Hand on the doorknob, Alda turned and winked at us, repeating, “October fourth, yeah, that’s a great date.” She closed the door just as Katie leaned over and pinched me. “That’s your birthday weekend. Alda’s giving us your birthday weekend, alone: our fondest wish!”
“Whoopee!” Katie and I fell onto each other, laughing and whooping it up as it sank in what Alda was doing. She would get Dorotea away from Albert for the whole weekend, leaving us the room to really celebrate my sixteenth birthday.
I started to get turned on at the thought of being alone with Katie, finally! And at the sight of her now in her short, ruffled baby doll pajamas coming unbuttoned. She got all serious though, and rushed out to her room to get dressed. We had a lot of planning to do, she said, to really guarantee we would be alone.
A slight crisp breeze welcomed us as we made our way to breakfast. The scent of apples and mushrooms and an air of excitement of colors and of feelings announced early fall as well as my birthday in two weeks.
We walked quickly as Katie rattled off things to do: call the two sets of parents to tell them to celebrate my birthday a week later because of a special student party on the weekend itself; sign out off campus for the day, but sneak back in; buy treats and sexy underwear and creams and massage oil and—she snickered when she asked if we could find a book on s-e-x.
I started to howl as we approached the refectory, but stopped dead. Head Mistress Craney was beaming down on me, a smile that would curdle milk. I cringed at the sight of her kid-gloved hand, which had brushed a wisp of my bangs from my forehead.
“Yes. These are happy fall days,” she said. “Hmm. So happy.”
I greeted her with a stiff smile, feeling like I should also curtsy.
“Oh,” she said with a certain lilt to her voice. “Do come to my office tonight. I have a treat for you.” Her eyelashes fluttered. I agreed to go at seven.
Katie’s eyes darted sidelong back and forth, as Craney disappeared. “Don’t say anything yet,” I whispered. After a few seconds, Katie curled her full lip. I no longer felt moved to take it between mine. We entered the refectory and ate almost in silence. Her tone had become business-like by the time we left. “After lunch…we’ll call the parents, after lunch.”
By now, I was almost leery of going luscious, romantic places, even in my head. The shopping would have to wait until the next day. I began to worry that Craney could read my thoughts the way I could sense others’ thoughts in my dreams.
Chapter Thirteen
Birthday Set-Up
Katie and I snuck through the shrubs on the side of Marmot Gate to get to the village phone booth. After postponing birthday plans with Katie’s folks, we called my parents, who were delighted to hear from me. I summarized Albert news, the version they wanted to hear; Albert was so wonderful. I was so grateful.
I explained that they would have to put off for a week the trip they were planning for my birthday. My father agreed, and we made plans to include Katie, whom my parents absolutely adored from all our summers together in Maine. We would all go to dinner.
We snuck back onto campus and left for our respective classes. All three of us, Katie, Alda, and I, managed to meet up for a few seconds between classes when Katie and I gave Alda the biggest hug imaginable. I admitted that maybe, just maybe, Dorotea wasn’t so bad, but I still had to contend with Craney. Alda made believe she was Craney, slithering her hand across my butt and making a smooching sound. Yuck!
And that’s exactly how I felt when I went to Craney’s office at seven. It was already dark, and her office cold, dank, and dimly lit. She sat on a high-backed swivel chair behind a massive, mahogany desk, all of which seemed miles away from the heavy, paneled door I had just dared to open.
“Come, dearie,” she said. “Here, sit next to me.”
She guided me ever so gently to a hassock smack up against her. She patted my shoulder and just stared down at me. “Your birthday!” she said as if the word were oiled.
I started to panic. She really could read my thoughts. I stammered, “My birthday?”
“Yes. You didn’t think you could keep it a secret. I have a pleasant surprise for you.” She patted my hand and ran her tongue around her mouth.
I couldn’t tell if she was getting ready to devour me. Was this sarcasm before the kill? Again, I had the feeling there was a sniper—Craney—and I was about to be executed.
