her, how he needs her and only her, how only Bianca among all women truly understands him. Tragedy has peeled the scales from his eyes and his heart.

  Having never kissed anyone on the lips before, she’s startled at first by the strange taste of a man’s mouth, by the silken quality, by the intimacy. Still, she accepts all these unfamiliar sensations without restraint or even doubt, because these are Hugh’s lips she’s receiving, Hugh’s tongue, Hugh’s love, and she and Hugh are made from the same soul, they are linked by fate and by God. She lifts her arms to encircle his neck, and he makes this groan like she’s hurting him in some terrible way. In the next second, he lifts her into the air and carries her into the shade of the cabana, where he sets her gently on a cushion and sits back on his heels. The material of her dress falls away from her neck, and Bianca looks down and realizes that somehow, in the midst of their embr
ace, her buttons have come apart. She gasps and raises her hand, but Hugh pulls it away.

  “No, let me see you, little one. I just want to see you, that’s all. I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

  He slides her arms from their sleeves and allows her bodice to fall around her waist. Beneath her camisole, her breasts are tight and swollen, and she crosses her arms over them. But he will have none of this modesty of hers. He takes each hand by the wrist and pulls them apart, sighing a little, or maybe that’s just the heightened pace of his breath. He slides his thumbs across her bosom and up to her shoulders, and one by one he takes the straps of her camisole and eases them down her arms, as he did with the sleeves of her dress, and just like that, Bianca finds herself absolutely bare before him, all the way to her waist. She looks down in dismay. Her breasts are so naked, so sinfully large and round, and Hugh’s gaping at them, mouth parted. Bianca has to fist her hands behind her back to stop her own arms from shielding against his gaze, and in doing so her spine arches, creating the exact opposite effect, as if she’s offering herself up to him. So Hugh takes one in each hand and sort of weighs them, like fruit, and says, in an awed whisper, “Do you know, Bianca, do you have any idea how perfect you are?”

  Bianca shakes her head slowly.

  “It’s like I’ve never seen a woman before now. Are you actually Eve, my love? Are you Eve, and I’m Adam, and this is Eden?”

  She tries to laugh at this blasphemy, although Hugh’s face is heavy and serious. He reaches forward and takes her hands between his fingers.

  “Do you love me, little one?”

  “Yes, Hugh. I love you.”

  “You trust me?”

  “Yes, yes!”

  “I am sort of drunk, you know. Been drinking since dawn. Fell asleep drinking the night before.”

  “I know.” She slips her hand from his fingers, lays it on the back of his head, and looks steadily into his unsteady eyes.

  There is an instant of connection, of understanding and perhaps forgiveness, before he lowers his mouth to the tips of her breasts, kissing and then suckling like an infant, how strange, hard and then gentle and then hard again, pulling, as if he’s trying to draw milk from her. She doesn’t object when he puts his hand under her dress and climbs like a spider up her leg, although she jumps as his finger reaches the edge of her knickers and slides right up underneath them to touch the wicked place at the junction of her legs, where the Devil lives.

  Hugh lifts his head from her breast and whispers, “Shh. Let me touch you a little, just touch you, you’re so soft in there, little one, little love, you feel so good on my finger.”

  She stares into his eyes, which seem to be having trouble focusing. She cannot stop him, she realizes. She doesn’t even want to stop him. After all, this is Hugh’s finger touching her, and isn’t he made from the sun, isn’t he her Apollo on earth? Doesn’t she trust Hugh more than anyone in the world? Can he not, by the divinity of his touch, drive away the Devil from between her legs and turn sin into sacrament? All her life she’s wanted this, she has craved some Apollo to anoint her with his love, to anoint her and only her. She has prayed to God on her knees, and now God is answering her prayer at last. She kisses Hugh’s forehead because she can’t reach his lips, and he starts to fold her dress with both hands—her thin, cheap dress of clumsily printed flowers, orange and pink—all the way up her legs in wide, deliberate tucks, until they form a kind of sash around her waist. From there, it’s only a small distance to her belly, against which the ribbons of her knickers lie, waiting to be untied, which he does. The knickers are then discarded, without ceremony, and he lifts himself above her and fumbles with his swimming trunks.

  “Hold still,” he says. “Hold still a second.”

  Bianca stiffens in panic under his looming weight. She digs her fingernails into his shoulders and thinks, Wait a moment, wait a moment, what is this?

  “Hold still,” Hugh says again, and his fingers lodge between her legs, his knees spread her apart, and Bianca tries vainly to close herself.

  “Please,” she says. “Please.”

  “Please, no? Or please, yes?”

  “Please, God!” Somehow, in the dizziness of her mind, they have become the same, God and Hugh, two faces of a single sun.

  “Should I stop?” he pants.