“I am going to have you over for your birthday breakfast in my chambers. Isn’t that divine? Eggs benedict, and oh, maybe a touch of champagne, non-alcoholic, of course.”
Dead, I thought, dead. My birthday and my death day, one and the same. I was not willing to go to my death a virgin! I guess I would die in many ways. At least, that’s what I was learning from English poetry. “Ah–to die–to swoon–to love.” In other words, S-E-X. But, oh crud. I had to do quick-second thinking about what to say to Craney. She was almost drooling over me; I couldn’t stall any longer.
“Oh! How wonderful and what an honor, Miss Craney. You really are spoiling me.”
“Yes, dearie, I told you, you are a Crane person, very, very special. My fledgling.”
“Oh, no.” I sighed, complete with a heaving of my chest. “On Saturday, I have signed out to go see my family’s oldest—” Quick, I had to think. “—friends, the Gallos. Oh, I am so disappointed. Could we—” I was almost on my knees, but that would have made a racket, I was trembling so hard in the midst of this melodrama. “Could we do it another time?” I just about fluttered my lashes, but I was afraid I’d gag.
“Oh, my. I wasn’t expecting that,” she said.
“Please,” I grimaced. “I am so sorry.”
“Aha! I know. I’ll come get you at seven on Sunday morning. Yes! Off to chapel and then to breakfast in my quarters.”
“Thank goodness. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out!” I plastered a smile on my face and quickly found an excuse, a report due the next morning, to leave before I got sick.
Back in the dorm, I grabbed Katie and Alda. They hugged me as I recounted all the disgusting details of Craney’s oozing over me. Katie reminded me that we better phone Joe Gallo, her father’s boyfriend, to cover for us in case Craney called to verify my story. He would certainly understand our desire for privacy.
We thanked Alda for her present. She told us she would get Dorotea out of there early, early on Saturday and not come back until early, early Monday morning. After a few jokes about the kind of lingerie Katie and I would buy in town on Saturday, Alda walked Katie back to her room to say good night to Dorotea, her new best friend.
Chapter Fourteen
B-Day
Sunlight twinkled on my eyelids, sneaking through the slats of the wooden blinds. I was about to roll over when I sat up straight: it was here, finally! Alda, who was fully clothed, tiptoed over to the bed from behind me and presented me with my first pair of black panties. “Happy sixteenth!” she said, dangling the lacy things before my eyes and playing peek-a-boo through the legs.
She bent over to kiss me on the forehead, saying she and Dorotea were about to leave. She threw me a trench coat, told me to roll up my pajamas, run a line up the back of my legs like seamed stockings, slip on loafers, grab Katie, and go sign out as if we were leaving campus. She rattled all that off in one breath.
She wished us much love. She urged us to be careful even though she had given us the schedule of our monitor’s room checks. Finally, she winked at me and told me not to succumb to Craney. “Seriously,” she said. “Be careful. She really does make my skin crawl.”
Katie and I waited until Dorotea had disappeared with Alda. We walked, almost ran to the sign out desk, signed, and left through Marmot Gate. Within minutes, we had scraped through the sappy branches of the balsam trees and started to scale the fire escape to my room. We looked at each other and said, “Here we go,” pushing each other back to belly up the iron stairs. Whatever was going to happen, we had to be finished and in separate rooms by seven the next mornin
g for my rendezvous with Craney.
I joked that I should carry Katie over the threshold of the fire escape when we actually fell through the open window onto my bed. I landed on top of Katie, feeling more like a beached whale in my trench coat and bunched pajamas pinning my legs.
Her smile was slow and tentative as she looked up at me and said, “Do we want to try on our new underwear?” She smoothed my straggly hair back away from my face and my gaze. And all was still.
We clasped each other in a quiet, soft hold and helped each other out of our clothes, feeling our warm, bare arms sliding together between each item and then, our bellies and our breasts. We had never seen each other completely naked before. We moved quiet and slow, just sensing and inviting each other closer and deeper with each glance.
Finally, we eased ourselves, legs entwined, onto the bed, more like one than separate bodies. Our hands felt for the borders: where did I end; where did Katie begin? Her small, light hand reached the outline of my breasts, and our hands and breasts melted into one another.
Almost an afterthought, a kiss. I kissed Katie a long, hard kiss. She answered fully, open-mouthed, her tongue filling my mouth. Our bodies took over. I saw my body arch over Katie’s; her hand found my bottom. I felt the warm, damp space between her thighs and then, higher and deeper. She pulled me in as I felt her in me.
It seems we lost time. How many hours, I didn’t know. I also didn’t know whose throat made those sounds, over and over, or where Katie found this drive and strength. How many times did I feel her weight on me, pulsing and pushing, the breath squeezing out of my mouth, mingling with hers?
Sometime after dark, we stumbled off the bed and ravaged our snack supply. We showered together and floated back under the sheets, enfolded asleep in each other’s arms.
In my dream, we were building a wooden house together in Sicily. I smelled the lemon groves, and the sweat dripping off our tanned, taut bodies released its garlic incense. Katie wiped her forehead on her thin, white cotton shirt flapping in the hot, dry Sicilian breeze. I continued to raise my hammer with great sighs, but Katie’s blows were forceful, heavy, and loud. Their banging set off a vibration. The doorframe she was working on shook as did all the walls we had just raised. We joked that it must be Mount Etna erupting, so loud and overwhelming was the rumbling. Louder and louder, all around, from under and overhead, on all sides. Katie’s hand shook me too.
“Get up! It’s…it’s her, at the door!”
“Shoot! Katie, quick, under the bed. Craney! Yes, coming,” I croaked in a hoarse voice as I threw on a bathrobe and doused myself with water.
I cracked the door and apologized. “Running late. So sorry. Please give me five minutes.”
Miss Craney would have given me a lifetime, just not where I imagined her—outside the door, outside the school, anywhere but here. She plowed into the room with wide-sweeping strides and projected herself onto my bed. She would wait.
Chapter Fifteen
My Date with The Fates
Ihad never dressed as quickly as on my sixteenth birthday. I stood behind the chintz curtain separating my sink and dressing area from the room. My body felt so alive and velvety after Katie’s touch, and here I was under the focused gaze of Miss Craney on the other side of this thin curtain. Could she really be waiting there? I felt my skin crawl. Ready for battle, I smiled and said, “Okay.”
She sat me down next to her on the bed and produced a discreet, dark green box. She patted my knee and told me to open it. I sat staring at a lush, suede-bound journal. Embossed on the first page were our two names, Mary Margaret Craney and Pina Mazzini, and “To record our dreams.” Did she do this for all the girls?
This was getting creepier and creepier. The only thing that was keeping me from running away was Katie’s presence under the bed. I couldn’t risk having Craney catch her, and if Craney pulled anything, Katie could report her, couldn’t she? I also had to make sure Katie hadn’t died of shock or suffocation.
“Lovely,” I said while I quickly lowered my eyes to check the time—late for chapel—to avoid her eyes. “Oh. We have to go, right?”
Miss Craney sighed and stood to leave. I thought I heard another sigh from under the bed. I imagined that Katie had breathed her dying breath.
Our walk to chapel down the empty, hollow corridor was stiff and silent. I was so aware of her towering presence inches away from my side. I pulled my elbows into my sides and sank deeper into my head. Craney only broke this silence to ask if I had my hymnal.
Her long, bony arm opened the padded stained-glass door. The escaping incense enveloped me, carrying me off to another world. My legs and bottom found the pew indicated by Craney. I was off into the sweet sensations of my night with Katie.
The smokiness of the myrrh wafted up my arms and legs, coating them with the memory of Katie’s warm, inebriating touch. I felt swaddled again in her embrace.
A mournful sound shattered my reverie. “Amazing Grace” had become a dirge pouring forth from Craney’s mouth.