  She sinks her hips fearfully into the cushion and puts her hands on his bare, damp shoulders, either to push him away or to embrace him, she isn’t sure. Be brave, she thinks. It’s God’s will, whatever happens, it is God’s will. God is answering your prayer.

  “That’s right. Just for a second, darling,” Hugh says. “I promise I won’t—ah, little one—I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t—oh Christ—I can’t stop—don’t move . . .”

  His speech descends into insensate mumbling. His fingers slip and pry, and then a blunt, thick, searing pressure assails her. Bianca gasps and tries to draw away, but there’s nowhere to go, no possible escape, his hands have clamped on her hips, holding her in place against the cushion, and she screams as he pushes, grunts, pushes harder, and slides deeply into her, actually into her, so this forbidden part of his body is crammed tight into that forbidden part of her body, locking them together. Bianca feels like she might faint. A few minutes ago, she was standing in the boxwoods, and now she’s pinned on her back, virginity ruptured, in the very act of immoral intercourse with Hugh Fisher. Hugh Fisher! She’s probably dreaming, that’s it. She lies in shock beneath him and digs her fingers into his shoulders.

  But it can’t be a dream, she thinks. He’s too real. This thing between my legs, it’s incontestable. It’s the rest of my life that’s the dream, everything else I have dreamed, until now.

  “Ah, little one, Bianca. Sweet little love, I’m so sorry, did I hurt you?”

  “No!” she shouts ferociously.

  “How does it feel?”

  She moves her lips, but there are no words for this sensation, to be so full and frightened and conscious of sin, to feel as if your world has overturned, to feel as if your love has transformed from a filmy, childish, fanciful thing into something carnal and solid that strains everything inside you until you might burst apart. So she just nods.

  “That’s right.” He bends his neck and kisses her. “You’re all right, it’s just me, that’s all. It’s love, Bianca, this is what love is.”

  Still she can’t speak, so she makes a noise that sounds a little like a meowing cat. He starts to rock his hips against her hips, to slide out of her and then inside again. She tries not to cry out—she now understands it’s a test, a sacrifice demanded by God, so she must acquit herself bravely and prove herself worthy of Hugh’s love—but she can’t help a little moan each time he pushes back in. After a minute or two, the rhythm builds to a furious pace like the stroke of a hammer, splitting her apart, and another scream builds in her throat, because it’s too much to bear, whatever it is, too much pressure, too much pain, too much everything. But before the scream bursts free, Hugh shouts, Ah Christ! and goes rigid, closes his eyes and locks his elbows. Like a statue he arches above her, perfect in all respects, gleaming with sweat, wearing an expression of exquisite agony and so utterly magnificent, so triumphant she cannot breathe or think or feel, she cannot decide if she hates him or loves him. But this lasts only a few seconds before he crumples to her chest.

  “Shh, it’s all right,” he gasps in her ear, “it’s over now, it’s done, Bianca, forgive me, it’s all right.”

  She strokes his hair. The joints of her pelvis ache with his weight, spreading her open. He is hot, scorching hot, boiling over with a heat that astounds her.

  Hugh mumbles, “God, I needed that.” Then he lifts his head. “You’re all right, little one?”

  “Yes,” she whispers.

  “Don’t be frightened. I’ll take care of you, I promise. It’s happened, that’s all. It was always going to happen, I guess. You and me, Bianca. Fate.” He kisses her. “Was I an awful beast? Do you still love me, little one?�
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  “Yes!”

  “Well, I love you too. I’m crazy about you, I’m demented. Now more than ever. You must have known that already. I’ll take care of you always, I promise. Whatever happens. You’ll have anything you want, just ask. You won’t ever have to leave me.”

  Another kiss, and he lifts himself up on his hands. Their skin sticks briefly, as if reluctant to part, before the cool air rushes at last over Bianca’s breasts and wet belly. He pulls himself out of her and rolls over on the cushion with a noise of immense relief. The sun strikes the cabana at such an angle as to cut him exactly in half, sunlit and shaded. Bianca supposes the same is true of her. She tries to move and cannot, she’s too stiff and stunned, but she can at least turn her head to stare at Hugh, whose face addresses the stripes of the cabana’s top, though his eyes are closed.

  For some time, they are both still, side by side on the cushion, recovering breath. Bianca feels something wet trickling between her legs, but she’s too numb to comprehend its meaning entirely, except that it belongs to Hugh, that it endows their love with some kind of substance, with a permanence that cannot be undone.

  “We’re bound together now,” Hugh says. “That’s it.”

  “Yes,” Bianca says, for the third time.

  He turns his head to face hers. His expression is earnest, though his eyes are still unsteady. He touches her hair, her cheek, and tells her softly, “You must promise never to leave me, Bianca. You must let me care for you always.”

  “Always,” she agrees, and she means it.