A new chill stiffened the air on our slow retreat to her quarters. Once inside, Craney pointed to a straight-back chair at the small circular table set for two. The formal china and sterling silver baroque place settings lay cold and rigid in their appointed places. I obediently sat in my assigned seat.
While Craney methodically brewed the tea, I stole glances around the room: heavy, dark drapes, a clutter of old, mahogany furniture, a fainting couch, and a low, channeled ceiling. My air was disappearing; this felt like my last meal.
“Ahem.” Craney bowed her head to catch my eye. Still holding my gaze, she poured the tea, smoothed her pleated skirt under her bony posterior, and sat opposite me. She smiled as if pleased with her work.
“Please.” She extended a basket of rolls and toast. Her hand grazed mine. My stomach did a flip.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, nibbling a small corner of toast just to fill my mouth to stop the watering.
“Here. Here’s how we do the eggs benedict.” She stood and approached me from the side. She took my hands in hers and manipulated them to butter strips of toast to slip into the shimmying egg. A dot of butter splattered on my knuckle. She bent her head low over my hand, still holding the knife. I panicked. She flicked the butter from my knuckle into her mouth and slowly licked my finger and hers. I startled, flipping the knife in the air. She jerked back to her full height, erect, a foot away from me.
“I don’t tolerate stains.”
Her speech was staccato, my look petrified, I’m sure.
“My dear,” she chortled, “I thought you’d appreciate this. I was wrong?”
I wanted to puke and bolt. Would she block the door? And if I stayed?
I almost gagged when I heard the words come out of my mouth. “Oh, I love eggs benedict.” My face must have betrayed my utter disgust.
She now seemed business-like and sort of depressed. She picked at her eggs benedict, forgot the cider, and kept glancing at her watch.
Finally, she leveled a blank look at me from across the table. Two, three minutes passed in silence. I was confused. My mind was racing, trying to figure out on the one hand, if I had disappointed her and on the other, why I wasn’t just relieved that she seemed so distant. I even wondered whether I should make a bigger effort to suck up. But that was crazy and dangerous.
Her voice broke through my dilemma. She regretted that she had forgotten an important phone call she had to make.
I thanked her; my legs found the floor. She reminded me to “apply yourself fully and play by the rules” as she placed a wispy kiss on my forehead.
Craney had dismissed me.
Nauseous, I walked stiff-legged down the hall from her quarters and out across the green to Smythe hall. By now, I was running, running back to the haven with Katie.
I knocked on her door, not even waiting for her to open, and fell into her arms. We kissed and kissed and every few seconds held each other’s head a foot away to check that we were really ok
ay. Laughing, sobbing, and assured we were both intact, we collapsed onto the floor.
“Really, are you okay?” Katie asked.
“It was awful. I, uh… ”
“Come on, tell me.”
“She licked me. Oh God, I want to puke.”
Katie closed her eyes. I thought she would vomit at that very moment. “What do you mean?” She held her hand to her forehead and then her mouth.
“She used my hands to butter bread and actually gave a slimy lick to a spot on my hand.”
“Gross. Can’t we do something? I mean, like what did you do?”
“I froze,” I said as the same chill and nausea crept up my insides at this retelling.
Katie winced and hesitated before whispering, “Did she touch you, more?”
“She kissed me good bye.”
“On the lips?”
“God, no.” I pulled Katie to me. “I don’t want to think about her right now. It’s too weird.”
Katie interrupted, “And wrong. I mean, can we tell someone?”
“And what?” I imagined Craney’s revenge and the accusations against me. I turned Katie’s concerned face toward me. I flashed her a resigned smile. “Kates, I need chocolate, soft, wonderful chocolate. That will take away the ugly taste in my mouth.”
Katie’s smile burst out. She shot up from the floor, ran to her dresser, fumbled with some paper, and flew back to caress my face.
I felt warmth and gooeyness. She was massaging chocolate between her hands and smearing it all over my mouth and chin. I held up my face for more of this wonderful make-up. I took her hand away and kissed her, sharing some of this luscious lipstick with her lips.
Love and Lechery at Albert Academy Page 5